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Continuing the Reformation: Essays on Modern Religious Thought
By B. A. Gerrish
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 283 pp. $19.95.

Semper reformanda! The Reformation continues. That is the thesis for this collection of extremely fine essays by the John Nuveen Professor and Professor of Historical Theology in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. By "continuing the Reformation," Gerrish intends that modern religious thought in the West has a distinctively revisionary character. But, he places the root of that revising tendency squarely in the theology of Luther and Calvin! Just as the classical Protestant Reformers went beyond merely reproducing the ancient dogmas-recasting them in light of the different time and place that the church inhabited-so has modern Protestant theology moved along the very same trajectory. Those familiar with the author's work will recognize in this volume something of a sequel to The Old Protestantism and the New (1982). The essays work together to advance the previous discussion and give the reader an insight into some of Gerrish's own foundational constructive theological moves. Each essay (there are four sections of three essays each) merits attention from appropriate specialists: (1) Reformation studies, (2) German Enlightenment history and philosophy, (3) Schleiermacher, and (4) Troeltsch. At the same time, the essays taken collectively develop in varying degrees the notion that theology is reflection upon faith.

When Martin Luther began to speak about grace and justification in terms of personal relationship to God, rather than in terms of the static quality of the soul, he initiated a fundamental shift in theological method. Calvin, too, spoke of grace as recognizing that in God we have not a judge but a gracious heavenly father. For both Lutheran and Reformed traditions, theology became reflection on this fundamental, experiential aspect of Christian belief. In other words, Luther's reflection on faith led him to emphasize the doctrine of justification. However indisputably important the doctrine itself was at the time, it was the methodological shift to reflection on faith that was the real, permanent legacy of the Reformation, according to Gerrish.

After arguing convincingly that Luther and Calvin planted the seeds of modern theology, Gerrish proceeds to offer a rare glimpse into the minds of some "lesser known" German Enlightenment philosophers (Forberg,

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Jacobi, and Herder) connected with the important Pantheism and Atheism controversies. These conflicts arose amidst the eighteenth-century struggle to rethink theology in the wake of Kant's criticism of metaphysics. The three thinkers reconceived the concept of faith and the image of God in ways that did not conflict with the modern scientific spirit. Gerrish performs a signal service, not only by introducing English speakers to their thought, but also by sifting through many complicated arguments that contain some logical inconsistencies and rendering often overly-complex thinking (especially the former two) into coherent, comprehensible concepts.

The third section of the book contains essays on Friedrich Schleiermacher. But there is a real sense in which the entire book is about this important thinker. Indeed, all but one chapter make at least some mention of the great nineteenth-century theologian. It is those who want to learn about Schleiermacher who will benefit most from the book as a whole. And those who are interested in Gerrish's own theology will observe it most often in his critical exchanges with Schleiermacher. There are very few theologians who are more difficult to grasp than the author of The Christian Faith. Fortunately, for those of us who are interested in his thought, the Chicago professor is as lucid as the Berlin theologian is enigmatic; Gerrish provides an invaluable map to the precipitous topography of Schleiermacher's theological system.

For Schleiermacher, theology consists in an ordered reflection on the Christian way of believing. Gerrish adroitly demonstrates how Schleiermacher's theological method is very much in continuity with (though by no means identical to) the Reformers', especially Calvin. He illustrates Schleiermacher's method (and his "kinship" to Calvin) by exploring his doctrine of creation and the ramifications it presents. for redemption. Believing himself to follow in Schleiermacher's tradition, Ernst Troeltsch felt that an honest, historical method dissolved the concept of dogma and, together with it, any hope of future dogmatics. In spite of the fact that Troeltsch concluded that the journey (of faith) is finally more important than the destination, which led to his abandoning the absoluteness of Christianity, Gerrish argues that Troeltsch was still doing what he learned from Luther and Schleiermacher, namely, reflecting upon the event of faith and revising theology to speak to the concerns of his time and place.

The final chapter is Gerrish's appeal (against Troeltsch) to include Christian systematic theology in the university curriculum, with Christian theologians holding legitimate status within the division of humanities. He argues (after Schleiermacher) that (Christian) theology, far from being the compilation of supernaturally revealed truths, ought to be a "strictly human science" that reflects on a fundamental human experience: believing. Theology (like any other discipline) ought not to be done out of partisan loyalty (in this case to the church) but in an environment that allows for the pure pursuit of truth by those who are committed to it. Such intellectual honesty would indeed be refreshing in many modern academic settings.

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More than the final chapter suggests that the book is intended for an academic, rather than an ecclesiastical, audience. Some of the essays are difficult to read, in spite of their extraordinary clarity of thought and expression. Occasional German and Latin words, phrases and aphorisms remain untranslated. But it would be a shame if pastors failed to engage this book. For in spite of the author's concern to conduct the theological task in the university, the Church has far more at stake in the future of theology and has the most to gain from Gerrish's work.

E. Quinn Fox
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN