Gunton, Colin. Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. Pp. 162. $29.99.

Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes is a straightforward rethinking of the divine attributes according to God's trinitarian activity in human history. The book operates on two levels that are never clearly distinguished: a critical narration of the theological tradition's treatment of the divine attributes and Colin Gunton's own programmatic proposal. Gunton's narrative reveals how traditional reflection on the attributes has been tangled between the webs of Hebraic and Hellenic thought. The consequences have been a “sub-Christian doctrine of God” that is overburdened with philosophical concepts and insufficiently biblical and trinitarian. “Predominance of the negative” is how Gunton characterizes the root problem. This means theologians have been more concerned to make clear what God is not, rather than reflect upon what God is. Instead of beginning with attributes such as holiness and love—as revealed in the economy of salvation—theologians have instead started with abstract attributes such as simplicity, impassibility, or oneness, which are originally rooted in Greek thought. This subordination of the economic attributes to the abstract ones has effectively muted the economic attributes.

According to Gunton this preoccupation with negation finds its apotheosis in the early medieval theologian Pseudo-Dionysius. The negative theology of Dionysius was transmitted at large to the tradition through Thomas Aquinas's appropriation of him for fashioning the influential doctrine of analogy. This Hellenic inheritance is characterized by a preference for abstract and cosmological language, which meant theologians under its influence were sheepish when confronted with the historical and trinitarian language of the Bible. Gunton believes this tendency is the source of one of the great sins of the theological tradition: the displacement of the Old Testament by Greek philosophy. He neatly captures his critical and constructive advance when he says, “Greeks appear to stress a theology of divine being, Hebrews of divine action.”

In the chapter “From Scripture to Scotus” Gunton points the way out of the thicket of negative theology. First, he appeals to the historical character of God as revealed in biblical narrative; second, he employs the philosophical critique of the doctrine of analogy by another medieval theologian, Duns Scotus. Working from Scotus's doctrine of univocity, Gunton believes that we can make real theological claims about the attributes simply based upon God's revelation in salvation history.

Beginning with the doctrine of the trinity, Gunton seeks to establish a “narrative definition” of the attributes. Following Barth's lead he maintains that there can be no breach between God's being (in se) and God's actions for us in salvation history. “God is what he does and does what he is.” We ought to allow holiness, justice, mercy, and love—all attributes revealed in the trinitarian economy and exemplified in different ways in each of the persons—to be the starting points for theological reflection. At this point it would be easy to assume Gunton simply rejects the philosophically inspired attributes; rather, Gunton reverses the order of their treatment and allows the emphasis to fall on the economically derived attributes: the communicable attributes (love, holiness, mercy) condition the incommunicable (omnipotence, simplicity, infinity). Gunton recognizes the theological wisdom behind attributes such as simplicity and impassibility; these secure the integrity of the economic attributes.

Unfortunately, when one looks for sustained, constructive reflection upon even one of the economic attributes she will be disappointed. Gunton never manages to move far from his critical narrative and sophisticated theological posturing, which makes this work more programmatic than constructive. Gunton makes some profound preliminary observations on the attributes (e.g., holiness and spirit), but he never draws them into focus. This is not necessarily a weakness of the book (he made no promises), but it suggests that a great deal more work would need to be done in order for his program to be fully persuasive.

The theological narrative Gunton tells is controversial. Not many theologians would accept Duns Scotus as the last word on the doctrine of analogy. Nor ought we to accept Gunton's simplistic distinctions between Greek and Hebrew thought. This critical narrative is not original to Gunton, but builds on a distinctly modern theological project begun in the nineteenth century—which means his proposal cannot be construed as a philosophically unprejudiced recovery of the “biblical” attributes. Ultimately, however, Act and Being is a success. It is a rare event that one finds a book amidst the landscape of contemporary theology that treats the doctrine of God with such urgency, seriousness, depth. The great legacy of Colin Gunton is reminding us that the true orbit of Christian theology revolves around human grappling with God.

Christopher Ganski
New Haven, Connecticut