Dogma 1

This is the first volume in the publisher's ""Dogma Series."" The series as a whole represents an attempt to present and interpret the faith of the Catholic Church in a way intelligible to modern man, and this volume begins (traditionally enough) with a study of God as known through relevation -- what the Schoolmen used to call de Deo revelante. The concepts studied -- revelation in its modes and significance, its importance, its effects upon man, etc. -- are quite orthodox. The context in which the author places his material, however, is quite original. Gone is the medieval framework of appeals to authority interspersed with insinuations that unless one ""believed,"" one was either a fool or a demon or both. Instead, the traditional concepts are viewed against a background of Marxism, existentialism, atheism, etc., and with ample regard for the contributions of the auxiliary disciplines. Protestant positions are discussed objectively and dispassionately. This first volume -- and the subsequent ones, if they are as good -- will be ideal as a text for seminaries and universities. It is, in effect, a summa for the twentieth century.