In the genesis of Greek philosophy three stages have been distinguished, the poetical, the dialectic, and the expository.² If this may be taken as representative of the natural development of thought on any subject, it would seem that mathematical inference cannot be considered to have yet reached exposition,³ for we find a singularly complete disagreement on the question between Fr Joyce and Fr Coffey.⁴ Examination and discussion of the data, therefore – a work which a tyro may undertake with benefit to himself and no harm to others – happens to be profitable at present; and this is my apology for venturing...

As it is a fallacy to introduce the standards of one’s own time into the interpretation of a thinker of the past, it would seem more accurate to say that Aristotle invented the syllogism rather than that he propounded a theory of inference. That the modern notion of the aim of logic, namely, to give distinctness to mental acts in respect of their content by discussion and classification, was evolved rather than emerged, is evidenced by the Scholastic conception of the end of logic proposed by Fr Frick in this manner: ‘Finislogicae est: tutam et expeditam reddere rationem ad...

Truth may be attained by a scientific investigation or again by a judgment which may be anything from a guess to an intuition. The difference is that by science truth is not only known but also known to be known, while as there is no ready criterion between true and false judgments, one may judge truly but cannot know one has done so. For this reason certitude is restricted to scientific conclusions. However, if true judgment may be consciously true, then science ceases to be the one measure of evidence for certitude. That true judgment may be consciously true is...

In a celebrated paradox, Zeno argued that Achilles wouldnevercatch the Tortoise, because the Tortoise would be making headway while Achilles ran the distance of the handicap, and as Achilles would inevitably take some time to overcome this headway, the Tortoise in that time would be making more headway, and so on indefinitely. Now, theneverseems gratuitous. All Zeno is entitled to say is that the number of successive handicaps Achilles must overcome is infinite. (I take an infinite number to be a number greater than any number theoretically assignable by man. Such a number is not merely...

In a recent trenchant article, criticism is offered of Fr Hontheim’s arguments against creation from eternity.² I wish to question the criticism of what is referred to as the ‘stones’ example (pp. 92, 93, 94,Blandyke Papers, February, 1929).³

Fr Hontheim undertakes to show that a successive infinite multitude involves the possibility of a simultaneous infinite multitude: on each of an infinite number of days, God could create and preserve some durable object such as a stone; the result, at the end of an infinite number of days, would be a simultaneous infinity of stones. Therefore, if a successive infinity...

In a famous preface to a definitely poor play, Victor Hugo outlined his conception of a new drama that was to be as large as life. The old classical distinction between tragedy and comedy was to be effaced; the sublime and the ridiculous were to be set side by side, and their juxtaposition was to result in a species of compressed reality, if not beauty, which was termed the grotesque.² He had caught an idea from Chateaubriand,³ and prominent in the array of arguments for his theory was the contention that a catholic unity in difference, a manifold complexity, should...

It is again the privilege of theReviewto record Loyola’s acquisition of another building. Flanking the front building and linked to it by a closed-in cloister now stands the college chapel. A broad, steeply slanting copper roof between Flemish gables, with a lofty flèche, also copper-covered, near the western end where the incipient transepts cut across; windows, rectangular in the nave with buttresses between them, circular in the transepts and apse; a facade, well back from the street, that rises somewhat abruptly above the broad perron and challenges by its plain stretches of brickwork over the stone-framed doors and...

His Holiness Pope Pius XII has thought of Canada. By a formal act, rich in its profound significance, he has named as secondary patrons of our country the eight saints and martyrs who labored here and died as witnesses to Christ.² Nothing certainly could be more opportune at the present moment, when we are leagued in a terrible struggle against a power that would stamp out and destroy even the modern world’s tepid love and secretive reverence for Christ. Nothing could be more inspiring for our future development, when we shall have to confront the economic problem and, by our...

I wish to draw attention to the great significance of the government’s ‘Savings’ campaign. The obligation it places on every loyal Canadian is manifest, but what is not so obvious is the extraordinary opportunity it offers to Catholic Action.² May I develop the latter point?

Canada’s war activities are generating approximately a 50% increase in the national turnover. Added to the ordinary volume of production for consumers, expenditure by consumers, and income from that expenditure, there is another volume which produces for war purposes, is financed by the government, and gives rise to a proportionate volume of income. Say, for...

I was preaching a retreat to a community of nuns in the southcoast town of Worthing, some miles west of Brighton, when the theory of the blitzkrieg was first put to the test on the Poles. The matter of preparing and delivering three longish talks every day left me little time to read the disquisitions inThe Timeson the strategic significance of the Vistula and the Bug² and, in a last resort, the Pripet marshes.³ Anyway, it was more important to get a gas mask – there was a fine of ten shillings if one failed to carry one about...

