Book Review: An Invitation to Analytic Christian Theology by Thomas H. McCall

Thomas H. McCall, An Invitation to Analytic Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015).

Introduction

Bible‑believing Christians confess Scripture as God’s authoritative, inspired revelation—not merely one norm among many, but the norming norm (the final standard by which tradition, reason, and experience are assessed). We are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yet certain topics—divine sovereignty and human responsibility, the Incarnation, creation and evolution—can make us wary of the mind’s role. At those edges, “mystery” sometimes gets deployed too early, like a fire blanket thrown over a candle. There are genuine mysteries; we must say so without embarrassment. But a reflex to declare “mystery” can short‑circuit the slow, careful reasoning that clarifies where the mystery truly lies and where better understanding is possible.

Thomas H. McCall’s An Invitation to Analytic Christian Theology is written for those edges. The book argues that analytic Christian theology—not a new creed, but a way of doing theology that prizes conceptual precision, argumentative rigour, and clarity—can turn over long‑dormant stones. Done well, it does not demote Scripture or piety; it asks sharper questions in the service of confessing the triune God truly. McCall’s “invitation” is both a map of the field and a nudge to enter it with confidence and humility.

What McCall Means by “Analytic Christian Theology”

McCall’s opening move is definitional. He will not let “analytic theology” be reduced to a party line or a short list of conclusions. It is, rather, a methodological posture: “systematic theology attuned to the skills, resources, and virtues of analytic philosophy” (as William J. Abraham puts it). In practice that means two things.

First, what makes it analytic is a style and a set of ambitions drawn from contemporary analytic philosophy’s best work: conceptual precision, rigour of argument, technical care, and parsimony of expression (Crisp); and, in Michael Rea’s oft‑cited five prescriptions, a set of habits that shape the craft:

• P1 Formalisability: state claims so that, where appropriate, they could be rendered in logically tractable sentences.
• P2 Clarity and coherence: make assumptions explicit and ensure claims hang together.
• P3 Resist “substantive metaphor”: don’t let imagery do the work of argument; state the propositional content.
• P4 Work with well‑understood concepts: prefer primitives or clearly analysable notions over contested jargon.
• P5 Treat conceptual analysis as evidence: if a proposal is internally incoherent, that counts against it.

McCall is careful: these prescriptions do not abolish mystery or demand the same level of precision in every genre. Children’s catechesis is theology too; it should not look like a scholastic disputation. The point is that the default setting for theologians should be to say what we mean in a way that can bear scrutiny.

Second, what makes it theology is substantive and directional: analytic work is to be conducted under the authority of Christian Scripture (“revelational control”), in continuity with the great tradition (retrieval), normed by Christ, and attentive to culture. Analytic theology is not philosophical theology wearing a clerical collar. It is constructive dogmatics conducted with sharper tools.

A Brief Genealogy

McCall sketches the backstory: the late‑twentieth‑century revival of philosophy of religion, the role of Alvin Plantinga in re‑opening metaphysical and epistemological debates, and the subsequent growth of an analytic approach to core doctrinal loci. On this reading, analytic theology is less an invention than a retrieval. The Fathers, the medievals, the Reformers, and even John Wesley valued careful conceptual work in service of doctrine; the present movement is a scholasticism redivivus, self‑aware about its tools and their limits.

What Analytic Theology Is Not

Because the label attracts suspicion, McCall devotes sustained attention to clearing away caricatures. The result is a set of “not this” boundaries that help readers see the project’s actual shape.

Not univocal God‑talk by default.
A common charge is that analytic work assumes we speak of God and creatures in exactly the same sense (univocally). McCall replies: the method commits one to no single theory of religious language. Analogy and apophatic reserve remain open options. Analytic virtues can serve analogical and even apophatic proposals by making their limits explicit.

