Contemporary work in Christian ethics often proceeds as if perfection is the goal, an ideal world is possible, and we are not embodied creatures in time and space. Reading this concise, accessible volume on finitude felt like taking a breath of fresh air, seeing a new vista, or arriving at a clearing in the woods. For even in a perfectly just world, Traina notes, we would still be finite. The task, then, is developing an account of “flourishing-within-finitude” (6) that honors the “divinely intended, good condition of our creatureliness” (4)—a task that in Traina’s expert hands illuminates theological doctrines, methodology in ethics, and everyday life anew.

Originally delivered as the 2023 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality, this work develops an account of “finite flourishing” across three chapters (20). The first half of chapter 1, “Feminist Theologies on Finitude: Dependency and Limits,” highlights the finitude-affirming trajectories and resources of diverse liberationist Christian feminisms, including white feminisms, mujerista and Latina theologies, and womanism. The second half explores three non-liberationist feminist perspectives that emphasize salient features of human finitude: vulnerability, dependency, and limits. This chapter would make for excellent use in undergraduate classrooms as an introduction to Christian feminisms.

Chapter 2, “Interdependence: Christology, Trinity, and Sainthood,” offers innovative theological reflection on these doctrines. Traina argues that it matters for Christian ethics that Jesus, too, was a finite human being who sometimes arrived too late, didn’t heal everyone, and failed to secure universal earthly flourishing (36–37). Even after the resurrection, the wounds of Jesus’s finite existence remain: “If all of Jesus’s finite, human particulars can embody the divine, ours can too…” (34). Next, the Trinity receives new articulation as a model for “continually engaging wider, dynamic relationships of interdependence, both informal and institutional, to ensure flourishing” (40). Finitude is revalued as the “precondition” for relationship, and her powerful reconsideration of sainthood furthers this line of thinking (38). We tend to think of saints as individuals who defy the limits of human charity. Paramount, rather, is their ability to create community: “Saints … are less superheroes than close-at-hand models of interdependent, communal flourishing…” (48). Their sanctity resides in “their ability to inspire … collaborators” (47), demonstrating “not only that holiness is possible in the flesh, but that it is impossible anywhere else” (44).

Chapter 3, “Finitude, Gender, and Pregnancy,” demonstrates how recognition of finitude shifts ethical debate—in this case, on gender and pregnancy—with significant implications for theology, ethical method, and vocation. Rather than seeking perfection, we should embrace our finitude in time, spirit-flesh, knowledge, and interdependence (52–55). Ethics should cultivate the virtues of “epistemic humility,” “active curiosity,” and “promotion of interdependent community” (58). Building on her Trinitarian reflection, the emphasis here is on nurturing “networks of interdependence” (66). The first criterion for any ethical practice, she argues in the conclusion, should be whether any given practice strengthens these networks. The goal is an “ever-improving process” akin to theosis (82).

This volume paints a compelling picture of finite flourishing as “embodied, messy, interdependent, tragic, joyful, always a work in progress—and our common calling” (84–85). Traina’s scholarly method, with its rich use of diverse literatures, performs the reliance on networks of interdependence that her proposal commends. Moreover, her account calls for needed shifts in ethics: away from evaluating individuals’ actions and toward honoring interdependence (54); away from prioritizing avoidance of sin and toward pursuit of the good (69–70); away from establishing “correct norm[s]” and toward an “open-ended process of discernment” (55). The risk, as Traina notes, is that “finitude” becomes a cover for injustice (76) or an excuse for sin (70). I did wonder about the relationship between “failures,” “faults,” “flaws,” and “fractures”—categories that Traina describes as “product[s] of our finitude” (69)—and moral failure. At times, I thought more conceptual precision about these categories would be useful. But perhaps this concern merely reflects the difficulty of the fundamental paradigm shift Traina’s work proposes—and, I hope, elicits—in theological ethics.