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capture, the idea of God; "positive philosophy" emerges out of the historical and existential protocol of the revelation of the un-prethinkable God of Exodus 3.14, Lord of Being or "Herr des Seins". What is distinctive here is his use of the Trinitarian theology. Krueger develops an extremely useful comparison of Schelling with the Orthodox tradition, especially the pre-Nicaean tradition of thought. Schelling can thus be seen as a thinker who is both emerging out of very modern concerns, problems associated with Spinoza and Kant, but also as a thinker who draws upon classical patristic sources. This helps illuminate Schelling's enormously important role in Russian nineteenth-century thought, e.g. Soloviev.I have two reservations concerning this excellent book. Firstly, the lucid and helpful review of literature sometimes leads to a sense of repetition. Secondly, I am not sure how helpful it is to present Schelling's philosophy as "internal realism", i.e. the view that the world is causally independent of the mind but dependent upon the mind for its structure. Of course, Schelling's emphasis upon the pre-conceptual or the "un-prethinkable" has parallels with Empiricist critiques of "internal relations" in the early twentieth century. But Schelling's thought emerges not merely out of Kantian questions about mind and world but much more ancient dilemmas about the "One and the Many" and "Being and Thought", problems that can be traced back to Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle. Schelling's particular fusion of theology and philosophy can be most helpful seen in relation to this more ancient strand of thought than in terms of his struggles with the Kantian legacy. Krueger is to be applauded for attempting to display the relevance of Schelling for the contemporary philosophical discussion. Yet the positions and debates associated with Putnam and Davidson in the 1980s are so far removed from Schelling's own milieu, and so remote from the theology that animates both Schelling and Kruger, that the analogies seem rather forced. One might add, by way of parenthesis, that the observations upon Schelling's use of Aristotle's Metaphysics (pp. 176ff) are highly illuminating.These, however, are minor criticisms. The achievement of this learned and precise document is the superb presentation of Schelling's speculative doctrine of the Trinity as the explication of Divine freedom. In particular, Krueger is the first to deal with Schelling's doctrine of the Trinity as the systematic core of Schelling's later philosophy. This places Schelling at odds with Schleiermacher, who was notoriously coy in his doctrinal commitments. While sharing his strong interest in Trinity and Christology with Hegel, Schelling is concerned to develop this Trinitarian theology in a manner that emphasises the radical freedom and personal nature of God. Krueger shows how Schelling avoids the unhelpful alternative of either a rationalism of the Spinozistic-Hegelian stamp or a theological positivism that retreats into authority or irrational obscurity. The full i...

Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ: Agency, Necessity, and Culpability in Augustinian Theology By Jesse Couenhoven According to Augustine's doctrine of original sin, Adam's progeny share a collective guilt which, like an infection, spreads through wayward sexual desires, passing from parent to child. But is it fair to blame sinners if they inherit evil like a disease? In Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ Jesse Couenhoven clarifies the logic and illogic of Augustine's controversial views about human agency. The first half of the book examines why Augustine believed we are trapped by evil, and why only Christ can save us. Couenhoven examines overlooked texts Augustine wrote at the culmination of his career and offers a novel reading of his views about whether we control our personal identities, what we should be held culpable for, and whether freedom is compatible with necessity. The second half of the book develops a philosophically and scientifically astute theory of responsibility that makes it possible to retrieve some of Augustine's most divisive claims. Couenhoven makes a case for the surprising thesis that a carefully formulated doctrine of original sin is profoundly humane. The claim that sin is original takes seriously our dependence on one another for essential aspects of character and personality, our ownership of cognitive and volitional states that are not simply products of voluntary choices, and our status as personal agents of evil. Attending to these aspects of our lives challenges the idea that each individual's moral and spiritual standing is up to her or him, and drives us to ponder not only the nature of our responsibility and the shape of the freedom we seek, but also the need for grace we all share.