Description: An enquiry into the role of pansacramentalism as a bridge between theology and spirituality and its implications for interreligious studies.
In Finding All Things In God, Hans Gustafson proposes pansacramentalism as holding the potential to find the divine in all things and all things in the divine. Such a proposition carries significant interreligious implications, particularly in the practice of theology. Presupposing theological practice as divorced from spirituality (lived religious experience), Gustafson presents pansacramentalism as a bridge between the two. In so doing, Gustafson offers a history of spirituality, sketching the foundations of a classical approach to sacramentality (through Aquinas) as well as a contemporary approach to the same (through Rahner and Chauvet). Through three fascinating case studies, this book presents particular instances of sacramentality in lived religious experience. Gustafson offers an exciting method of 'doing theology', one which is entirely compatible with the interdisciplinary field of interreligious studies.Brief description: Hans Gustafson is the associate director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) and the College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University (Minnesota) where he teaches in the theology departments.
Review Quotes: In this tour de force, Gustafson unleashes the deeper meanings of symbol and sacrament to reunite theological reflection and spiritual living. Deeply Christian and deeply interreligious, his pansacramentalism destabilizes traditional dichotomies and radically expands the realm of the sacred. A must-read for all who are interested in the future of constructive theology.--Philip Clayton, author of Transforming Christian Theology