Philosophy of Religion 35: 183-185, 1994.

Book reviews

William P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1991, xii + 320 pp. US$ 36.95

William P. Alston's principal theme in Perceiving God is the 'Christian mystical practice' (CMP); he aims to show that it is reasonable to accept this practice as a reliable source of true religious beliefs. 'Mystical practice' is a term of art; it refers to a doxastic (belief-forming) practice which produces religious beliefs on the ground of religious experiences. (These experiences are not limited to, though they may include, those which would ordinarily be termed 'mystical'.) It is important that the beliefs in question are grounded directly on the experiences, as perceptual beliefs are directly grounded on perceptual experiences; they are not inferred from the experiences. If Alston is correct, then CMP provides a source for knowledge of God which is distinct from, and in some ways superior to, any and all forms of inferential arguments, including the 'argument from religious experience'.

The underlying epistemological theory is a 'doxastic practice' approach to epistemology which is heavily indebted to Reid, and to a lesser extent to Wittgenstein. A fundamental contention of this approach is that all socially established doxastic practice are 'innocent until proved guilty'; 'they all deserve to be regarded as prima facie rationally engaged in ... pending a consideration of possible reasons for disqualification' (p. 153). In support of this, Alston argues that none of our 'basic' doxastic practices (those which provide our most basic access to their subject-matters) can be shown to be reliable without 'epistemic circularity' - that is, without relying on the outputs of the practice itself. Thus, we cannot show the reliability of sense perception (SP) without relying on SP (e.g., in showing that predictions made on the basis of SP are fulfilled), we cannot show that memory is reliable without relying on memory, and so on. (A strong case for this is made in the present volume; in a forthcoming book Alston will argue the point in detail as regards SP.) So unless CMP can be disqualified in some way, it is prima facie rational to regard it as a genuine source of relgious knowledge.

Clearly the characterization of CMP is crucial for Alston's project, and he works this out with great care and attention to detail. The first chapter presents some three dozen examples of reports of religous experience, illustrating different characteristics of such experiences. Alston refers back to these examples throughout the book, providing an extensive phenomenological basis which is often lacking in discussions of religious experience. A key contention, argued in detail by Alston, is that mystical experience is perceptual (as opposed to inferential or merely subjective) in its phenomenological structure. The point is not merely that mystical experience is analogous to sense experience, though Alston clearly believes that it is. Rather, the claim is that there is a generic concept of 'perception' of which sense perception and mystical perception are

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distinct species. The detailed arguments for this can't be gone into here; clearly, the evaluation of this claim is crucial to Alston's overall project.

An important feature of doxastic practices is that they contain 'overrider systems' by which the prima facie justified beliefs generated by the practice can be rejected or modified. (Alston argues that the very idea of prima facie justification does not make sense in the absence of an overfider system.) In the case of mystical practices, the overrider systems include the doctrinal systems of the various religions; that is one important reason why there is a distinct MP for each religion rather than a single, inclusively 'ecumenical' MP. (Another reason is found in the inconsis- tencies in outputs that would result if we lumped together the mystical practices of all religions.)

Not surprisingly, Alston devotes a considerable amount of attention to features of CMP which have been claimed to disqualify it as a reliable doxastic practice. Many such claims, Alston argues, are instances either of the 'double standard' or of 'epistemic imperialism'. The double standard is invoked when CMP is discredited for features it shares with other practices which are accepted as reliable (e.g., for not having been shown on independent grounds to be reliable, when this can't be done for SP either). Epistemic imperialism, on the other hand, is a matter of applying to one doxastic practice standards that are applicable only to another (favored) practice (e.g., by disqualifying CMP because it lacks the predictive efficacy of SP). Alston argues, in good Reidian fashion, that epistemic imperialism has been the source of much mischief in the past, as when inductive inference was discredited for lacking the validity which is peculiar to deduction, and SP was downgraded for being less certain than introspection.

