Cambridge University Press
A review by James Clark at FPR: Imagining Divine Participation
Related:
Church Times review by David Brown.
The CT review has this bit:
In a rare exception, Moltmann’s idea of God’s making space for the world is declared unchristian, whereas from that perspective it is surely Davison, not Moltmann, who radically diminishes the divine nature in not allowing that God could ever create anything radically different from his own nature. Equally, Moltmann would offer a quite different way of thinking about the inexplicable and evil.
What happened to God's being unable to create a square circle not contradicting his omnipotence?
Again, the doctrine of the Trinity is simply assumed throughout, and no
attempt is made to engage with why Platonism might have thought its
introduction unnecessarily complicating in the conception of everything
as derived from one single source.
If course it is assumed, it's a book about Christian doctrine, and Davison would probably acknowledge that it is something that we cannot know or prove by reason alone but a truth that must be revealed to us by God Himself. One wonders about the author of the review...
Of course, Christianity had an answer in insisting on the introduction
of the Trinity as revealed doctrine; but, again, except in his
introductory section when discussing creation, Davison entirely fails to
engage with the way in which our understanding of scripture has
changed. St John’s Gospel is repeatedly quoted as though it gave us the
historical mind of Jesus, but does it? And, if not, how easily can
Aquinas’s account of the incarnate one survive? But what, even, of
participation itself? It would seem odd to make the term foundational of
all Christian thought if it is not found reflected somewhere in human
experience. Yet Davison fails to discuss what might be meant by such
experience.
The reviewer sounds like a liberal Protestant. What sort of Christian life is he living if he does not understand that Christians participate in the life of Christ?
