Ethics in a Christian Context by Paul K. Lehmann, and: Théologie Morale du Nouveau Testament by Ceslaus Spicq, O. P., and: Original Sin by T. C. O’Brien, O. P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Ethics in a Christian Context. By PAULK. LEHMANN. New York, Harper and Row, 1963, pp. 384, with selected bibliography and index. $5.00. T!Wologie Morale du Nouveau Testament. By CESLAUS SPICQ, 0. P. ~ vols. Paris: Gabalda, 1965, pp. 897, with tables and indices. $~~.00. Original Sin, trans. T. C. O'BRIEN, 0. P., Volume ~6 (1a~ae, qq. 81-85) Summa Theologiae, edited by Thomas Gilby 0. P. and T. C. O'Brien, 0. P. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965, pp. 178, with Latin text, English translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries. $7.50. Hardly any doubt exists about the gap between Christian morals and contemporary culture. Dr. Lehmann's book seeks, if not to close the gap, at least to bring the two within shouting distance of one another. The ethical message of the Christian faith should be intelligible enough, and important enough, to be relevant today. Dr. Lehmann hopes that his book will make some contribution towards that end. It does. "We have been urging," writes Lehmann in his own summary of the first part of his book," that Christian thinking about ethics starts with and from within the Christian koinonia. In the koinonia it makes sense to talk about the will of God as the answer to the question: What am I, as a believer in Jesus Christ and as a member of his church, to do? For it is in the koinonia that one comes in sight and finds oneself involved in what God is doing in the world. What God is doing in the world is setting up and carrying out the conditions for what it takes to keep human life human. The fruit of this divine activity is human maturity, the wholeness of every man and of all men in the new humanity inaugurated and being fulfilled by Jesus Christ in the world. The description of this activity of God provides a koinonia ethic with its biblical and theological foundations " (p. 1~4) . The koinonia, a New Testament word variously translated as "fellowship ," " participation," " congregation," " association," is seen in its central focus in Paul's use of it in 1 Cor. 1:9: "God is trustworthy, by him you have been called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." Lehmann, after collating the texts, defines the koinonia as " the fellowshipcreating reality of Christ's presence in the world" (p. 49, italics his). Neither identical with nor separable from the visible church, the koinonia is rather the little church in the big church, the community where authentic witness to revelation and response to the Spirit are the dynamic elements; the koinonia is " the leaven in the lump, the remnant in the midst of the covenant people " (p. 7~) . It is wrong to call it the invisible church or to 89 90 BOOK REVIEWS make too many distinctions between it and the structural church. Its business in many cases is precisely to be visible and the more visible the better, since witness does not make sense unless it is visible. In the context of this koinonia, then, one asks the ethical question. Not, what must I do to obtain the supreme good? nor, what must I do to live a moral life? The Christian ethics is not concerned directly with either the one or the other, it is concerned directly with what a believer in Jesus Christ and a member of his church, acting precisely in that capacity, would do. The purpose of such action is the maturity described in Ephesians 4:15-16 "Rather are we to practice the truth in love and so grow up in all things in him who is the head, Christ. For from him the whole body (being closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system according to the functioning in due measure of each single part) derives its increase to the building up of itself in love." Maturity in Christ, then, is the aim of koinonia ethics " the full development in a human being of the power to be truly and fully himself in being related to others who also have the power to be truly and fully themselves" (p. 101...