Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner by Morwenna Ludlow (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 167 should lead many readers to reflect fruitfully on certain experiences they have had and the part they have played in their lives. No doubt, since we live in a world where people interpret the implications of their religious experiences in radically different ways, Roy would agree that his studies need to be complemented by theological studies of how specifically Christian revelation is mediated to us. But what he gives us can help to open students and others to very significant dimensions oftheir experience, in the process making them more open to Christian revelation, and therefore could contribute much to college courses on cognate themes and be of interest to individual readers. St. Anselm's Abbey Washington, D.C. M. JOHN FARRELLY, 0.S.B. Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory ofNyssa and Karl Rahner. By MORWENNA LUDLOW. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 304. $80.00 (cloth}. ISBN 0-19-827022-4. Morwenna Ludlow's study of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner is remarkably ambitious. The subtitle itself speaks volumes. Ludlow's study is as much about the complex inter-workings of Gregory's and Rahner's theologies as it is about their particular eschatological claims. This is necessary, Ludlow explains, because neither author treats eschatology in a vacuum, apart from his wider theology (10). The study of their respective eschatologies becomes for Ludlow a window into each author's mind. Given the theological, philosophical, and rhetorical sophistication ofboth Gregory's and Rahner's thought, one might assume that treating one or the other would be sufficiently challenging for a single-volume study. Yet Ludlow presents the eschatological teachings of both thinkers in the context of two extremely nuanced and more than adequately detailed studies of each one's systematic thought. She clearly knows the primary texts of both authors quite well, and she is adept at moving back and forth between micro- and macro-readings of them; commentaries on the finer points of specific texts are smoothly woven together with big-picture discussions of each author's philosophical influences, historical context, overall scriptural hermeneutic, general theological agenda, and rhetorical methods. Ludlow begins her study with an analysis of Gregory's eschatology. Her overall picture is of a theologian deeply rooted in a particular intellectualcultural context yet also extremely original and innovative. At root Gregory is committed to interpreting the scriptural canon and theological doctrines in ways that are relevant to the spiritual development of his contemporaries. For example, Ludlow argues, while it is undeniable that Gregory was influenced by 168 BOOK REVIEWS Platonism and Neoplatonism, and to a lesser extent by Stoicism and a host of other pagan discourses, it is equally undeniable that all of these influences work in the service of his reading of the biblical canon (26). This reading is largely, but not slavishly, indebted to Origen. Like Origen, Gregory assumed that the biblical canon contains a single, coherent spiritual meaning, and all its parts work together as an ordered whole to express this meaning (28-30). Also like Origen, Gregory generally interprets the core meaning of the biblical canon in terms of the ascent of human creatures toward God through the practice of virtue. Moreover, with Origen and against the "dualistic" advocates of an eternally parallel heaven and hell (such as Irenaeus and Gregory's own brother Basil), he believes that all of creation will ultimately complete the ascent to God and hence be saved. In this sense he agrees with Origen's famous (or infamous) interpretation of Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 15:28 that in the end God will be "all in all." Gregory generally shares Origen's conviction that Scripture fundamentally teaches a doctrine of universal apokatastasis in the sense of a restoration and universal fulfillment of God's original goal for the creation, namely, the perfection of all creatures through humanity's full union with the Creator (38-44). However, Gregory's version of apokatastasis is not gardenvariety Origenism. As Ludlow's analyses in chapters 2 and 3 ably demonstrate, Gregory rejects Origen's doctrines that God's nature is ultimately comprehensible, human souls preexisted their fall into bodies, and the resurrection is...