Clearly the most serious challenge to the rational acceptability of CMP stems from the existence of a number of rival MPs for different religions; if any one MP is reliable, its rivals will be more or less seriously defective. Alston acknowledges that this fact 'does have significant adverse conse- quences for the epistemic status of CMP and other forms of MP' (p. 275). But in a move which is already proving to be controversial, Alston claims that this adverse impact is diminished by the fact that there is no neutral, non-circular ground that would be accepted by adherents of the different MPs as a basis for settling their differences. For 'we have no idea what noncircular proof of the reliability of CMP would look like even i f it is as reliable as you please. Hence why should we take the absence of such a proof to mullify, or even sharply diminish, the justification I have for my Christian [beliefs which are grounded on CMP]?' (p. 272, emphasis in original). Nevertheless, Alston acknowledges that 'the knowledgeable and reflective Christian should be concerned about the situation ... [and] should do whatever seems feasible to search for common groun on which to adjudicate the crucial differences between the world religions, seeking a way to show in a non-circular way which of the contenders is correct. What success will attend these efforts I do not presume to predict. Perhaps it is only in God's good time that a more thorough insight into the truth behind these divergent perspectives will be revealed to us' (p. 278).

It may be worth pointing out that in Perceiving God Alston backs away from some of the stronger claims for CMP which he had made or implied

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in previous writings. At one point, he claimed that the epistemic status of CMP was equivalent to that of SP. Now he admits that this is not so; SP is clearly the more strongly established practice, though he contends that the differences between them are not such as to make it unreasonable to rely on CMP. And he has at least created the impression that CMP could 'go it alone' with regard to the justification of basic Christian beliefs, but now in a final chapter he discusses 'The Place of Experience in the Grounds of Religious Belief', leaving an important place among those grounds for revelation, tradition, and even natural theology. And we have seen that the hopes for assistance from other sources of knowledge in adjudicating the differences between religions; indeed, he says that 'the attempt to argue from neutral starting points for the truth of Christian beliefs deserves much more serious consideration than is commonly accorded it today in philosophical and (liberal) theological circles' (p. 270). I believe that this retreat by Alston in his claims for CMP is really an advance: his cause is not helped by overly strong claims which suggest (wrongly) that his case for CMP could easily be refuted.

In my opinion, Perceiving God will set the standard for the discussion of its topic for at least the next several years. It advances well beyond previous work on the subject, including Alston's own previously published writings. And it offers a wealth of careful analyses, compelling arguments, and forceful claims which will take epistemologists of religion a considerable time to assimilate. We are all in Alston's debt for this fine work.

William Hasker Huntington College

Ronald M. Green, Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992, xviii + 302 pages. Cloth US$ 49.50; paper US$16.95

'I have such an indescribably scrupulous anxiety about using someone else's expressions without acknowledgement.' Such authorial scrupulosity, affh'med by Kierkegaard in 1854, did not, Ronald Green argues, seem to extend to Kierkegaard's reliance on Kant; intrigued, he explores, with a wonderful combination of creativity and conscientious textual study, Kierkegaard's 'hidden debt' to Kant, focusing both on the content of the debt and on the style of and possible motives for its hidden- ness. Many of us have long awaited a full-length study of the major question this book addresses: namely, the extent and character of Kierkegaard's engagement with Kant. Its special value lies both in the way it draws on detailed study of Kierkegaard's familiarity with and textual reliance on Kant's works, including some of the lesser known essays, and in the way it addresses the relation between the two thinkers not merely with respect to ethics, as has most commonly been done, but also with respect to epistemology and philosophy of religion.

Green undertakes to support the claim that 'Kierkegaard is not only one of Kant's best Nineteenth Century readers but also the genuine heir to the legacy of Kant's developed religious and ethical thought' (p. xvi). Being

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'heir' to Kant's legacy involves, however, much more than the shared interests, 'dialogue', and taking issue with Kant which could be attributed to many thinkers - Green claims specifically that there is a 'remarkable record of unacknowledged borrowing by Kierkegaard from Kant', a 'massive pattern of unacknowledged borrowing' (pp. 31, 211). The preface suggests both that this 'hidden debt' consists not only of 'important elements' but also 'many small ideas, terms, and illustrations that are familiar to Kierkegaard's readers', and that, although not guilty of plagiarism, Kiekegaard 'deliberately went out of his way to erase the lines connecting him to Kant'. The f'mal chapter contains suggestive, even exciting, speculation about the motives for the 'active' and 'deliberate effort to camouflage the degree of his involvement with Kant's philosophy' (p. 214), but the heart of the book consists in the attempt to document a substantive reliance on Kant.

