Morality: The Catholic View by Servais Pinckaers, O.P. (review)

166 BOOK REVIEWS controversy with Gisbert Voetius (1588-1676), the Dutch theologian who campaigned against Regius and to whom Descartes replied through Regius. Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680), who was living in exile in the Netherlands, was another correspondent of Descartes who challenged him to explain better the interaction of the mind and the body. Descartes was always consistent in affirming the unity of man but again he failed to come up with any explanation that would satisfy the princess. At last in a letter of 21May1643 he blustered that the unity was a primitive notion that was most difficult to explain. His attempt to defend personal immortality was trumped by his failure to give a satisfactory account of our obvious unity. Fowler's book is most readable; the print is large with generous white spacious margins; the quotations are in English, the French and Latin originals are in the footnotes at the bottom of the page; references are given to both the sources in the Adam-Tannery (AD edition and the CMS (Cottingham, Stoothioff, Murdoch) translations. Whenever a person is first mentioned his or her dates are given; reference to the writings of the others besides Descartes and his correspondents (e.g., Mersenne, Gassendi, Arnauld, and others) are well cited. The bibliographies are divided into "Lexica, lndecas, Bibliographies," "Primary Sources," and "Secondary Sources"; the last is quite extensive, including journal articles as well as relevant books. It is puzzling that the Haldane/Ross translation, which was the stand-by of graduate students from 1911 until 1985, is mentioned neither here nor in Stephen Gaukroger's biography of Descartes. The book is expensive, but no library can afford to be without it. It is an outstanding study of an essential part of Descartes's work. DESMOND J. FITZGERALD University ofSan Francisco San Francisco, California Morality: The Catholic View. By SERVAIS PINCKAERS, 0.P. Translated by MICHAEL SHERWIN, 0.P. South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine's Press, 2001. Pp. 121. $19.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-890318-56-6. The publication and subsequent translation of Fr. Servais Pinckaers's Les Sources de la Morale Chretienne performed an invaluable service for the professional theological world. Now Fr. Pinckaers's popular precis of that seminal work, entitled La Morale Catholique, with its attendant skilled translation by Michael Sherwin, O.P., Morality: The Catholic View, may reach a broader audience with profound pastoral effect. BOOK REVIEWS 167 Pinckaers divides his work into two main sections. The first offers a summary of the history of Catholic moral thought. In this section Pinckaers treats Scripture, the Fathers, the classical period of high Scholasticism, the period of the moral manuals, the Second Vatican Council, and the period following upon the council. Building on his historical narrative, Pinckaers proceeds more systematically in the second section in which he treats of freedom and happiness, the Holy Spirit and the new law, and natural law and freedom. This brief review will tie together three themes that appear in in both the historical and systematic sections. The first is history and ressourcement. The second is the relationship between morality as the search for happiness and morality as obligation. The third is the relationship between the natural law and the New Law. Pinckaers begins with a tour of history. However, he is not interested in the history of moral theology for its own sake. The historical synthesis advances substantive claims about moral theology and the authentic forms of its renewal. It should be remembered that Pinckaers belongs to that generation oftheologians who came of age nurtured in the promise of ressourcement. These theologians believed that the Church would be able to read the signs of the times and renew its mission in the modern world precisely by renewed contact with the Word of God in all of the modes of its transmission. Thus, the scientific study of the Scriptures, the Fathers, the liturgy, and the development ofthe whole theological tradition of the Church served no merely antiquarian interests but rather would "equip the saints for the work of ministry" in the midst of their world. In a phrase, these theologians believed that aggiornamento could only be secured by ressourcement. The Second Vatican...