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646 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLYthat grants us "the obligation to belong"(p. 138).Kerr then reviews Taylor's ethicalrealism. The moral ontology of thehuman "is whatwe appeal to-what wedraw on-when we have to defend ourresponses as the natural ones, theappropriate ones, the right ones, in thisor that situation" (p. 142). The twocharacteristics of this moral ontologywhich best exemplify contemporaryWestern societies is the obligation toavoid and minimize human suffering,and the particularly Christian emphasison "the affirmation ofordinary life" (p.144). Of particular interest in thissection is Kerr' s discussion of IsaiahBerlin's critique ofTaylor's ontology.

The last section of this chapterreviews Taylor' s analysis ofHeidegger's "philosophy of ecology.""Deep ecology, then, together withrealist ontology of the human, theaffirmation of ordinary life, andreligious belief as a sense of ourneeding-our having-some interlocutor not ourselves, some other-thatis Charles Taylor's version of the selftranscendence manifest in our livesalready" (p. 158).Inhis final chapter, "NaturalDesirefor God," Kerr admits the difficulty offinding theological motifs in the "mostcurrently fashionable philosophers" (p.159). And yet it is not impossible.

Historically "modern philosophyderived from late-medieval theology,and that its origins may exercise muchmore influence than is oftenacknowledged" (p. 159).

What particularly interests Kerr isthe theological side of the debate overtranscending humanity. To this endKerr takes the reader on a veritable tourde force by comparing Hans Urs vonBalthasar to Kar! Rahner over the placeof religious and metaphysical views incontemporary culture. Von Bathasar's"refusal to acknowledge the continuingexistence and validity of religious andmetaphysical views" (p. 164) iscompared to his charge against Rahnerthat the latter is attempting to reinstatein the post-Christian age a "modemtranscendental theology" (p. 163). Thischapter serves as a fitting conclusion tohis examination ofdifferent versions oftranscending humanity.The various philosophers andtheologians selected by Kerr for thisstudy are weIl chosen. While it is clearthat the author opts for amiddie pathbetweenradical transcendenceand pureimmanence, the path this middle waymust navigate is brightly illuminatedthrough this engaging and highlyprofitable study.

G.E.DANNUniversity ofWaterlooDIVINEPROVIDENCE. ByThomasP. Flint. Ithaca,NY: ComeIlUniversityPress,1998. Pp. 258. Paper $35.00, ISBN 0801434505.

This book' s subtitle is "TheMolinist Account." And rightly so. ForProfessor Flint' s discussion of

providence is focused. He isconcentrating on Molinism. And he isdoingso as a card-carryingMolinist. He

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BOOK REVIEWS 647aims to defend Luis de Molina (asixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit). Hispresiding argument is "that a verypowerful case can be built for seeing theMolinist account of divine providenceas one that is exceptionally attractivefrom the standpoint of the orthodoxChristian" (p. 251). And not only theorthodox Christian. On Flint's account,the virtues of Molinism arephilosophical as weIl as theological. SoDivine Providence is very much anexercise in philosophical theology.

Molina wanted to understand howGod' s governing of the created ordercan be compatible with it containingtruly free human choices. If all thathappens comes to pass because ofGod's will, how can anything whichhappens come about because ofourfreedecisions? And if God knows all thatshall be, how can it be that anything wedo is really up to us? Molina's way ofdealing with such questions was tosuggest that God created in the light ofhis knowledge as to how things wouldgo if. On his account, God knows howuncreated (possible) people wouldfreely act if created. According toMolina, therefore, God's creating doesnot interfere with my freedom. If, ascreated, I pick my nose at 5.00 p.m. onJune 25,2000, then I do so freely-eventhough God, as Creator, accounts fornlY being there doing what I do. I amfree sinceGod is merely allowing me todo my own thing-this "doing my ownthing" being understood as somethingwhich God brings into actual existencein the light ofwhatMolina calls scientiamedia ("middle knowledge")-aknowledge ofhow I would have freely

acted given certain circumstances. Godknows how I would act if. Then hecreates me with all my options and freechoices in place. This is the positionwhich Flint wishes to defend. And hedoes so in three stages.