Chapter One traces Kierkegaard's engagement with Kant's texts, including the evidence of the university exams he prepared for and the record of his reading of Kant's works (noting passages copied into lecture and reading notes and quotations in published works); this proves crucial in making plausible some initially implausible claims later in the book (e.g., the methodological parallel concerning irony and indirect com- munication, p. 110 ff).

Chapter Two provides an overview of Kant's philosophy which, attending to the role of happiness, human interests, and duties to self in Kant's ethical theory, attempts to correct those misreadings and carica- tures which hinder an accurate assessment of Kant's impact on Kierkegaard. For those already familiar with Kant, the most valuable part of the chapter is probably the section of Philosophy of Religion, for Green examines works to which many Kant scholars give only passing attention - namely, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone and the essay, 'The Conflict of the Philosophy Faculty with the Theology Faculty'. He focuses attention on the thorny question of the role of 'hope', 'grace', and God's 'assistance', and although in the compass of this chapter he cannot accommodate all the complexity of the details of the qeustion, he adds to the recent discussion (by G.E. Michalson and others) of the 'answer' Kant provides in the Religion by comparing the qualifications made in these two works not only with Kant's conclusion in the Critique of Practical Reason but with each other. Discussion of the question whether Kant's agnosticism concerning the 'fact' of grace (i.e., his rejection of the necessity of a historical revelation of a definite promise of graceful assistance) leaves us with inadequate reason for rational moral response in the face of our admitted sinfulness prepares the way for the crucial fourth chapter in which this - said to be the main divergence between Kant and Kierkegaard - is delineated.

Chapters Three and Four contrast 'Points of Contact' with 'Deep Engagements' - the former explores 'direct appropriation' of Kant's ideas, terms, and illustrations in ways which are said, however, not to be 'central to Kierkegaard's authorship'; the latter explores Kierkegaard's debt to Kant with respect to 'ideas essential to Kierkegaard's point of view, ideas that distinguish his contribution to modern philosophy and theology, and that are usually associated with his name'. The author rightly notes that no

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sharp line can be drawn between these issues, and the point is to show that both Kierkegaard's ethics and his Christian theology are 'saturated' or 'permeated with Kantian assumptions' (pp. 88, 176), and that even his epistemology is closer to Kant than to the Idealists: 'By stressing the priority of ethical actuality for religious faith, and by avoiding the "temptation" to indulge in any kind of speculative approach to the religious problem, Kierkegaard actually effects a movement "back to Kant" on the crucial matter of how the religious is to be approached' (p. 77).

Over and over again one finds convincing textual parallels drawn (e.g., on ethical rigorism) and refreshingly creative suggestions, like that about the 'philosophical pedigree' of the concept of 'leap'. More importantly, one is treated to in-depth explorations of substantive parallels concerning sin and redemption, grace and history, which exemplify the author's conclusion that, even when they seem most to diverge, often the relation between the two thinkers is one of 'focused disagreement within a basic context of agreement' (p. 136); the significance of their common 'diagnosis' is highlighted and becomes the context for the focused disagreement concerning the 'solution' to it. From beginning to end, the argument is that however Kierkegaard may have disagreed with Kant about grace or the historical, 'he did not merely abandon Kant's philosophy but used its entire structure of epistemological, ethical, and religious categories to complete in Christian terms the project Kant had begun' (p. 74); in particular, 'freedom, the rigor of the moral law, human beings' inevitable failures before its ideality and their corresponding need for divine assistance in fulfillment of the human moral project - these were Kant's great insights that Kierkegaard took over and made the foundation of his vigorous modern assertion of Christian orthodoxy' (p. 181).

There is a wealth of valuable material here - both in terms of textual detail and creative suggestions, and the whole is informed by eminently sensible discussion of just the questions we find ourselves asking as we go along. The book, however, must be seen as presenting a convergent case: individual claims of influence are not always convincing, but against the background of the documentation of Kierkegaard's familiarity with Kant's texts, the case as a whole for a creative appropriation of key insights of Kant's diagnosis of the human situation is well-developed and strong.

I must confess that variations on the theme of indebtedness are formu- lated in an astounding number of different ways, and at times the reader is frustrated in the desire to pin down the precise kind of influence being claimed. Showing consistency (p. 105), reinforcement or confirmation (p. 109), or that the way was paved by someone (pp. 124, 147) does not exactly support a claim of 'borrowing', nor is it particularly helpful to say that one can be 'instructed' by X when one is nevertheless not thinking only of X (p. 100). But, no doubt, the author's point is that the relationship just is a very complex one, and different elements have different relations - as J.H. Newman says, if it could be put in a 'nut shell' it would not be worth saying.