Not a stealth programme in natural theology.
Another worry is that analytic method smuggles in a rationalist project that sidelines revelation. McCall distinguishes method from metaphysical commitments. One may be Barth‑leaning about natural theology and still work analytically. Analytic tools can just as readily expose overreach in certain “perfect being” arguments as they can clarify them; in any case, such reasoning must be tethered to Scripture.

Not beholden to “substance metaphysics.”
Critics occasionally tar analytic theology with a pre‑Kantian metaphysic. McCall notes the charge is often vague. Contemporary analytic work is fully aware of post‑Kantian debates; many practitioners accept elements of Aristotelian‑Thomist metaphysics, others do not. The method itself does not fix the metaphysical destination.

Not inherently ahistorical.
The stereotype paints analytic theologians as inattentive to the history of doctrine. McCall concedes the temptation and issues a healthy warning: any constructive theology can misread historical sources if it ignores context. But the problem is not essential or endemic to AT. Indeed, many leading analytic practitioners are also first‑rate historical theologians and active in retrieval work; the remedy is better historical method, not abandoning analytic clarity.

Not merely conservative apologetics.
A further suspicion: analytic theology is a bunker for conservative conclusions. McCall is blunt—method does not entail outcome. Analytic tools are used across the spectrum (including by feminist, womanist, and liberationist theologians). Analytic work often defends creedal orthodoxy; it also subjects traditional formulations to careful scrutiny and, at points, revision. The method sharpens both defence and critique.

Not anti‑edification.
Some fear that analysis chills devotion. McCall argues that intellectual transparency and argumentative humility are moral goods. Clarity in service of truth is not the enemy of worship; it is one of its friends. The question is not whether we reason, but whether we reason well under Scripture.

Not a licence to banish “mystery.”
Finally, McCall distinguishes holy mystery from muddle. Analytic tools help us see where Scripture calls for reverent silence and where careful reasoning can remove needless fog. The aim is not total comprehension but honest confession—saying no more and no less than the text authorises.

Scripture in the Driver’s Seat: “Revelational Control”

The second chapter turns to Scripture. McCall contends that analytic theology must be answerable to the Bible and to sober biblical scholarship. He proposes a simple but useful spectrum for how theological claims relate to Scripture: from explicit assertion (the text directly states it), through various modes of implication and theological reasoning, to clear contradiction. The spectrum disciplines our rhetoric: it keeps us from over‑claiming (as though every inference were an explicit verse) and from under‑reading (as though only proof‑texts bind the conscience).

Within this frame McCall considers the role of perfect being theology (PBT)—reasoning from God as the “greatest conceivable being.” He grants its usefulness where carefully done, but resists any attempt to let it outrun revelation; he also notes the alternative of plain theism, which brackets PBT and proceeds more modestly from biblical description. Either way, Scripture has the whip hand. Analytic theology is not a metaphysical engine dragging exegesis behind it; it is a harness that keeps metaphysical horses from bolting.

Case Studies

McCall’s worked example is instructive. D. A. Carson, arguing from texts like Gen 50:20 and Acts 4:27–28, defends what he calls compatibilism: (DS) God is utterly sovereign and his sovereignty never reduces human responsibility; and (MR) humans are morally responsible and their responsibility never makes God contingent. McCall affirms those biblical claims. But he notes that Carson’s “compatibilism” is not the same as the standard metaphysical thesis that free will and determinism are compatible. Conflating the two lets theologians and philosophers talk past one another. Analytic clarity distinguishes biblical claims (DS and MR) from metaphysical theses; it then asks where Scripture leaves us and what further assumptions are needed to reach a view on determinism, alternative possibilities, and responsibility. Along the way McCall tests popular Frankfurt‑style counter‑examples and shows how they often smuggle in determinism or beg the very question at issue. The upshot: the Bible’s insistence on divine sovereignty and human responsibility does not, by itself, settle the metaphysical debate about determinism. Once the levels are sorted, the pressure points become visible, and the conversation can proceed without equivocation.

