Christian Philosophy in the 20th Century. An Essay in Philosophical Methodology by Arthur F. Holmes (review)

188 BOOK REVIEWS under selectivism in its descriptive analyses of human purposive activities. 0. K. Bowsma, like Wittgenstein, sees the main task of philosophy to be that of dispelling by plain talk various " misunderstandings," illusions of sense and understanding. He proceeds not so much like one who, standing back and looking at philosophy, reports what he sees but rather, by exhibiting philosophy in action, demonstrationes ad sensum of Wittgensteinian analysis. He displays the art of dispelling illusion in probing for the misunderstanding involved in asking a question like, " What is consciousness ? "; in Descartes' Cogito; and, at length, in Anselm's ontological argument, which leads him to the conclusion that Anselm lifted a collection of sentences out of their natural home in Scripture and put them in new and strange surroundings-in which environment they cause all sorts of difficulties. One gathers from the Preface that there will be other volumes coming from the Notre Dame lecture series and that we can anticipate sets of lectures, similar to this excellent collection, on approaches to ethics, on the historiography of philosophy, and on epistemology. University of San Francisco San Francisco, California RoBERT L. CuNNINGHAM Christian Philosophy in the 20th Century. An Essay zn Philosophical Methodology. By ARTHUR F. HoLMES. Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press, 1969. Pp. 57. $4.95. The subtitle which the author has given to his work, An Essay in Philosophical Methodology, identifies for the reader the nature of his proposal . It is not a question of history, or of Christian philosophy in the twentieth century, or of discussions of which Christian philosophy was the object notably during the last forty years. The author intends to define what a Christian philosophy ought to be today in view of the situation created by the currents of contemporary philosophy. He is convinced that Christian philosophy must exist; its features must be determined. Rather than engaging in theoretical discussions, the author applies himself to creating before our gaze the image of Christian philosophy such as he has conceived of it, by means of an historical dialogue, that is, the concrete confrontation of Chrisian thought and the philosophical currents of our time. The idea of Christian philosophy, which is clarified little by little in the course of this work, is sketched out in the first chapter which serves BOOK REVIEWS 189 as an introduction. To accept the idea of a Christian philosophy is evidently to reject the dilemma: either Christianity or philosophy. (p. 2) It is thus to recognize that Christian faith must exercise an internal influence upon reason, transform life, thought and the view that it brings to the world, "interpret the meaning of all things in the light of the revelation which God has made of himself in Christ." (ibid.) Christian philosophy should not be, however, a crypto-theology. It differs from theology in its method, which is philosophical, and in its matter, since philosophy is not concerned with certain problems of the theological order, and, on the other hand, certain philosophical problems have no theological interest . (ibid.) It differs from the philosophy of religion in the extent of its horizon. It indeed embraces all philosophical disciplines. It is sensitive to the influence of the Christian perspective, although certain philosophical problems are not susceptible of being treated or clarified by the Christian faith. (p. 3) Christian philosophy thus remains truly philosophy, but "philosophy framed from a perspective which is its own." (ibid.) It is philosophy, since it is open to the array of objects envisaged by philosophy. It is not the whole of philosophy but one tradition beside many others and, like the other traditions, it is pluralistic. For it must, as all philosophy, confront horizons which are ever changing by expanding, because a true philosophy does not exist which does not need ceaselessly to criticize itself, to renew its formulas and its expressions, in a word, to refine itself. ( p. 3-4) Holmes continuously returns to and clarifies throughout his work the perspectivist and pluralist conception of philosophy in general and of Christian philosophy in particular. He comes back to it at length at the end of the first chapter (p. 29-38) after having reviewed the recent polemic between...