To begin with (Chapters 1 and 2),he notes and defends what he takesMolina to have accepted as a basis forarguing in defense ofscientiamedia. Healso offers an account ofwhat Molinasubsequently taught about middleknowledge. The account of Molinacomes in Chapter 2. In Chapter 1 Flintoutlines what he calls "the traditionalnotion of providence," according towhich "to see God as provident is to seehinl as knowingly and lovinglydirecting each and every eventinvolving each and every creaturetoward the ends he has ordained forthem" (p.12). Flint suggests that thisviewofprovidence has support fronl theBible and from some importantChristian documents, not to mentionsupport from some classicalphilosophers (e.g. Xenophanes andEpictetus.) And, so heargues, "with allthis going for it, the traditional notion ofprovidence is surely one that anorthodox Christian should be mostreluctant to jett ison" (p. 22). Also inChapter 1, Flint distinguishes betweendifferentviews ofhuman freedomwhiledefending what he calls "Libertarianism." This view of freedom,according to which "it is not possiblethat a free human action be ultimatelycausally determined by events notunderthe causal control of its agent" (p. 23),is, so Flint suggests, both correct and,for various reasons, one which ought to

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648 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICALQUARTERLYseemattractive toChristians. And, so hecontinues to stress, Libertarianism and"the traditional notion of providence"are the "twin bases" ofMolinism, oneswhich give Christians grounds foraccepting it. "An orthodox Christian,"says Flint, "has good reason to hold onto both the traditional notion of divineprovidence and the libertarian analysisof freedom (p. 71). And, so Flint adds,"[t]heMolinist picture ofprovidence ...clearly offers one way of doing so" (p.71).

But are there "alternative pieturesof providence available which anyChristian ought to find equal or superiorto the MoHnist account"? With thisquestion raised, Flint launches on parttwo of his book, "A Defense of theMolinist Account." To begin with(Chapter3), he argues that "no coherentlibertarian traditionalist could beanything but an advocate ofMolinism"(p. 108) and that "the three principalcompetitors to Molinism "not onlyjettison either traditionalism orlibertarianism ... but also enmesh us inproblems ... which can apparently beavoided by the Molinist" (p. 108). InChapters 4 to 7 Flint fleshes out anddefends the positionadopted inChapter3. He does so by offering detailedcriticisms of aseries of objections toMolinism coming from a variety ofquarters. Chapter 4 deals with "FiveThomistic Objections to Molinism"(drawn from the writings of ReginaldGarrigou-Lagrange O.P.). Chapter 5deals with an objection concerning thecausalorigin of contingent truths(basically, it amounts to the question"Where do Molina's 'what ifi,'

considered as objects of God'sknowledge, come from?"). Chapters 6and7 thendeal respectivelywith teasersraised by William Hasker (in his bookGod, Time, and Knowledge, publishedin 1989) and Robert Adams (in hisarticle "An Anti-MoHnist Argument,"published in 1991).

And what ifMolinism is true? Onemight expect light to be shed by it on arange of theological questions. And, soFlint argues in the final part ofhis book,such light is indeed shed. Here heargues that "applied Molinism" (p. 4)gives us good results when we turn tothe topics ofpapal infallibility (Chapter8), prophecy (Chapter 9), unansweredprayers (Chapter 10), and praying forthings to have happened (Chapter 11).In this part of the book, Flints aims "toinvestigate the ways in which, and thedegree to which, adopting the Molinistpicture allows one better to understandthese specific areas of divineprovidential activity" (p. 180)."Adopting the Molinist stance," saysFlint, "enables us better to understandcertain dimensions of divineprovidential activity ... And the successofthese endeavors to apply theMoHnistoutlook serves further to confirm theattractiveness of that approach" (p.251). Flint's concerns inChapters 8-11evidently strike hirn as ones whichphilosophers of religion should now beturning to with confidence in the yearsahead.Heclearly assurnes thatorthodoxChristian philosophers ought now toaccept that one of their most profitableareas of inquiry should He in the areaof"appliedMolinism."

But is Molinism a persuasive

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BOOK REVIEWS 649position to begin with? Flint suggeststhat "most people start off as tacitMolinists; they feel no difficulty ingranting that there are truths aboutwhatfree people would have done had theybeen in different situations" (p. 114).What Molinism does, says Flint, "canreasonably be seen as merely applyingto theology what the man in the streetalready believes" (ibid.). But can oneknow what someone would do freely?As far as I can see, one can onlyreasonably be said to knowwhatwouldhappen if what is going to happen isdetermined in its causes-if one hadreason to think that present conditionsrender some outcome inevitable ornecessary. If that is so, however,applying the man in the street'sintuitions to theology looks likedenyinghuman freedom. And, as far as I can see,Flint does nothing to show that weshould thinkotherwise.Having statedatthe outset that he presumes (amongother things) that "properties can exist .even if nothing has that property ...[and] ... that states of affairs can existeven if they are not actual, or do notobtain" (p. 6), he makes nluch of thesuggestion that God's knowledgeranges over logically possible worldswhich are not created by God. But heseems fairly insensitive to the oddnessofhis presumptions. They are "farfromidiosyncratic," he says, if we refer to"the literature" (p. 7). Formypart, I findthe presumptions pretty nonsensical.And I do not see that Flint doesanything like enough to help us makesense of the notion of a world distinctfrom and known to God independentlyofGod's creative act. Such a world, as

