The Essentials of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality Through the Biblical Story, Roger E.Olson, Zondervan, 2017 (ISBN 978‐0‐310‐52155‐6), 256 pp., pb $18.99
2020-10-01

Operating in the postliberal tradition of Protestant philosophical theology, which seeks to overcome the objective starting point of Enlightenment-era philosophy of religion, Olson uncovers the implied metaphysics of the Biblical stories, the ultimate reality which ‘lies underneath and undergirds as a foundation the truths explicitly revealed in the Bible’ (p. 14). As he explains in the opening pages, the book was written for Christians; nevertheless, all are invited to read it. The questions the book addresses are, indeed, universal in nature, as Olson acknowledges. He is concerned with the questions regarding the afterlife, the nature of human consciousness, the limits of materialist views of reality, the nature of the soul, the meaning of being human, the question concerning evil, and the idea of a ‘spiritual reality behind material reality’: all these matters are, as he claims, ‘ultimate questions’ (p. 15). Much of this is standard material that could be addressed in any philosophy of religion or theistic approach to philosophy. Yet Olson moves in another direction when he emphasizes Biblical theology as essential to the philosophy of religion. He suggests that his approach should be understood as bringing ‘all thoughts into conformity with God's revelation’ (p. 16). Olson thus establishes a clear epistemological hierarchy in which the Bible is the foundational and determining source of knowledge about ultimate reality. At the same time, Olson seeks to be clear about his rejection of Biblical fundamentalism. He draws upon Hans Frei to establish his turn to the Bible ‘without Fundamentalism’ (p. 43). Frei was neither a liberalist nor a fundamentalist, as Olson argues, for he did not call for ascent to literal meanings of the Biblical narratives. For Frei and Olson, the Bible is not a history book in the modern sense, nor is it myth, understood as ‘symbolic representation of universal human experience’ (p. 43). Rather than trying to get at universal concepts, Frei wanted to understand the meaning in the texts themselves. In this postliberal school of theology with Frei, William Placher and many others who were influenced by Wittgenstein's late work, ‘there is no neutral, universal plausibility structure, metaphysical vision, or worldview, independent of any story or perspective,’ indeed the Bible itself is this ‘plausibility structure’ for Christians (p. 44). To merge this with the Wittgensteinian jargon, you could say that the (universal) meaning (for Christians) is in the (particular) usage (of Biblical theology). Following many postliberals, Olson thus rejects the idea of autonomous reason and simultaneously distances himself from fundamentalism. He is not arguing for a simple biblicist theology of literalism. Like many other postliberals, his concern is with the underlying view of reality in the Bible, its ‘implicit philosophy’ (p. 12). In the book, ‘there is no bias intended against philosophy, nor is philosophy being elevated above revelation’ (p. 101). Philosophy is understood as discovering ‘the underlying metaphysical structure of the biblical narrative – and way of life – knowing and revering ultimate reality as personal and supernatural [...]’ (pp. 101–102). To establish his basic understanding of faith and reason, his account of biblical philosophy and his specific outlooks on the issues mentioned above, Olson draws upon Wolfhart Pannenberg, Emil Brunner, Hans Küng, Alvin Plantinga, Edmond La Beaume Cherbonnier, Claude Tresmontant, Neil MacDonald, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Many other authors are also addressed. These authors, however, and especially Cherbonnier, Tresmontant, and Brunner, are the guiding lights. It is very refreshing to read Olson's critical engagement with these authors. It is also very educational to see how he articulates the ultimate questions from a uniquely Biblical approach, while simultaneously challenging the tradition of Greek thought and German idealism. Olson's work is a very approachable introduction to the contemporary Christian theological debates about theistic and Christian philosophy of religion. One open question to Olson, which seems to be an uninvestigated tertium in his arguments regarding the relationship of faith and reason, would be: Can knowledge (regarding these ultimate matters) known from faith (and the Biblical theological tradition) be (simultaneously or subsequently) confirmed as knowledge by (autonomous, objective and universal) reason (in an independent manner – as though philosophy were actually independent of theology)? As Paul argued: ‘what can be known (the gnostos, the quod notum est, the knowable, the intelligible) about God is plain to them’ (Rom. 1:19). It seems that Paul himself paid homage to the profound significance of the autonomy of reason, and this not only with regard to its power in ethical ‘thoughts’ (Rom. 2:14–15, logismos) but also in the science of divine things. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.