How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture. By Patricia Ranft. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013. viii + 262 pp. $90.00 cloth.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)How Doctrine of Incarnation Shaped Western Culture . By Patricia Ranft . Lanham, MD : Lexington , 2013. viii + 262 pp. $90.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesBoth Christians and non-Christians from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe have told me that material success of West as well as its non-material, chiefly political, contributions to world-wide civilization is rooted in its Christian faith. This volume picks up on suggestion of scholars such as Alexandre Koyre, Jaen-Claude Milner, and Alexandre Leupin that belief that second person of Trinity became human being, the Incarnation, had an inordinate influence on Western culture at time it was establishing its fundamental characteristics (3).Furthermore, Ranft supports Leupin's contention that the Middle Ages, insofar as it worked out consequences of Incarnation, is also birthplace of modernity (4). Ranft labels doctrine catalyst, a substance that can cause change in rate of chemical without itself being affected by reaction (9), not fully satisfying metaphor in this case since cultural factors have affected expressions and emphases of biblical reports of Incarnation as it has been translated into new settings throughout history. Ranft finds doctrine as first formulated at Nicea in 325 and matured at Chalcedon in 451, a doctrine of supreme opposites, where human and divine are synthesized in paradoxical, irrational way (10) that nonetheless challenged ways of thinking dependent on authority and elicited more active use of rational argument. Ranft concedes that her contention, based on metaphor of catalyst, cannot be proven and that her presentation is more expository than (11). That frees reader from nitpicking when leaps of judgment from historical citation to present application occur. This makes this adventurous essay through early and high medieval thinking more pleasurable path even when daring of Ranft's associations and conclusions frustrate wish for analytical assurance.Ranft's sketch of early stages of formulation correctly connects doctrine of Incarnation with doctrines of Trinity and creation. More detail regarding radical differences between Platonic or Neoplatonic worldviews and Hebrew perceptions of reality would have more solidly anchored Ranft's study, for personhood of Creator who through conversation and community with his human creatures made and manages world is key to many of ideas she more directly ascribes to doctrine of Incarnation (with which these ideas are obviously also connected). Moving into medieval period, she persuasively connects doctrine of Incarnation to Lord's Supper and with Marian devotion, but her account of more public, great thinkers inadequately faces how much of pagan presupposition adhered to practical use of both Eucharistic devotion and Marian piety throughout period. Her sketch of controversies over Eucharistic theology in eleventh century is helpful, strengthening her argument for influence of incarnational theology on practice of logic and formal argumentation. …