I have one reservation to register; it concerns the term 'practical reason', but is, I think, more than a terminological quibble. Early on Green

1 88 Philosophy of Religion 35: 188-190, 1994.

suggests that 'some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas, especially his understanding of the relation between practical and theoretical reason' are also found in Kant (p. 21); at least three more times he reiterates that claim: 'Kierkegaard closely follows Kant on this matter. He is keenly aware of the distinction between theoretical and practical reason ... ' (p. 131); 'Like Kant, he believed that we must approach religion through the sphere of practical, not theoretical reason' (p. 223; also p. 179). Appreciating the primacy of the practical is not, however, necessarily the same as appreciating the distinction between theoretical and practical reason - indeed, I think Kierkegaard's turn toward the practical is a turn away from reason precisely because he did not make that Kantian distinc- tion, precisely because he conflated reason with theoretical reason and did not appreciate the possibility of reason's being practical. (Incidentally, the journal text Green uses to support his claim on p. 131 speaks only of the division between 'the theoretical and the practical in man' and so does not support an awareness of the distinction between theoretical and practical reason). This does not deny a reliance by Kierkegaard on Kant's apprecia- tion of the primacy of the practical, but it does mark a possibly significant difference between them on the potential of the rational.

It does, in the end, seem intuitively right that Kierkegaard would be close to and instructed by Kant in important ways: a reaction against Hegel who himself reacted against Kant would likely embody Kantian insights (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). But all of this has, until now, remained implicit; what makes this work most valuable is the always exciting way in which Green manages to undermine some very common readings of the relation between Kant and Kierkegaard, and, on the other hand, to extend, deepen, and nuance the kinds of contrasts and com- parisons others have hinted at in passing. It is a very rewarding book, and I recommend it highly.

M. Jamie Ferreira University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Jerome A. Stone, The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence: A Naturalist Philosophy of Religion. With a Foreword by Langdon Gilkey. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992, xiii + 262 pp. with index. Hb US$ 49.50; Pb US$16.95

'You can't always get what you want' (Mick Jagger) even if what you want is transcendent ontological ultimacy.

Langdon Gilkey has been among the important voices arguing that modem secularism fails to acknowledge a deep and abiding human hunger for ontological ultimacy. Stone believes that Gilkey is right. We do have such a yearning for ultimacy which our religious traditions express and respond to, but which secularism tends to ignore. Furthermore, through their symbols of transcendence, the Jewish and Christian traditions have been important resources of criticism and renewal in our culture. They both judge our sins and offer us transforming grace. Theologians from Barth to Gilkey have challenged secular modes of thought for closing people off from these dual religious resources by failing to address the

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dimension of ultimacy in human experience. But we humans often yearn, deeply and passionately, for what we

cannot have. 'Naturalism asserts that there is no ontological reality which satisfies this hunger for the unconditioned. There is no Ground or God which satisfies our yearning for the absolute any more than there is a heaven which satisfies our longing for immortality or a perfect love which satisfies our romantic yearnings.' (p. 187) How, then, can a naturalist respond to Gilkey's critique? How can we find resources of criticism and renewal within the realm of nature? Stone wants to argue for a naturalism which meets that challenge.

Stone's naturalistic religion is a direct outgrowth of the 'Chicago School' of empirical theology. The history behind his argument may be most easily explained, I think, by beginning with H.N. Wieman. 'God', Wieman suggested, refers to the source of human good. It is that Some- thing upon which we ultimately depend for our existence, welfare, and the growth of value. Also, God is that which transforms us toward the good beyond our ability to transform ourselves, provided we commit ourselves to it openly and fully. Our mistake has been to begin with a preconceived notion of that Something, a notion created largely by wishful thinking - our yearning. Then we seek to 'prove', by hook or crook, that this god exists. Instead, let us begin with the question: What is actually the ground of good? What transforms us as we cannot transform ourselves? What is truly worthy of our ultimate commitment? If we are naturalists, we search for the answers within nature.

