Paul O’CALLAGHAN. God’s Gift of the Universe: An Introduction to Creation Theology.  Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2022),  ISBN 978-o-8132-3449-6, Pp.vii-xviii, 397. $34.95 (Paperback) Reviewed by Joseph BRACKEN, S.J. Camillus Jesuit Residence, 10201 W. Wisconsin Ave. Wauwatosa, WI 53226.

This book is the third in a set of books  on the God-world relationship from a traditional Christian (Roman Catholic) perspective.  Volume One deals with Christian Eschatology: Christ Our Hope. Volume Two deals with theological anthropology, i.e., the life of Christ in the mind and heart of Christians through the workings of grace and aptly titled Children of God in the World.  Volume Three deals with Christian faith in the power of God to bring the work of creation to a predetermined end or final goal.  This third volume begins with an introductory essay on the history of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. This belief is central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  But it is foreign to Hinduism, Buddhism, since for them the world, not God, is eternal.  Likewise, the Biblical understanding of creation differs from modern scientific hypotheses about the origin of the universe, not simply the earth. Likewise, modern science and religious belief aim at different truths: objective truth based on empirically known facts vs. subjective truth based on the internal meaning and value of the cosmic process as a whole.

O’Callaghan then attempts to prove the validity of traditional Christian belief in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in three Parts. The First Part deals with the understanding of the act of creation in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Patristic period, and the Middle Ages.  The Second Part deals with the role of Christ and faithful Christians everywhere in dealing with the challenge of ecology,  i.e.,  one’s responsibility to work with others for the continued well-being of the world of nature as well as for the satisfaction of personal needs and desires.  Part Three then deals with THE ancient and modern belief in the doctrine of Original Sin which presumes both divine and human responsibility to deal with the far-reaching consequences of sin and evil. Was creation a divine mistake as well as simply an inevitable human weakness?

What O’Callaghan has produced in this book is a well-researched defense of traditional Church teaching on the doctrine of creation as ongoing presupposition for further study of the entire God-World relationship.  But from a contemporary scientific perspective, it is still only an hypothesis in need of ongoing empirical verification to remain rationally credible.  What makes sense to Church-going believers is just one of many options for the non-believer.