Das Heil des Menschen als Gnade by Michael Stickelbroeck (review)

Only on seldom occasions does one discover in the area of theology of any Christian denomination a book treating the thorny but central topic of grace. This book fills this painfully felt lacuna quite felicitously as it thinks the issue creatively beyond conventional boundaries without imperiling, but rather building upon, the heights theology had already reached in this area.

The author, professor of systematic theology at the Catholic philosophical-theological College of St. Pölten in Austria, divides the textbook into a rather long "introduction," "a historical foundation," and a "systematic-theological section." An unequivocal Patristic position and clear definitions of terms distinguish this well organized study. These features come into more prominent focus when comparing this book with other recent German-language, albeit also valuable, contributions to this area such as from the pens of Karl-Heinz Menke and Jürgen Werbick. A comprehensive bibliography of approximately 125 titles and an index of names round off this carefully crafted text. Summaries and citations from pertinent conciliar documents assist the reader in accessing complex issues.

The author takes seriously the anthropological—nota bene, not anthropocentric—shift. Divine grace is perceived as an indispensable corollary to human freedom. In a subcutaneous way and from the very beginning of his existence, the human person exercising freedom inchoately experiences God as "the all-overarching reality" (14). In the God-man, Jesus Christ, the human being consciously discovers himself and experiences in the Savior a sublime elevation of human nature, which he actually intends from the very beginning of his existence on the surface of the earth. The author writes, "in the teaching on grace the material-categorical totality of theology is implied," and continues by asserting in a normative manner that "in all other theological [Catholic] tractates essential moments of the teaching on grace are absorbed" (24). At the outset, the term "grace" is extensively explained by way of Scripture and the Church Fathers (26–61). On the basis of the Pauline understanding of this key term, the author perceives grace as "χάρις as redemption of humankind through the cross from a sinful state" (34). Building upon this basis, the author juxtaposes and combines the emphasis of the Greek Fathers on ontology, mysticism, and divinization with the Western themes of anthropology, salvation, and ethics. The West tends to emphasize more the mystery of the Incarnation and, thereby, faith's content—the fides quae. This implies that the Orient focuses on the dimension of an ever personal appropriation of grace—fides qua. To Stickelbroeck's mind, "the corrective for the Western [form] of a theology of grace would be an openness for [self-]transcendence as co-given in the act of beholding, which implies a turn to a metaphysical understanding of the mystery of personhood" (44). May one here detect an implied affinity of the author for the Russian priest-theologian Pavel Florensky's (1883–1937) critique of the Renaissance's turn to perspectival art?

The author advocates the need to think "the cosmic-universal" (Maximus the Confessor) and the individual dimensions of grace (Augustine) together. Over and against Hans Küng, who pleads for a purely immanent hominization of humankind, the author takes up the cudgels—quite deliberately along with Karl Rahner—for theosis, for deification as the underlying cause for the Incarnation of God, which needs be thought of indispensably as the hypostatic union of divine and human natures. Significantly, in this context, he appreciates positively the contributions of the Greek theologian Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1359). In the ductus of Gaudium et Spes §11 and with the aid of Maximus Confessor, he attempts to avoid a Platonic constriction of the human existence on earth: "Christologically spoken the divinization of Christ does not lead to an unlimited participation [of a human being] with divinity, but rather to an impression and perfecting 'information' [the author uses here this word in an original way in order to circumscribe the transformation—cf. the term forma] of human existence and activities corresponding to...