Empirical theologians conduct this quest by confining proper religious claims to those which can be justified by our experience. Empirical theologians rooted in James and Whitehead take 'experience' very broadly, but experience still defines the limits of our knowledge. Perhaps there is more than our experience shows us, but we cannot with integrity claim to know about it. Our yearning for more does not make it so, or prove that it exists. Let us honestly describe what our experience shows, and stop there.

Stone believes that our experience discloses two aspects of transcen- dence: real and ideal. The 'real aspect of transcendence' refers to 'the collection of all situationally transcendent resources, that is, the unexpected and uncontrolled processes in the universe in so far as they are productive of good' (p. 13). 'The ideal part of the transcendent, defined minimally, is the set of all continually challenging ideals insofar as they are worthy of pursuit. These ideals can be called "continually challenging ideals"' (p. 16). Stone's minimalism can be seen clearly. As a naturalist he is not talking about what transcends nature, but rather is focusing on realities and ideals which are relatively transcendent to our situations within nature. There may be a unity to all of this (as Wieman sometimes thought), but our experience does not reveal it.

The ideal aspects of transcendence may be the easiest to see and appreciate. Truth, beauty, and moral goodness would all be obvious examples of continually challenging ideals and relative transcendence. No matter how much we learn, no matter how satisfying our art or loving our deeds, we can never exhaust these arenas of endeavour. They will always continue to call us forward to learn more, create more, and love more. In

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this way, they provide the element of criticism we need, always transcend- ing the status quo, always judging our sin and calling us toward a better world.

Stone's vision of the real aspects of transcendence may be more jarring because it may seem trivial at first. Anything productive of good which comes to me 'unexpected and uncontrolled' by me fits the category of being transcendent relative to my perceived situation. This might include a cold glass of lemonade my wife brings me on a hot day. It could, in some situations, include oxygen, rain, sunlight, a dime, or a flat stone good for skipping. What is transcendent for me may not be so for you. It might include healing which transcends my expectations or control, even if quite expected and controlled by my physician.

Oxygen. How boring. And yet, hasn't the traditional doctrine of divine omnipresence always held that everything in the world may, at times, be the medium through which we encounter the Sacred? Haven't we always said that there is no object, symbol, or event too small to reveal divinity? Stone is only saying that the sacredness of the world, its ability to come to us as transforming grace, does not come from beyond the world, but rather from creative relationships and interconnectedness within the world.

Stone's minimalism is a naturalistic vision of judgment and grace. Everything in the world may, in the right moment, become the occasion for grace which heals, nurtures, and transforms us. Things we think we control may prove creative in ways we never foresaw. Acts of love may be quite expected and intended by those who perform them, and yet radically transcend my own perception of a situation as filled with violence or emptiness. Everything from a drop of water to a bloody cross may, if we are open to it, become a source of sacred judgment and/or gracious renewal for us.

If we are open ... Stone's religion of transcendence, like Paul's doctrine of grace and Wieman's religion of creativity, demands an ethic of open- ness. We do not earn grace by works of righteousness, but we must be open to grace and to its demands. In Meland's language, we must face the world with an 'appreciative awareness' which allows the raindrop to become a lens for unseen beauty, or enables us to feel the deeper and vaguer dimensions of experience hidden by the clarity and distinctness of mere sight and hearing. Further, we must be willing to give ourselves over to grace. We must be willing at times to give all we have for the pearl of great price.

Stone's Minimalist Vision is in the language of analysis rather than devotion or preaching. He dialogues with other philosophers and theologians and argues in a kindly way for his position. It isn't a poetic or dynamic manifesto. The masses will not flock to this religion. But for those who struggle honestly in search of transcendent sources of judgment and renewal without supernaturalism, there are rich possibilities here.

C. Robert Mesle Graceland College

Philosophy of Religion 35: 191-192, 1994. 191

Paul Brockelman, The Inside Story: A Narrative Approach to Religious Understanding and Truth. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1992, xii + 204 pp. Hb US$ 49.50; Pb US$16.95

As Paul Brockelman sees it, we are living in a time of significant change. The modem world is being outgrown. The worldview of the Enlightenment, the world of Descartes, Bacon, Hume, and others, be- queathed to us by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is in our century being replaced by a new vision: the postmodem worldview. Not only is this a significant change, but, Brockelman wants us to appreciate, it is a significant change for the better - especially as regards understanding religious understanding and truth.

