The Trinity and Paschal Mystery.

by Ann Hunt Liturgical Press/Glazier, $19.95,198 pp.

Karl Rahner complained that Christians profess a trinitarian faith in their creed and liturgy but live as if they were pure monotheists. Part of this problem derives, Rahner thought, from the overly speculative treatment the Trinity received at the hands of theologians. Since Rahner wrote that critique there has been a veritable flood of books reconsidering the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of the Christian mystery. These books have come from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformed theologians. Indeed, most advanced theological courses and seminars now begin with the Trinity in their ordo doctrinae and not in the more philosophically rooted doctrine of the One God.

Hunt's book is a close look at four theologians who have begun their theological reflections on the Trinity with a consideration of the Paschal Mystery: the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each of these theologians focuses on a different aspect of this mystery. F.X. Durrwell, an Alsatian Redemptorist, begins with Christ's Resurrection. Ghislain Lafont, a French Benedictine, starts with the death of Christ. Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Swiss polymath, is famous for his aesthetic meditation on Christ's descent into hell. Finally, the provocative English Benedictine, Sebastian Moore, presents a psychological reconstruction of what it meant for the disciples to grasp in faith the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead. Hunt judges each theologian's fidelity to the biblical message, appropriation of the theological tradition, and methodology. Though all root their reflections in the Paschal Mystery, each gives distinct and nuanced interpretations of this central Christian event What all of these theologians have in common is their unwilling/less to consider the biblical material as "empirical residue" (she borrows the term from Bernard Lonergan), yet each judges the biblical material the necessary starting point for any serious trinitarian theology. Hunt is quite good at the difficult task of summarizing the views of these theologians, especially those of the ever prolix von Balthasar.

Hunt passes judgment on these thinkers after differentiating their work according to categories set out by Bernard Lonergan. She sees each coming to grips with a culture in which the older theological terminology and philosophical presuppositions seem attenuated. She further notes that their somewhat idiosyncratic efforts toward articulating a postmodern construction of things are similar to certain Reformed and Orthodox writers.

Hunt's book is not for the theologically timid. Those who have a broad theological culture, however, will find this a cogent, well-written work. I recommend it for serious students of theology.

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.