Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis by Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., Jean DeBlois, C.S.J., and Kevin D. O’Rourke, O.P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 161 unity (q. 11), eminently displays how metaphysical is this capstone assertion, culminating the preceding questions 3 through 10, and so reminding us how Aquinas's corroborating ofthis assertion common to each Abrahamic faith-that God is one-asserts far more than the fact that there is but one God, so confirming rabbinic reflection as well as the centrality of tawhid (faith in divine unity) to Islam. In other words, he shows how Aquinas employed metaphysics in a way that transformed his Aristotelian legacy, often in the direction of pseudo-Dionysius, precisely to highlight the faith-dimension of Christian doctrine about God. Moreover, Shanley shows himself cognizant of Aquinas's drawing from Moses Maimonides as well as Avicenna, as he formulates the nominal definition of God as "the beginning and end of all things" (STh I, q. 1) into an object appropriate for Christian theological reflection. As the early Church understood so well, the privileged revelation of God as triune, granted to Christian believers in Jesus himself as the revelation of God, is utterly beholden to the shema: "Hear, 0 Israel, God your god is one!" Indeed, it seems that this fundamental belief so constrained early Christian reflection on the ontological status ofJesus that it took Christianity four centuries to articulate its central revelation, at the Council of Chalcedo.n! So far from opposing de Deo uno to de Deo trino, as "philosophy" to "theology," as neo-Thomism had done, we can see these initial questions ofthe Summa Theologiae as framing a theology faithful to Christian revelation by acknowledging its roots in the first covenant, with signally cognate concerns in Islam. That Shanley's translation-cumcommentary can open students to such a rich appropriation of Aquinas explains why I call it "superb." University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana Tantur Ecumenical Institute Jerusalem, Israel DAVID BURRELL, C.S.C. Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis. By BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, 0.P., JEAN DEBLOIS, C.S.J., and KEVIN D. O'ROURKE, 0.P. 5th edition. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 328 pp. $34.95 (paper). ISBN 9781589011168. Unlike previous editions, the fifth edition of Health Care Ethics contains many references to the sources on medical moral theology published by the papal magisterium of the Catholic Church, as well as the Ethical and Religious Directives of the American bishops. From the very beginning of their work, Ashley, deBlois, and O'Rourke clearly state their wish to write a book on 162 BOOK REVIEWS bioethics that is about the flourishing of both the supernatural and the natural dimensions of the human person. This means that they want to base their findings on revelation as interpreted by ecclesiastical authority, but also on reason, especially in those areas where the Church's magisterium has made no definitive declarations or where further development and interpretation may be needed. The book is composed of three parts containing eight chapters. Part 1 gives a brief history of moral theology and the importance of treating the human person's real needs on the basis of his fundamental inclinations, as in St. Thomas Aquinas's perspective. Part 2 deals with the clinical issues or the nuts and bolts of solving some moral dilemmas of the field. This is accompanied by a very perceptive analysis of the social-justice issues that surround bioethics. Finally, part 3 presents a well-crafted treatment of pastoral care, laced with historical data about the origins of hospital care, along with a look at pastoral and social responsibilities. While the authors appeal to an abundance of scholarship from secular sources to bolster their presentation of medical facts, they are deeply rooted in St. Thomas. They use him as a framework as a moderate realist would, but in a truly creative way, especially in understanding the moral virtues in relationship to the emotions. In other words, their use of St. Thomas is not a mere rehash of common concepts. This fifth edition ofHealth Care Ethics is not a repetition of the previous four editions but a rewriting. The authors have taken into account some of the major problems and arguments that have emerged in the field since the last edition, such as...