A Theology for Artisans of a New Community. Vol. I The COMMUNITY CALLED CHURCH. Vol. II GRACE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION ed. by J. L. Segundo, S. J. (review)

978 BOOK REVIEWS experience to give the presentation flesh and blood. The two difficulties are intertwined. Defining revelation as " relation qualified by the fact that the poles of the relation initiate activity toward each other " is, as Moran notes, a stretching of common usage where revelation invariably has some implication of " making known." It seems obvious that " making known " can be understood in terms of the qualified relation of the definition, but it does not seem at all obvious that one can talk about revelation intelligibly simply in terms of this relation and in abstraction from the implication of "making known." Moran widens the usage much too casually, and he does not link his elucidation of the widened category to any close depiction of situations for which it would be appropriate. Not only would the depiction have clarified the import of stretching common usage, but it would also have made it simpler to see whether extending it can hold under the proposed criterion that it " makes sense out of a great amount of data." The consequence of this neglect is that The Present Revelation breaks up into a series of successful arguments with principal religious thinkers of the contemporary epoch. MICHAEL J. KERLIN LaSalle College Philadelphia, Pennsylvania A Theology for Artisans of a New Community. Vol. I The COMMUNITY CALLED CHURCH. Vol. II GRACE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION . Ed. by J, L. SEGUNDO, S. J. New York: Orbis Books. 197~. Pp. 1~3. Cloth $4.95, paper $3.95. Intended, according to the publisher, for college and seminary courses and adult discussion groups, both volumes have the same format. The Community Called the Church has five nuclear chapters, on The Church: A Reality Particular and Universal; The Essence of the Ecclesial Community ; The Function and Necessity of the Church; Obligations of the Ecclesial Community; and Church-World Interdependence. Grace and the Human Condition has an introduction on what name we give to Christian existence, followed by four chapters on Length (the pre-human, the human condition), Height (eternal life, the new earth), Breadth (humanity, the people of God), and Depth (love, the definitive power). Each chapter is complemented by three to five " clarifications," which attempt to " develop and apply more concretely the central lines of thought, to suggest study topics and related issues, and go over one or two more points in detail " (vol. I, p. ix) . Each volume ends with a summary " conclusion" of two pages, several appendices of conciliar and biblical texts, and springboard questions. BOOK REVIEWS 979 By way of judgment it should be said that these volumes could hardly serve as college or seminary text books but rather are suited for discussions or seminars under an experienced teacher. The basic defect of these works is lack of depth, theological and historical. For instance, in each volume there is a discussion of the distinction between the natural and supernatural ; the " failures " of past theology are presented, but the author's own solution to the problem is not clear at all. Despite the lack of depth, these volumes are recommended for maturing Christian students, and even for preachers. Quite a few good ideas are presented, in pithy sentences, and these are valuable in this time of transition in the Church. These works show how the basic teachings of the faith, re-read and expressed according to the signs of these times, are still valid. They do not provide solutions to current problems: rather, they are catalysts for thinking Christians. This alone is valuable, to help the whole Church toward a more adult Christianity. JAMES J. DAVIS, o. P. Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island Good News and Witness. By L. LEGRAND, J. PATHRAPANKAL, M. VELLANICKAL . St. Peter's Seminary, Bangalore, India: Theological Publications in India. Pp. 190. $1.00. It was not with high expectations that the writer agreed to review this book, if only because he was unaware of scholarly works in the biblical field coming from India. It was, therefore, a very pleasant surprise to find an excellent presentation of a contemporary subject, that of evangelization. The word is generally associated with the missionary activity of Christian countries taking the Gospel to the pagan countries. " Its favorite...