Grant KAPLAN. Faith and Reason Through Christian History. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022. pp. 360. $29.95 pb. ISBN 9-780813-235837. Reviewed by Timothy P. MULDOON, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.

Few books that I have read in recent memory have suggested immediate changes to my course syllabi as much as this volume has. I am grateful for Grant Kaplan’s thoughtful and readable survey of the ways that Christian pastors and theologians have engaged philosophy from the origins of Christianity to the contemporary period.

The book, which Kaplan mentions in his acknowledgements originated in an undergraduate course on Faith and Reason, is organized into three periods, each with three sections. Part I, addressing premodern Christianity, explores Christian origins. A section on the New Testament focuses, for example, on texts in John, Paul, and 1 Peter that articulate themes of faith, wisdom, and a “reason (logos) for the hope that is in you.” He goes on to explore key Patristic texts, such as Tertullian’s plaint about the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, and Justin Martyr’s thesis about the Logos in creation and in the Incarnation. Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, and Augustine all figure into his analysis of this formative period of Christian history.

Chapter 2, focusing on the early Medieval period, includes Boethius, John Scottus Eriugena, Anselm, Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor, and Peter Lombard. For me, teaching a course on key philosophers and theologians from antiquity to modernity, this chapter was particularly helpful for its survey of figures less well known among undergraduate students, but whose thought helped set the stage for the likes of Thomas Aquinas, whose work is the focal point of Chapter 3. Even that chapter, though, is beneficial for its look at the works of Aquinas outside the Summa Theologiae, and for his dialogues with Aristotle, Peter Lombard, and Averroes. Kaplan’s treatment of Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, too, offer an accessible overview of complementary thinkers of the period.

Part II includes chapters on the Reformation (Chapter 4), Early modernity (Chapter 5), and the critical nineteenth century (Chapter 6). In all these chapters, I appreciated Kaplan’s efforts to show the “connective tissue” of movements and thinkers. An example is his treatment of Petrarch as a catalyst for the emergence of Humanism, or Erasmus as one who anticipates the Reformation. His treatment of the Protestant Reformation alone is highly accessible for undergraduate students, as is his complementary treatments about reform movements within the Catholic Church. I appreciated the ways that he drew connections between these reform movements and later figures like Kant who drew divisions between faith and reason.

Part III focuses on the twentieth century and beyond, with chapters on Neo-Thomism, Blondel, and Barth (Chapter 7), the mid-twentieth century figures such as Bultmann, Metz, Pannenberg, and the Catholic theologians who espoused transcendental Thomism, ressourcement, nouvelle theologie, and others (Chapter 8). For those seeking accessible introductions to difficult 20th century figures such as Karl Rahner or Bernard Lonergan, this section is enthusiastically recommended. Chapter 9 takes on the difficult task of telling the story of more recent movements and influences: postmodernism; liberationism; the traditionalism of Alasdair MacIntyre; Radical Orthodoxy; the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion; and the magisterial treatments of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The perceptive reader will no doubt recognize the editorial choices that Kaplan makes, and which he to some extent recognizes, namely that his choice of canon after the Patristic period is entirely Western, and heavily Roman Catholic. Acknowledging these limitations, though, one can acknowledge that his choices allow for attention to a sustained conversation across the centuries about foundational questions of the relationship between revealed faith and the human exercise of reason in the Christian life. My approach will be to lean on this kind of a sustained narrative when teaching undergraduate students, while for graduate students the treatment might also serve as a high-level map indicating places where deeper dives might be warranted by recourse to original source materials, which Kaplan’s excellent (and very readable) footnotes and bibliography provide.