Collected Essays, 3 vols by Ernest Fortin (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 319 between the indicative and the subjunctive moods would have helped Dupuis here. Second, and related to the first, Dupuis pays almost no attention to an important theme in Christian thinking about the religions, which is that the use by Christians of texts and practices drawn from the religions is (or often can be) both a theoretical and a practical problem. A relatively recent instance of the expression of such a view is to be found in the 1989 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled "Some Aspects of Christian Meditation" (Origins 19/30 [28 December 1989]: 492-98), in which it is asked what value non-Christian forms of meditation might have for Christians, and the answer given is at least not unambiguously positive-and, in the mind of this reviewer, for good reasons. That Dupuis does not consider this aspect of Christian thought about the religions is partly to be explained by his lack of distinction between the is and the may be mentioned in the preceding paragraph (it is also connected with his excessively dismissive treatment of Karl Barth's views). Third, it is not clear that the distinction between the "fulfillment" schema and the "presence of the mystery of Christ" schema can finally be sustained. On Dupuis's own view, the Church does fulfill the religions in the sense that it explicitly proclaims what they, at best, implicitly proclaim; that the religions are (or may be) in themselves vehicles for Christ's presence is not incompatible with the claim that the Church fulfills them. This suggests that there is more to be said for the merits of von Balthasar's views on these matters than Dupuis allows. These criticisms notwithstanding, Dupuis's book is a major achievement. It will be an essential point of reference on the topic for a long time to come. The Divinity School, University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois PAUL}. GRIFFITHS Collected Essays, 3 vols. By ERNEST FORTIN. Ed. J. BRIAN BENESTAD. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, Pubs., 1997. Vol. 1: The Birth of Philosophic Christianity: Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Thought. Pp. 350. $75.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8476-8274-9 (cloth), 0-8476-8275-7 (paper). Vol. 2: Classical Christianity and the Political Order: Reflections on the Theologico-Political Problem. Pp. 390. $75.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8476-8276-5 (cloth), 0-8476-8277-3 (paper). Vol. 3: Human Rights, Virtue and the Common Good: Untimely Meditations on Religion and Politics. Pp. 352. $75.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8476-8278-1 (cloth), 0,.8476-8279-X 320 BOOK REVIEWS (paper). 3-volume set: $175.00 (cloth), $59.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8476-8317-6 (cloth), 0-8476-8318-4 (paper). A thousand pages plus don't pose the biggest challenge to a reviewer of Ernest Fortin's collected essays, nor do the varieties of subject tackled by this dazzling polymath. What daunts, rather, is task of summing up the writer himself. Is Fr. Fortin best characterized as a highly original scholar, profound and stubbornly sceptical, or as an adamantly Catholic defender of eternal verities, or as a penetrating and-let it be said-scornful critic of modern foibles and the latest fashion in ideas? He is all of these, and much besides. Let the reader then take his pick. Yet it seems only natural, given the interest in political theory that has scarcely flagged since the convulsive 1960s, that most who follow Fr. Fortin's work should know him as a political philosopher. Doubtless he shines bright in the constellation of Catholic thinkers who have worked to restore political philosophy to the pinnacle of the practical sciences. And doubtless his declared indebtedness to Leo Strauss, one of the most distinguished political thinkers of our time, has brought him to the attention of secularist scholars who otherwise might dismiss Catholic political thought on principle. But something made abundantly clear by this collection of essays-Fortin has a knack of making things clear-is that he is a theologian first and foremost. However wide he may wander, into the daunting, darkling paths of Dante or the overtrodden fields...