Discernment and Truth: The Spirituality and Theology of Knowledge

Abstract

Reviewed by: Discernment and Truth: The Spirituality and Theology of Knowledge Kevin F. Burke S.J. Discernment and Truth: The Spirituality and Theology of Knowledge. By Mark McIntosh. New York: Crossroad, 2004. 290 pp. $29.95. Mark McIntosh's captivating book, Discernment and Truth, represents an important contribution to the serious theological study of spirituality. It also solidifies the author's reputation as a major contributor to this bourgeoning field. McIntosh, who studied with David Tracy and Bernard McGinn at the University of Chicago School of Divinity, brings to this study an acute philosophical mind and a deep grasp of the history of spirituality. An Episcopal priest and adviser to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, as well as a professor of theology at Chicago's Loyola University, he likewise draws abundantly from the well of lived experience. In this lucid work we encounter a love for the Christian tradition firmly rooted in the praxis of a living faith. Nevertheless, both while reading this book and after finishing it, I felt curiously dissatisfied, at once full but not fully nourished. I wish to account for both sides of my paradoxical reaction to this outstanding book. Crafted as a series of interlocking meditations, Discernment and Truth broaches questions of singular importance to modern philosophy. How do we know? What does it mean to arrive at truth? Significantly, however, McIntosh does not approach these concerns from the perspective of modern or post-modern philosophies of knowledge and truth. His subtitle, "The Spirituality and Theology of Knowledge," announces this point and advises the reader that he is interested in a quite different understanding of epistemology, a theological epistemology, although a more accurate name, if one could say it non-pejoratively, might be a dogmatic epistemology. Unlike the theological epistemology of a Karl Rahner, for example, where the modern turn to the subject serves as an apologetic fulcrum, McIntosh's approach involves an understated rejection of modern philosophical thought and, in particular, modern epistemology and its concomitant versions of truth. Correlatively, he embraces a pre-modern understanding of truth and the way to truth. In the end, his goal is neither apology nor dialogue. Rather, he seeks to retrieve the classic understanding of truth as religious illumination. McIntosh groups his meditations into three overlapping parts; these consist of four, three and two chapters respectively. (It should be noted that several of the individual chapters appeared previously, with the result that the work occasionally feels more like a collection of essays than a systematically argued book.) Part I reviews the historical emergence of different practices of spiritual discernment. Likewise, it tracks the emergence of various interpretations of discernment and the ways these interpretations account for the truth yielded by discernment. In Part II, McIntosh develops what he calls "case studies in discernment," treating in some detail three key moments in the history of discernment. In the two chapters that comprise Part III, McIntosh moves from a meditation on "Aesthetic Vision and Intelligible Beauty" (Chapter 8) to his ultimate goal, "Illumination and Truth" (Chapter 9). In Chapter 1, the introductory chapter, McIntosh develops a five-fold schematic to account for the overlapping meanings associated with the term "discernment," grouping them between the classic poles of "contemplative grounding" and "active practice." They include discernment understood 1) as faith; 2) as the distinction between good and evil impulses; 3) as discretion; 4) as sensitivity to [End Page 251] God's will; and 5) as illumination. Chapter 4 provides a complement to this introduction. Here McIntosh addresses four themes that inform the contents of the latter two parts of the book: 1) fostering a discerning mind; 2) recognizing various signs and distinguishing among different spirits; 3) dealing with deception; and 4) living in reality's eschatological light. Sandwiched between these more systematic chapters are two rich meditations detailing the historical emergence of discernment as a central motif in Christian theology and spirituality. With the figure of St. Paul clearly in view, Chapter 2 addresses discernment in Christian antiquity. Here McIntosh visits many classical figures, but he pays particular attention to Origen, the Desert Fathers, John Cassian and John Climacus. Chapter 3 moves into the middle ages and...