envisaged by Flint, would contain aBrian Davies who never wrote thisreview ofFlint's book. But why shouldwe take seriously the notion of such aBrian Davies being an object ofGod'sknowledge prior to God's creating theworld in which I am here to write myreview? I, at any rate, can make nosense ofsuch a notion, and I do not findlight shedon thematter byFlint's study.

Nor am I convinced by what Flinturges in defense of his claim thatMolinism has advantages on grounds ofChristian orthodoxy. For it effectivelydenies what Christians seem to becommitted to when professing theirbelief in God the Creator. Iassurne thatto believe in God is to believe thateverything real apart from God is madeto be by hirn-not only as beginning tobe, but also as c o n t i n u i ~ g to be. I take itthat to believe in God is to believe thatthere is an (albeit utterly mysterious)answer to the question "How come anyworld at all?"-"How come somethingrather than nothing?" In that case,however, our free choices are made tobe byGod. AB thatwe do is part ofwhatGodmakes to be, causes to be. And it ishard to see how this picture can besquared with the Molinist picturedefended by Flint. Molinists such asFlintwill presumably say that one ofthevirtues ofMolinisrn is that it allows usto believe both that everything dependsfor its being on God and that there arefree human choices-because ofGod'smiddle knowledge. But possibilitieswith respect to creatures surely dependon actualities, as the man in the streetmight say. And, so an orthodoxChristian rnight reasonably add,

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650 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLYactualities depend on God as makingthem to be. Flint will doubtless insistthat the notion of creation I amappealing to here (readers of Aquinaswill find it pretty familiar) cannot bereconciled with belief in humanfreedom. But that seems false to melargely for the sort of reasons given byAquinas in texts such as theCon1mentary on Aristotle' s DeInterpretatione or Perihermeneias,book 1, chapter 9, lectio 14-in whichAquinas, in very non-Molinist terms,argues that I am free not in spite ofGodbut because ofGod, who acts in everyoperation-a position which offers analternative to the views whichFlint calls"Libertarianism,""Compatibilism"and"Determinism." Had Flint wished todeal significantly with "Thomist"objections to Molinism, he would havedone better tohave scrapped the chapteron Garrigou-Lagrange and to haveconsidered in some detail whatAquinashin1selfhad to say on the nature ofGod,

divine causality, human freedom, andthe difference between God and acreature.

Be that as it may, however, DivineProvidence is the only full-scaletreatment ofMolinism tohave appearedin recent years. So it fills a gap. A lot ofcontemporary writings in the area ofphilosophy of religion contain muchthat only makes sense on thepresumption that something like aMolinist view ofGod and the world isthe right one. Flint's book tacklesMolinism directly and at length. It iswritten with great clarity, and it givesone a good idea ofwhat can reasonablybe argued for given its basic thesis.Those who want get a sense of howmodern-day Molinists might wish todefend themselves today have nothingbetter to read at the moment.

BRIAN DAVIESFordham University

DECONSTRUCTIONAND PRAGMATISM. SimonCritchley ... [eta!.]; editedbyChantal Mouffe. New York: Routledge, 1996. Pp. 88. Hard Cover $49.95, ISBN:0415121698; Paper $12.95, ISBN: 0415121701.

What have deconstruction andpragmatism to do with democraticpolitics?This is the question explored inthe engaging collectionofessays editedby Chantal Mouffe entitledDeconstruction and Pragmatism. The.book is the transcriptionofa 1993 Parissymposium whose participants wereJacques Derrida, Richard Rorty, SimonCritchley and Ernesto Laclau. Anyoneinterested in an introduction to thecurrentalternatives to rationalistpolitics

which some pract1t1oners of deconstruction and pragmatism proposewould be advised to read this book.They will find that these two nonrationalist approaches offer-each intheirown distinctivemanner-insightfulwaysofworkingthrough the problemofdemocracy. The book is divided intoseven chapters. Three of the chaptersbelong to Rorty since he also givesresponses to the essaysofbothCritchleyand Laclau. The other four chapters are