Analytic Theology and the History of Doctrine

The third chapter turns to the history of doctrine and treats Chalcedonian Christology—“one person in two natures”—as a test case for analytic modelling. The charge of incoherence is familiar; McCall’s wager is that analytic discipline can both defend orthodoxy and prune speculation.

Rendering Chalcedon Coherent

• Two‑minds model (Thomas V. Morris). In The Logic of God Incarnate, Morris proposes that the one person of the Son lives with two distinct but harmonised ranges of consciousness—one divine, one human—related asymmetrically (the divine can access the human; the human cannot survey the divine). This explains how the Gospels can present both omniscience and ordinary human limitation (e.g., “not even the Son…”) without contradiction. The model is not two persons; it is one subject with two cognitive ranges appropriate to his two natures.
• Modified kenotic accounts (Ronald J. Feenstra; Stephen T. Davis). “Kenosis” (Phil 2:7) led some nineteenth‑century theologians to claim the Son gave up divine attributes to become human. Modified versions reject that move. The Son remains fully divine; he voluntarily refrains from the ordinary exercise of certain prerogatives in the incarnate economy. Think functional self‑restraint, not ontological subtraction. This secures real creaturely limits (learning, suffering, obedience) without implying diminished deity or mutability in the divine nature.
• Concretist / reduplicative strategies (Aquinas; Scotus; developed by contemporary “concretists”). Here we track predications by respect (Latin qua, “as”). Because the incarnate Son subsists in two complete natures, we may truly say: Christ qua God is omnipotent and impassible; qua human he is limited and passible. There is no contradiction, because we are not affirming and denying the same property in the same respect. This metaphysical grammar underwrites Chalcedon’s “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”

Correcting Speculation: A “Physicalist” Christology

McCall also engages a recent physicalist proposal (e.g., Trenton Merricks) that identifies the Son with the body of Jesus. By Leibniz’s Law (if x=y, they share all properties), identity fails: the Son is eternal and a se; a human body begins to exist. Trinitarian considerations intensify the worry: what of the Son between death and resurrection if the body ceases to exist? The model strains against creedal boundaries and is metaphysically unstable. Analytic testing thus protects orthodoxy while showing its internal resilience.

Creation, Science, and Doctrinal Integrity

The fourth chapter addresses contemporary challenges, focusing on evolution and the historical Adam. McCall does not adjudicate the science. He asks what analytic tools contribute to a theological conversation that often collapses into a zero‑sum fight.

• Clarify terms. “Evolution” can mean common ancestry (biological descent from earlier life‑forms), a purely naturalistic mechanism, or both. “Creation” can mean ex nihilo origination, providence, teleology, or a range of theses about divine action. Distinguish claims before you weigh them.
• Test arguments. Literary features in Genesis do not by themselves preclude historicity; arguments that jump from genre to metaphysics are often non sequiturs. Conversely, appeals to tradition must specify what, precisely, is being asserted and at what authorisation level.
• Demonstrate possibility. Many impossibility claims rest on unstated metaphysical assumptions (e.g., hard naturalism). Analytic work shows the metaphysical space in which a historical Adam and mainstream evolutionary science might be reconciled (e.g., scenarios involving genealogical descent or the divine vocation of an historical pair). Showing possibility does not prove actuality; it clears away unwarranted obstacles so exegesis and science can do their jobs without talking past each other.

The Theologian’s Craft: Scientia, Sapientia, and the Telos of Theology

The final chapter returns to the vocation. Theology requires both scientia and sapientia. We need the intellectual disciplines—Scripture, languages, history, logic, metaphysics. We also need the moral and spiritual virtues—humility, patience, reverence, prayer, obedience, a willingness to suffer for the truth. The telos is straightforward and searching: to speak truthfully of God, for God’s glory and the church’s edification. Analytic tools do not change that end; rightly ordered, they help us move towards it without self‑deception.

