Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture
by matthew levering
baker academic, 384 pages, $44.99
M
atthew Levering’s prodigious scholarly output, his editing of significant theological handbooks, and his co-editorship of the English edition of the important international journal Nova et Vetera place him in the forefront of American Catholic theology. His work reflects Vatican II’s insistence that Scripture is “the soul of theology.” At the same time, it cogently affirms the indispensable place of a speculative, indeed, a metaphysical moment in the theological task.
Levering’s latest book, Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation, resists what he calls “ecclesiastical fall narratives,” which fault the Church for befouling and poisoning the living waters of the Gospel. Against this view, he mounts a forceful and sustained counter-argument: “The Church truthfully mediates God’s revelation to us, due to the efficacious missions of the Son and the Spirit.” Levering neither denies nor minimizes the failures and scandals in the course of the Church’s history. The Church of Jesus Christ is most certainly a corpus permixtum. But its earthen vessels, thanks to the grace of the exalted Christ and the promised Holy Spirit, bear and transmit the divine treasure with which it is entrusted and for which it is commissioned.
