G
G.Frege
Guest
This past weekend I had the occasion to buy a new book by a prominent Catholic apologist. His name shall remain anonymous, but sufficed to say he is beloved on this website and within nearly all orthodox Catholic circles. He is a Catholic convert with little formal Catholic theological training. His book is endorsed by guys who, IMO, do know-- or should know-- their theology. Anyway, on a very basic treatment of a fundamental Catholic doctrine this author gave an explanation that was perfectly wrong. I will be kind and chalk this up as a reversion to his Protestant rationalist training. Anyway, while I might be sufficiently educated to pick up on this important, albeit subtle, error, I wonder how many less-informed Catholics might be vitiated for life but such an error. I couldn’t help but think of Aristotle’s insight regarding little errors in the beginning…
I can recall reading in the writings of Sir Anthony Kenny and the late Fr. Herb McCabe a similar criticism of Frank Sheed (they both, independently, pointed out the egregious error Sheed made regarding the doctrine of Creation in his book Theology and Sanity).
The bottomline is this: your Catholic faith and education is too important to leave in the hands of anyone but the very best. The great Dominican scholar Fr. A.D. Sertillanges, OP, wrote that Catholics [and all readers] should only read and study the works of first-rate minds of the past and present. What was true in Sertillanges’ day is triply true today, where we are flooded with third, fourth, even fifth-rate minds and their books. Fortunately, we Catholics have more first-rate minds, past and present, than any one of us will ever need. You’ll never have to worry about Oxford theologians like Aidan Nichols, OP, or Brian Davies, OP, or the late Fr. Herbert McCabe, OP, getting some Catholic doctrine wrong, or misunderstanding a fundamental theological point. They might be a little hard at first, but after a little work their superior mental habits will rub off and the reader will be raised to a higher and more exacting intellectual understanding of the faith.
Here’s a good website to bookmark: christendom-awake.org
I can recall reading in the writings of Sir Anthony Kenny and the late Fr. Herb McCabe a similar criticism of Frank Sheed (they both, independently, pointed out the egregious error Sheed made regarding the doctrine of Creation in his book Theology and Sanity).
The bottomline is this: your Catholic faith and education is too important to leave in the hands of anyone but the very best. The great Dominican scholar Fr. A.D. Sertillanges, OP, wrote that Catholics [and all readers] should only read and study the works of first-rate minds of the past and present. What was true in Sertillanges’ day is triply true today, where we are flooded with third, fourth, even fifth-rate minds and their books. Fortunately, we Catholics have more first-rate minds, past and present, than any one of us will ever need. You’ll never have to worry about Oxford theologians like Aidan Nichols, OP, or Brian Davies, OP, or the late Fr. Herbert McCabe, OP, getting some Catholic doctrine wrong, or misunderstanding a fundamental theological point. They might be a little hard at first, but after a little work their superior mental habits will rub off and the reader will be raised to a higher and more exacting intellectual understanding of the faith.
Here’s a good website to bookmark: christendom-awake.org