Gottes Wirken in der Welt: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Frage der Evolution und des Wunders by Bela Wiessmahr, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Gottes Wirken in der Welt: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Frage der Evolution und des Wunders. By Bela Wiessmahr, S. J. Frankfurter Theologische Studien, 15 Band, Frankfurt Am Main: Josef Knecht, 1973, Pp. 208. This work is a valuable contribution to a theological question of the greatest importance: how does God work directly and personally in our world, which is developing through its own proper activity? The sub-title points to two areas that place this question with greatest insistence: evolution, especially as it concerns the production of the human soul, and miracles, as signs of God's direct action and self-communication. These areas correspond to the action of God in " nature " and " supernature." The first part of the book traces the development of theological understanding and sets out the varieties of opinion on God's direct action in the world, beginning from the scholastic period up to the present. The changes in theological teaching beginning in the 19th century about evolution and miracles are carefully examined. The second, and much larger, part of the book lays out his own position. He first seeks to establish his basic principle for all further discussion: God acts in the world only through secondary causes. He then distinguishes between two kinds of human knowledge: univocal, conceptual knowledge, proper to the natural sciences, and analogous, radically non-conceptual knowledge, proper to metaphysics-though this latter must be finally expressed in concepts and words. After discussing how these two different kinds of knowledge view the world, he explains how a metaphysical view of created causality provides room for a personal, direct action of God in the world, acting always through the proper activity of secondary causes. It is his contention that nothing happens in the world that does not depend entirely on secondary causes as well as entirely on God, the primary cause. Thus, evolution and miracles are both, in their entirety, effects of secondary causes, acting in dependence on the primary cause. It may seem to restrict the freedom of God in the world to affirm that he can work in the world only through secondary causes and can produce only effects ultimately proportionate to the activity proper to these causes. But the contrary view, he maintains, destroys the transcendence of God by making him in some degree a secondary cause-an obvious contradiction. Furthermore, we simply do not know the full capacity of secondary causes under all circumstances. Miracles are special instances of this general 656 BOOK REVIEWS 657 pattern of God-creature causality; essential to recognizing them as such are religious significance and personal witness. This work has much to recommend it. It deserves serious thought and discussion. The author proposes his views carefully and modestly. Occasionally his treatment lacks the depth necessary to his subject; for example, in a discussion of the unity and distinction of beings in preparation for a treatment of divine immanence and transcendence, he has no exposition of the question of relations, which surely are essential to the matter. But such defects are few, and the work as a whole manifests theological and metaphysical competence of a high degree. Jesuit School of Theology Berkeley, California JoHN H. WRIGHT, S. J. A Process Christology. By David Griffin. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973. Pp. ~73. $10.95. According to David Griffin, the task of contemporary theology is "to formulate a conceptuality of God, man, and the world that will be compatible with our modern knowledge and relevant to our sensibilities." (165) Faithful to this task, he makes available to the world of theology the first full-scale Christology based on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. The formal thesis of his work is that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a conceptuality appropriate to the Christian faith. For Griffin, such a conceptuality " allows one to maintain both his formal commitment to rationality and his substantive conviction as to the truth of the essentials of Christian faith." (10) A key element in the development of his Christology and, in the opinion of this reviewer, a key element in appreciating its inadequacy, is his acceptance of Whitehead's definition: " the essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a...