Original Peace: Restoring God's Creation. - book reviews

Pointing out that the mission of Jesus has usually been formulated in anthropocentric terms, the authors of this original and thoughtful book insist that it is impossible today to do justice to Jesus' mission without taking the ecological context into account. In Original Peace: Restoring God's Creation (Paulist Press, 1997), however, David Burrell and Ellen Malits stress the importance of "creation theology" without minimizing the "re-creating activity of redemption, since it is certainly the same God who creates and redeems."

To deal with this subject in a book of 103 pages requires a certain daring, since it entails a subtle revisioning of Christian teaching on redemption, original sin, and the human relationship to all creation. What makes it possible is, first, the authors' recognition that they are trying to clarify questions, pose a new model of inquiry, and call for a more sustained exploration of the dialectical tension between what they see as the twin foci of revelation. Second and more important is the unique interreligious slant they choose in order to open up and deepen their investigation of traditional theology. Burrell is both the Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Notre Dame and an Islamic scholar. The simplicity of the Qu'ranic explanation is introduced to clarify muddled Christian testimony on several points, from the non-dualism of God to the nature of original sin. This approach leads to one of the authors' central theses: that the three great Abrahamic faiths agree on seeing creation as a gift for which humans are to be grateful and responsible. The human task in living is to return the gift.

The authors explain how the presentation of the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, and the Spirit as Sanctifier, has long encouraged the denial of human responsibility for creation within Christian tradition, with the destructive results now visible. Revisiting Genesis 3, they target the deception both Adam and Eve practiced there, denying responsibility for their acts to God and themselves, as the archetypal human sin. The continuing human tendency to such deception has destroyed the order of Creation and consistently led to violence in the defense of ersatz values. Burrell and Malits believe we need to put aside preconceived notions of original sin in order to see the context of corruption in which, despite good intentions, we continue to live.

Once again the Qur'an helps. In the Muslim story, God forgives Adam on the spot but describes the human condition as one of ignorance and error, needing divine revelation in order to reveal the need for repentance. This interpretation of sin should help Christians understand that the suffering of Jesus was necessary - not in the distorted understanding that the God of Creation demanded satisfaction, but in order that humans could come to acknowledge their need for forgiveness. Original Peace understands the Resurrection as Jesus returning to forgive his friends for collusion in his death; he then entrusted the restoration and transformation of creation to sinners who knew they had been forgiven.

In helping readers see the way to restore Creation to its original peace, Burrell and Malits offer fresh formulations on the need for human death and suffering, the implications of the sacraments for all - not merely human - creation, and the oneness of God. Arguments are taken from Aquinas, who is rescued from his later baroque Catholic interpreters, and spiritual insight is gained from a reading of St. John of the Cross which relates the mystic's disciplinary advice to the liberation of desire needed if we are to appreciate creation as God's gift. Many of their redefinitions are genuinely insightful, but the attempt to rescue "complementarity" between men and women seems both unsuccessful and unnecessary in the light of the functional mutuality and mutual transformation they see as the purpose and result of real marriages.

This subtle, sophisticated essay is a fine demonstration of how encountering other religious traditions can help us understand our own. Burrell and Malits point to a "creation theology" which is neither trendy nor opposed to the three religions of the Book, but rather in keeping with the deepest meaning of all of them.

SALLY CUNNEEN

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