Harvey D. EGAN, S.J., Rethinking Catholic Theology: From the Mystery of Existence to the New Creation. (New York: Paulist Press, 2023), pp. 517 (Paperback). Reviewed by Joseph BRACKEN, S.J., Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH.

Harvey Egan, S.J.. Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Mysticism at Boston College, is well known and much admired for his work in Christian Mysticism and his expertise in interpreting the theology of Karl Rahner, above all, the latter’s writings on Christian mysticism. As the subtitle indicates, Egan’s rethinking of Christian theology is quite comprehensive: from the beginning to the end of cosmic history, but with special focus on “the life, death, resurrection (as ‘transformed physicality’), ascension, and the person of Jesus Messiah as he ushers in the kingdom of God, namely the best answer tothe questions: Who am I? Who are we?, Death. where did we come from and where we are ultimately headed? What is the meaning of it all?” (xix).

Rethinking Catholic Theology is divided into three major parts. In the first part entitled “Christ and the Mystery of Existence” there are ten chapters dealing with the mystery of human existence, the Human Person, Tradition and Language, Rethinking the Mystery of Death, Rethinking Evil, Rethinking World Religions, Rethinking Judaism. Rethinking Jesus’ Death by Crucifixion, Rethinking Jesus’ Ascension. Then in part two entitled “Christian Life and Mission”, Egan sets forth ten more chapters with the following topics: Rethinking Pentecost, Rethinking the Triune God, Rethinking the Church, Rethinking the Scriptures, Rethinking the Sacraments, Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Mariology, Rethinking the Communion of Saints, Rethinking Prayer and Mysticism, and Rethinking Christianity. Finally, in part three entitled “The Afterlife,” there are 13 chapters : Rethinking Eschatology, Rethinking Views of Afterlife, Rethinking Reincarnation, Rethinking Individual Judgment, Rethinking the Incorruptible Soul, Rethinking the Intermediate State, Rethinking Limbo, Rethinking Purgatory, Rethinking Christ’s Second Coming, Rethinking the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment, Rethinking Hell, Rethinking Heaven, and Rethinking the New Creation.

Egan thus lays out a comprehensive overview of the major doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic faith. But for whom is he writing; what is his “target audience”? It would seem to be faithful Roman Catholics and other Christians who share many or most of these same religious beliefs. Egan makes brief reference, for example, to Quantum Theory that “supersedes both our individuality and the distinctions we make between part and whole, matter and spirit, individual and communal” (139), but he does not further develop these philosophical concepts into a theological position that would be rationally credible to natural scientists and other readers of Zygon and Theology and Science. But it would strongly appeal to those interested in the Christian mystical tradition. But he thereby poses the problem of a world view acceptable to all parties without really answering it: “Thus, the human body is not something already existing in itself but is the spirit’s self-expression in matter—matter that will also be resurrected because the risen Christ is the seed of the new creation.” (140). Egan borrowed this understanding of spirit in the world from Karl Rahner’s Foundations of Christian Faith, but Rahner’s position stands in sharp contrast to traditional Aristotelian-Thomistic belief in the relation between matter and form. That is, classical Thomism thinks of form as the effect of top-down efficient causality from an extrinsic energy-source, namely God the Creator. Yet contemporary scientific method works from the bottom-up on the assumption that mind arises out of matter in and through the bottom-up interaction of its parts or members on one another and on the environment. Egan makes only a passing reference to any of these other sources. beyond Rahner’s concept of Geist-in-Welt which itself was borrowed from Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. Finally, Egan discusses at length the notion of change and evolution without adverting to the theology of change and evolution endorsed by largely Protestant authors who use the philosophical cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead for their own theology: e.g., Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, Philip Clayton et al. So what Egan seems to have done in this book (and presumably elsewhere) is to offer a highly readable summary and analysis of Rahner’s unique version of mystical theology, admittedly a monumental task for which we should all be grateful.