In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 551 Human Embryo Research: Yes or No?. By CIBA FOUNDATION. London: Tavistock: 1987. Pp. xv + 232. $39.95 (cloth). In 1984 a governmental commission formed under the directorship of Dame Mary Warnock studied proposed legislation for experimentation on human embryos for research purposes. It concluded that such experimentation should not be permitted ·after the fourteenth day of gestation. This book records a symposium conducted under the sponsorship (...) of the CIBA foundation, an international scientific and educational organization which promotes research into biomedical and chemical research. The purpose of the symposium was to determine whether the guidelines set forth by the Warnock commission were legitimate and whether new criteria for allowing embryo r.esearch should be established. The book consists of eleven papers presented at a symposium on the ethics of embryo research along with panel discussions about the papers. Technically, embryo research only concerns experimentation with human products of conception after the fourteenth gestational day. The first seven papers describe contemporary embryo research dealing with the diagnosis and mechanisms of infertility, its ti;eatment by in vitro fertilization, the diagnosis of genetic disease, the causes and avoidance of congenital malformations, and the improvement of contraception. The final four papers deal with the issues of the status of the human embryo in d:ffierent world religions, the moral arguments against human embryo research, and public attitudes on human embryo research. The scientific papers are quite detailed, and they provided a good deal of information about the contemporary state of embryo research. But the papers on the ethics of human embryo research are rather partisan, and they do not adequately approach the difficult human and ethical issues involved in embryo research. One gains the impression from this book that the conference was heavily weighted in favor of those who sought virtually unqualified and unrestricted moral and legal permission for human.embryo research. The scientific papers seemed to go out of their way to argue that there was an unbreakable continuum in the process of transmitting life such that it could not be determined when human life began. For example, Professor Teresa Iglesias's suggestion that a new and distinct human life began when the process of fertilization began, and when the newly formed genetic material came to govern the development of the organism, rceeived little acknowledgment. No papers were presented rejecting nontherapeutic research on human embryos, and.the papers presented by J. W. Bowker and by Bernard Williams argued in behalf of the moral licitness of unspecified forms of embryo research. Bowker claimed that there was no consensus to be found 55~ BOOK REVIEWS among the various world religions on the moral status of the human embryo. He surveyed various religions such as Buddhism and concluded that the arguments in favor of the humanity or personhood of the embryo were not strong or persuasive. His point should not be accepted without caution, however, for he did not consider the claims made by western traditions such as Catholicism in behalf of the personhood of the embryo. 'F:or the claims of an oriental religion such as Buddhism are not as persuasive with Western, rationalist, liberal minds as they are with orientals. Bowker argues that religious claims about the personhood of the unborn ';are weak since we do not claim that larvae are full grown fish or that acorns are oak trees. This is true, but on the other hand, we do not say that horse embryos are vegteables or pigs. Implied in Bowker's claim that the embryo is not a human being or a human person is the assumption that at some point in the gestation process the embryo undergoes a "species-transfer" or "class-transfer" from the biological category of non-human or non-personal to human and personal. This is difficult to accept as there is no precedent in other mammals for such a species or class transfer. Equine, bovine, and canine embryos are not considered to be anything than other than of the species of horse, pig, or dog, and there is no reason to believe that they engage in some sort of species transfer. And he does not explain why the human case alone exhibits this... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:156 BOOK REVIEWS of theological method in Aquinas (p. 193; see also pp. 57 and 173). But this is not sufficient. Farthing should have acknowledged that Biel's recurrent critique of the supposed ' positive ' use of reason in Aquinas is beside the point and that, by thinking that Thomas is trying to ' demonstrate ' the faith, Biel has carelessly dismissed much that is interesting and valuable in (...) Aquinas. By bringing Biel's error to the fore, Farthing would have made clear to the reader that in this crucial respect, the dialogue between these two thinkers has completely broken down. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana JOSEPH WAWRYKOW The Reshaping of Catholicism: Current Challenges in the Theology of Church. By AVERY DULLES. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. Pp. 276. $19.95 (doth). Each of Dulles's twelve articles commends itself no less as a chapter in this collection than when it first appeared separately between 1984 and the end of 1987. In ensemble, " they give," Dulles remarks in his Preface, " a fair sampling of the issues the Catholic Church has had to face in the two decades since the Council." Whatever the leading Catholic ecclesiologist in America has to say about specific problems in Church renewal deserves careful attention. A positive general evaluation of the book is all hut a foregone conclusion. Still, a review can perform that opening survey of contents that will lend precision to a reader's anticipation of what the author has singled out as the current challenges. Four chapters take up the task of interpreting the texts of Vatican II, not as a species of source-criticism but in light of post-conciliar difficulties. Chapters 2 ("The Basic Teaching of Vatican II "), 5 ("Vatican II and the Recovery of Tradition"), and 8 ("Vatican II and the Purpose of the Church") emerge from a situation of divided opinion. They also apply the Council's teaching as a solution. Chapter 7 ("The Church and Communications") likewise engages conciliar texts, along a more speculative line. Chapter 1 ("American Impressions of the Council") joins with 2 in opening the book at a somewhat more popular level. The other chapters employ conciliar teaching to formulate theological answers to some important questions. These are questions which trouble not only the hierarchy and the theologians but also ordinary BOOK REVIEWS 157 members of the Church, as they come to terms with the Church's renewed self-understanding. Chapter 3 (" The Emerging World Church and the Pluralism of Cultures") picks up where Karl Rahner's wellknown address at the Weston School of Theology in 1979 left off. Dulles accepts Rahner's argument that Vatican II achieved the first official self-actualization of Catholicism as a world church. Taking the resulting problem of inculturation as the current phase in the relation between Christianity and culture, Dulles specifies the relation between two cultures as "cultural reciprocity." He leaves behind the simple, familiar contrast between classicism and a non-normative concept of culture. His ecumenical research enters into Chapter 4 ("The Meaning of Catholicism: Adventures of an Idea "), which places Vatican II in the context of two centuries of Protestant-Catholic discussion on the essence or basic idea of Catholicism. Intra-Catholic pluralism turning into opposition underlies most of the hook, hut Chapters 5 and 6 ("Authority and Conscience: Two Needed Voices") treat two such polarizations thematically. In 5 Dulles finds Dei Verbum open to an understanding of tradition as the handing on from generation to generation of the " tacit knowledge " whose content is the lived awareness of the God of Jesus Christ. Chapter 6 does not admit a second, alternative magisterium, hut it does situate hier· archical teaching amid the several sources of authority accepted by Catholicism-Scripture, tradition, the whole People of God, and theologians along with the hierarchy. And, in the formation of personal judgments and decisions, conscience has its own authority. A theology of communication follows from each of five models of the Church. Chapter 7 shows how this, in turn, implies a distinct approach to evangelization, use of mass media, and episcopal and papal teaching. Chapters 8 and 9 {"The Church, Society, and Politics") discuss the tensions inherent in the Church's mission... (shrink)

