The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas by A. N. Williams (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 315 reconciled to God, no barrier remaining, the Holy Spirit is poured forth, the first fruits of the new creation. Jesus Christ is thus the author of the new salvific order whose animating principle is the; Holy Spirit. Weinandy stresses the novum of this new order, the new relationships that bind the risen and ascended Christ and the members of his body. The book's final chapter, "Suffering in the Light of Christ," sets forth a daring Christ mysticism, to the point that Weinandy holds that "Christ is the primary subject of all the acts and the experiences of Christians" (254). Following the logic of this assertion, it comes as no surprise to find Weinandy suggesting that the risen Christ, in some real sense, shares the suffering of his body, while believers "complete" the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body. Two implications ofWeinandy'sadmittedly speculativediscernment deserve highlighting. First, he puts forward the thesis that the risen and glorious Christ "is still a man, and thus still possesses the human emotions of joy, compassion and love" (252 n. 18). He admits that this cannot entail the sort of physical and emotional suffering that we continue to experience. Yet his "spiritual instinct" points toward a real affective engagement of the risen Christ with the joys and hopes, the sorrows and afflictions of his brothers and sisters. Second, and following upon this perception, Weinandy wonders whether "as a risen man, Christ's love is not continuing to grow since ... he continues to enact deeds of love on our behalf" (255 n. 24). Indeed, is heaven the everlasting maturing of the mutual love of the first-born and the multitude of brothers and sisters, as together they enjoy the inexhaustible Trinitarian feast of love? So robust a Christological reading of creation and history is a sign of great promise, nova millennia ineunte. It points us in the proper direction towards a renewed pastoral-theological-spiritual synthesis. And if, in this footnote or that, one even glimpses an almost Dante-like poetic intuition, that is, surely, grace! ROBERTP. IMBELLI Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts The Ground ofUnion: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas. By AN. WILLIAMS. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 222. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-19-512436-7. AN. Williams offers a new perspective on the problems and possibilities of ecumenical rapprochement between East and West by comparing the thought of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Thomas Aquinas on the question of deification. 316 BOOK REVIEWS As she points out, both Aquinas and Palamas make good candidates to be representatives of their respective theological traditions, for they are representative not only in the sense that they stand in the very first rank of theologians and their theologies reflect basic characteristics generally typical of their traditions, but also in the sense that their theologies are prominent examples of the very tendencies that each tradition most often criticizes in the other. Williams makes the entirely reasonable suggestion that it is time to leave behind the polemics of the past and look to the texts themselves in order to determine to what extent such an opposition is justified. Rather than focus on the usual issues of the filioque or papal supremacy, Williams has decided to concentrate on the question of deification. Her choice is based on two factors. First, while not singled out as one of the early sources of dispute between East and West, deification has recently received increasing attention as a central point of divergence between Latin and Orthodox theology. On the one hand, many Orthodox theologians contend that in the Middle Ages Latin theology ceased to make use of the concept of deification, which figured so prominently in the thought of the Fathers. Through an examination of crucial passages in the Summa Theologiae, Williams is able to demonstrate that this common perception is inaccurate, at least in the case of Aquinas. On the other hand, the Palamite description of deification in terms of participation in the uncreated energies of God was unacceptable to Latin theologians because of their judgment that the distinction between essence and energies within God compromised the unity and simplicity of God. Williams...