Many unities bind men together besides their unity in Christ. The bond may be conspicuous as a country on the map, or inconspicuous as a cultural tradition. It may be quiet and practical like a trade union or a sodality; or noisy and mysterious like a break on the stock market. It may be a fine ideal as democratic justice and equality; a grandiose dream like the Fascist empire; the efficient madness of Germany’s racial pride; or just the homely brutality of Joseph Stalin. But whatever their nature, such bonds are ever present. Weak or strong, manifest or unsuspected, localized...

As a pilot raises or dips his plane or turns to right or left, so too does God rule. He is master of the hearts of men. Slowly, even suddenly, the pleasure or success on which one’s heart is set might lose the blush of beauty, the promise of joy. Into one’s will might pour a fire that only sanctity could assuage. What would you do?

It is a real problem, not to be solved as readily as those fancy who have never given it a thought. Take the case of Ignatius of Loyola. His dreams had been of feats...

When asked to write on Chesterton as theologian, naturally I was tempted to twist my terms of reference and switch to the more obvious and abundant themes of Chesterton as metaphysician or Chesterton as apologist. There is an unmistakable metaphysical strain to the man who explained the development of a puppy into a dog as a matter of becoming more doggy. There is an overwhelming apologist in the man who made enormous fun of the endless fallacies current fromHereticstoThe Thing.² But how can a theologian be made of a man who repeatedly implied and often affirmed he...

A few years ago a non-Catholic from Canada dropped into a Catholic church in Washington on a Sunday morning. It was not that the architecture appealed to him. The statues and other ornaments he liked even less. The place was filled, mainly by Negroes. Mass was going on, and the celebrant was a Negro. Still, there were present a very large number of people from the neighboring embassies. That spectacle was food for thought; for, if in Washington racial feeling is well under control, it is nonetheless very real. ‘What,’ he exclaimed to himself, ‘does it matter if the architecture...

The topic assigned me read: The Assumption of Our Lady, A New Dogma. Since that title is not quite free of ambiguity, it was explained to me that very good people were perplexed over the definition of a doctrine which apparently is not contained either in scripture or in tradition. My purpose, then, is not to pronounce a panegyric celebrating the recent definition, but to deal with a problem – in fact, to deal with the same problem that I happened to treat in the theological congress held in the University of Montreal two years ago.²

As I pointed out on...

The doctrine of the mystical body of Christ refers to a concrete union of the divine persons with one another and with man and, again, of men’s union with one another and with the divine persons. Because it is a doctrine that envisages things as they concretely are, it has all the complexity, all the stout articulation and delicate ramification of concrete reality. Because it is a single doctrine, its many elements, its manifold differentiations, its comprehensive network of relations, have to be apprehended all at once in a single view. Finally, because it is a supernatural doctrine, the relevant...

To live in a fool’s paradise is a temptation denied us. Not that we are wiser than our fathers, but so obviously the world is no paradise now. Through the twenties we headed gaily to the great depression. Through the thirties we headed gaily to a second great war. Through the forties grimly we headed to victory and peace, only to discover that to secure the peace the powerful nations must stockpile A-bombs.

Hitler is credited with the invention of the ‘great lie,’ the lie so vast, astounding, and outrageous that denial seems feeble, disregard a confession, and refutation a...

To the average Canadian, ‘church’ means a large stone building used on Sunday morning; ‘authority’ recalls Hitler and the Middle Ages; and ‘acknowledgment’ is a five-dollar word meaning an answer to a letter. Just what ‘teaching’ refers to is more obscure; in the old days it was a matter of reading, writing, and arithmetic; now it has to do, it seems, with such progressive subjects as English conversation and sandpit.² Finally even intensive research in the comic strips and in advertising copy might reveal no occurrence of the rare word ‘humble.’

Instead of struggling with so strange a vocabulary, then,...

‘And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel … And his sons walked not in his ways, but they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. Then all the ancients of Israel, being assembled, came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, “Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways. Make us a king to judge us, as all nations have.” And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say, “Give us a king to...

Quod sibi auctor in hoc opere scribendo consilium proposuit, ut quae clarissimus quisque philosophus de errore senserit, quaeque deinceps hac de re in singulis fere scholis sententiae obtinuerint, accurate inquireret et diiudicaret, hoc eum felicissime assecutum esse nemo erit, ut censeo, qui infitietur. Quaestio enim subtilior atque exquisitior eademque bene definita tractatur, cui tantum abest ut philosophi vel antiqui vel recentiores satis fecerint, ut nobis contra posterisve nostris magnam huius problematis expediendi laudem reliquisse videantur. Quoniam ergo hoc libro in rem perobscuram neque satis antea ab aliis tractatam plurimum lucis allatum est, ad studiorum philosophicorum profectum eum maxime pertinere iudicamus....

No one, I think, would disagree that the author of this work has succeeded admirably in achieving his purpose, namely, to examine carefully and assess the opinions of all the major philosophers regarding the problem of error and the opinions on this topic that have prevailed in successive schools of thought. For his treatment of the question is quite subtle and detailed and at the same time clearly outlined, yet the treatment of it by both ancient and more recent philosophers has been so inadequate that one would think they had left to us or our successors the glory of...

The Catholic Centre is conceived both as a criterion of truth and as a norm of action. Because Catholicism is central, it is true. Because this centrality is an ideal never perfectly achieved, Catholics must ever strive to achieve it.

The work is not a treatise. Disregarding the genres of the specialists, Mr Watkin meditates in public on the liturgy as the perfect expression of the Catholic Centre and on adoration as its inner spirit. A philosopher, he relates it to the antitheses of idealism and realism, rationalism and irrationalism, fluidity and fixity, divine immanence and divine transcendence. His atmosphere...

Moses M. Coady’sMasters of Their Own Destinyis now in its second French edition; the original English is published by Harper’s. It must be read by everyone interested in modern problems. Through its pages breathes the authentic spirit of Canada, a Canada facing the new age, facing its fundamental economic problem, and attaining a solid solution that is the admiration of the hemisphere.

It is sometimes thought that the method employed by the Antigonish Movement² cannot be applied universally, that it can work only under such special circumstances as are found in northeastern Nova Scotia. Nothing could be further...

M. Maritain grasps St Paul as the first and greatest of the stream of converts who have illumined the church: he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, who nevertheless broke the cords of cultural limitation to perceive and announce the universality of the Gospel, the primacy of the spiritual, and the liberty of the sons of God; he was a thinker whom the categories of abstract thought may chart but cannot represent. His doctrine is presented in seven well chosen extracts from the Epistles, which are preceded by an Introduction and a sketch of St Paul’s life, and are linked...

The ‘Grail’ is a movement of deep spiritual culture that slipped over to English girls from Holland when the J.O.C. moved majestically from Belgium to France.² It is part and parcel of the general ‘secession of the proletariat’ of our time: a movement of souls, alienated by the vacuous hopes and strident stupidity of our civilization, and gathering round various centers to grow inwardly and then burst outwardly in the creation of a new order. Such centers are manifold. For if our Western culture is everywhere the same dry rot, if the human spirit is always the same, it remains...

In the Nietzschean ‘revaluation of all values’ that has been and remains the main preoccupation of our time, marriage was among the latest to undergo the sea-change. As late as the nineteenth century, full three hundred years after the German reformer repudiated reason and the Tudor got himself another wife and church, the sacrosanctity of marriage remained an inviolate principle. Ruskin, inveighing against the industrial revolution, attacked the since rarer pharisaism of believing that to be the complacent and righteous father of a dozen children was to observe the whole Law and the Prophets. Huxley blithely tossed God and Christianity...

George Boyle is a Wise Man from the East. Like his prototypes, he has seen a star and follows it. Besides the labor of editing theMaritime Cooperator, he has produced a book that bears fresh witness to the vitality, the realism, and the profundity of the social movement emanating from a Catholic and Canadian University, St Francis Xavier, Antigonish.²

To George Boyle there exists no question that democracy missed its first chance. Our modern world is very new as well as very bad. But Mr Boyle is not at all concerned to show the newness of our cities, our...

The question is of manifest interest. It is not merely, ‘What is to be done after the war?’ It is, ‘Are things already so bad that there is no hope for the future?’

The author’s answer involves a distinction between the two poles in modern culture. There is the materialistic, anti-traditional tendency. Its obvious representative is in the field of economics: eighteenth-century capitalism, nineteenth-century communism and twentieth-century nazism. Such is the great materialist trinity: communism is a collectivist reaction against capitalist individualism; nazism is a nationalist reaction against the international character of finance and world revolution. Despite their differences and...

In the role of a French Anglophile, Maurois is best known to English letters. Indeed, his studies of Disraeli, of Shelley, of Byron, had been taken somewhat as a matter of course after his meteoric rise to fame in 1917. Then, at a time when the fortunes of war were low and nerve ends frayed, hisSilence of Colonel Bramble² attained by art what diagnosis and explanation could never do. It gave the French an insight into the character of their allies; and it delighted the English to find a Frenchman who understood them so well. Still the book was...

There is an increasing consciousness of the fact that men of good will have to join against the forces of destruction in the modern world. One of the most obvious struggles will be the next peace settlement, and in this regard the men of good will will have little more than their benevolence. Because, then, ‘pep without purpose is piffle’ and purpose without knowledge is impossible, there is a great debt of gratitude due to the author of this book. He has exceptionally intimate knowledge of Europe. He has great critical ability. He writes vividly, vigorously, entertainingly.

Perhaps his basic...

Over a century ago the classical economists divided social activities into two classes: the profitable and the unprofitable. The profitable were entrusted to the undoubted beneficence of intelligent self-interest. The unprofitable residue was handed over to the state. The inadequacy of this conception – social evils result from sloppy thinking – has presented us in the year 1943 with an economic system that runs only by fits and starts and with a political system overloaded with the ever mounting residue of unprofitable business.

Dr Cassidy’s book – he calls it aTract for the Timesand avows its propagandistic intention – is concerned with...

It has been urged that too frequently thephilosophia perennispasses from one book to another without passing through any mind. In the light of that complaint the present work must be judged an exception[al] outline of Scholastic philosophy. Dr Reinhardt, now engaged as professor of Germanic languages at Stanford University, has put into a book materials collected and developed during the past twelve years while he was conducting an extension course under the auspices of the University of California. Of German birth and education, the recipient of doctorates from the University of Freiburg, he was a publisher, an editor,...

Mediaeval Studiescontinues its patient and solid work of reducing ourlibertas errandiin interpreting mediaeval documents. I. Th. Eschmann, O.P., brings to book those who would foist on St Thomas an acceptance of the moral validity of the notion of collective guilt; the investigation is thorough but incomplete; a further article is promised. Professor Gilson works out the puzzle of St Augustine’s references to Egypt in his account of the works of the Platonists. Dr Landgraf gives valuable notes on mediaeval usage of the terms ‘editio’ and ‘facultas,’ and on the mediaeval manner of citing authors. Armand Maurer, C.S.B.,...

The author conceives the problem of induction as the problem of the transition from particular to general propositions. His purpose is to solve the problem, and the whole interest and value of his work lies in the solution he proposes. His approach is purely logical. He does not consider it part of his business to give any account of the manner in which we arrive at particular propositions; accordingly, he ignores the possibility that the ground of induction is prior to the transition from particular to general propositions and in the formation of the particular propositions themselves. Assuming particular propositions,...

This investigation of the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas on the natural desire for God, after a preliminary chapter in which apparently conflicting texts are presented, takes over and elaborates the fourfold classification of opinions worked out by P. Brisbois inNouvelle revue théologique, 1936.² Then, returning to the text of St Thomas, it develops an interpretation that coincides with none of the four. The author’s basic contention turns upon a distinction between desire in the intellect for knowledge and desire in the will for happiness. There is in the intellect a natural desire for the vision of God, for...

This is an instructive work written by a vigorous and inquiring mind. While the discussion ranges from logical positivism to mystical experience, the central concern is the reconciliation of the properties of the act of faith, which at once is certain yet free, rational yet due to divine grace. Though the author has more material than he can fit smoothly into the space at his disposal, the somewhat choppy presentation of exact information does not interfere with the strong logical structure and its strictly speculative intention. Indeed, I find the basic viewpoint most attractive:

Theology is the queen of the...

The work presents to a wider public the lectures given at the Mediaeval Institute in 1946. If to settle recondite points scholars will also want the somewhat similarL’être et l’essence,² everyone more at home in English will be grateful for the opportunity to assimilate the massive argument along the line of least resistance.

What is meant by ‘being’? The very question is misleading. A geometer has to be able to define ‘circle,’ but he need not care whether our powers of observation and our instruments of measurement are capable of determining whether or not there is a single circle....

In the light of the ‘unity of philosophical experience’ M. Gilson endeavors to determine the content of the most basic of terms, ‘being.’ As indicated in the preface, the work is not history but philosophy, not narrative but argument. It remains that the argument is a massive affair, an extraordinarily erudite application of the method Aristotle named ‘dialectic.’ It draws upon the thought of some two dozen philosophers from Parmenides to Sartre, and it considers them not in isolation but in their originating affiliations and their consequent influence. To offer a summary of such a work is, of course, to...

With increasing insistence, historians have been advancing that the Renaissance constitutes a watershed in Catholic theological thought on nature and grace. In 1928 inGregorianum, Fr Elter argued impressively that theologians prior to Sylvester Maurus took it for granted that perfect beatitude was to be had by man only in the beatific vision.² With no less impressiveness in 1929, though his work does not seem equally well known, Fr Doucet inAntonianumargued that theologians prior to Cajetan took it for granted that there existed in man a natural desire for the supernatural vision of God.³ Recently both these positions...

In the present work Professor Stakemeier of the Faculty of Theology at Paderborn is concerned with contemporary problems in the perspective of contemporary general culture. In a brief introduction he recalls a remark of Pius XI on the advantage enjoyed by Catholic doctrine inasmuch as it can be presented in simple language, intelligible to anyone, without thereby suffering any substantial loss. Accordingly, he has made it his aim throughout his book to be non-technical even in the sections in which such graciousness is not commonly expected of a theologian. In correspondence with the manner is the theme that takes concrete...

