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Book Review: The Theological Notion of the Human Person: A Conversation between the Theology of Karl Rahner and the Philosophy of John Macmurray. By Gregory Brett

that conceals and fortifies the social reality” (11). It is this “purely abstract unity” that D. tries to isolate “for the sake of moving decisively, clearly, and confidently beyond it” (10). He turns to Gillian Rose’s reading of Hegel to diagnose “the cause of the abstractness of contemporary philosophy and social theory (and theology, by extension) as the unacknowledged influence of bourgeois property right, which surreptitiously determines our experience of the world” (2–3). Chapters 2 and 3 depict Rose’s reading of Hegel through an overarching lens, which D. uses to analyze the union of the doctrines of grace and creation in Catholic (Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner) and Protestant (Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth) theologies, arguing that the union achieved in these theologies is “illusory, because it is abstract and negative,” and this “serves only to perpetuate the separation” (91). Chapter 4 treats the historical sources (Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther) that “reinforce the fragmentation of this order and reproduce its illusions” (92). Chapter 5 argues that “in order to resist abstractness the thought of this union [of creation and grace] must include an awareness of its social determination” (5). D.’s argument is dependent upon Rose’s interpretation of Hegel, yet D. provides a far too cursory account of Rose’s thought, thereby making D.’s overall argument difficult to understand and assess. In addition, D.’s prose tends to obfuscate rather than illuminate. This is not a text I would recommend for reliable readings of major figures in the history of Western theology on the question of the relationship of creation and grace (for example, D. misreads Rahner and seems unaware of Aquinas’s technical understanding of relations); rather, it is a provocative text by a creative thinker that in many places is insightful and can point to promising directions for thinking through the creation–grace relationship.