Book Write-Up: The Journey of Modern Theology, by Roger Olson

Roger E. Olson. The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction. IVP Academic, 2013. See here to purchase the book.

Roger E. Olson has a Ph.D. from Rice University and teaches theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University.

As the title indicates, this book is about modern theology. It goes from the challenges that modernity posed to faith, as Newton conceived of a cosmos that was like a machine, leading scientists to seek natural causes and to exclude the possibility of supernatural intervention. It goes through Kant and Hume, Hegel, realists, romanticists, existentialists, Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Troelsch, Catholic modernists and conservatives, conservative Protestants such as Hodge and Warfield, Isaak August Dorner and Horace Bushnell (Orthodox theologians), Barth, Bultmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Tillich, Process Theology, Moltmann and Pannenberg, liberation theologians such as Cone and Gutierrez, Rahner, Kung, von Balthasar, evangelical theologians such as Carl Henry and Stanley Grenz, and theologians who respond positively to secularism, such as Bonhoeffer and Harvey Cox. The final chapter is about postmodern and postliberal theologians, including Hauerwas, William Placher, and John Caputo. The book chronicles the variety of ways in which theologians sought to respond to modernity and postmodernity: through an emphasis on personal religious experience so as to insulate religion from the acids of modern and postmodern challenges, or through an emphasis on ethics or the ethical community that God is creating.

The book is a little over 700 pages. It explains the thoughts of these theologians and the others whom it profiles in a lucid manner, while also presenting other theologians’ critiques and offering critiques of its own. Olson also provides biographical background on the theologians, such that one gets to know them better as people. Occasionally, Olson offers personal anecdotes about his interactions with some of them. I remember when I was wrestling with a theological book, and a professor recommended that I read the section of William Placher’s History of Christian Theology about that theologian, since Placher summarized theologians’ thought in a concise and lucid manner. I would definitely say the same about Olson’s Journey of Modern Theology, but I would add that Olson covers more territory and goes deeper. This book’s breadth does not sacrifice its depth, as is the case with some books, for Olson really focuses on the theologians, and his narrative effectively situates them within the trends and developments of modern theology.

Here are some reactions, thoughts, and questions that I have:

A. Newton, of course, presented the cosmos as machine-like, and Occam’s razor led people to search for natural causes rather than supernatural causes. Prior to this, Olson narrates, Christians believed that God had a more hands-on approach to running the cosmos. I wonder, though, why modernism necessarily precludes the possibility of miracles. Sure, the cosmos runs a certain way, but why can’t God make interruptions in that order, every now and then?

B. Kant was a significant influence on modern theology. Kant’s view was that we can only know things as they appear, not as they truly are, so his religious focus was more on ethics rather than metaphysics. Is Kant’s view that we cannot know God as God truly is really that new, though? Would not Aquinas would say the same thing: that God is above us and condescends to our level to interact with us? We do not completely know God in God’s essence, and God is described in human terms to make God a little more comprehensible to us. Perhaps the answer to my question is that Aquinas was more optimistic about how much we can know about God than Kant was.

C. Olson’s discussion of Lessing and Troelsch was helpful. Lessing had a ditch, which said that we cannot draw universal truths from history. Olson said Lessing’s rationale for this was that there is so much that we do not know about history, and what we “know” changes. Troelsch highlighted that Christianity was influenced by its culture. I am not of the caliber of Troelsch, but I have had similar thoughts: so much of the Bible reflects its cultural surroundings and mindsets, so how can we derive anything universal from it? I gained some respect for Bultmann’s demythologization project in reading this book. I remember trying to explain Bultmann to a Christian student, and he mocked demythologization as an attempt to keep Christianity up with the times, to make it trendy. The thing is, our cosmology today is not entirely the same as the cosmology of the ancients, so Bultmann’s attempt to seek a universal or existential truth in the Bible behind the mythological layers is understandable.

D. Olson says that John Locke downplayed miracles, but I recall learning in a Christianity class that Locke saw Jesus’ miracles as attesting to the truth of Christianity. I am not saying that Olson is wrong, since he knows more than I do, but I wonder how to square what he said with what I learned in that class.

E. Olson addresses questions that readers may have. Did such-and-such a theologian believe that Jesus actually and literally rose from the dead? Did such-and-such a liberation theologian see violent revolution as a viable option?

F. In discussing liberation theology, Olson has a paragraph about poverty in Latin America, and it effectively conveyed the dire situation in which many people there find themselves.

G. Rahner is often characterized as one who believes in the natural human ability to know God, but Olson shows that the supernatural plays a significant role in enlightening people, in Rahner’s thought.

H. Some of the critiques that Olson highlights seem rather obvious. For example, Carl Henry defined rationality more in terms of inner consistency than a solid foundational basis (i.e., evidence), and the response to that was, “Well, is not Buddhism internally consistent? Why is it false while Christianity is true?” My suspicion is, though, that Henry anticipated that objection and may even have responded to it. Hauerwas focused on communities shaped by the Gospel rather than foundationalism, and an objection to that was, “What truth would check the community from straying?” Olson seemed to consider that objection to be unfair, but I think it raises a valid question. Is there anything other than the desires of the community that would be authoritative enough to keep the community in check?

It is hard for me to do justice to this book in a review, since it covers so much territory. I recommend it, as an introductory textbook for students and for people who was to learn about modern theology. This book provides a roadmap for those who want to go deeper, but, in many cases, one can also get a sense in reading this book that he or she is understanding the theologians’ contributions, as well as the rationale for them.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.