New Answers to Old Questions by William G. Most (review)

520 BOOK REVIEWS as a whole may be valuable as protreptic but can scarcely substitute for theological or philosophical argument. What one would like to call essential as opposed to programmatic Thomism continues today and perhaps more effectively when it seems no longer to be propped up by rules and regulations. It has been suggested that Thomism is now in a state of diaspora, and it is, but rather than see this as an unnatural condition, one might observe that this is the normal way of the intellectual life. Philosophers come one at a time; the great ones seldom have students who attain their level, let alone advance beyond it. If there is a cumulative advance in philosophizing it surely does not take place in the layered and communal fashion we can discern in the natural sciences. The philosopher who relies on a label to get our attention is not unlike those pathetic individuals whose atavistic interest in their family tree seems meant to make us regard a twig as a branch or even a trunk. Twenty years ago almost every Catholic philosopher in this country regarded himself and was regarded by others as a Thomist. How swiftly the scenery, and the labels, changed. Surely, if the appellation had had serious reference, it could not have been so easily set aside. Nonetheless, I think there are as many serious Thomists now as there were then, that there was always a diaspora but that now it is no longer disguised. What commends a philosophy, finally, is not that it is commended, even by the Church, but that it enables us to see and understand. Theology is another matter, no doubt, but I am not the one to speak of it. It has occurred to me, however, that theologians nowadays seem to have confused their task with that of the Pope and bishops. Hartley's monograph is the first of a series planned by the Institute of Christian Thought at St. Michael's College, Toronto. It is a good first step and one looks forward to subsequent works. A final caution: the title of the monograph must be understood formalissime. Though he denominates an era from Modernism, he is not concerned with Modernism as such. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana RALPH MciNERNY New Answers to Old QuestioruJ. By WILLIAM G. MosT. London: St. Paul Publications, 1971. Pp. 576. There is no more vexing problem in theology than the one relating to human freedom on the one hand and divine mastery over creation, and in particular of human salvation, on the other. Other issues, like those of the Trinity and Incarnation, certainly involve more profound mysteries. But BOOK REVIEWS 521 the question of human freedom and divine control is more intriguing because it seems more like a problem that is capable of full solution. After all, the notion of divine dominion is a very simple one, rife even among savages; and human beings might be expected to have some firsthand , experience-based concepts of the nature and scope of their own freedom, B. F. Skinner notwithstanding. But the fact is that no fully satisfying solution has as yet been advanced to liquidate this long-standing problem, and the history of theology is filled with the record of the acrimonious disputes which for centuries have been carried on among theologians partial to one or other of the more or less plausible explanations thus far proposed. Those theologians who have kept abreast of the literature relating to the field of grace during the past decade will recognize this book, if they pass beyond its title, as a slightly expanded English version of the author's original Latin work entitled Novum tentamen ad solutionem de gratia et praedestinatione published in 1963 by the Editiones Paulinae in Rome. Only the fourth chapter has b~en somewhat modified and augmented with new material in this English version. The first part of the book deals with the issue of predestination. The notions of God's universal salvific will, of his intent in creation and redemption, of the special promises of Christ, of Christian hope, and even of the Sacred Heart are presented from Scripture and tradition and...