The Command of Grace: A New Theological Apologetics

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The Command of Grace sets forth a bold new critical initiative in theological apologetics, one that advances a fundamental reassessment of theological self-understanding and method today, especially in its attentiveness to the present reality of God in revelation. Many recent, predominating trends have tended to treat theological truth as something cognitively self-guaranteeing (tauto-theological') within doctrinal or other theoretical domains. Against this, and drawing on the philosophical heritage and Jewish thought, the book seeks to revive other basic modes of human attentiveness for fundamental theological questioning.
These are: causal' attentiveness encountered through the faculties of bodily sensibility; and appetitive' or motive' attentiveness encountered in the faculty of desire. Especially crucial here is the rejuvenation of the primacy of motive reasoning' (reasoning with regard to motivations and desires) for theology's apologetical self-understanding, in addition to its normal engagement with cognitive reasoning' (reasoning with regard to percepts and concepts). If God in his transcendent Godness' meets us in revelation not at the margins of the speculative intellect in the form of a denotatum for cognitive apprehension, but rather at the very centre of embodied life in the form of a summons to motivated action, then theology must seek to be attentive to God through all the endowed faculties of embodied-rational life: cognitive, sensible, and motive-appetitive.

Reviews

Combining rigorous rationality with an engaging enthusiasm, this book crafts a theological apologetics that is at once original and instructive of how we can freshly avail ourselves of key elements of tradition. With clear, gracious, and compelling writing, it enlists an impressive array of theological and philosophical resources along with homely examples to make its case. An example of constructive theology at its best. -- Elizabeth Ann Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Fordham University, New York, USA
Paul Janz's The Command of Grace: A New Theological Apologetics is a sophisticated, lucid, and original argument for reorienting Christian theology toward God's living reality. Janz's focus on the Hebraic sources of Christian theology and engagement with Jewish thought are particularly welcome and compelling. Anyone interested in the possibilities of Christian theology today as well as anyone concerned with the limits of theology and philosophy more generally will learn a tremendous amount from this work. In short, this book is an outstanding feat that will provoke discussion on the limits and powerful potential of theology for many years to come. -- Leora Batnitzky, Professor of Religion, Princeton University, USA
A highly original and intellectually stimulating exploration of the Christian claim to tell the truth about God from a rising star in the British theological firmament. -- Alister E. McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology, Oxford University
A tour de force. -- Denys Turner, Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, Yale Divinity School
This book an innovative and...very productive intervention in contemporary theology. * Theology, March/April 2010 *
[T]his work of Janz has to do with the liturgy of the word, for it is an invitation to deepen one's understanding of what we are doing when we celebrate the word of God. -- Maury Schepers O.P., * Worship, Vol. 84, July 2010 *

Author Bio

Paul D. Janz is Senior Lecturer in Philosophical Theology at King's College London, UK.