The Doctrine of Scripture. By BradEast. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. Pp. 228. $45.00 (<scp>HB</scp>) / $30.00 (<scp>PB</scp>).

If you find the first two volumes of Katherine Sonderegger's Systematic Theology as infuriating as they are brilliant, then this book, Brad East's The Doctrine of Scripture, is likely to be similarly provocative. The pairing is not accidental. Sonderegger's Systematic Theology has received some of its most trenchant criticism for an apparent lack (or lack of clarity, in any event) when it comes to a doctrine of Scripture. Whilst noting that her entire project lives or dies on its reading of Scripture, the repeated recourse to what some have found to be a rather vague notion of a ‘churchly’ reading of Scripture bewilders as much as it beguiles. If Sonderegger's project is (as yet) in want of a doctrine of Scripture, then has that project found one in Brad East's Scripture? For two obvious reasons, the answer appears to be yes. East's notion of Holy Scripture is an evocative and deeply researched account that places Scripture firmly within the Church, most particularly as that which is read within the Church's liturgy. Second, Sonderegger herself has given East's Scripture her imprimatur in a typically winsome, generous, and humble foreword. Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life… So, East argues that Scripture's natural milieu is in the Church, and as read (as opposed to preached) in the Church's liturgy. The structure of the work—until the conclusion—is beautifully drawn: six chapters, comprising (1) Source, (2) Nature, (3) Attributes, (4) Ends, (5) Interpretation, and (6) Authority. There is a skilful sense of an argument building gradually in layers until the final coup de grace. One can feel a draw towards St Thomas even in the organisation of this material. Throughout these chapters, the refrain of Scripture's belonging to and within the Church is recast and redoubled. Liturgy is Scripture's ‘native habitat’, its ‘first home’ (p. 12); Scripture has ‘no existence apart from ecclesial context’ (p. 12); Scripture ‘only makes sense in the Eucharistic assembly’—East citing Pope Benedict XVI's Verbum Domini in support (p. 22); and, perhaps most climactically, turning Barth on his head, ‘there is no Bible apart from the church—being, in proximate terms, both its terminus a quo and its terminus ad quem. The Old and the New Testaments have their genesis as well as their telos in the life of God's covenant people. It is both from and for them’ (p. 66). To make such a case, there needs to be a degree of self-awareness when it comes to the Church and the liturgy which is being assumed. An account is required for such a Church's mission and the role of Scripture within it. But East wants to keep his book short—and rightly so—‘the topic of this book is the doctrine of Scripture, not of Church’ (p. 58). You can't chart every feature in these busy waterways. But East at least does evoke for us occasionally what sort of Church and what sort of liturgy he has in mind. Scripture finds its rightful place, in his mind, ‘in each assembly, before and during and after prayer and confession and praise, kneeling and making the sign of the cross, giving glory to God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, communicating in the consecrated elements, and being sent into the world to love and serve the Lord’ (p. 22). Scripture reading's native habitat, East writes, is ‘in that set-apart time when prayers and hymns and psalms and incense and confession and creed and Communion enwrap the self amid the body of believers and enfold the whole into the grace and mercy and love of God the blessed Trinity’ (p. 120). These are telling and poetic evocations. Who is reading this book—East's, that is—and indeed, who is reading Scripture? To a Catholic readership, these conditions would go without saying. Why be so evocative and poetic? To a non-Catholic readership, the opposite case pertains: with such a wide variety of styles and forms on offer, these conditions are distinctive, even if themselves widespread. Are we saying that without e.g., incense, a truly ‘churchly’ (Sonderegger) reading of Scripture is not taking place? More problematically, Scripture has been co-opted within the church walls. What happens when—as East, to do him justice, does once admit—the Church misreads Scripture, as happens in every generation (p. 134)? The role of Scripture to speak to and even against the Church is denuded. East speaks of Scripture being both intrinsic and, yes, extrinsic, to the Church, but that extrinsic quality for East is merely ‘a kind of fence or guard for behaviour’ (p. 101). How can the ecclesial body be convicted if the reading is all part of a liturgical style designed to ‘enwrap’ and ‘enfold’ in a warm embrace? We are a long way from Cranmer's ‘for there is no health in us’, here. Overall, my sincere hope is that East uses this work as a springboard to write a full, detailed, and lengthy treatment—the sort of treatment to which he alludes, but which he has consigned himself not to provide at this time. There is a wealth of brilliant material and argument here, but sometimes footnotes merely refer rather vaguely to entire books, sometimes entire lines of books by a particular author. An ecclesial argument for Scripture is one I am instinctively keen to read and learn from, even if ultimately I might disagree with the underlying influence of a Jenson or a Webster. However, at present, The Doctrine of Scripture doesn't, in my estimation, manage to surmount the claim as successfully as the brilliant, well-crafted, and ecumenically-sourced material deserves, because the feeling is of a second level of circularity imposed upon the first most celebrated one—Scripture from and for the Church imposed upon a doctrine of Scripture from Scripture. I would like to read more of East as if from the pulpit, not just from the lectern.