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BOOK REVIEWS 171 seems to have brought the best insight to his work. Thirty-two pages -of illustration make the study on architecture attractive. Bibliographers may be excused for over-praising the two volume Bibliography . It serves not only those seeking books on religion but is also an equerry to readers in related·fields. In it a surprisingly large number of dissertations and studies on Catholic education is noted. Peter Guilday's Life and Times of· Jokn England is called the finest biography of an American Roman Catholic bishop. However , some Catholic encyclopedias seem to have been omitted, along with some basic American Catholic biographical work. The section " Religion and the Intellectuals " seems quite thin. Some Catholic (or other!) graduate historical seminar could consider what is pointed out on page 1042 in the second book of the Bibliography: "The History of Roman Catholic Seminaries in the United States-still lacks a scholarly and comprehensive work." It might also be noted that in the two essays concerning theology, no attempt is made to assay Catholic theology, either in historical survey or to judge its conclusions. This fact seems to indicate that at least there should. be a beginning survey of Catholic theology in the United States done by some competent scholar or group. In sum, all who hold religion to be vital to the United States are in debt to the editors and authors of Religion in American Life. Providence OoUege, Providence, B. I. DANIEL F. R.EILLY, O.P. Anselm: Fidea Q'IUBrens InteUectum. KAiu. BARTH. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1960. Pp. 178. $8.00. Anselm: Fidea Qurerens lntellectum offers us Karl Barth's study of Saint Anselm's search and discovery of what was to his mind an irrefutable proof of God's Existence. The author confesses to a continued interest in Saint Anselm, the theologian, particularly in the context of his famous proof. The work, which is the second edition of a study originally made in 1981, fulfills a twofold purpose. In the preface to the first edition Barth explains the work as an apologia for his great interest in this catholic theologian whose merit, he claims, has never been fully understood and appreciated. But the thought of Saint Anselm also exercises its own attraction. " From all this I cannot deny that I deem Anselm's Proof of the Existence of God in the context of his theological Scheme a model piece of good, penetrating and neat theology, which at every step I have found instructive and· edifying " (p. 9) . Underlying Barth's study and becoming more and more 17~ BOOK REVIEWS apparent with the progress of the work is the conviction that the so-called ontological proof, a description he strongly resents (p. 171), has been almost always wrenched from its proper setting and made to appear in a false garb. Throughout the work Barth, whether wittingly or not, tends to create the impression that no one, besides himself, ever approached the ansehnian proof sympathetically, that the interest of others was to disprove rather than to understand. His attitude towards catholic theologians seems to proceed from such an assumption and from time to time he lends credence to this suspicion by the curtness with which he refers to them. Frequently he seems to question their appreciation of theology in rejecting Saint Anselm's proof, rather than the grounds upon which they do reject the argument. Surely, it would be more acceptable to presume that any theologian would be moved sympathetically towards every argument purporting to prove the Existence of God. And if a proof be rejected, it could be licitly assumed that the rejection was based not on the absence of sympathy on the part of the theologian, but on the insufficiency, real or apparent, of the proof. The very failure to approach Saint Ansehn with sympathy which he charges and decries in other theologians, is perceptible in his approach to them. The study itself of Saint Ansehn's Proof begins with a rather extended treatise on the Theological Scheme which constitutes the framework of the Proof. In it Barth discusses the nature and necessity of theology, its possibility and aim. In his description of theology...

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