Chris Boesel and S. Wesley Ariarajah, Divine Multiplicity: Trinities, Diversities, and the Nature of Relation (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2013), x + 349 Pps., $40.00.
Chris Boesel is Associate Professor of Christian Theology at Drew University School of Theology and S. Wesley Ariarajah is Professor of Ecumenical Theology, also at the Drew University School of Theology. The essays in this volume emerged out of Drew Theological School’s tenth annual Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia, held in 2010. Each fall, since the turn of the millennium, a small cohort of scholars working within the fields of religion and theology have been invited to engage a specific theological theme of current interest. The object of the lecture series is to bring together a diverse array of thinkers from a variety of disciplines who share a cluster of interests: a commitment to interrogating the ethical impulses of theological discourse; an appreciation for the complexity of theological and religious traditions; and an interest in contemporary theoretical approaches to scholarship (i.e., postmodern, postcolonial, etc.).
The contributors to this volume were particularly asked to think, write, and talk about plurality and diversity as they pertain the nature of divinity. What are the possible grounds – philosophical, theological, ethical, e.g. – for conceiving of divinity in such a manner? Similarly, what are the corresponding implications entailed for divine and creaturely relations? The “one” of the ancient philosophical conundrum of the “one and the many” has, at least traditionally, been identified with the divine in theological discourse, which has left the “many” and the “multiple” to designate cosmological reality in some way that is distinguishable from the simple, united reality of divinity. Thus, numerous philosophical problems entailed in the relation between the “one” and the “many” – e.g., unity and multiplicity, identity and difference, coherence and conflict – get pushed into the theological register of the God-world relation. Doing this gives rise to one particular line of questioning pursued throughout these essays: How exactly is the nature of the God-world relation of theological discourse determined by the philosophical conundrum of the one and the many, especially in terms of the assumed normativity of the one in relation to the many?
Particularly, this volume queries how conceptions of divine reality in relation to the question of the one and the many function to determine the nature of relations within the creaturely world. Critiques of monotheisms as complicit in monarchical, hierarchical, and totalitarian orderings of creaturely relations have arisen lately with regard to concern over the nature of the relation between theological discourse and the materiality of socioethical relations. The constructive moves regarding this critique argue for certain theological conceptions of divine multiplicity as a much needed remedy. In what follows, I will highlight a few salient points from individual chapters.
Employing both Hegel and Whitehead, Philip Clayton’s essay in chapter one causes us to rethink the trinitarian inheritance in terms of what he feels to be the more open and hospitable concept of “deep dialectics.” Eric Trozzo’s second chapter builds on Clayton’s desire to render diversity in such a way that avoids transcending difference and multiplicity in a concept of unifying coherence; he focuses on focuses on the implications such a nontranscendental rendering of diversity has to the divine life. Roland Faber and Catherine Keller contribute chapter 3, and therein suggest that the ethical desires to affirm and celebrate plurality is often difficult to distinguish from forms of exoticism and piracy, whereby an ever-widening diversity is continually gathered into a single collection.
Chapter 7 is written by Mark Heim, whose essay continues to explore is long-held conviction that the doctrine of the trinity offers Christians the deepest grounding for an understanding of religious diversity as a positive gift. Holly Hillgardner, in chapter 8, approaches the religious symbol of the Spirit from the comparative theological perspective, and notes that this symbol has the ability to enrich and complexify thought about the one and the many across religions. Sara Rosenau, in chapter 9, takes Elizabeth Johnson’s feminist revisioning of the trinity as her starting point to argue that while sympathetic to the feminist position, there is a certain limit to its efforts to create space for women and the feminine in Christian language about God. Chapter 11 is contributed by Kathryn Tanner, who therein gives a detailed examination of the development of he doctrine of the trinity and the way unity and diversity are held together with it.
In sum, the volume asks if trinitarian and pluralist discourses can be put into fruitful conversation with one another. Can trinitarian conceptions of divine multiplicity open the Christian tradition to more creative visions of creaturely identities, difference, and relationality including religious plurality? Can this help us to inhabit other religious traditions’ conceptions of divine and/or creaturely reality? On the one hand, it interrogates the possibility of trinitarian theology and its ethical promise with regard to and creaturely relationality by putting it into specific engagement with discourses of pluralism, diversity, and multiplicity. On the other hand, this volume interrogates the possibilities of discourses on the various dimensions and arenas of pluralism by putting them in a very particular context of pluralism and difference, or, that is, by putting them into conversation with theological work that is not specifically pluralist or comparative.
Bradford McCall
Holy Apostles College and Seminary