How Philosophy Shapes Theology: Problems in the Philosophy of Religion by Frederick Sontag (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 7~9 How Philosophy Shapes Theology: Problems in the Philosophy of Religion. By FREDERICK SoNTAG. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Pp. 510. $7.95. In a work of such vast length, said to be on problems in the philosophy of religion, a work advertised as valuable because it " guides the student towards understanding what philosophy means, what religion does," the reader is normally entitled to expect one of two things. Either there should be a plenitude of thoroughness, clarification, and real depth for advanced students, or there should be carefulness in exposition with lucidity and attractiveness of style, as well as a compelling unity of structure to keep the introductory student interested in reading half a thousand pages. Somehow Terence Penelhum's recent and similarly lengthy Religion and Rationality manages to offer both these sets of desideranda for students. Somehow Sontag fails to provide either. It is Sontag himself who tells us: " Detailed arguments are seldom given and little attempt is made to rehearse the history, past or present, of the traditional problems ... that would be too much to attempt in one book." (xii) The details can be filled in, he assures us, by reading eight other books by the same author which get very vaguely outlined. (xii-xv) If this is not enough to "turn off" students at the beginning, Sontag's tendency to increase the proportion of mere preaching to the converted (liberal Protestants), a tendency which characterizes most notably the closing Part III (211-482), "Some Problems Facing Us,'' could eventually serve to discourage all but the most ardent seminarians from studying more philosophy of religion. The most interesting part of the book for introductory students is the relatively short Part II (123-212), "The Role of Philosophy in Shaping Theology." Here Sontag sticks to what his book's title promises. He concretely discusses how varying philosophical assumptions strike him as a variously affecting the religious outlooks of Origen, Augustine, Bonaventure, Luther, Hegel, and Kierkegaard. Contrasts between the latter two philosophers are vigorously drawn in ways that should stimulate the beginner to relate concepts of philosophy and religion with a sense of real excitement. (186 ff.) The publishers might sensibly have offered to philosophy students and teachers in a book with this title just Part II, preceded by a short and crisp introduction distilled from Part I. They could then have appropriately offered the 275 pages of Part III under separate covers for a quite distinct market as: Faith and Freedom-Assorted Topics for Lay Christian Discussion Groups. Such ecclesiastical groups could best address themselves to Sontag's chapters there on "'Sin," "Grace," "Witness," "Mediator," and the like. Caustic as such suggestions might initially sound, they are offered quite seriously: The Thomist is a proper place for protest to publishers and authors against the abuse of sprawling, costly compilations with misleading 780 BOOK REVIEWS titles, also against the confiation of quite different sorts of interests in philosophy and religion. Part I, "Philosophy, Theology, and Religion" evinces welcome concerns with important ideas about modern philosophy, theology, and science. The ideas could have been usefully related to current discussions among philosophical analysts and philosophers of science: Sontag's Index gives the impression that he sets across so much space a strict ideological embargo on recent philosophers of science and modern analysts, including neoThomists ; Sontag's nebulous style in Part I compares badly with such people's for clear exposition. Nevertheless, Sontag is on a valuable tack when he suggests that the failure of post-Cartesian philosophers to establish certainties and the acceptance by many modern scientists of tentativeness about their Hypotheses and Theories may now make it much easier for theologians and independent-minded philosophers to reason fruitfully together : " If philosophy follows science into this new variability and into a continued receptivity to novel theories produced without end, the interesting thing is that science could lead philosophy back into cooperation with theology just as it once led it away.... Theology, of course, must give up its own claims to finality, which it developed in reaction to the early years of modern science and as a defense against philosophy's rationalistic withdrawal. Yet, on the basis of...