Sciences ecclésiastiquesfor 1950 maintains the standards we have come to expect. Two articles on theology, two on asceticism, and one on moral philosophy occupy over 180 pages. Notes on psychology and theology occupy 30 more, and there are some 40 pages of book reviews. To discuss all contributions would be impossible; therefore, I shall direct my attention particularly to the leading article of over 60 pages by R.P. Jules Paquin on John of St Thomas’s account of thelumen gloriae.²

With unfailing clarity and precision, Fr Paquin follows John step by step through an extremely complex issue. Thelumen...

Many have been fascinated by Aquinas’s affirmation that God operates in all other operations inasmuch as he creates all finite principles of action, conserves them, applies them, and uses them as instruments. On this topic Fr Iglesias published in 1946 his work,De Deo in operatione naturae vel voluntatis operante.² The thesis was that Aquinas taught mediated concursus and that he was right in doing so. The same contention remains in the present work, where it becomes the hypothesis of a theory on the nature of divine knowledge and providence, predestination and reprobation, efficacious and sufficient grace.

In substance, the...

Is the statementideo Filius quia Verbuma matter of faith, or a permanently valid contribution to theology, or an intrusion of philosophic speculation into Catholic doctrine? Such approximately is the question to which Fr Paissac seeks an answer by studying ecclesiastical pronouncements (pp. 11–33), outlining the thought of St Augustine (pp. 34–60), indicating earlier sources (pp. 64–102), recalling the contributions of Aquinas’s medieval predecessors (pp. 103–116), and in three main sections investigating the thought of Aquinas himself (pp. 117–231). The general conclusions that emerge from the work are (1) that, while the Church has...

M. Jules Chaix-Ruy possesses the never common merit of a stimulating awareness of the philosophic problems that concern our time and of the main lines of their solution. If his basic attachment seems to be to Augustine, Pascal, and M. Blondel, if on the notions of space and time he balances Kant, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger with Newton, Clarke, and Einstein, still his main purpose is to orientate the bewildered existential subject of our day through a coherent and constructive criticism of Feuerbach and Nietzsche, Sartre and Jaspers, the historicism of Croce, and, it seems to him, the somewhat precipitate procedures...

Notional act is attributed to God the Father inasmuch as he generates God the Son; also it is attributed to both Father and Son inasmuch as they are the principle whence proceeds the Holy Spirit. The difficulty of a theological conception of the former notional act is well known and was put succinctly by Louis Billot in the following dilemma. ‘Porro relatio paternitatis secundum modum intelligendi praesupponit actum generandi, et rursus actus generandi praesupponit suppositum generans iam constitutum.’²

Commonly the mind of St Thomas on this issue is settled by appealing to the opinion expressed in theDe potentia, while...

A brief introduction (pp. 9–16) is followed by an outline of some twenty-five opinions on the consciousness of Christ (pp. 10–82), by a diagnosis of current discussion, a statement of dogmatic requirements, and the presentation of a solution (pp. 85–156).

While everyone will find useful the workmanlike review of opinions, Fr Xiberta’s many admirers may find his own treatment of the matter disappointing. Perhaps the root difficulty lies in his formulation of the issue. Liberal Protestants can ask how the man Jesus became conscious of his messianic vocation. Déodat de Basly² can ask how thehomo assumptus...

The first five chapters are devoted to a statement of the issue and to the teaching of scripture, the Greek and Latin Fathers, and the earlier Scholastic writers. The remaining four chapters set forth an account of Aquinas’s view in theSumma theologiaeand compare it with hisScriptum super Sententiasand with the views of Alexander of Hales, of St Bonaventure, and of St Albert the Great. The last sixty or so pages are devoted (1) to transcripts of manuscripts attributed to Alexander of Hales, Eudes Rigaud, and an unidentified writer, (2) to four tables, of which the most...

This compact and well-informed manual, after an introduction dealing with the notion of mystery (11–17), offers an account of ‘Scripture and Tradition’ in thirty-six pages (17–52) that include a three-page excursus on theComma Ioanneum² and four pages on imagery, liturgy, and manifestations of Christian piety. There follows aSpekulativer Teilin which are treated processions (52–103), missions (103–110), relations (110–124), persons (124–163) and the perfection, operation, and perichoresis of the persons (163–184). There follow an appendix on non-Christian trinities (184–209) and four indices.

I experience some difficulty in reconciling the author’s...

