Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom by David Bradshaw (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 157 The range of views in this volume thus covers a wide spectrum, but even their differences shed some light on the fundamental project of (ides quaerens intellectum. Fordham University Bronx, New York JOSEPH W. KOTERSKI, S.J. Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division ofChristendom. By DAVID BRADSHAW. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 297. $75.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-82865-1. In his preface, David Bradshaw invites his readers to expect a helpful contribution to East-West ecumenism that will outline the historical development of both Christian traditions. His purpose, he says, is to describe "the formation of the two traditions, eastern and western, in parallel with one another" (x). From the start he prepares us for a discussion of two broad and important topics: (1) the development of ancient Greek thought and (2) the alternative appropriations of that heritage by the Christian East and West. Promising that his epilogue will consider "what light the comparison of the two traditions can shed on our current situation" (xiii), he also seems to offer a balanced consideration of both sides of this discussion. As he notes, "It is only by seeing both the eastern and western traditions as developments out of a shared heritage in classical metaphysics that they can be properly understood" (xii). Bradshaw proposes, then, not the more common historical reviews ofthe two traditions, but a careful analysis of the philosophical roots from which both have emerged. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Bradshaw means to catalogue various theological failures of the West, particularly those that stem from its inability to strike a proper balance between reason and revelation. That balance, he insists, was fully achieved in the East. He identifies this lack of harmony between philosophy and theology as "the shipwreck of faith and reason [which] was strictly a western phenomenon" (x). So while he might suggest that his volume will further the theological discussion between the Christian East and West, his more deliberate aim seems to be, first, to identify the failure of the West in order to appreciate its Greek philosophical heritage and, second, to consider how this failure has hindered its theological development. Even if we were to accept Bradshaw's identification of the cause of the West's "shipwreck" as the Enlightenment, full agreement with him would require us to suppose that only the East is fully equipped to avoid the theological issues of modernity, and that it has encountered no comparable difficulties of its own. It is not clear that either claim is defensible. Further, lest we suppose that the Western malaise is solely a modern phenomenon, Bradshaw further asks us to 158 BOOK REVIEWS consider how "all the bloody wars and revolutions, the hatred, the arrogance, and philosophical despair of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (277) ultimately derive from the Enlightenment's revolt against Scholasticism-a revolt, he emphasizes, that never arose in the East. While such remarks might provoke impassioned retorts, a more studied consideration recognizes that it is futile to engage the book in this way. One of the greatest challenges facing readers of Bradshaw's work, then, is to pass over the various remarks that distract from an otherwise informative discussion of the influence of Greek philosophy on the two Christian traditions. Such remarks are, fortunately, mostly limited to the preface and epilogue. For example, after tracing the development of various intellectual themes from Aristotle through Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas, Bradshaw asks us to consider how "major institutions and movements embodied [persecution and religious wars] in the West, such as the Crusades, the military orders, and the Inquisition, [which] all arose after the schism" (276). How ought we to connect this theological tradition to these historical developments? If there is a direct link, Bradshaw declines to provide it himself. Moreover, after having encouraged us to shift our focus "from dogma and ecclesiology to questions of fundamental metaphysics" (xii), this seems an unfortunate and questionable leap. If Bradshaw's aim is to impugn western Christendom (e.g., "the long movement of the West toward unbelief" [275]), we might wonder why he bothers to review the shared intellectual history as thoroughly as he does. Fortunately...