McCall closes with a programme for the field:

• Unfinished business. Ecclesiology, sacramentology, and moral/political theology remain under‑treated in analytic work; they await careful modelling.
• Unstarted business. A genuinely global analytic theology should learn from and reason with the Majority World church, not merely speak for it. The movement’s centre of gravity is still Western; broadening the conversation is both overdue and promising.
• Interdisciplinary humility. Analytic theologians should engage charitably with modern theology and with biblical studies—not as “ersatz philosophers,” but as theologians working coram Deo within the church’s long conversation.

What McCall gets right

Clarity in service of theology. McCall refuses the false choice between rigorous argument and confessional fidelity. The book models how analytic virtues—precision, coherence, parsimony—can sharpen doctrinal work without shrinking it. The discussion of Rea’s P1–P5, coupled with sensible caveats about genre and proportion, gives practitioners a usable checklist.

Revelational control, not rationalist drift. The “authorisation spectrum” is simple and powerful. It checks over‑reach and under‑reach in equal measure and keeps Scripture in the driver’s seat even when metaphysical questions loom.

Case‑study traction. The sovereignty/responsibility analysis is exemplary: by prising apart biblical and metaphysical compatibilisms (and assessing Frankfurt‑style debates), McCall shows where the real fault lines run. Likewise, the Christology chapter demonstrates how analytic models can defend creedal grammar and expose incoherent alternatives without sliding into arid speculation. The creation/Adam chapter is admirably patient in clearing conceptual underbrush so that exegetes and scientists can actually hear one another.

Programmatic honesty. McCall names the field’s gaps (ecclesiology, sacraments, moral theology) and calls for global breadth and interdisciplinary charity. The invitation is not triumphalist; it is realistic and hopeful.

Where to press further

Historical and ecclesial thickening. The retrieval impulse is welcome, but readers may want deeper worked examples beyond Christology—say, analytic treatments of sacramental presence, episcopacy, or ecclesial authority that engage the Fathers and the Reformers with the same care shown elsewhere.

Beyond the Anglo‑analytic centre. McCall gestures towards a global analytic theology. A second edition or companion volume could stage extended conversations with African, Asian, and Latin American theologians, and with “continental” interlocutors, to test how analytic virtues travel across metaphysical sensibilities.

Method and biblical‑theological reasoning. The chapter on Scripture wisely insists on revelational control, but the interface with canonical and narrative approaches could be deepened. How do P1–P5 bear on the genre‑sensitive work of biblical theology? What counts as an “implication” warranted by the canon’s inner coherence? These are ripe for expansion.

On “mystery.” McCall’s clarifications are helpful; one could go further and map a taxonomy of mysteries (e.g., revealed mysteries vs. merely unknowns; mysteries of excess vs. mysteries of defect) to guide analytic restraint in different doctrinal loci.

Who should read this—and how to use it

This is the primer the field needed. Seminary students, theologians curious (or sceptical) about analytic method, and scholars working at the seams between exegesis, doctrine, and philosophy will profit. Read it to learn the habits—how to define terms, surface assumptions, distinguish levels of claim, and test coherence. Use the case studies to stage classroom debates or research seminars:

• In doctrine: ask students to reconstruct DS/MR (biblical compatibilism) and trace what further premises are required for or against metaphysical determinism.
• In Christology: have them contrast two‑minds, modified kenosis, and reduplicative strategies, identifying where each model bears the exegetical and metaphysical weight.
• In science–faith work: map the meanings of “evolution,” list the metaphysical assumptions at play, and test specific arguments for non sequitur moves.

Verdict

A crisp, charitable, and genuinely theological invitation. McCall makes a persuasive case that analytic methods—rightly ordered by revelation and tradition—help the church reason more carefully and confess more truly. The book is analysis‑forward rather than agenda‑driven, rich in lucid distinctions and concrete examples, and candid about the work still to be done. Strongly recommended as a first stop for readers who want to understand (and practise) analytic Christian theology.