Christ Brings All Newness:
Essays, Reviews, and Reflections
by robert p. imbelli, edited with an introduction by richard g. smith
word on fire academic, 368 pages, $29.95
In the first volume of his famous Theological Investigations (a series extending to over twenty books), the great theologian Karl Rahner offered an apologia for publishing a collection of essays. With the proliferation of specialized journals, he explained, published articles tend not to “appear,” but to remain hidden and buried. Perhaps, Rahner stated, his essays deserve obscurity. But, in the hope that his work is actually read, he decided to publish some pieces in a more accessible format.
We can be grateful that Fr. Robert Imbelli has also graced us with several of his most significant essays, book reviews, and reflections. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and an emeritus theology professor at Boston College, is familiar to readers of First Things. And those readers will not be surprised at the title of his volume, echoing St. Irenaeus’s famous phrase, “Christ brought all newness in bringing himself.”
For insisting on Christ’s centrality to theological reflection has long been an Imbelli motif, exemplified, for example, in his earlier, acclaimed volume Rekindling the Christic Imagination. As the editor, Richard Smith, notes in his fine introduction, a “thorough and vibrant Christocentrism” has always been a distinguishing hallmark of Imbelli’s work. Indeed, the author himself tells us that if there is a golden thread binding together the volume’s essays, it is the transformative holiness to which Jesus Christ summons believers. The gospel calls us to full and active participation in the life of Christ—to nothing less than what Imbelli terms “Christification.”
Fr. Imbelli’s work is also deeply informed by Vatican II, particularly the conciliar reclamation of the Scriptures and the early Christian writers in their joint witness to Jesus Christ. He repeatedly highlights the council’s “Christic depth” and its universal call to holiness. Vatican II’s vaunted ressourcement is, first and foremost, a re-Sourcement, putting Christ at the center of life. Too often, however, the Christic center of Vatican II has been “misremembered,” leading to soteriological relativism and “Christological amnesia.” But misremembering the council’s Christology leads inexorably to a “decapitated” ecclesial body.
Central to Imbelli’s essays, reviews, and reflections is the accent he places on one’s personal encounter with Jesus. Christian belief is not simply the assent of the mind, a “notional” assent (to borrow from Newman), but involves the consent of the heart as well. Imbelli stresses not simply the embrace of Christian doctrine, but the need for a lived, personally appropriated Christology. Indeed, Christification means nothing less than the birth of a new person, a deep configuration to the biblical Christ that entails existential conversion. And Imbelli makes clear that such discipleship is never easy or comfortable. Living the gospel is a costly adventure that inevitably involves the cross. For the disciple, no part of the Paschal Mystery may be passed over.
One of the strongest points in this volume is Imbelli’s emphasis on affective cognition. As the author says, “The study of theology bears special affinity to poetry, art and music.” Taking account of these elements helps us to achieve “a more integral and integrated understanding of the human.” A remark by theologian David Tracy comes to mind: “The truth of religion is, like the truth of its nearest cousin, art, primordially the truth of manifestation.” But while Tracy was groping for the Heideggerian notion of epiphanic disclosure, Imbelli turns to how art reveals the truth enshrined in the teachings of ecumenical councils.
In A History of Apologetics, Avery Dulles argued that our assent to God and Christ is not a matter of steely logic, but depends on a congeries of personal convictions. Similarly, for Imbelli, a living, participatory faith—the only Christian faith worthy of the name—must be rooted in the full range of human existence: the imagination and the intellect; reason and the heart; the objective world and the cor inquietum, the striving, restless inner spirit.
Imbelli himself offers us perceptive reflections brimming with references to artists, poets, and musicians, all in service to how art and beauty mediate the sacred, “enfleshing,” so to speak, the conceptual knowledge of the doctrinal tradition. The transcendent themes found in poetry and music help us to think beyond the “immanent frame” and the secular “social imaginary” detailed by the philosopher Charles Taylor. Music and literature can be the gateways to a surpassing and unbounded vision of humanity. This is no doubt why Dante and Hopkins figure so prominently in Imbelli’s work.
Other writers suffuse his work as well, thinkers themselves centered on Jesus Christ. These include his mentors, Joseph Ratzinger and John Henry Newman. It is difficult to think of better theological and spiritual guides. Ratzinger holds pride of place, with Imbelli recounting how, in the post-conciliar turmoil of the seventies, his Introduction to Christianity turned out to be a great blessing, “an oasis in a parched land.” He is equally drawn to Ratzinger’s trifold vision of the Body of Christ—the risen body of Jesus, his eucharistic body, and his ecclesial body. And Imbelli writes of Newman, in words entirely applicable to himself: “He refuses to countenance any divorce of spirituality, theology and pastoral ministry, but sees them as constituting a complex and vivifying whole.”
There is nothing to disagree with in Imbelli’s stimulating volume. While fully consenting to the author’s accent on Vatican II’s Christological center, I would only complement it by also noting the council’s deeply analogical structure—its relentless search for similarities with other Christians, with those of other religions (particularly Judaism), and with all those seeking truth and justice. Soon after the council ended, the great theologian and ecumenist Yves Congar stated that the thought of Thomas Aquinas stood behind the dogmatic texts of Vatican II. I am convinced Congar was referring to the council’s decided emphasis on analogy. Christ is indeed at the council’s core, but Vatican II also highlighted those realities—secondary analogates—deeply related to Jesus Christ. This point serves to buttress, from another perspective, Imbelli’s accent on the council’s “robust and renewed Christocentricity.”
Robert Imbelli is an engaging writer, combining incisive insights with erudite prose. He is an accomplished theologian and committed Christian. He presents us here with an extraordinary volume, full of carefully chiseled essays, executed with élan and finesse, and teeming with theological and spiritual insights. All the riches one finds in Christ Brings All Newness bear witness, as a line from the author’s beloved Dante has it, to “the glory of Him who moves all things.”
Rev. Msgr. Thomas G. Guarino is professor emeritus of systematic theology at Seton Hall University and author of The Unchanging Truth of God?: Crucial Philosophical Issues for Theology.
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Image from Domenikos Theotokopoulos provided by Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain. Image cropped.
