Urban, P. Linwood

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 Swarthmore CollegeWorks   Religion Faculty Works   4-1-1993  Review Of "Free Will And The Christian Faith" By W. S. Anglin  P. Linwood Urban Swarthmore College   Let us know how access to this work benefits you.  Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion   Part of the Religion Commons   Recommended Citation P. Linwood Urban. (1993). "Review Of "Free Will And The Christian Faith" By W. S. Anglin". Journal Of Religion. Volume 73, Issue 2. 278-279. http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion/336  This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu.  ReviewReviewed Work(s): Free Will and the Christian Faith by W. S. AnglinReview by: Linwood UrbanSource: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 278-279Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1204912Accessed: 30-11-2016 17:06 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusteddigital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information aboutJSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/termsThe University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toThe Journal of ReligionThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:06:05 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:06:05 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms278 The Journal of Religion persuasively presented, namely, that "the Christian faith ... has the impressive potential to become an indestructibly firm foundation for ecological integrity" (p. 93). Of particular note with respect to ethics is Nash's nuanced discussion of love and justice and his creative and much-needed presentation of nine "ecologi-cal virtues," which include sustainability, frugality, equity, and humility. Nash's erudition and expertise is especially evident in the chapters on ethics and public policy. In sum, Loving Nature is an excellent book. Despite various problems, only a few of which have been mentioned here, Nash has written a wise and stimulating work. His book well illustrates the main contention of Spirit and Nature, namely, that there are rich spiritual resources within the religious traditions-in this case, Christianity-that we ignore only at our own peril. STEVEN BOUMA-PREDIGER, North Park College. ANGLIN, W. S. Free Will and the Christian Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. viii+218 pp. $55.00 (cloth). The stated purpose of W. S. Anglin's book is to demonstrate that libertarianism and Christianity are compatible or, more broadly, to show the coherence and consistency of traditional Christian doctrines. To this end, he examines a series of related issues: the meaning of omnipotence and omniscience, the problem of evil, arguments for the existence of God, and immortality. Finally, he discusses the way in which God might reveal himself to beings with free will. Anglin is abreast of recent philosophical literature and is not afraid to adopt controversial positions. For example, he argues in favor of what he calls "back-ward causation," that is, the dependence of past events on future events, at least in the case of divine foreknowledge. Just as in the present we see the light of a star that expired long ago (the star having been so distant that the photons took many light-years to reach us), so in a similar way Anglin suggests that effects of future events are present to an omniscient being. Philosophers like Anthony Kenny have rejected such claims because they reject the whole notion of back-ward causation. However, Anglin argues that Kenny's rejection is overly hasty and needs to be reexamined. Another of Anglin's controversial positions appears in his discussion of the problem of evil. Here he borrows from ethics the Principle of Double Effect in explaining God's choice of various courses of action. Anglin argues that it would be unworthy of God to choose evil means to further even the most excellent goals. In making his choices, God always acts for the good, but even the best actions sometimes carry with them unfortunate secondary effects. God, then, is not a utilitarian but operates in the manner of a just-war theorist. I mention these two points in particular because they reveal a great deal that is good about this book. Anglin is not afraid to take controversial positions, and his arguments are unusually detailed and cogent. His book is likely to become a point of departure for serious discussion of the issues treated. To be sure, it will be of interest primarily to Christian theologians and philosophers of religion who are sympathetic with the Anglo-American "analytic tradition" in philoso-phy. In an afterword, Anglin speaks of the several levels at which philosophy of religion is done. At one level is his own project, to see what sense Christian faith has. At another level, one might seek to refute the skeptic who tries to under-mine all language, logic, and reason, at least as far as they bear on ultimate ques-This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:06:05 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsMOSELEY, ROMNEY M. Becoming a Self before God: Critical Transformations. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991. 143 pp. $13.95 (paper). Becoming a Self before God is a theological reconsideration of the process of faith development. Unsatisfied with the hierarchical, sequential stages of moral and religious development depicted by theorists such as Lawrence Kohlberg and James Fowler, Romney M. Moseley persuasively argues that more attention needs to be given to the role of suffering, paradox, and risk in Christian·spiritual life. Moseley's central insight is that the life of faith is better conceived as an open-ended, metaphorically understood process of transformation than as a closed, empirically validated system. Drawing heavily on the writings of Seren Kierkegaard, Moseley attacks the very notion of development and offers instead the Kierkegaardian notion of "repetition" (p. 92), in which the self needs contin-uing re-formation by God and must constantly struggle with attempts to find meaning in the face of doubt, despair, and meaninglessness. Moseley also under-scores that the "quest for authentic selfhood" (p. Ill) is integrally linked to love of one's neighbor and the ongoing process of participating "in the humiliation of Christ by bearing the suffering of humanity" (p. 113). By the virtue of this "kenotic spirituality" (p. 118), self-transformation is fused with social transfor-mation, resulting in a dialectical process empowered not by "Promethean indi-vidualism" (p. 17) but rather by the paradoxical power of a God who is perfected in weakness. Unfortunately, many of Moseley's valuable insights are themselves weakened by his attempt to compress too much into too small a space, leaving his chapters overly thin and schematic, which in turn results in depictions of the positions of his theological adversaries that, although basically sound, are often incapable of reflecting the subtleties of their thought. Even the occasional concrete illustra-tions drawn from Moseley's own faith development research, which could possi-bly have been used to flesh out and support his arguments, seem to be almost randomly inserted into the text, and the reader is left wondering, "That's a nice story, but what does it illustrate?" This lack of explicit argumentation is almost ubiquitous-it is often not clear what position the author holds or what points he is attempting to make until well into each chapter. However, what is apparent is that Moseley has several axes to grind: numerous theological "buzzwords," such as "triumphalism," "progressivism," and "developmentalism," rumble through-out the text, but Moseley's seemingly condescending use of these terms might prove more puzzling than enlightening for those uninitiated into his particular realm of discourse since they too are typically presented without much clarifica-tion or supporting argument. The book also suffers from a lack of cohesion: the chapters often seem isolated from each other, more like beginnings of individual articles than elements in a coherent argument. The chapters on William james and Carljung and the final chapter on Anglican renewal especially do not appear to be essential to Moseley's central thesis. Moseley's potentially helpful Kierkegaardian critique of faith development theory would have been strengthened if he had focused on a core 279 Book Reviews tions. Since skeptical positions on these issues are very popular today, an attempt to deal with them would have greatly increased the interest of this study for a large group among current students of religion. LINWOOD URBAN, Swarthmore College. 

Review Of  Free Will And The Christian Faith  By W. S. Anglin

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Review Of Free Will And The Christian Faith By W. S. Anglin

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