It will be thought by some readers of Paradox in Christian Theology that James Anderson is trying to do the impossible. He is trying to make a clear, rational case for the proposition that clarity and rationality can go only so far. This sounds a bit like ‘a proof that proofs are impossible’, and so some may scoff at the endeavour. But the result is really more like Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems in mathematics – not a proof that there are no proofs, but a proof (of sorts) that the discipline in question is far less tame and prosaic than we had begun to think.
In the present case, the discipline in question is philosophical theology or philosophy of religion (one could reasonably classify this book in either way), in which discussions of ‘paradox’ or ‘antinomy’ or ‘mystery’ have become increasingly central over the last three decades. Anderson does not attempt to give any historical overview of these discussions, but he is clearly familiar with them, and he interacts thoroughly and systematically with almost all of the major players. J. L. Schellenberg and the literature on the ‘hiddenness’ of God might profitably have been included, but it is unclear that divine hiddenness would pass muster as a formal ‘paradox’, and anyhow the focus of Anderson's book is not on generic theism, but on orthodox Christianity. Anderson makes an impressively nuanced case for both the presence and the appropriateness of paradox in Christian theological discourse, arguing not that paradox is inevitable (though he does give a quiet hint at the very end (311–312) that a religion is better off with paradox than without), but arguing instead that we find ourselves actually confronted with paradox in the orthodox Christian tradition, and that there is no good reason to think that paradox necessarily undermines the rationality of Christian belief.
The book is organized so simply and systematically that one can hardly do better than to outline its argument in a chapter-by-chapter fashion. After a short introductory chapter that sketches out the structure of the book and provides a brief and fairly non-controversial definition of ‘paradox’ (as an ‘apparent contradiction’ or a ‘set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent’ (5–6)), the argument itself is divided into two sections, each of which makes up almost exactly half of the book.
Part 1 is entitled ‘The presence of paradox’, and its three chapters make up the more explicitly theological portion of the argument, for it investigates particular elements in the Christian theological tradition to see whether paradox is actually found there. The first chapter, chapter 2, deals with the doctrine of the Trinity. It begins with a concise, balanced account of ancient Trinitarian reflection that deftly narrates complex early debates in which Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Augustine, and others spelled out the orthodox position and carefully distinguished it from its three great alternatives (modalism, subordinationism, and tritheism). This discussion is deep enough to raise all of the right issues appropriately, but not so technical that non-specialists will be troubled.
As one would expect, Anderson highlights the sense in which the orthodox conception of the Trinity includes several logically awkward claims that together give rise to the theological commonplace that the Trinity is a ‘mystery’. The chapter then moves into a survey of more recent Trinitarian thought. The discussion here inevitably becomes a bit more technical, since contemporary thinkers are generally trying to solve or at least to restate in helpful ways the logical problems that the tradition as a whole has encountered. Still, Anderson is very good at translating technical ideas into an understandable parlance, and his helpful categorization of the perspectives he is surveying keeps the argument from becoming burdensome. He considers recent interpretations of the Trinity like those of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner that attempt to avoid paradox by giving priority to the oneness of God over the threeness; he then examines ‘Social Trinitarian’ interpretations, like those of Cornelius Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and David Brown, that move in the opposite direction and have been criticized for emphasizing divine threeness at the expense of oneness; next come ‘relative-identity’ interpretations, like those of A. P. Martinich, Michael Rea, and Jeffrey Brower, that attempt to avoid paradox by introducing finer shades of distinction into the Trinitarian language about three Persons being ‘the same’ God.
Anderson finds all of these approaches wanting, since each one avoids paradox only to the extent that it transgresses, or at least flirts with transgressing, the bounds of historic orthodoxy. The chapter ends with brief attention to recent thinkers like Stephen Davis, David Coffee, and William Hill who explicitly acknowledge the paradoxical character of the Trinity. Anderson feels justified in concluding that ‘no writer from the first century to the twenty-first century has offered an explication of the doctrine of the Trinity that is both clearly orthodox and free from apparent contradiction’ (59). In the doctrine of the Trinity, paradox seems very definitely to be present.
Chapter 3 makes exactly the same sort of case with respect to the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation. Anderson traces the development of early Christology from Nicea to Chalcedon and beyond, rightly noting the very different emphases of the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools of thought and calling attention to certain problematic logical moves on both sides. The orthodox Christological settlement is summarized in terms of Christ's personal unity, full deity, and full humanity – three affirmations which seem to leave us with a logically difficult doctrine in which one and the same Christ is both all-knowing and also limited in knowledge, both omnipresent and also spatially constrained, etc.
Anderson then turns to recent Christological proposals that attempt to dispel these logical difficulties. Again here, he provides a masterfully concise and accessible presentation of some fairly technical ideas. He considers ‘kenotic’ interpretations like those of David Brown, Ronald Feenstra, and Stephen Davis that downplay the divine attributes of Christ by emphasizing the sense in which God ‘emptied himself’ (Philippians 2.7) in becoming human; next come the ‘dual-psychology’ theories of people like Thomas V. Morris and Richard Swinburne, which overcome the paradox by modifying the traditional notion of the unity of Christ's person or consciousness. Both of these strategies turn out to be flawed, with each offering convincing criticisms of the other, and Anderson concludes by agreeing with thinkers like Charles Moule that Christological orthodoxy and paradox are inextricably linked.
