Theology Today - Vol 50, No.1 - April 1993 - BOOK REVIEW

Processive Revelation
By Benjamin A. Reist
Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992. 201 pp. $25.00.

Reist presents an overview of the results of many years of theological reading and reflection. He is rooted in the Calvinist tradition and especially at home in the past century of continental theology. What he draws from that tradition, however, is unusual. He finds there the basis for truly catholic reflection. For example, his reading of this literature leads to the conclusion that all theology must be contextual, and he then proceeds to broaden the understanding of context to include the changing scene in the natural sciences.

If God is known only in particular historical contexts, then revelation is processive. New contexts bring about new relations between God and human beings. This makes possible and necessary new ways of understanding God. Hence the book's title, Processive Revelation, identifies a conviction to which Reist has come through mainstream Calvinist theological reflection.

Nevertheless, he also recognizes and integrates contributions from process philosophy (especially Whitehead), process theology (especially Delwin Brown), and process reflection on science and religion (especially Ian Barbour and Charles Birch). Through his own creativ-

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ity, he achieves a synthesis of all these contributions. His book should help to overcome the tendency to distance the process contribution from the mainstream Protestant discussion.

The book has four chapters. The first is on the contextualization of theology. Here Troeltsch, Bonhoeffer, Lehmann, and Sittler play the largest roles. There is also a discussion of postmodern science, emphasizing Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Goedel's incompleteness theorem. This depends chiefly on Heinz Pagel and Douglas Hofstadter.

The remainder of the book takes a somewhat unconventional trinitarian shape. The Father is "the creating God," the Son, "the liberating God," and the Spirit, "the relating God." The chapters treat these in reverse order.

Surprisingly, the chapter on the Holy Spirit is the most theologically conventional. It deals with the doctrine of election in Calvin and Barth. Perhaps the reason for this focus is that widespread readings of this doctrine have worked against the understanding of revelation as processive. Reist argues that the creativity at work in Calvin leads him away from an objectifying doctrine of double predestination toward a Christocentric affirmation of gracious election. He finds in Barth the fulfillment of this trend, through which the Calvinist tradition can open itself more fully to the gospel.

The christological chapter deals especially with Latin American liberation theology and displays its congeniality with process theology. Reist affirms its call to move from orthodoxy to orthopraxy. This he understands fundamentally in terms of cult and community. By recognizing that even the creedal tradition expresses the primacy of cult and community, we become free to speak of God's liberating character afresh in our own context.

Finally, the chapter on the creating God builds a case based on the work of biologist-theologians for a primary emphasis on continuing creation rather than a unique originating event. Polanyi and Ricoeur inform Reist's understanding of language about God. The book ends with Sallie McFague's proposed models of God.

In Whitehead's words, quoted by Reist, "the many become one" in his book. If the book is to be faulted, it would be for the extent to which the many retain their manyness and the one is not yet the position of Reist himself, clearly presented and defended in his own words. But he goes far toward bringing together much that badly needs to be unified if Christian faith is to regain a healthy vitality. This is an impressive achievement.

John B. Cobb, Jr.
Claremont Graduate School
Claremont, CA