Fr Pirotta has aimed at an accurate reproduction of the Piana edition of theCommentary on the Physics. The Latin translation of Aristotle is accompanied with indications of Bekker’s pages and columns; the text of St Thomas is divided into continuously numbered paragraphs; and there are one hundred and ten pages devoted to anIndex Alphabeticus Nominum et Terminorum.

Fr Spiazzi has reproduced the Leonine editions of the commentaries on thePeri Hermeneiasand on thePosterior Analytics, together with their prefaces and indices. He has omitted the Greek text and has not added the Bekker pagination.

Fr Pera has...

Stephen MacKenna (1872–1934), one of the great line of unprofessional scholars that have enriched English letters, confided to his private journal on his thirty-sixth birthday that to translate and interpret Plotinus seemed to him ‘really worth a life.’ He resigned a lucrative post as European representative of theNew York Worldand head of its Paris office, settled in Dublin, and went to work not only on Greek language and philosophy but also on the masters of English prose style. His translation, published in five volumes by the Medici Society between 1917 and 1930, is considered by the Regius...

In 1954 a leading Italian philosopher, Professor Sciacca of Genoa, was invited to occupy theChaire Cardinal Mercierat Louvain. He took as his topic the philosophic element in the thought of St Augustine and, with the greatest delicacy and discernment, discussed (1) the role of Neoplatonism in St Augustine’s conversion, (2) his strictly philosophic stand against the skepticism of the Academy, (3) his grasp of the ontological unity of man’s composite nature, and (4) the dialectic of human nature implicit in ‘Fecisti nos ad Te, Domine.’ From the first, second, and fourth of these themes there naturally arises the...

Fr Piault, professor at the Grand Séminaire de Sens, aims to bring the dogma of the Blessed Trinity to the people. He does so beautifully through the scriptures, outlines of patristic thought, an account of Greek and Latin trinitarian theology, and indications of the relevance of the dogma to one’s spiritual life and to the human community....

Fr Xiberta is professor of theology in the International Carmelite College in Rome and Member of the Pontifical Roman Academy of St Thomas. Well-known for his scholarly research, he published in 1949 anIntroductio in sacram theologiam, and the present ample treatise may, perhaps, be regarded as a concrete application and illustration of his earlier account of theological method.

Since he believes in a division of the sciences, he leaves to historians, apologists, and exegetes practically all discussion of biblical issues. While this creates the unfortunate impression that his treatment of scriptural issues is superficial, full compensation is made by...

The lecture onMetaphysics and Ideologysets as alternatives a reasoned metaphysics and a positivistic ideology. It is largely dependent on the book,The Order and Integration of Knowledge, which combines a traditional Scholasticism of a predominantly logical type with a determination to effect the logical adjustments believed necessary to take contemporary science into account and thereby restrain merely ideological abuses.

Such adjustments involve distinctions between (1) the order of being and the order of knowledge, (2) autonomous and synthetic (derivative) sciences, (3) phenomenological, mathematical, ontological, and synthetic contexts, and (4) in place of the familiar relations of subordination and...

This is a quite clear and legible photo reprint of Peter of Bergomo’s (ob. 1482)Tabula Aureafrom the Paris or Vivès edition (1880) of the works of St Thomas. There have been restored Peter’s marginal indications of opposed or variant statements and of the divisions he followed in arranging numerous references under a single key work. The reprint is to serve as the analytic index for a forthcoming edition of theSumma theologiae, which in a single volume is to give the Leonine text and doubts about it, the Ottawa edition’s source references, rather full indications of parallel passages...

Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923) was a man of vast erudition and keen theoretical interests. Dilthey had seen a need of doing for history and human science what Immanuel Kant’sCritiquehad done for natural science; and, as Anders Nygren and Rudolf Otto, so Troeltsch was engaged in the subsidiary task of determining a religious a priori. This he conceived as the goal that was becoming clear and distinct through history, but he was unable to master the problem of relativism, shifted from theology to philosophy, and in his last years was engaged in affairs of state, when Karl Barth appeared...

In Melchior Cano’sDe locis theologicis, the tenth and last of the ‘places’ was history. But since the sixteenth century there have occurred two notable developments: there has emerged historical consciousness; and the content of the notion, and reality, of science has shifted from the abstract, universal, necessary, and immutable towards the concrete, ordered, intelligible, and dynamic. Following these developments with a notable lag, theology has been becoming conscious of its own historicity, and it has been giving more and more attention to the historical aspect of its sources and of its secondary objects. But a still further lag must...

The first three writers are brief but pointed witnesses to the crisis. From a phenomenological context Edmond Barbotin asks whether the rational is the enemy of the reasonable, whether the person, so essentially singular, can develop through access to a universal that seems either to ignore or to deny the singular (p. 26). From a Neoplatonist context Jean Trouillard argues for the ‘One’ that is, indeed, the negation of reason’s multiplicity but thereby the negation of the negativity inherent in reason. Roger Verneaux speaks from a traditional context but only to conclude that the principle of sufficient reason is not...

