This book forms part of Shults’ ‘reforming’ approach to systematic theology, which has included a treatment of theological anthropology, soteriology, the doctrine of God and pneumatology. The present book begins with the hope that science and theology can be ‘lovers’, recognising that ‘real love takes hard work at mutual interpretation’ (p. 3). The book is lucidly written, without the need of footnotes, and with a very extensive bibliography.

Shults’ ‘reformation’ is based on the turn to relationality which he identifies in metaphysics following Kant, Hegel and Peirce. His target is ‘substance’, which he identifies as being an aspect of the legacy of Plato and Aristotle as it has pervaded Christian philosophy. He then works this turn out through three case studies – the interaction of Christology with evolution, the reconstruction of soteriology and the revisioning of eschatology in the light of contemporary cosmology.

I am not sure Shults’ target, ‘substance’, is always carefully enough framed, nor do I think he does full justice to the subtlety of the thought of the ecumenical councils. But I did find some very helpful insights into problems with the tradition. For Jesus to possess authentic human nature meant, at least for Western Christian thought, his putting on prelapsarian perfection, the existence of which evolutionary thought must now reject. Also, all those struggling with Christology before and at Chalcedon would have acknowledged a duality of body and soul. As Shults later points out, such dualism is always going to be problematic for the Christian thinker. It will always tend to imply the superiority of either mind/spirit on the one hand, or body on the other. Yet the New Testament wants to insist both on the bodiliness of the resurrection and Jesus becoming a life-giving spirit. And contemporary science casts grave doubt on the viability of such dualism. Moreover, the dominant thread in the tradition is to see the incarnation as a response to the problem of sin, rather than (as Shults prefers) an ingredient in the eternal intentionality of God.

In his chapter on soteriology, Shults provides interesting essays on the problem of universals and particulars, and on the influence of legal thinking on theories of atonement, and then engages with Girard and literature which his work evoked. Shults wants to insist that the sort of reconciliation that Jesus’ whole agency evoked, the Gospel's spreading of ‘contagious peace’ (p. 92), is not just subjective moral influence theory in new clothes, but also genuinely objective – being brought into union with God is the real redemption of our personal agency. Having welcomed Shults’ emphasis on how legal and philosophical preoccupations have shaped the character of Christian thinking in various eras, I would have been glad to see more explicit awareness of how Shults’ own thinking is conditioned by the late modern/postmodern context in which he is writing.

The third case study, on eschatology and cosmology, allows Shults to inveigh against questions such as ‘when will Jesus return?’ and ‘where is his body now?’ I particularly appreciated Shults’ integration of eschatological Christology with pneumatology. However, I had two disappointments in this chapter. One was the very limited attention to the cosmic dimensions of Christ's work, and the other, related, problem was the limited treatment of the work of Russell and Polkinghorne on this subject. Crucial issues about the eschatological transformation of living things such that there will be ‘no more crying’ seemed to me to be skated over here, as was the New Testament's emphasis on waiting for the culminating initiative of God.

However, these are small points in what is a bold and extremely stimulating piece of theological thinking, which I warmly recommend.