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176 BOOK REVIEWS legitimacy of that discipline (p. 54-55) betrays a failure to grasp the issues at stake in both fields. As these examples indicate, the book is not a reliable source of information on doctrinal or theological matters. Thus, while the concerns motivating Carpenter's undertaking are legitimate and important, Nature and Grace cannot he recommended. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. JoHN P. GALVIN Answering for Faith: Christ and the Human Search for Salvation. By RICHARD VILADESAU. New York: Paulist Press, 1987. Pp. 312. $12.95 (paper) . Answering for Faith: Christ and the Human Search for Salvation, by Richard Viladesau, is an elaboration of Rahner's approach to Christianity and other religions. Although Viladesau acknowledges his indebtedness to Lonergan and cites Tillich and Troeltsch for support, his primary aim can he described as the task which Rahner briefly refers to in Foundations of the Christian Faith (316)-the analysis of nonChristian religions for " the presence of Christ beyond his presence in the salvific faith of the non-Christian". In other words, Viladesau takes up the task of examining several non-Christian religions in an a posteriori empirical way. By means of criteria which he draws from his transcendental analysis of human experience , he evaluates the adequacy of the belief content of these religions . Whereas Rahner's concepts of implicit faith and anonymous Christianity focus on the non-Christian's interior, transcendental experience . Viladesau looks at how the non-Christian can he said to re· ceive God's revelation, not despite, but through the public symbols and institutionalized belief content of his/her own religion. In Rahnerian terms, Viladesau intends to affirm and describe in some detail God's special categorical revelation in the history of non-Christian religions. Viladesau wants to evaluate religions on the basis of criteria that have "a basis in a subjectively 'verifiable' philosophy of human being " (194). Thus the hook is also an exercise in foundational theology . Like Tillich, the author wants to " answer for faith " by correlating the answers of faith with human experience. The hook's apologetic method consists of a "turn to the subject," a transcendental analysis of the conditions for human experience. In its method, the hook constitutes a theological anthropology. (In the first two chapters, BOOK REVIEWS 177 Viladesau summarizes the theological anthropology presented in his previous book The Reason for Our Hope.) For Viladesau, there are more and less primitive, higher and lower religions. Although he does not think there is a linear progression from lower to higher in the history of religions, he does think that there hav~ been "thresholds" in "the human ability to objectify our spiritual life" (91). The basis for making valuations as to which features of religion are closest to the truth, the most valuable, and thus " higher " is " the extent to which each formulation corresponds to our view of human existence, as known through our own existential and transcendental experience" (87). On the basis of his transcendental analysis of human experience, religions that are closest to the truth are 1) centered in personhood and love, 2) historical, 3) conscious of the problem of salvation, 4) capable of progression, 5) able to synthesize all of human experience, including lower levels, 6) holy, 7) communal, and 8) transcendent (184) . Viladesau's aims in developing criteria by which to evaluate religions are laudable. He wants to affirm that God wills to save all people. He does not want to say that God saves non-Christians despite the errors in their religious beliefs and practices; rather, he wants to say that non-Christian religions contain truths and values which are a medium for their salvation. The question is, are Viladesau's conceptual means adequate to his aim? In this reviewer's opinion, they are not. (For fuller critical discussions of problems with the notion of implicit Christian faith see Joseph DiNoia, "Implicit Faith, General Revelation and the State of Non-Christians", The Thomist, 47 (April, 1983): 209-241; George Lindbeck, "Fides ex auditu and the Salvation of Non-Christians: Con· temporary Catholic and Protestant Positions '', in The Gospel and the Ambiguity of the Church, edited by Vilmos Vajta, Philadelphia: Fort· ress Press, 1974...

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