Christian Spirituality East and West by Jordan Aumann, O. P., Thomas Hopko, Donald G. Bloesch (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 399 evaluation, a grading on the level of difficulty, and an indication of the significant reviews of the work. The evaluations have been checked by a large number of professors in Catholic colleges and universities, and they are remarkably objective. Since this volume includes textbooks and scholarly studies, it is an invaluable teaching aid as well as a reliable reference work. The second volume is wider in scope than the first, since it includes articles as well as books and is not restricted to English titles. It includes about 4000 entries, divided according to schools and themes such as man, person, love, freedom, culture, value, ethics, language, law, and God. Many of the titles listed have appeared within the last thirty years, although more recent studies are in the majority. There are no annotations, because of the sheer volume of the materials listed; this reviewer can attest, however, that all of the works are significant in their fields. At the end of the volume is a complete listing of all doctoral dissertations in philosophy presented in Catholic universities and pontifical faculties in the U. S. and Canada. Father McLean can only be thanked, and congratulated, for the patient years of research that went into the preparation of these valuable reference tools. They attest to the remarkable productivity of Catholic scholars in current philosophical movements. And even a casual perusal of both volumes will reveal the extent of both Catholic and Christian interest in, and indebtedness to, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. WILLIAM A. WALLACE, 0. P. Christian Spirituality East and West. By JoRDAN AUMANN, 0. P., THoMAS HoPKO, DoNALD G. BLOESCH. Chicago: The Priory Press, 1968. Pp. ~03. $5.95. This slim volume is the third in a series of special lectures delivered at the Institute of Spirituality conducted by the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and Theology, River Forest, Illinois. The lectures published here were delivered during the 1967 session; a fourth volume, The Church and the World, was in preparation when this book went to press. In the opening essay, "Trends in Catholic Spirituality," Jordan Aumann traces the history of Christian Spirituality in eighty-nine pages, the last ten of which are devoted to " Contemporary Catholic Spirituality." It i~ a good, pedestrian introductory approach to a course in the history of spiritual theology and depends on the usual well-known sources, such as 400 BOOK REVIEWS Pourrat and Leclercq. One notion which is constant throughout is the use of the label " monastic " to denominate post-Constantinian spirituality, a popular convenience which surely overlooks the predominance of apostolic activity in the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries. The best and most original section is that devoted to contemporary trends. However, like so many other glances at the future, it has a slightly triumphal sound, as if the oversights of the past are certain to be corrected in the new age on which the pilgrim Church is about to enter. On page 90, for example, the impression is given that the monastic spirituality which " always prevailed '' is finally and forever done away with. Following this, the anticipated sanctification of priests through the works of their ministry (apparently alone) sounds most promising indeed. Enthusiasm for what the author calls " the contemporary spirituality of involvement " inspires him to reflections which call for much further explanation. " Sanctity," he says, " is of the supernatural order of grace and the infused virtues, but the achieving of it by the modern Christian demands that he first achieve maturity as a human person and cultivate the natural virtues." (p. 87) One wonders how far this is to go and whether Donald Bloesch in the third section is not closer to the reality when he cites what he calls the " evangelical view " that " grace does not build upon nature: rather it brings to men a new nature." (p. 170) Does sanctity lie beyond the compulsive neurotic? The insistence that the Christian "first attain maturity as a human person " seems to place a dangerous importance on the human contribution to sanctity. Is the so-called "narcissistic spirituality " to be replaced by a spirituality of superman and the examination of...