Oliver CRISP and Fred SANDERS, eds. The Christian Doctrine of Humanity, Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics series. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018, 250 pp. $34.99, pb. ISBN 978-031059-547-2. Reviewed by Steve W. LEMKE, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA 70126.

The Christian Doctrine of Humanity puts in print the papers on the subject of theological anthropology presented at the 2018 Los Angeles Theology Conference. The book’s twelve contributors are an international array of theologians from various theological traditions, highlighted by well-known scholars such as Marc Cortez, Ian McFarland, Richard Mouw, and Frances Young. Although each of the articles is well-written, it does not seem that they are responding to the same question, or the same set of questions, such that the articles could be grouped in the table of contents by their focus. Instead, each scholar approaches the broad issue of theological anthropology from a very specific perspective, each contributing an aspect or perspective of the whole. The book is documented with insightful footnotes, helpfully indexed by author, topic, and Scripture reference.

Space does not permit a synopsis of each article, so just four articles are discussed in this review. Marc Cortez of Wheaton College is well-known as an advocate of Christological anthropology, in which Jesus Christ is the model of true personhood. In this article “Nature, Grace, and the Christological Ground of Humanity,” Cortez articulates four affirmations drawn from the writings of Irenaeus: (1) Theological anthropology must be rooted in the embodied humanity of the incarnate Christ; (2) Theological anthropology must be rooted in the eternal identity of the Son; (3) Theological anthropology must recognize the ontological and epistemological priority of Christ over Adam; and (4) Theological anthropology must be thoroughly Pnematological in a way that prevents the bifurcation of nature and grace.

Lucy Peppiatt, the principal of Westminster Theological Centre in the UK, contributes the article “Life in the Spirit: Christ’s and Ours.” Drawing from John Owen’s Spirit Christology, which affirmed that Jesus’ miracles were not done not out of His divinity but from reliance on the Holy Spirit, Peppiatt affirms that humans have a similar access to the Holy Spirit in their own lives. Both Maximus the Confessor and Owen affirmed two key emphases regarding those empowered by the Holy Spirit – “the self-determining nature of the human will” and “the receptivity of the human soul, softened by grace” (p. 177). Peppiatt believes that Owen’s beliefs could enrich and inform Pentecostal/charismatic theology.

The article by Matthew Emerson of Oklahoma Baptist University is entitled “Mapping Anthropological Metaphysics with a Descensus Key: How Christ’s Decent to the Dead Informs the Body-Mind Conversation.” Lamenting the paucity with which many theological anthropologies draw from the anthropological implications of Jesus’ descent to hell after His death, Emerson presents his own Biblical case for the classic view of Christ’s descent, focusing primarily on Matt. 12:40 and Rom. 10:7. Emerson’s article offers the best biblical exegesis in this volume. Emerson states that this classic view of Christ’s descent is most compatible with a substance dualism anthropology. While it would have been helpful for Emerson to address the primary passage addressing the descent, 1 Pet. 3:18-22, especially regarding Jesus preaching to those in prison, Emerson’s connection of Jesus’ intermediate state with human anthropology is an important methodological consideration.

The final article in the book, “The Upward Call,” by Ian McFarland, emphasizes the “open-endedness” of being human, such that we are characterized by having a will that is managed by an “agent.” The calling to Christian service is not embedded in human nature. For McFarland, “to be a human agent is to have a nature in which what one does is not reducible to nature, to recognize that I am accountable for myself in a way that disallows my fobbing off my actions as simply outworkings of my nature, and thus as phenomena for which I have no responsibility” (p. 225). The calling of God in our lives, then, is not the fruit of our human nature, or even the completion of our human nature, but a reorientation of our human nature.

Each of the articles in this volume make valuable contributions. Most of the contributors draw from patristic theologians as well as from contemporary theological anthropology writers. However, the “elephant in the room” is how these classical views of anthropology comfit with modern science and psychology, particularly the action theory of Donald Davidson, Alfred Mele, and Hugh McCann (none of whom are referenced in the book). Although this volume is not a systematic discussion of theological anthropology, it does address key aspects of theological anthropology. The thoughtful readings addressing theological anthropology in this work are a valuable resource.