Having shown that paradox is an unavoidable part of Christian orthodoxy, Anderson is almost ready to consider its epistemic status. Chapter 4 helpfully prepares the way for that more philosophical discussion by outlining, in fairly abstract terms, the range of possible responses to this notion of theological paradox. Anderson contends that responses will take one of three forms: either they will deny that theological claims are intended to correspond to the real world; or they will revise the laws of logic so that logically problematic doctrines can still apply to the real world; or they will reconsider the meaning of the paradoxical doctrines, modifying the received doctrine, minimalizing its content, or re-conceiving the way conflicting doctrines relate to one another. Not entirely content with any of these strategies (but most sympathetic to the last), Anderson sets the stage for his own proposal.
In the three chapters of Part 2, ‘The propriety of paradox’, Anderson launches his constructive project. It is a project that is philosophical rather than (explicitly) theological in character, and its roots lie in Alvin Plantinga's well-known model of epistemic warrant. So Anderson devotes chapter 5 to an exposition (with some modest defence) of Plantinga's approach, before moving to chapter 6, which is really the heart of this book. It is entitled ‘A model for the rational affirmation of paradoxical theology’, and Anderson thenceforth refers to his approach as the ‘RAPT model’. With admirable lucidity, the chapter provides a carefully argued and helpfully illustrated explanation of (1) how paradox works, (2) where paradox originates, and (3) why paradox need not be an obstacle to the rationality of belief.
These three elements of the RAPT model are very different from one another, yet Anderson draws them together quite persuasively. The first is the most original aspect of the whole book, for it comprises a precise account of the formal logic that is at work in theological paradox, a logic that turns on the construal of paradoxical doctrines as ‘Merely Apparent Contradictions Resulting from Unarticulated Equivocation’, or MACRUEs. Once this rather ungainly acronym settles in, the logic of the argument flows with considerable elegance: a paradoxical doctrine involves claims that appear to conflict with one another because the terms of the claims hide some equivocation that has not been spelled out formally. Of course, equivocation is normally the great bane of logical argument, but in this case it is precisely acknowledging the equivocation that makes the conflict merely apparent, and thus saves the paradoxical doctrine from blatant irrationality.
But why should one rest easy with such equivocation? Why not restate the doctrines univocally? Because, says Anderson as he briefly returns to the theological arena, orthodox Christianity plausibly maintains that God is ‘incomprehensible’, and therefore that some affirmations about God are likely to be unavailable for exhaustive articulation – are likely, in other words, to be ‘mysteries’. And how does mystery relate to the rationality of belief? Here Anderson revisits in greater detail Plantinga's analysis of warrant in order to argue that ‘the mystery at the heart of these [paradoxical] doctrines, rather than threatening the rationality of Christian belief in the doctrines, actually helps to explain their rationality’ (244). The argument consists in an account of how the plausible expectation of mystery formally counteracts or, in Plantinga's technical language, ‘defeats’ the otherwise sensible rejection of irresolvable logical tensions. This discussion is fairly technical and quite thorough, and it constitutes a creative and deeply coherent application of Plantinga's model to the question of doctrinal paradox.
Chapter 7 then moves forward to anticipate a wide variety of criticisms that are likely to arise from biblical, theological, and philosophical corners. All of the right questions are raised here – the relation between paradox and scripture, the potential undermining of arguments against heterodoxy, the nature of assent to affirmations that are believed to include unarticulated equivocations, etc. – and they are handled directly and clearly. Indeed, they may be handled a bit too directly and clearly: this chapter feels a little less substantial than what has preceded, a little more like a question-and-answer session, after which one sees the perspective clearly, but knows that there is much more to be discussed. (Anderson points to some areas for ‘further research’ in a very brief concluding chapter.) In this respect, this chapter of ‘defence’ is the least satisfying of the book.
In a larger sense, however, this entire book is deeply satisfying, and is really quite an impressive achievement. It gives careful, rigorous philosophical formulation to an outlook that many Christian observers will recognize as what they have intuitively held all along. Indeed, the meticulously systematic character of the book and the comprehensive coherence of the argument allow the whole thing to unfold with what feels like a kind of Hegelian necessity. Once we understand the entire argument, we are inclined to think that the book could not really have taken any other form. One almost wonders why it was not written long ago.
Particular aspects of this work will no doubt be challenged and discussed, both in theology (where, for example, further attempts to think through the rational character of the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation will certainly be forthcoming) and in philosophy (where the precise role of paradox as a ‘defeater-defeater’ and a ‘defeater-insulator’ will need to be pursued, for instance). Those who are critical of the whole approach represented by Plantinga's brand of analytic philosophy will not find much to their liking here. But within that tradition this book provides a superbly articulated philosophical account of paradox in Christian theology. It will not be the last word on the subject, but it is the most systematically comprehensive word spoken to date. And it is spoken with a simplicity and a precision – and also with an occasional wit and beauty – that make it remarkably compelling.
