Aidan Nichols' Chalice of God: A Systematic Theology in Outline is a distillation of his lifetime of theological speculation, providing readers with a simultaneously tightly structured and aesthetically poetic summary of Catholic, Christian faith according to Nichols. The book's outline format follows a series of interlocking theses, each one building on the other and organized within the broader themes of the six chapters, which include the metaphysical and theological starting points of a systematics (chapter 1); a theological ontology of the created order as “beautiful receptacle” of divine self-gift (chapter 2); Scripture's Christological pattern and telos (chapter 3); tradition's communication of revelation and Scripture (chapter 4); the church's liturgical and sacramental patterning after Christ (chapter 5); and the triune God as source and goal of human and cosmic flourishing (chapter 6). These themes are combined under the governing metaphor of the world as God's chalice, an image that accounts for the giftedness of created being through which the eternal, triune God of mutual self-offering expresses divine love for the finite other; the kenotic overflow of triune love through the Son's becoming flesh in the Incarnation so that the original beauty of created receptivity might be restored; Christ's sacrifice on the cross and his Resurrection that fulfills the Incarnation's gift of new life to the world; and the church's liturgical and sacramental practice of the Christic mysteries through which Christians receive God's abundant grace to worship and praise God through participation in triune life.

For anyone who is already familiar with Nichols' impressive body of work on such figures as Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar, it will come as no surprise that these representatives of the tradition permeate this text as well. In chapters 1 and 2, when Nichols explains his use of the image of the cosmos and its human creatures as a divinely graced chalice for receiving the outpouring of divine love's excess, Nichols immediately intertwines Thomistic metaphysics and Balthasarian aesthetics. In keeping with a Balthasarian ressourcement of a Thomistic synthesis of patristic and medieval theology, Nichols argues for the interdependence of reason and faith, Scripture and tradition, sensus fidelium and the ecclesial magisterium, Trinitarian theology and theological anthropology, and liturgical/sacramental theology and moral theology. Within the overarching framework of these fundamental unities, he articulates his critical responses to contemporary influences such as postmodern deconstruction (xvi), historical-critical biblical exegesis (34–37), and liberalism in Western society and its ethics (78–79).

In keeping with his previous scholarship, Nichols masterfully appropriates Aquinas' metaphysics and Balthasar's aesthetics to give us a truly inspiring presentation of the triune love and goodness that Christian faith proclaims through the church's teaching, liturgy, sacraments, and iconography. Appreciating Nichols' poetic vision, fellow theologians can productively engage his criticisms of postmodern, liberal tendencies in other contemporary approaches to Scripture and tradition. Conversing with Nichols' rejection of the postmodern indictment of metanarrative, his privileging of premodern over modern biblical exegesis, and his challenges to liberal emphases on human rights and individual choice, the following questions emerge: Should we not repent and seek forgiveness for the many instances in which Christians used the narrative of salvation history to silence the voices of other cultures with different stories of communal hope and self-identification? How can we merge the efforts of precritical and historical-critical biblical exegesis to appreciate the continuity between the historical Jesus in his Jewishness and the church's witness to Christ's inauguration of a new covenant? How are modern insights into individual rights and choices relevant to discussions of building a community of virtue and responsibility wherein the freedoms of men and women of all cultures, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds are celebrated and protected? Reflecting on these and other questions, readers of Chalice of God will perform an enriching, Balthasarian-like symphony of dialogue between their and Nichols' valuable, theological insights for the future of Catholic theology.