Review of Theology as an Ecclesial Discipline: Ressourcement and Dialogue, J. AugustineDi Noia OP, JamesLe Grys (ed.), Washington DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2024 (ISBN 9780813237916) pp. ix + 343 pp., PB $29.95

This work is a collection of essays written by Augustine Di Noia OP over the past couple of decades on subjects related to theology as an ecclesial discipline. It will be valuable for students as an introduction to the discipline of theology as it is understood in the Catholic tradition. It also contains quite a bit of Catholic intellectual history of the past half century. Di Noia speaks with extensive background knowledge gleaned from his decades of service in the Roman Curia, including at the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. The essays are collated into three parts. There are seven essays in Part I titled ‘The Nature and Practice of Theology in its Ecclesial Context’, seven essays in Part II titled ‘Responding to Modernity and Postmodernity by Ressourcement’ and four essays in Part III titled ‘The Way of the Church in Dialogue with Others’. Part I offers valuable material on the architecture of Catholic theology. For example, there are explanations about how the various sub-disciplines of dogmatic theology, moral theology, spiritual theology, fundamental theology and pastoral theology are connected to each other. The second essay in Part I introduces the concept of a ‘culture of grace’ to describe the Church and juxtaposes this richly theological concept with sociological accounts that treat the Church as just another multinational corporation. Di Noia underscores the fact that the fundamental truth about Catholic ecclesiology is that ‘each person is invited to enjoy the communion of Persons of the blessed Trinity and, in this way, a transformed communion with all other persons’ (p. 31). This spiritual reality is not something that is easily amenable to sociological analysis. He explains that one of the strongest critiques of a sociological approach to ecclesiology has been offered by John Milbank, the leader of the British Radical Orthodoxy circle of theologians. The essays in Part II cover the territories of Trinitarian theology and Christian Humanism and thus theological anthropology. These were the dominant themes in the development of magisterial teaching during the pontificate of John Paul II and they were in part the Church's response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The essays ‘Imago Dei-Imago Christi: The Theological Foundations of Christian Humanism’ and ‘The New Christian Humanism: the Legacy of Pope Saint John Paul II’ provide user-friendly gateways to the theological vision, especially the anthropology, of the Polish pope. The essay on ‘The Fundamental Unity of the Embodied Person’ adds to this anthropology an introduction to the moral theology of the pontificate of John Paul II, especially to the encyclical Veritatis splendor (1993). The primary purpose of this encyclical was to set Catholic moral theology on firm Christological and scriptural foundations. Undergirding both the anthropology and the moral theology was a strong Trinitarian framework. In the essay ‘Knowing and Naming the Triune God: the Grammar of Trinitarian Confession’, Di Noia addressed the late 20th century fashion of replacing the words Father, Son and Holy Spirit with Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Di Noia is not sympathetic with this move and notes that while Father, Son and Holy Spirit are personal names, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier are functional concepts. He also observes that in personal relationship we refer to people by their names not by their functions and we are very careful to call them the versions of the names that they prefer. He thus concludes that ‘since the only knowledge we possess of the triune God comes from Scripture, it follows that the names of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are non-optional in a strong sense. This defence of traditional trinitarian language appeals not simply to the authority of Scripture but also to the scripturally and narrationally warranted self-description of the triune God’ (p. 171). Di Noia's overall assessment is that ‘Feminist objectives can be served neither by altering the language that names this mystery [of the Trinity] nor by preferring language that fails to do justice to its reality’ (p. 192). In Part III, Trinitarian theology continues to play a central role in Di Noia's reflections. He insists that creation must be understood as ‘a personal history of the engagement of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with creaturely persons’ (p. 320). Consequently, he argues that ‘scientific understandings of the origins of the universe and of human life must be viewed in the light of Nicene faith’ and that this faith is a ‘robustly trinitarian faith’ (p. 320). Part III also carries essays on how the Catholic Church sees itself in relation to other faith traditions and, in this context, Di Noia covers the encyclical Redemptoris Missio (1990) and the CDF Declaration, Dominus Iesus (2000). Overall this is a very valuable collection for those with an interest in contemporary Catholic theology.