The idea of the genetic unity of all mankind is an integral part of Christian teaching. The purpose of this brief survey is to illustrate its role within the Greek patristic tradition, and then to point to a few examples from modern science which lend support to this ancient idea.

In chapter 3 of Genesis, the serpent speaks to Eve and foretells: if Adam and Eve taste the fruit, their eyes will open and they will be like gods, “knowing good and evil” (iii, 5). As soon as the...

Introduction: What is evil and how can we understand it? -- The theology of evil -- Theodicies -- The privation theodicy -- The free will theodicy -- The Iraenean theodicy -- The totality theodicy -- History as secular theodicy -- Job's insight-the theodicy of the hereafter -- Anthropology of evil -- Are people good or evil? -- The typologies of evil -- Demonic evil -- Evil for evil's sake -- Evil's aesthetic seduction -- Sadism -- Schadenfreude -- Subjective and objective (...) evil -- Kant and instrumental evil -- The impossibility of a "devilish" will -- The paradox of evil -- Moral rebirth -- The evil is the other-idealistic evil -- "Us" vs. "them" -- Violent individuals -- Arendt and stupid evil -- The evil and the stupid -- Radical and banal evil -- Eichmann, Hoss, and Stangl -- Normal people and extreme evil -- Thinking as opposition -- Evil people -- The problem of evil -- Theory and praxis -- Ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility -- Politics and violence -- Evil as a concrete problem. (shrink)

Some recent Christian thinkers have made attempts to harmonize Christianity and science by trying to show a positive correlation between current cosmologyand a literal reading of the account of creation in Genesis. This essay argues that this approach is mistaken since it misunderstands the practices of scienceand hermeneutics. Instead it is argued that Scripture and tradition make only very broad claims about the nature of creation which must be respected when thinking about the universe. Those broad claims are decribed here.

As variants of the Christian tradition have emerged through the centuries they have given rise to distinct versions of Christian metaphysics with divergent cosmological commitments. In the early Church, the Cappodocian fathers constructed a theological framework which focuses on the “personal” nature of reality. The personal nature of reality is central not only to understanding key theological doctrines, such as the Trinity, but also the cosmos itself. This essay explores the Cappodocian conception of the cosmos as personal both in its (...) origin and as a medium for an interpersonal relationship between God and creatures. (shrink)