Preface

Preface Although it is common for journals to feature articles on the millennium during this season, this issue of Logos offers some of the most perspicacious reflections on the signs of die times that readers are likely to have seen anywhere. It is more than a striking novelty that we bring our readers an article on the year 2000 composedjust before the twentieth century had reached its midpoint; it turns out that Etienne Gilson, immersed in the religious, intellectual, and political turmoil of this century in 1 948, understood brilliantly what was at stake during the century now ending and offered a prescient account of what was in store in the years approaching die start of the third Christian millennium. Gilson's article reprinted here, "The Terrors of theYearTwoThousand,"brings into focus the challenges that Christianity must face if it is to overcome the nihilism represented on many fronts in our time, and ends with a reminder of the Christian source of salvation. The final article in this issue, if read in the light of Gilson's reflections on the twentieth century, takes on added luster. Six years logos 3:1 winter 2000 LOGOS before Gilson's article was composed, Edith Stein went to her death in Auschwitz. Stein and Gilson each stared into the face of evil; each encountered the complexity and power of twentieth-century thought, and each found reason to reach out philosophically into the thinking of St.Thomas Aquinas for sustenance while wrestling with importantmodern modes of thought. Each embodied in thought and deed the integrity of the Christian response to turmoil and evil in any age. One final observation on this theme of the millennium: this issue also emphasizes the ample and profound source of hope for the world that Christianity brings to the new millennium. Readers will hear from Archbishop Francis Xavier NguyenVanThuân a thorough and uplifting account of the healing power offered to the world by contemporary Catholic social thought, including a detailed account of the issue of the forgiveness of the international debts crushing some developing countries, an element of the Jubilee that is strikingly traditional in its biblical roots while also being remarkably pertinent to current global economic conditions. William F. May also brings renewed vigor to a traditional biblical concept by explaining how thinking in terms of"covenants" instead of"contracts" can heal many of the injustices embedded in current practices of the marketplace. We introduce the article by Etienne Gilson as the first offering of aregular new feature in Logos, a feature we call"Reconsiderations." From time to time we will seek out significant texts in the Catholic intellectual tradition that we think have been unjustly neglected. Each text in this series will be introduced by a contemporary scholar reflecting on the importance of the text and highlighting its significance for our readers. Armand A. Mauer, C.S.B., provides an insightful introduction to the first article in our "Reconsiderations" series in his "Introduction to Etienne Gilson, 'The Terrors of the Year Two PREFACE Thousand.'" Mauer places this Gilson text in the broader context of Gilson's life and writings, and aptly describes the "prophetic" tone assumed by Gilson in this essay. Mauer demonstrates that the philosophical perspective presented by Gilson in this article is expounded by him elsewhere in an essay titled "Medieval Universalisai and its Present Value" and helps readers understand how Gilson viewed the rich resources of the philosophy of St.Thomas Aquinas when confronting the claims of modern philosophical thought. Etienne Gilson's article, "The Terrors of the Year Two Thousand," will impress readers as remarkably prescient. How could Gilson have recognized already in 1948 that this century would exhibit a plethora of complex and challenging philosophies, as though he had anticipated the poststructuralist and postmodernist developments of the last forty years? How could Gilson have recognized already in 1 948 that while technology was unleashing terrifying new weapons of war, it was nonetheless a revolution in biology and biotechnology that would pose the most pressing ethical problems in contemporary life, problems that have been emerging into public view only within the last twenty years or so? His reflections indicate that there is probably...