The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs van Balthasar ed. by Edward T. Oakes, S.J., and David Moss

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292 BOOK REVIEWS understanding of how Scripture and the traditions transmit gospel truth and discipline, but in this they went beyond Trent's text. Because Trent left the issue open, the period 1945-60 saw a vigorous Catholic discussion break out over the relation between Scripture and tradition. Where Trentleft an open door, Vatican Council II walked through to offer a creative reformulation of the relation in chapter 2 of its Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965). But there could have been no twentieth-century argument, and surely no conciliar restatement, if Trent had said "partim . .. partim" in 1547-which it did not do. This reviewer takes no pleasure in playing a role which has to seem to be that of a carping critic. But Reformation theology and Tridentine doctrine are both too important to leave unnoticed the several imperfections that blemish this expensive volume. John Carroll University University Heights, Ohio JARED WICKS, S.J. The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs van Balthasar. Edited by EDWARD T. OAKES, S.J., and DAVID Moss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 282. $70.00 (cloth), $25.99 (paper). ISBN 0-521-81467-7 (cloth), 0-521-89147-7 (paper). Hans Urs von Balthasar resisted the attempt to place the pronounced tensions within his thinking into a systematic theology. How does one produce The Cambridge Companion to such an individual? One could declare an amnesty for his crossing of interdisciplinary borders and single out elements that, once screened by the Homeland Security of today's academics, could still contribute in some fashion to the normal loci. Alternatively, one could present the mysteries hidden within the Master's own style and thought while paying modest attention to the academic skirmishes that Balthasar so often disdained. A third approach would make virtue out of necessity and adopt the stance of postmodern bricolage, simultaneously constructing and deconstructing the not so tidily arranged provocations of the Swiss theologian. All three strategies can be found in this volume, and the coeditors make no effort to privilege one over another. The volume is structured according to theological topics, the trilogy, disciplines, and contemporary encounters. In the first part, eight theological topics are identified. Larry Chapp's opening chapter on revelation sets forth Trinitarian metaphysics, Christ as the concrete universal, and the mediation of a revelatory irruption (i.e., the life of a saint) as three antidotes to a hermeneutics of suspicion that unprofitably reduces the event of revelation to a bare fact. Mark Mcintosh highlights the joining of mission and obedience as a call to BOOK REVIEWS 293 participation, thereby creating a unified spiritual Christology out of Balthasar's diverse historical and systematic explorations. Rowan Williams approaches the Trinity through Holy Saturday and is thus able to shed light upon intradivine difference, gender, and pneumatology (including Balthasar's nuanced differentiation from Hegel). Nicholas Healy and David L. Schindler contribute an essay on the Eucharistic mystery in creation that enables the Church to include in its mission of salvation the transformation of the world. They conclude that this Eucharistic model of ecclesial life not only endorses what Vatican II calls "the legitimate autonomy of earthly affairs" but adds Christological depth to the very notion of creaturely freedom. Lucy Gardner traces "a certain 'l'vfarian watermark' [that] can be detected through Balthasar's massive theology" and suggests after judicious analysis that Balthasar "at once 'sees' and spectacularly misrecognizes" eternal truths about the Mother of God and about women. David Moss in an essay on the saints shows that Balthasar's interest in the topic showed not the least desire "to cruise down the esoteric tributaries of 'spirituality"' but was rather a decision to lay bare "an entire theological programme, funded from the lives of the saints." Corinne Crammer displays theological sophistication ofthe highest order in her essay on Balthasar's theology of the sexes, a topic to which I will return below. In his contribution on eschatology, Geoffrey Wainwright focuses on the Christocentric pattern to Balthasar's thinking about last things and concludes his presentation of the controversy regarding universal salvation with an illuminating and ultimately Socratic dialogue. Three short essays cover the entire trilogy. Oliver Davies treats theological aesthetics as a...