A Review: Quest for the Living God
by Anne Marie Mongoven, OP
Sr. Anne Marie Mongoven
When I was a young Sister I found theology quite boring. Not any longer, for we live and have lived in a time of astonishing theological development. Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, author of Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, notes that “since the middle of the twentieth century, a burgeoning renaissance of insights into God has taken place.”1 Another theologian, Roger Haight, SJ, agrees, writing that “the expanded territory covered by the theologians of our time bears comparison to the transition from the monastery to the university in the High Middle Ages.”2 Both authors lead us to recognize how fortunate we are to live in a golden age of theological discovery.
In Quest for the Living God Johnson maps some new frontiers in the Christian theology of God, and what a cartographer she is! In chapter one she reviews biblical insights into who God is and describes how the biblical authors saw God relating to the world. This analysis sets up a structure for Johnson’s examination of contemporary theologies in which she asks, “Who is God?” and, “How does God relate to us and to our world?”
The second chapter, “Gracious Mystery, Ever Greater, Ever Nearer,” summarizes the theology of Karl Rahner, SJ. Rahner developed an understanding of the human person and a theological method which begins with the experience of the human person in community. Many theologians, including both Johnson and Haight, use Rahner’s insights and methodology in constructing their theologies.
Subsequent chapters in Quest for the Living God describe God and God’s relationship to humankind from the point of view of specific communal human experiences, such as the experience of the holocaust and of human liberation, including political, womanist, black, Hispanic, interreligious, and ecological liberations. The final chapter examines “the particular Christian belief in the one God as triune,” published earlier as an article. It made both my heart and head soar.
Elizabeth Johnson writes that these “new” theologies all bring us to a renewed and exciting understanding of who God is. Interestingly, the God whom theologians are rediscovering in innumerable contexts and cultures is not a new God. It is the God of the Bible and the Creed, a living, loving, compassionate God, active in our lives, who has a dynamic relationship with all of creation.
The phrase “the living God” runs through the Bible and elicits a sense of an active and loving divine Mystery who calls forth our active and loving embrace of one another and of all creation. Contemporary theologies, like biblical theologies, describe God as a living, dynamic God who calls us to promote the reign of God on earth. These post-conciliar theologies call for a faith which emerges from head and heart and leads to action.
Today, as so many people are publicly denying the very existence of God, Christian theologians are examining human experiences in a variety of cultures. Johnson describes their insights as both gift and challenge to the worldwide church. They are also gift and challenge to the world itself.
Quest for the Living God is not theology-lite, but it is worthy of the concentrated effort it requires. I found it an enlightening and faith-strengthening read. It is certainly not dry or boring. It gives evidence of Elizabeth Johnson’s unique gifts as a theologian and as a faith-filled woman who witnesses to the amazing and astonishing impact of Christian theology in our time.