In 1958 in this series (Paradosis, XII), G. Aeby published an extremely useful work,Les missions divines de saint Justin à Origène.² It now has its complement in J.L. Maier’s study, since the first half of it is devoted to St Augustine’s Greek and Latin predecessors from the beginning of the Arian heresy.

Maier found his way prepared by Altaner’s investigations of Augustine’s Greek sources,³ by Courcelle’sRecherches,⁴ and by work done on the chronology of Augustine’s writings.⁵ But he gives us a review of this work and uses it to set forth the problems and the development of the...

For St Cyril of Alexandria, the Word assumed human flesh animated by an intellective soul. Both the common patristic expression,assumptus homo, and Aristotelian philosophy can be invoked in favor of the conclusion that the Word assumed a man. But a man is a person; the Word is a person; and the assumption of a person by a person is Nestorian doctrine. Cyril certainly was not a Nestorian; nor can patristic use of the expressionassumptus homocountervail patristic rejection of Nestorianism. However, there remains Aristotle to be reckoned with, and the series of theological opinions on the nature of...

When an enormous work reaches its sixth edition, the reviewer has only to acknowledge a landmark.

In the present volume Msgr Schmaus includes Christology within soteriology, and soteriology within God’s redemptive decree. This gives three parts: (1) God’s redemptive decree, (2) the incarnate Son of God, and (3) the work of Christ. It follows that the order of thought and exposition neatly coincides with the time series of theHeilsgeschichte, so that Msgr Schmaus can begin with Adam and Eve, draw on the Old Testament to set forth God’s redemptive decree and the messianic promise, delineate the humanity of Christ...

In Europe at the present time, there is a widespread disaffection for St Thomas and not a little favor for the apparently more timely doctrines of personalists, phenomenologists, and existentialists. In America, while Thomism holds a secure position among Catholic philosophers, it does happen that those who, after a course in Scholastic philosophy, have gone on to other specialized fields, at times exhibiting a marked hostility to the philosophy in which earlier they had been educated.

It would seem difficult to disassociate this phenomenon with problems of personal intellectual development. A new higher viewpoint in the natural sciences ordinarily involves...

Ponitur exemplum, quod deinde analysi subicitur, ut denique quaeratur utrum typicum sit.

E. Gutwenger,Bewusstsein und Wissen Christi, Innsbruck 1960:²

I, 3; pp. 47-55: Die Ichaussagen Christi in den Evangelien.

I, 4; pp. 55-68: Das Ich in der psychologischen Erfahrung.

I, 5; pp. 68-78: Die menschliche Icherfahrung Christi.

Quae tria capita unum constituunt argumentum: primo, statuitur praemissa minor, nempe, haec et haec a Christo homine esse dicta (I, 3); deinde, modo generali statuitur praemissa maior, quemadmodum nempe in genere procedendum sit ex dictis in experientiam psychologicam ipsius dicentis (I, 4); tertio, concluditur in conscientia Christi humana non solum dari centrum...

An example is presented, which is then analyzed to find out whether it serves as a type or model.

E. Gutwenger,Bewusstsein and Wissen Christi, Innsbruck, 1960:²

I, 3; pp. 47–55: ‘I’ spoken by Christ in the Gospels.

I, 4; pp. 55–68: ‘I’ in one’s psychological experience.

I, 5; pp. 68–78: Christ’s human experience of ‘I.’

These three sections comprise one argument: first, the minor premise is stated, namely, that Christ as man made various statements (I, 3); then the major premise is stated in general terms, that is, how one must proceed in general from a...

MOLINA, LUIS DE (1535–1600), Spanish Jesuit theologian who worked out an original theory of the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human free will, was born into the lower nobility of Spain at Cuenca, Castile, in September, 1535. He became a Jesuit at Coimbra (1553), studied philosophy and theology there (1554–62) and at Evora (1562–63), taught philosophy at Coimbra (1563–67) and theology at Evora (1568–83), spent his last years writing, and died in Madrid on October 12, 1600. His works include his celebratedConcordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis(1588–89),Commentaria in primam partem divi...

It has been found, I am told, that existential philosophy has exerted an unfortunate influence on student behavior, and I have been asked to offer some brief elucidation of the matter.

First, then, an existential philosophy is not some abstract account of the universe, some materialism, idealism, rationalism. It is concerned with the concrete business of human living, not indeed with human living as physical, chemical, biological process, but with its sensitive, intellectual, rational, volitional, emotional components. It is concerned, then, with man not only as alive but also as awake. It does not aim at some recondite, scientific account...

