Between Vision and Obedience: Theological Reflections on Rationality and Agency with Special Reference to Paul Ricoeur and G. W. F. Hegel.

Ely, Peter B.

Between Vision and Obedience: Theological Reflections on Rationality and Agency with Special Reference to Paul Ricoeur and G. W. F. Hegel. By George Ille. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Company, 2013. Pp. xvi + 277. $50.

While Ille's study is basically simple in outline, it is an intricately developed treatment of knowledge and epistemology. I. grounds his project in a careful examination of Ricoeur's "hermeneutical journey" and then turns to Hegel's "speculative journey" in order to anchor his concerns "historically and thematically" (x). Finally, I. engages an impressive number of authors from both the continental and analytic traditions and makes use of insights from both Eastern and Western thought in order to "bring hermeneutical philosophy/theology in direct confrontation with Trinitarian theology" (x).

The author skillfully balances appreciation and critique of Ricoeur's work. He believes Ricoeur's weakness lies in his decision to keep separate the philosophical and theological roots of his thinking. From a theological perspective, this separation causes Ricoeur's thought to "fall short on more than one count of responding to the metaphysical malaise it so rightly describes" (117). From Ricoeur, I. moves in part II to "The Absolute Self--Hegel's Journey from Revelation to Meaning." Unlike Ricoeur, Hegel does not aim to separate the philosophical and theological sources of his thinking, and in fact accepts Christian revelation as the starting point of his philosophy with the aim of transforming truth in its religious form into the form of philosophy or absolute knowledge.

In spite of Hegel's grounding of philosophy in revelation, I. finds the Hegelian project marred by Hegel's "false ideal of knowledge": Hegel reduces the Trinity to its economic form. I. appeals to Emil Fackenheim's suggestion that Hegel needed both the immanent Trinity--the internal relations of the three persons--and the economic Trinity, or the trinitarian action of God in the world. I.'s solution in the third part of his project is to reestablish the primacy of the Trinity as a mysterious reality to which we submit as the ultimate source of our knowing and doing.

Although the essential lines are clear enough and the argument sound, the path the author follows sometimes seems obscured by the luxuriant growth of terminology. This is a work for the intrepid climber.

DOI: 10.1 177/0040563915619978

Peter B. Ely, S.J.

Seattle University