Michael WELKER. In God’s Image: An Anthropology of the Spirit, the 2019-20 Gifford Lectures, trans. Douglas W. Stott. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021. 155 pp. $21 paperback. ISBN: 978-0-8028-7874-8. Reviewed by Steve W. LEMKE, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA 70126.

Michael Welker is senior professor at the University of Heidelberg and executive director of the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology. This book publishes his 2019-20 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Welker has previously written or edited books addressing anthropology (The Depth of the Human Person) and the Holy Spirit (God the Spirit and The Work of the Spirit).

The Gifford Lectures are dedicated to addressing issues from a perspective of natural theology. The challenge for Welker was to develop an anthropology of the Spirit from natural theology. More specifically, Welker posed the question of how humans who were capable of such evil as genocide or ecological disasters could be bearers of the image of God. Again, Welker strives to address this issue not from scriptural or theological truths but “from below” through natural theology. As an example of his approach, Welker notes that Pope John Paul II’s prayer in June 1979 at Victory Square in Warsaw for the Spirit to descend helped launch a revolution in Poland. From a more cognitive perspective, Welker incorporates the young Hegel’s theology of the Spirit as a model of a “multimodal” spirit working through human spirits to produce change in specific social situations.

In his last four lectures, Welker addresses four areas that he desires to see this “multimodal spirit” expressed in a calling to justice, freedom, truth, and peace. The multimodal spirit of justice attempts to create a more just and equitable society by treating persons with human dignity. The spirit of freedom seeks to maximize freedom for everyone in a society, particularly its weaker members. The spirit of truth seeks in multifaceted ways to seek truth through teaching and practicing critical and self-critical assessment of issues to find coherence and build consensus that liberates persons from ignorance. The spirit of peace practices self-sacrificial service for others that produces peace and joy in both the giver and the recipient.

As a German, Welker’s illustrations and the theologians he cites unsurprisingly tend to be German. The asset of this approach is to introduce American readers to thinkers of whom they may not be aware. In all, Welker produces a thoughtful Christian anthropology that is empowered by the Spirit, even though it is crafted within the confines of natural theology. This is a work well worth reading.