Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul Tillich: A Comparison of Systems by Donald J. Keefe, S. J. (review)

166 BOOK REVIEWS The present reviewers have discussed at length a good number of the issues vividly raised by Parker's useful explorations and now sketchily resurrected by us in this notice. We beg leave to mention the following works: Reason and Religion (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1969); "Cogency, Conviction and Coercion," lnteT'TULtional Philosophical Quarterly, 1968; "Rational Commitment and 'The Will to Believe,'" Sophia, 1969; "Faith-and Faith in Hypotheses," Religious Studies, 1971; "Gambling on Other Minds-Human and Divine," Sophia, 1971. We are not there entirely in agreement with Parker! But we are glad to see his lively, thought-provoking Aquinas Lecture in print. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Universities of Alberta and of Guelph, Ontario, Canada WILLIAM N. CHRISTENSEN JoHN KING-FARLOW Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul Tillich: A Comparison of Systems. By DoNALD J. KEEFE, S. J. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1971. Pp. 360. In this book Fr. Keefe presents us with an orderly and scholarly study of two diverse ontological methods of theology by way of comparing Thomism and the systematics of Paul Tillich. He does this in order to determine " the formal structural principles which make theology what it is." (p. ix) Such a work is of special significance in our age because the emphasis upon interdisciplinary studies in general, and upon the correlation of the secular disciplines and theology in particular, makes it imperative to distinguish them with sufficient clarity. Otherwise Christian faith becomes subject to the critical judgment of some humanistic norm, instead of the revealed categories of the Bible which, in the context of a living Tradition of the Church's teaching authority, must be the foundation for discovering their contemporary counterparts. With Tillich the author insists that any method of Christian theology has to be one of correlation on account of the interrelatedness between divinity and humanity which has been revealed in the mystery of Christ. He proposes that the Christian transformation of Aristotelianism by St. Thomas and of Platonism by Paul Tillich provides us with two models of the way in which any humanist discipline might be correlated with theology. Because of the diverse classical ontologies which they transform, these two theological methods are quite divergent. Despite this fact, Fr. Keefe maintains that BOOK lUJVIEWS 167 each system is adequate to its task of rendering revelation intelligible with a remarkable coherence in accord with its proper principles of ontological methodology. By a direct examination of the Aristotelian and Platonic ontologies and methods the first chapter explains the relationship between ontology and theology. The act-potency correlation of the Aristotelian ontological method leads to an understanding of being as immanent essence and of non-being as that which admits of potential intelligibility. St. Thomas perceived that this essentialist understanding of the world is in potency to a theological interpretation of reality. In the revelation of Christ he discovered the existential actualization of essential substance. Christian faith alone is able to save the Aristotelian world-view of immanent essentialism from the hopeless enslavement of finite being and reason. Plato's ontological method, left to itself, is no more hopeful. His Weltanschauung, however, leads rather to a tragic existentialism. Between being and nonbeing he beheld a contradictory opposition which riddles human existence and makes it ultimately meaningless. Tillich brings the substance of Christian revelation to bear upon Platonic hopelessness and transforms his ontological method by the New Being of Jesus as the Christ who has overcome the tragic estrangement of human existence from its true depth in God the ground of all being. His systematic theology still preserves the radical ambiguity of existential man by maintaining the Platonic contradiction between being and non-being. On the other hand, the Thomistic synthesis accepts the Aristotelian contrary opposition between being and non-being which allows for the potential theological intelligibility of the world and so provides an ontological method which can support theological statements that are true literally. But Tillich's dialectical method of correlation between essential and existential being does not remove the ambiguities of man under the conditions of existence. Thus his system leads to a constant deliteralizing of the kerygma in favor of religious symbols which can...