The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong

Rating:
Summary: Ten Stars, Actually
Review: I am sorry that this book is not available in hardcover; it's one that my library cannot be without. One cannot describe it without superlatives. Although I am an Orthodox Christian, the author has convinced me that there is profound theological thought outside Orthodoxy. (Not all Orthodox Christians feel this way.) Placher's thesis, that the way we think about God went awry back at the dawn of modernity, and that theology has not recovered from its ill-advised dalliance with the moderns, is superbly argued from cover to cover. If one reads between the lines, however, one realizes that the book raises questions which no religious believer can afford to ignore--questions such as "what does it mean to be a believer?", and "what does it mean to be human?" The epistemological ideal which animates the discourse of modernity is that of the detached, disinterested, impersonal spectator of reality. It started with Descartes and we've not seen the end of it yet. Placher understands that when this cognitivist presupposition informs our theological enterprise, the result is a "theology" which is more like Vedanta, Buddhism, or New Age monism than Christianity. (He doesn't mention them, but he would, if he were interested in getting into comparative religion.) In truth, these "Eastern" religions, especially as they appear in the West as "the New Spirituality," owe more to modernity and the ideals of the European Enlightenment than they would care to admit. A corollary of the Cartesian model is that man is cognitively self-sufficient. And since knowledge is our human way of making sense of the world, it's a short step to the notion that human being is wholly self-sufficient. We all know that Spinoza took up this idea and ran with it. Be that as it may, how anyone (except, perhaps, Bishop Spong) can square this idea with the fundamental Christian tenet of finite, fallen man is a mystery to me, as it must be to any Christian inclined to critical thinking. To endeavor to have a "God's eye view" of God (or anything else) is, in essence, to forsake one's humanity for the sake of becoming God. This is the cardinal sin, which is responsible for our fallen state in the first place. And it is just what "the New Spirituality," however it is packaged, would have us believe. It all started here in the West when one Swami Vivekananda gave an electrifying speech at the Parliament of World Religions in 1893. Ever since, people who are for one reason or another disenchanted with their own religious tradition have been standing in line to get their share of whatever it is that works the marvelous alchemy of transforming men into gods. (Why is it that so many people manage to read Genesis 1 and 2 nowadays, and come away believing that the point of the story of man's fall is that Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit?)

Placher does a masterly job of discussing Luther and Calvin, as I would expect him to. But his knowledge of and appreciation for the Scholastics make this book an excellent source of information for anyone working in that area. His chapter on the use of analogy in Aquinas and Cajetan is the best introduction to that subject I've ever seen. What tipped me off that Placher really knows what he's talking about is that he referred to Aquinas' magnum opus by its correct name "Summa Theologiae," rather than "Summa Theologica"--the variant preferred by pedants, dabblers, and name droppers since time immemorial.

In the coming years, I believe, Placher's thesis or something very much like it will come to dominate theological discourse, especially when Christian theologians wake up to the fact that to do theology in slavish deference to modernity is to take it down a dead-end road. Nowadays, even honest religious seekers are running with the herd headlong into the abyss of "the New Spirituality." They don't need any encouragement in that direction from misguided theologians. The professionals would do well to read and learn from a theologian's theologian. For my part, I'm no theologian, but I've been reading Placher's book along with Heidegger's "Being and Time," with tantalizing results. (Again, the section in "Domestication" on analogy is a gold mine.) I don't know whether Prof. Placher would approve of his work being used this way, but if he wants to know, he's invited to contact me.
Las Vegas, Nevada, September, 2004.