Modernity, on Brockelman's analysis, has been the source of a great deal of essentially misguided religious agony. Due to the benighted vision of the Enlightenment many today cannot escape the spiritual dilemma of choosing between a dogmatic exclusivity and a religious skepticism and relativism. Following the vision of Descartes and other modems we have sought an unattainable foundation for religious belief, wrongly assimilated religious understanding to factual knowledge on a scientific or logical model, and come to view different religious traditions as opposed sets of 'objectively true' doctrines.

In the premodem period religious and philosophical visions of life reflected the sacred or transcendent. A great problem with modernity, for Brockelman, is that it sought to sever itself from the premodem tradition and a sense of the sacred. But now in the postmodem period a new vision, alive to the sacred, is emerging. Central to Brockelman's thesis are the categories of mythology and interpretation. Myths inform the founding stories of religions (Buddhism, Christianity, the Native American religion of the Lakota, the worship of Gaia) and the visions of philosophers (notably, that of Plato). Also myths, as a narrative disclosure of ultimate meaning, have a sacred or transcendent dimension. Worldviews or visions - like that of modernity or postmodemity - are interpretations of life and of what is ultimate. Inescapably they are from a viewpoint and made through cultural and genetic 'glasses'. Modernity, as much as any worldview, is a particular interpretation and rests upon a myth, its own myth.

In the new day, the postmodem period, the role of interpretation in creating a woddview is coming to be understood, Brockelman believes. Moreover within postmodernity there is emerging a new informing myth, a new cosmological story that is both religious and scientific. This new vision embodies an ecological understanding of the interconnected whole and a temporal unfolding of reality over billions of years.

Brockelman's book presents us with a vision, a vision of what it is to have a guiding vision of life, religious or philosophical. While he builds a case throughout the book's seven chapters, he relies more on the 'insights' of penetrating thinkers than on formal arguments. Many quotations, following a point that Brockelman has made, are introduced with some such phrase as, 'So-and-so has made this point very clearly'. A range of authors are cited in support of one point or another. Brockelman's philosophical sympathies lie with continental thinking, and he draws

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heavily upon such thinkers as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and Gadamer. (These are postmodern philosophers, for Brockelman, but not therefore postmodernist: Brockelman distinguishes between the two.) But also he enlists the philosophical support of, for instance, Hick, Rorty, MacIntyre, Nussbaum, and Toulmin (who similarly are philosophically postmodern), as well as the support of Tillich, Eleade, McFague, and others from outside philosophy. Save for one mention of Plantinga in a note, strongly analytic philosophers are not cited - which I found ironic, given that thinkers like Plantinga and Wolterstorff have explicitly criticized modernity and the Enlightenment and, as much as Brockelman, though on their own grounds, found to be baleful the legacy of foun- dationalism (not to mention evidentialism).

Not all who reject the heritage of Descartes and Hume - 'modernity' in Brockelman's sense - do so for the same reason, then, and not all would embrace Brockelman's vision of postmodernity. Nevertheless Brockelman bodies forth a clear and definite picture of this new vision. Its most signifcant feature, for him, is that it renounces the modern understanding of religious understanding and truth as resting upon 'objective truth' and reconnects religious understanding with mythology's narrative disclosure of the sacred. The postmodern way of understanding religious understand- ing, Brockelman maintains, provides a way out of the religious dilemma that would have us choose either dogmatic exclusivity on the one hand or skepticism and relativism on the other hand. Though it does not forsake religious cognitivity, it avoids exclusivity because it rejects the modem idea that religious claims are absolute and exclusive, for it holds they are neither hypotheses nor logical truths. Religious myths, on the postmodern view, have a 'truth' - a kind of pragmatic truth - inasmuch as they help transorm our lives and help us to live life to the fullest. His debt to Hick on this point, and on the role of interpretation, is evident and fully ack- nowledged.

Brockelman's book is readable. And it is more than just a story. He is critical - he anticipates and raises objections. At the end he asks 'is this essay true?', and deals with the question consistently with his category of truth. But this is not a book of mincing arguments. Its broad brush strokes are meant to show us a new vision that Brockelman believes has already come upon us. He may be right. If so, big changes in our intellectual panorama are underway - and why should we want to say, 'the more things change. . .? '

J. Kellenberger California State University, Northridge