Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 30:3 (Sep 1987)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

JETS 30:3 (September 1987) p. 343

Book Reviews

Questioning Back: The Overcoming of Metaphysics in Christian Tradition. By Joseph S. O’Leary. Minneapolis: Winston, 1985, 225 pp., $19.95.

Although it would be going too far to say that every evangelical theologian ought to read this book, it would certainly be enlightening for any conservative theologian for whom the death of God of the 1960B has given way to the death of radical theology. That not all theology has become traditional again is well demonstrated by the publication of this volume, whose praises are being touted on the dust jacket by important names of the theological avant garde: H. Cox, L. Dewart, P. van Buren, and others. The work of O’Leary, who is currently researching Japanese Buddhism, may well signal a rallying point for a revival of the theological left wing.

Once again we have before us a piece of theological analysis provided on behalf of the “contemporary believer,” who turns out to be the traditional unbeliever who still wants to make a profession of Christian faith. Only the means of carrying out the balancing act have changed. This time it is Heidegger (interpreted in the style of the 1980B as a hermeneutician rather than as an existentialist) and J. Derrida, the father of deconstructivism, who are to lead theology back onto the path of true contemporaneity. The thesis as stated by the title is, to coin a slogan, that ‘what theology theologizes best which metaphysicizes least.”

Such an idea would Seem a priori to have to be unfair to either metaphysics or theology or both. On the whole metaphysics fares quite well under O’Leary’s scrutiny, at least if one grants his Heideggerian presuppositions. The idea is that just as Heidegger paved the way for the overcoming of metaphysics in his new thinking on Being, so the time has come for theology to overcome metaphysics for renewed fidelity to Christian faith. That the total elimination of metaphysics from Christian theology may never be entirely realizable O’Leary does not deny. Nevertheless he sees no alternative but to try.

O’Leary’s theological model is Luther, who perhaps better than almost anyone else in the history of theology recognized how metaphysics has distorted the Christian message. O’Leary capably demonstrates in both traditional theologians (especially Augustine) and modern ones (e.g. Rahner and Barth) a tension between their Christian faith and the metaphysics by which it is restrained. This part of his analysis ought to be of greatest interest to more traditional theologians.

It is theology that may find itself unrecognizable after treatment by O’Leary. According to him the “intention of faith is the unifying theme of Christian theology” (p. 7). Faith, not its object, stand...