long before theologians write and independently of our ever reading them.

The exemplars, for Williams, are Augustine, John Damascene and Thomas Aquinas: very different methodologically, they each ground their work on belief in divine forgiveness as the restoration of right relations between humanity and God – and, as she insists, “this right relatedness is both one of mutual love, but also right reason, and Christian theology reflects this pattern”. She quotes Teilhard de Chardin: “To believe is to effect an intellectual synthesis” – in other words, since Christian faith sees God and the world as standing in relation to each other, theology is always an invitation and an imperative to consider everything in a relational, integrative and thus systematising manner.

Williams writes beautifully, explaining and documenting her every move, but the argument of the book undeniably makes quite severe demands on the reader. For example, in the opening chapter she discusses the notion of system in the light of models of truth in current philosophy, mainly the familiar correspondence and coherence theories, but extending to theories of epistemological justification such as foundationalism and coherentism, not forgetting “foundherentism”, Susan Haack’s blend of the two – much what the theologian should favour, according to Williams. Chapter 2 deals with the sources of theological claims – theological warrants or norms, as Williams labels them, or loci ­theologici, as Catholic theologians would more likely say (though it was Melanchthon who coined the expression). Chapter 3 takes us through a selection of essential texts: Gregory Nazianzen, Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Newman, Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, Tillich and Leonardo Boff.

While differing in ways which she identifies, these texts exhibit a drive towards coherence, resting, as she puts it, “on a mimesis that both is and is yet to come: humanity’s reflection of the divine”. Noting that Boff’s theology is viewed with suspicion by his co-religionists, Williams insists on its continuity with trad­ition, in particular because Boff views Christian discourse as “directly reflecting both the divine reality it explores and celebrates, and the human subjects who engage in theo­logical reflection”. In a word, Boff is as fine an exponent of “system” in theology as anyone else on her list – in this deep sense of “system”.

Order and coherence, associated with system, evoke harmony and beauty. Chapter 4 considers the place of beauty in theology, asking whether the aesthetic appeal of systematic exposition counts for or against its truth. Jonathan Edwards, America’s greatest theo­logian, comes well out of this discussion. On the other hand, Williams has serious reservations about Hans Urs von Balthasar’s celebrated theological aesthetics. 

According to Williams, modern accounts of the uses of reason in Christian thinking largely ignore the relevance of the doctrine of sanctification. In the concluding chapter she argues that, while it would be ridiculous to say that theology done by a lax Christian or an agnostic would be worthless, theology practised by those in a state of grace should reflect the effect of the divine gift of sanctification. Mostly, of course, grace is thought to help good Christians to do what is right. Yet why should we doubt that divine grace might sometimes also help a person to see the truth more clearly? Old-fashioned manuals of ascetical theology distinguished between meditation and contemplation, as Williams reminds us. They tended to conclude with an act of will, a determination again to do something. If meditation comes out of exploring the inherent systematicity of Christian doctrine, however, might it not pass into contemplative perception of the whole reality, of which the connected elements form part? Demanding as it may be, this book offers a wonderful account of the possibilities of Christian theology.