In this well-written and provocative new study, F. LeRon Shults argues compellingly that theologians must divest themselves of certain early modern concepts of matter, person and force as they go about disciplined reflection upon God. If left unchallenged, these concepts will continue to hinder the Church’s presentation of the gospel for ‘illuminative and transformative dialogue in our contemporary context’ (12)

The argument of the book is unfolded via three parts of three chapters each Part one is an examination of the problem-concepts themselves. After considering relevant advancements in the spheres of psychology, physics, and advanced mathematics, Shults draws two conclusions. Not only are these early-modern concepts philosophically and scientifically outmoded, they have likewise reduced the Church’s witness to the proclamation of the existence of a timeless immaterial substance, whose absolute subjectivity is the predetermine first cause of all things’ (1).

In part two, the author turns almost exclusively to the history of Christian theology in order to claim precedent for a triad of concepts which are more suitable to the task at hand: intensive infinity, robust trinity and absolute futurity. While Shults samples here from the full span of church history, attending to the voices of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, feminist and liberationist writers, he is most interested in establishing connections between his three biblical concepts and Reformed and Lutheran theology. (For the sake of consistency, Barth, Gunton, Moltmann, Jenson, Jüngel and Pannenberg are returned to in each chapter.)

The third and final part constitutes Shults’ most original and evocative work in it, intensive Infinity, robust Trinity and absolute Futurity are employed as criteria as he weaves the traditional attributes of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence together with the biblical themes of faith, love, and hope. The end product is theological discourse on the divine perfections which is more compelling and beautiful, and therefore more suitable to its subject matter, the living God. Incorporated along the way are thoughtful christological and pneumatological sections as well as creative proposals for the retrieval of the classical arguments for God’s existence.

In the way of criticism, only a few minor things can be noted. The first is that the index—given the range of material—is disappointingly thin. A second point to note is that some of the interdisciplinary sections may prove inaccessible to readers. The discussion of Cantor’s set-theory (31ff) is one good example of how dense the conceptual material can be! Third, and most importantly, this reader was left wondering whether Shults intends here a theology amenable to the whole range of God’s life and perfections? How, for example, is Christian experience of God’s righteousness, judgement, wrath, or jealousy related to what Shults calls the ‘intensively infinite all-powerful agency of the trinitarian God’, who is love (242)? What do such present limitations mean for Shults’ future volumes on Christology and Pneumatology (see the epilogue for helpful tables on the architecture of the whole project)?

When the dust has settled, Shults has produced a book that is rigorously academic, thoroughly pastoral, and deeply rooted in Scripture. This reader was struck particularly by the way he is able to maintain tensions which are vital to the task of theology: he has a knack for reflecting diligently on theological matters without quashing its ‘delightful terror’ (2ff); he preserves the intuitions of the living tradition while recognizing that pruning is sometimes required ‘in order to promote fresh growth’ (94); and his confession of the God who is, is always a confession of the God who is toward us as Son and Spirit.

---