Book Review: The Interruptive Word: Eberhard Jüngel on the Sacramental Structure of God's Relation to the World

Abstract

The Interruptive Word: Eberhard Jungel on the Sacramental Structure of God's Relation to the World. By R. David Nelson. T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. 256 pp. $29.95 (paper).R. David Nelsons The Interruptive Word makes contributions to ongoing conversations concerning both sacramentology in general and the work of Eberhard Jungel in particular. In this text Nelson addresses an apparent lacuna in the field of Jungel research, namely the theology of sacrament (p. 1), while providing interesting insight into the problem of sacrament.In part 1 Nelson explicates significant claim comes to the world by coming-to-speech (p. 11). He suggests God comes to through the event of the addressing word, interrupting the Cartesian selfcorrespondence of the ego which seeks self-actualization in its worldly situation. Through the interruptive word, the human is drawn out of self-centered existence (incurvatus in se), resulting in an ecstatic relation to self, God, and the other. In this manner God's addressing word is understood God's sacramental presence to the human, yet the presence of one who is absent.Nelson subsequently turns attention to analogy of advent, which the theologian developed in conversation with Karl Barth and Erich Pryzwara. Jungel believes the analogy of advent allows God to come to through human language, yet remain as one who speaks out of himself' (p. 29). Contrary to the Augustinian tradition in which the form of must be differentiated from its content (see chapter 5), Jungel holds that there is a word in the speaking of which which is spoken arrives in speech (p. 34). This arrival is the analogy of advent. Rearranging the Lateran IV decree, in the analogy of advent God discloses God's self to humanity in a manner which subordinates a great dissimilarity to an even greater similarity.Nelson illustrates and begins to develop his greatest critique of approach in a chapter outlining the latter's work on parable. In Christ's teaching the kingdom of God comes to through the human form most appropriate for the task, the parable. This is an eschatological word-event the parable interrupts the normal course of human events so the kingdom of God may come to speech. As Nelson notes, Jungel s emphasis on the interruptive character of the parable seems to be at odds with his analogy of advent's subordination of great dissimilarity to a still greater similarity.In part 2 Nelson affirms Jungels emphasis on the interruptive structure of the sacramental word is repeated in his understanding of the sacramental being of Jesus Christ (p. …