611 - God Is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl Rahner

God Is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl Rahner

By Mark Lloyd Taylor

Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1986. 416 Pp. $24.95 ($18.25 Paper).

This book, originally a dissertation under Schubert Ogden, intends primarily to treat the "problem of the concept of God as this problem is raised for Christian systematic theology by the claim that God is love." It is secondarily a work on the theology of Karl Rahner, insofar as that is the vehicle used to treat this problem.

Taylor gives a thorough analysis of Rahner and then critiques his understanding of God's love as inconsistent, especially in the way the topics of nature and grace and God's freedom are treated vis-a-vis the divine love. Finally, after accepting some portions of Rahner, Taylor proceeds to argue that the inconsistencies might be remedied by an application of process theology.

The book is learned and thorough. It is also helpful in showing Rahner's attempts to grapple with the problem of God's relatedness to the world, although it shows little religious sympathy for why Rahner, or any other Christian, might believe that God is not always with a world. In the end, however, the argument of the book is the familiar and by now tired one of much process theology-criticize Aquinas or some Thomist and then show how process theology shows none of the same weaknesses. When all is said and done, process theologians are even more convinced of their position, Thomists are appalled, and everybody else wonders why these are presented as the only two possibilities.

Eric O. Springsted, Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill.