Reviews 311

If one is left wondering about the relation between relation itself and wonder,
indeed perhaps the feminist, queer and decolonial concrescences of the respon-
sible indeterminacy proposed in Strange Wonder, one looks forward to Mary-Jane
Rubenstein’s next work and the growing force of her own voice. If one wishes
to hear her reflect on the relation between theology and philosophy, “we are left,”
she writes, “with a meditation on the breath, which opens the self essentially onto
every other . . .” (p. 188). If this last ruach feels too animal for otherworldliness,
too mysterious for atheism—so much the better. Theologically, Strange Wonder
will provide smart companionship for those working on questions of negative
theology, of the responsible deconstruction of Christianity, or of a relational
basis for a political theology. It will be showing up as the sort of commentary
indispensable in future interpretations of her four primary sources—all the more so
because it is itself so quotable. The reader can only come to the end of this book
astonished.

Catherine Keller
303 W 66th
Apt 20HE
New York, NY 10023
USA
Catherine-keller@earthlink.edu

The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist by Angel F. Méndez Montoya
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) xi + 170 pp.

There is a surprising dearth of material dealing with the philosophy and theology
of food and of eating, and Angel Méndez Montoya’s book is a timely investigation
into one of the most interesting areas of embodied life. In this work Montoya
addresses the question of the significance of food and eating to theology, taking the
alimentary function of food in all its complex resonances as a model for the role of
theology in nourishing human life, reorienting it towards the interdependencies
between human beings in community, of human beings with ecology, and of cre-
ation with God. Montoya takes it as given that food “matters”, though the question
of what it is to “matter” is held open in the name of preserving a view of things that
escapes reductionism: Food matters because we cannot live without it, because in
some sense, as Feuerbach observed, we are what we eat, but this is significant
because food is not “just food”; it always points beyond itself to speak of something
greater.
Montoya’s thesis is that various aspects of eating suggest a vision of theology
conceived as “alimentation”. Food is an occasion for human nurturing and sharing
because it participates in some sense in God’s superabundance and in the self-sharing
of the trinity. The incarnation, and the self-giving of God becoming bread in the
eucharist, continue this. The author distinguishes between nutrition, referring to
discrete chemical processes, and alimentation, which considers such processes as
well as their social and symbolic context. It is theology’s calling, Montoya proposes, to
participate in this function of the transformation of human beings by being a nurtur-
ing and sharing force, and so becoming a kind of food. This all points to an ontology
which is considered “as the co-arrival of superabundance and sharing, neither abso-
lutizing nor demanding total ownership” (p. 4).
The first chapter begins with an extended passage on making mole, a tradi-
tional Mexican sauce, by grinding together 33 ingredients including several varieties

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of chili, spices, nuts and chocolate. For Montoya the example of mole paints a
picture of the role of theology in human life according to certain points of
comparison.
Mole is a complex hybrid which combines flavours and traditions in a way that
intensifies what is best in them and retains a strong sense of cultural identity; mole
expresses the distinctively Mexican, preserving the many cultural strands that go to
make it up, rather than emasculating them by a bland dilution. The making of mole is
analogous to the making of theology insofar as it is a complex labour requiring
discipline and dedication, an art which is learned by doing.
The fleshly nature of the incarnation points to the reality that flesh is not God’s
other, just as food is not other to the human person, but the product of human
creation, and becoming-human in its eating, though it is not itself “flesh” in a strict
sense. This seems to me to be one of the book’s most powerful comparisons, and it is
a shame it is not more carefully drawn, though this is in many ways a consequence
of the very wide scope of the book and the fact that Montoya does not have a great
deal of source material to work with.
In the second chapter, Montoya takes up the comparison between wisdom and
taste: the Spanish words for these, saber and sabor, betray their common root in the
Latin sapere. For Montoya this etymology demonstrates that to taste is to truly know,
to understand in a kind of mutual participation. Montoya refers to Laura Esquivel’s
novel Like Water for Chocolate, in which a forbidden erotic relationship is conducted
through the cooking of a woman for the man she truly loves, who is also her brother-
in-law. Cooking and eating constitute, then, a sensual form of communication, and are
paradigmatic for a participatory model of knowledge, showing how the Thomistic
conception of knowledge as participation bridges the ontological chasm between
subject and object characteristic of correspondence theories. For Montoya, “Eating
and drinking thus provide a culinary medium for a cognition that is connected with
the body and constructions of the world” (p. 46).
Montoya could go further here. Food is described as a medium for cognition, but
this seems to presuppose a kind of internal mental representation (a cognitive act)
which is prior. Cuisine could perhaps be better understood as a form of bodily
thought itself. Cooking is an example that shows that action is not the translation
of a mental intention into a bodily movement, but rather an embodied process in
which thought and action are inseparably intertwined in a body-subject.
In the third chapter Montoya argues, with Bataille, that in the postlapsarian
world there is a disconnection between creatures and creation, and that in this
situation eating is linked with death, both of the eaten and inevitably of the eater. But
asserting, against Bataille, the possibility of a creator that transcends creation,
Montoya goes on to argue for a more positive reading under which eating points to
the suberabundance of God both prior to the fall and at creation’s end. Montoya
spends several pages developing a reading of the narrative of the fall in Genesis 2-3,
arguing in the end that eating the forbidden fruit amounts to separating creation from
its creator by taking what is not given; this leads to a loss of the vision of God (which,
then, presumably depends on seeing created things properly), and to the inevitability
of death (since life is cut off from its ultimate source). It is with Alexander Schmemann
that this becomes clearer—for we depend on food, and such dependence leaves us
dependent on the whole creation, which is God’s gift.
Montoya’s reading of Sergei Bulgakov clarifies this, by elucidating the notion of
nourishment—eating blurs the boundaries between ourselves and the world, between
what is I and what is not-I, between subject and object. As such I find myself as a
dependent part of the world, not a Kantian subject forever distanced from noumenal
reality, but rather a dependent part of that reality. Montoya examines Bulgakov’s
Sophianic vision, affirming the point of view that human beings play a role in

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co-creating or re-creating the world. Again, Montoya could go further in showing how
our dependence on the world for sustenance involves our being a part of that world,
so that whether or not human beings have a privileged place in the world, their role
is best understood not in terms of a dualism between man and nature but as an aspect
of the self-shaping lability of the world.
In the fourth chapter, Montoya brings his reflections on food to bear on political
considerations. Taking Isak Dinesen’s novel Babette’s Feast as a starting point, he
aims to show how food’s role as the matter of gift-exchange suggests a politics
which is grounded in the abundance of the gift, God’s superabundance, as opposed
to the pure power-politics which arises in capitalist conditions as a result of the
conception of desire as figuring a fundamental lack. Montoya draws parallels with
the scriptural pictures of God’s provision of manna to the Israelites wandering in
the desert, and Jesus’ miraculous feeding of crowds, both of which demand that
food be treated as a gift rather than as property, and point to a deeper dependence
on God’s Word.
For Montoya, Christian celebration of the Eucharist symbolically repeats the
miraculous feedings, reminding Christians of their dependence on God, for food and
for their very existence. Eucharistic eating displays a logic of co-inherence which is
central to Christian understanding, for when I eat, the food I eat becomes me in the
process of digestion, but I also become the food, I am what I eat. In the same way the
Christian is in Christ, just as Christ is in the Christian, as the believer eats Christ’s
body. This ontology of co-inherence is opposed to a conception of desire as lack in
capitalist societies, for whose citizens, however much they have, can never have
enough. The practices of feasting and fasting serve to discipline desire and to re-orient
it towards God, the source and true object of what it desires, instead of towards the
superficial object of desire.
Montoya highlights four main conclusions of the argument of his book—first, that
theology, like cooking, is a performative reality, which concerns what we do as much
as what we write or say. Second, that theology involves a broad plurality of “ingre-
dients” (traditions, cultures, languages, etc.), but also a careful and knowledgeable
crafting of these elements. Third, that reflections on food in general bear on the
eucharist, which nourishes us both as material reality and as sign. Fourth, that think-
ing about the eucharist can in turn inform the way we eat and live, and calls us to
respond to the hunger of others, seeking to enter into the circulation of the gift whose
source is in God by being nourished and nourishing others, physically and spiritually.
Montoya ends in an acknowledgment that the church does not always live up to this
calling, and in particular of our failure to treat our ecological resources with respect.
Nevertheless, there is cause for hope since the nourishment which God gives is
transformative and ongoing.
The Theology of Food makes theological use of food as a paradigm and example for
re-thinking both the aims of theology and its presuppositions, successfully holding
together form and content in an attempt to move beyond false dualisms. It shows how
food can be demonstrative of the failures of modern conceptions of the autonomous
and spectatorial self and its relation to the world and to God. In some ways it does not
carry this logic to its conclusion, in ways I have suggested.
Montoya’s argument depends on a kind of associative thinking which demands
further exposition in both philosophical and theological terms, and depends on a
commitment to a Thomistic approach which not all readers will share. Whilst many of
the associations he makes are suggestive of fruitful possibilities, the work of bringing
to full expression the ontological insights which are nascent here, and their conse-
quences for politics, ecology, and theology, remains to be done.
Nevertheless, Montoya’s book is a delight to read, and is a significant contribution
to the effort to apply theological thinking to the everyday realities of embodied life.

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One hopes that the book will be, as the author suggests, a “prolegomenon” to further
discourse.

Orion Edgar
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
UK
orionedgar@mac.com

Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology by Mark A. McIntosh

(Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) xii + 252 pp.

All introductory theology textbooks should have three distinguishing features. First,
they should cover—as thoroughly as possible—the essential building-blocks of the
discipline. By conveying such information clearly and efficiently in written form,
textbooks free up class time for deeper, more interesting explorations and/or inter-
active discussions. Second, they should be accessible to their audiences without
expecting instructors to add mountains of explanatory addenda. If they presume too
much, they defeat their primary purpose; students come to class mystified, in need of
definitions, historical background, and explications of convoluted passages. Most
books marketed as “textbooks” clearly fail on this criterion; too many authors, pre-
sumably in an effort to demonstrate their vast scholarship (or perhaps because they
haven’t spent enough time in the classroom), simply expect too much background.
While students are often eager and interested, they are not classically educated in
languages, philosophy, or history; scatterings of untranslated words, or sidelong
references to Wittgenstein’s aphorisms or Caligula’s morality, lead to blank stares
and eventual frustration. Third, a textbook should be interesting and enjoyable. This
does not mean that it must “entertain” in the popular sense, or that it cannot stretch
its readers. Most students today are relatively overwhelmed; they work at a job for
twenty hours a week, feel compelled to maintain social lives (both real and virtual),
and participate in many of the thousands of activities that are thrust upon them. If
they are to be persuaded to read material in preparation for class, this will not be
accomplished simply by force of the instructor’s will. A well-written textbook should
be at least as interesting as the other demands on students’ time and energy; in doing
so, it may even inspire a love of the discipline.
These observations are my own, based on years in the classroom. But they are not
only my own; Augustine believed quite firmly that theology should be written with its
audience in mind. Adopting a slogan from Roman rhetoric, he insisted that the goal of
theology should be “to teach, to delight, and to move”; if Christianity is truly the
captivating, inspiring, and joyous way of life that we often proclaim it to be, then those
who read about it should experience it this way—and not as dull, boring, and utterly
unappetizing. In other words: if our students are put off by theological study, we have
only ourselves to blame.
Given these criteria, it has been some time since I have read an introductory
theology textbook that I could genuinely recommend, or that I would consider using
in the classroom. I am therefore happy to report that Mark McIntosh’s latest entry into
this field is a marvelous exception to the rule. Recently named the new Van Mildert
Professor of Theology at the University of Durham, McIntosh has written a book that

© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd