388 - Suffering, a Test of Theological Method

Suffering, a Test of Theological Method
By Arthur C. McGill
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1982. 130 p. $6.95.

This little book is one of those rarities that reads even better now than when it first appeared in 1968-in the heyday of all those raucous vogues about "secularization" and "the death of God." We may, therefore, be grateful to the Westminster Press and to Professors William May and Paul Ramsey for salvaging it for at least another decade or so. Those of us who knew and admired Art McGill can be heartened by this memento of a brilliant career diminished by illness and an untimely death. "Suffering" was an existential problem for Art McGill.

There are at least two good reasons for reading (or re-reading) this essay now. The first is that it raises a perennial theme in Christian thought to new

levels of sensitivity. Another is that it amounts to as bold and persuasive a case I know for the doctrine of "a suffering God" (theopaschytism). The essence of the argument is Jesus' revelation of God as a revelation of vulnerability: "the act of self-giving is the essential mark of God's divinity." McGill's representation of the issues between Arius and Athanasius with regard to God's absoluteness is a lively tour de force and in the main quite credible. The shadow side of the same thesis is an interesting contemporary view of "demonism."

This is not a "finished" book; it is somewhat more of an articulated series of "lectures," reflecting McGill's conviction that theology is more of an open-ended inquiry than a bid for resolutions. Indeed, his "conclusions" (pp. 128-29) amount to a quartet of basic questions deliberately posed and then left unresolved.

Three lasting impressions remain. First, McGill's theology is in the classical tradition without a whiff of traditionalism. Second, this is a theology that will "preach"; it is good news of God's victories over evil and of grace abounding. One's third impression is of a richly textured rhetoric, replete with quotable epigrams (e.g. "the man who lives to expand himself rather than to expend himself is empty and dead").

In short, this is a book with substance enough to challenge professional theologians and with style enough to edify any thoughtful reader. At many levels, its contribution is important.

Albert C. Outler
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas.