The Crisis of Faith by Frederick Sontag (review)

336 BOOK REVIEWS The whole book bears the stamp of thoroughness, and if the author begins by saying that he cannot solve all the problems, the student will be pleased with the way in which most difficulties are presented and answered. One of the unfortunate side effects of ecumenism is the modem contempt for apologetics. The faith is to be proposed but not defended. Yet the fact is that today the faith has to be defended from the old errors that more or less survive and from new ones that hide behind the assumed title of theology. In this book the author deals with modem errors. The chapters on Revelation itself, his treatment of myth and demythologization are excellent. He analyses the various exegetical positions of Bultmann. However, with regard to Christ and his miracles, a confrontation with living, hostile forces would have been more beneficial than a fresh charge versus Loisy, Von Harnack and Renan. From the missionary point of view, a defence of Christian mysticism, of the Church's power to make saints, of the excellence of her worship, of the Church's right and duty to evangelize, would make excellent appendices to some future edition of this book. Indeed, an apologetic of the Christian priesthood is one of our pressing needs, especially in the "tiers monde " where so many are losing awarenses of the priest's supernatural role. The absence of this kind of apologetic is due, I think, to following too closely the order of the old manuals. Nevertheless, a professor's manual is limited by the time available for lectures and the course, and that necessarily restricts the scope of his published work. In these days, one should be grateful that the author has covered so much ground and with such excellence. St. Charles' Seminary Nagpur, India JEROME TONER, 0. P. The Crisis of Faith. By FREDERICK SoNTAG. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1969. Pp. 285. $5.95. " This Roman Catholic Church which was built on the assumption of authority is in crisis today over where to locate and how to interpret authority.... This is not because the pronouncements of the Councils do not make it clear; they do. However, there are movements toward decentralization ... which give each person an increasing sense of individual norms against which he feels the Church's teaching authority must be measured. . . . More and more, it would appear, Roman Catholics are developing standards that are external to the authority of the Church." The author, a Protestant scholar on the philosophy faculty at Pomona College, bases his observations on his experiences during a precedentsetting year of teaching philosophy at a Catholic seminary in Rome, the BOOK REVIEWS 887 first non-Catholic (his term) to be invited to teach regular courses in a Roman seminary. Dr. Sontag hails as the work of the Holy Spirit this trend among Catholics to look less to papal authority for guidance and more to Scripture and individual conscience. However, he is concerned lest the trend continue into religious anarchy. "Strict unity has been abandoned as a way proceeding in the Roman Church, but can this tendency toward an indefinite multiplicity of authorities be halted now that the line is broken?" The purpose of his book is to contribute to halting that multiplication of authorities at some " halfway house " between papal authority and religious anarchy and thus to establish some stable position for the reconciliation of divided brethren of all Christian denominations. As a partial answer he opts for the " authority of Paul " in preference to the " authority of Peter." " Some take the route via Peter and accept an ' authorized spokesman and guardian' who preserves the tradition and hands it down. The other route is to follow Paul, which means to search for the immediate presence of God and, in that converting encounter, to let the transforming experience of the Divine be the definitive test for all claims to authority.... All Christians who come later must somehow find exactly the same authority that Paul did opposing Peter." But how can the Christian have confidence that he is guided by " the immediate presence of God " and not by his own ego? To the extent that he departs from...