I have been asked to respond and, obviously, I must. Not all papers, however, call for the same type of response. There are those that admit no more than an expression of my admiration and my gratitude. Bishop Butler has taken the heuristic structure set forth in chapter 20 ofInsight, and filled it out in the light of his first-hand knowledge of the Second Vatican Council.² Quentin Quesnell is an impressive New Testament scholar;³ but he is also at home in the intricacies of a theory of interpretation, and he is concerned to vindicate both biblical and dogmatic theology.⁴...

I must begin by thanking the contributors whose work is enlightening without calling for any reply. Then I shall attempt a partial answer to the questions Bernard Tyrrell raised at the end of his paper. Finally, I shall discuss three pairs of papers: Garrett Barden and David Rasmussen are concerned with myth; Schubert Ogden and Robert Johann are concerned with experience; Emerich Coreth and William Richardson are concerned with being.

First, then, two former students, Matthew Lamb and Frederick Lawrence, have related my thought to that of Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-Georg Gadamer respectively to give us the benefit of their...

I must begin by thanking Giovanni Sala for presenting his masterful account of Kant largely in my terms² and, no less, William Ryan for his penetrating comparison of Husserl’s and my own cognitional theory.³ Xavier Monasterio extends this comparison by relating my work to that of Husserl particularly and of phenomenologists generally,⁴ but I must enter a protest in favour of my philosophy teachers. They did not tell me all that I later discovered, but I doubt that I would have discovered very much had they not been such honest men.⁵

Vincent Potter has drawn a parallel between my position...

The attention accorded theologians in the latter part of the twentieth century is due, I think, less to themselves than to their times. For theology is a function not only of revelation and faith but also of culture, so that cultural change entails theological change. For over a century theologians have gradually been adapting their thought to the shift from the classicist culture, dominant up to the French Revolution, to the empirical and historical mindedness that constitutes its modern successor. During this long period there has been effected gradually an enormous change of climate. It crystallized, burst into the open,...

Ordinarily insights are a dime a dozen. They may make observation intelligent, speech witty, work efficient. But they also may be mistaken, relevant indeed to things as they are imagined, but irrelevant to things as they are.

Great insights do not differ from ordinary ones in any intrinsic manner. Their greatness is due to the fact that they occur at the culminating point of a long series of commonly unnoticed insights. What slowly, and perhaps secretly, has been going forward suddenly or in a brief and intense period comes fully into view. At times the moments of insight set forth...

Students of man’s mental operations fall into three classes. There are behaviorists, phenomenologists, and traditionalists. The behaviorists feel that human psychology is to be studied in the same manner as animal psychology, and, since they have no access to the immediate data of animal psychology, they rule out attention to the immediate data of human psychology. Phenomenologists, the more closely they follow Edmund Husserl, begin by bracketing external reality to concentrate all the more fully and freely on the content of our immanent, intentional operations. Traditionalists, finally, employ a faculty psychology: they advert to the immediate data of consciousness; but...

In this study Professor Matthew Lamb fits together Wilhelm Dilthey’s concern with history, the political theology of Professor Johann B. Metz, and my work in method. It is this conjunction, I feel, that most calls for elucidation. For it rests not, as one might expect, on some genetic dependence, but on an overarching and somewhat complex dialectic. And it is this dialectic that both constitutes the unity of the study and informs the interpretation of the authors under examination.

Now dialectic denotes both conflict and movement. In this case the relevant conflict is between the promise of the Enlightenment and...

The authors’ concern and intention had best be left in their own words: ‘There is no such thing today as absolute scarcity.Every country in the world has the capacity to feed itself… Moreover we came to see that no society setting out to put Food First can tolerate the concentration of wealth and power that characterizes most nations today. The heaviest constraint on food production and distribution turns out to be the inequality generated by our type of economic system – the system now being exported to the underdeveloped countries as the supposed answer to their problems. We are...

In the eleventh volume of hisTheological InvestigationsFr Rahner published a 47-page paper setting forth his ‘Reflections on Methodology in Theology.’ He began by expressing his embarrassment when asked to treat this topic for, while over the years he had touched upon methodological aspects of particular questions, he had never attempted to tackle the issue in its full range.² I think one has to accept some such view of Rahner’s work. Dr Anne Carr of the University of Chicago Divinity School did a doctoral dissertation on Fr Rahner’s views on method and found it necessary to reach them by...

The problem is familiar. Traditional theology knew many divisions and subdivisions. But the success of the German Historical School has added a new dimension to all of them, to emphasize their separateness, and to make unity less a problem for highly specialized professors than for disoriented students.

Such in brief is the new context of theology. But this book also offers a new context for Lonergan’s framework. The old context was the cognitional theory presented inInsight. The new context comes out of the German theological milieu where contemporary theologians unify their work in different manners: Pannenberg stresses theology’s scientific...