Stephen OKEY. A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press Academic, 2018. Pp. 230. $34.95 pb. ISBN 978-0-8146-8418-4. Reviewed by Ann SWANER, Barry University, Miami Shores, FL 33161.

The purpose of Stephen Okey’s book, which is based on the research from his doctoral dissertation on David Tracy, is to explicate the overall development of Tracy’s theology throughout his career by examining six key themes. The core thesis of the book is that Tracy’s theology is grounded in conversation or dialogue, including Tracy’s dialogue/argument with other theologians (and philosophers, sociologists, artists, and others); the back and forth conversation/correlation between the religious tradition and its wider cultural context; and the conversation between reader and text.  In a brief foreword to the book Tracy himself describes it as a “calm, considered work of interpretation, analysis, and critique.” (p. x) Tracy also expresses approval of Okey’s selection of focal themes.
The first theme, discussed in Chapter One, is the meaning and significance of public theology, particularly the publics of academy, church, and society,and the relationship of these publics to Tracy’s understanding of “revisionist” theology, which calls for a critical dialogue between the religious tradition and the wider culture. Chapter Two continues the discussion of the development of Tracy’s theological method relating the three publics (academy, church, and society) to the three subdisciplines of theology (fundamental, systematic, and practical). Okey traces the development of Tracy’s method through Blessed Rage for Order and The Analogical Imagination and beyond. A core part of this method and one of the most recognized parts of Tracy’s theology is the “classic,” discussed in Chapter Three. In Blessed Rage for Order the classic refers mainly to classical Christian texts. The idea is further developed in The Analogical Imagination to explain the classic and the religious classic. Tracy describes the classic “as an expression that arises from within a tradition and that discloses both an excess and a permanence of meaning.” (p. 79) A classic refers now not only to texts but also to events, images, experiences, and persons, with the fundamental Christian classic being the event and person of Jesus Christ. In Tracy’s next book, Plurality and Ambiguity, he critiques his own understanding of the classic in the light of plurality and postmodernism and moves to the term “fragment” which “becomes a way to name the variety of expressions that come from the sheer diversity and irreducible differences that constitute one’s own tradition as well as any other traditions one might encounter.” (p. 90)

Chapter Four follows the development of Tracy’s response to pluralism. Tracy distinguishes between the fact of diversity (of languages, cultures, traditions, etc.) or plurality, and the positive or optimistic outlook toward plurality, which is “pluralism.” He sees plurality as a defining feature of the postmodern situation with which the theological tradition is in dialogue. Okey describes the “plurality of pluralisms that permeate Tracy’s thought.” (p. 99) According to Tracy, “The essential Catholic response to such pluralism is the analogical imagination, which takes Christ as the central or prime analogue that helps human beings to discern truth in a plural and confusing world.” (p. 11)

Despite this assertion of Christ as the prime analogue, Christology (the subject of Chapter Five), is an often overlooked aspect of Tracy’s theology, according to Okey. Theological method, public theology, the classics, and pluralism get the attention of other scholars. But they may overlook how central Jesus Christ is to the development of those themes. Tracy’s Christology, Okey says, is focused on the role of mediation, both Christ’s mediation between the divine and the human, and also how Christ is mediated in the present moment. The centrality of form (morphe) for mediation shapes Tracy’s Christology. Okey calls Tracy’s late term, “christomorphic theocentrism,” an apt summary of his Christology.

Chapter Six focuses on Tracy’s efforts to name God. Okey explains Tracy’s early descriptions of God as the “limit-of” in Blessed Rage for Order, as “the whole” in The Analogical Imagination, and as “Ultimate Reality” in Plurality and Ambiguity. He suggests that Tracy is trying with these names to be compatible with Christian tradition while being accessible to other traditions; that is, to do fundamental theology. When he is criticized for that stance Tracy turns to gathering fragmented names for God through reflection of “fragmenting forms”. (p. 163)  He calls God the “Hidden God”, the “Incomprehensible God”, the “Infinite God”, the “Impossible, Being, Love, and Trinity.” This shift,  Okey suggests, is more in line with systematic theology, focusing more on the claims of a particular faith tradition addressed to the public of the church.

An Epilogue to the book describes the conversation/debate between Tracy and the Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck, initiated by the publication of Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine in 1984. This debate illustrates Okey’s argument that conversation is central to Tracy’s theological method.

This book is an outstanding introduction to David Tracy’s thought. The chronological approach to the development of each of the six themes is very helpful. The writing is clear, concise, and completely accessible. It contains a useful bibliography of works both by and about Tracy.