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Book Reviews |
Thomas Aquinas—A;
Chesterton—A+
A History of Apologetics
by Avery Cardinal Dulles
San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005
418 pages; paper, $18.95
Reviewed by David Paul Deavel
At last summer's Chesterton Conference, the dean of American Catholic bloggers, Mark Shea, remarked to a group of conference participants how "shadowy" the human role in converting others has come to seem. The dean of American Catholic theologians, Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., agrees. In the conclusion to his A History of Apologetics, he cautions those who overestimate apologetics' usefulness: "Apologetics has a more modest task. It seeks to show why it is reasonable, with the help of grace, to accept God's word as it comes to us through Scripture and the Church." Being humble is no reason to slight it. After all, God uses the humble things of this world to shame the great and the wise.
Dulles held this view even when apologetics was getting no attention. He was apologetic when apologetics wasn't cool. The original edition, published in 1971, was the first of a proposed series of books (Theological Resources) that never came to light. Shortly after publication, the book's publisher went out of business, rendering the book "almost inaccessible." Thirty years later, however, the enterprising Mark Brumley, "no mean apologist in his own right" according to Dulles, proposed a reprint by Ignatius Press. His Eminence agreed on the condition that he could revise it, updating the bibliography, adding sections to some of the chapters (e.g. on medieval apologetics directed at Muslims), and adding a chapter on the thirty years since the original publication—a time of renewed interest in apologetics on the part of both Catholics and Protestants.
The book, with a flattering new foreword by Baptist theologian Timothy
George, includes both Protestant and Catholic apologists—and pretty
much anyone who ever tried to give a reason for their Christian hope.
Dulles discusses intra-Christian apologetics only if the arguments for
a Church coincide with an apologetic for Christian faith in general. Catholic
Karl Keating and Anglican John Jewel get mentions, but not paragraphs.
If A History were to have a subtitle, it might be "From Pentecost to Peter
Kreeft."
Indeed, reading this volume reminds me of my first graduate class with the then-Fr. Dulles at Fordham University, where he has held the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society since 1987. During my first office visit to discuss a term paper, I asked for additional sources. Behind his desk was an eight-foot high bookshelf reaching across the entire wall—perhaps twenty-five feet. He walked about midway down the room, pulled a book off the shelf and told me that I would find what I was looking for "at about page 170" in the volume in hand. He was right. Avery Dulles has the entire history of theology at his fingertips—as I found out, very literally.
At those fingertips are surprisingly funny details, like the eighteenth-century
deists oddly-titled Intelligent Design treatises: Hydrotheology (water),
Phytotheology (plants), Pyrotheology (fire), Brontotheology (thunder),
and Petinotheology (birds). The cardinal's own wry humor comes out in
his description of Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History, designed
for the education of the Dauphin: "Writing in a simple style for the benefit
of his royal pupil (who seems not to have been overendowed with intellectual
interests and capacities)—." Or the account of the Catholic apologist
Bergier: "Bergier's primary tactic is to expose the internal inconsistencies
in his adversary's position—a task not too difficult in the case
of Rousseau."
This sometimes humorously critical eye is one of the Cardinal's gifts. No false piety protects even the greatest of theologians. Critical remarks are attached to giants such as Augustine, Pascal, Newman, even Thomas Aquinas: "But if one does not insist too much on the program set forth in the first few chapters of Book I, it is possible to reach a very favorable judgment on the Summa contra gentiles." Reading that "it is possible" reference to St. Thomas, I thank God I escaped my courses with this man with grades of A-. Even the Angelic Doctor's A seems borderline. Which makes Dulles's assessment of Chesterton all the more enjoyable.
Although the mood of Catholic convert-apologists like Ross Hoffman, Arnold
Lunn, and even Ronald Knox is labeled "at once rationalist and authoritarian,
and on both counts restorationist," Dulles sees Chesterton's work—embodying
the "cumulative case method" that Dulles appreciates in Augustine, Pascal,
and Newman—very differently: "The preeminent Catholic apologist of
this period was surely Gilbert Keith Chesterton—. His Orthodoxy,
published in 1908, some fourteen years before he became a Catholic, set
a new tone by its freshness of style, wit, and literary elegance." Dulles
discusses Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man in some depth before summarizing,
"Chesterton was a great debater whose writing exposed the sham and pretense
of secular ideologies. He moved his readers by his humor and his obvious
joy in faith. He made them laugh with him at discovering the goodness
hidden at the heart of things." Unlike with St. Thomas, there are no caveats.
(For further reading, Dulles suggests The Apostle of Common Sense by one
Dale Ahlquist.) Dulles also approvingly cites heirs of Chesterton like
T.S. Eliot, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, and above all, C. S. Lewis:
"Like Chesterton, whom in many ways he resembles, he considered that Christianity
was the great safeguard of the human."
The best kind of apologetics, Cardinal Dulles suggests, is humble, joyful,
Christ-centered, Scripturally savvy, and attentive to hearers. Chesterton
surely deserves his grade. 