448 - Faith Seeking Understanding. Learning in the Catholic Tradition

Faith Seeking Understanding. Learning in the Catholic Tradition
By George C. Berthold, Editor
Manchester, New Hampshire, St. Anselm College Press, 1991. 274 pp. $8.95.

This volume contains twenty-four comparatively short essays selected from the papers given at a convocation and symposium celebrating the centennial of St. Anselm College (Manchester, New Hampshire) in 1989. The theme of the volume stems both from the nature of the celebration and the work of St. Anselm, the patron of the college, with his emphasis on faith seeking understanding. The essays are grouped into four parts -plenary papers, early and medieval, modern and contemporary, philosophy and theology. Ten papers deal explicitly with St. Anselm.

The two plenary essays tend to be more popular than scholarly. Jean LeClerq, the renowned Benedictine, calls attention to Anselm's use of and appeal to the imagination in his writings. Charles Kannenqiesser insists that faith seeking understanding today requires a theology involving a critical reading of the Scripture. John Connelly, in response, rightly points out that contemporary Catholic theology requires much more than a critical reading of the Scripture.

The other essays tend to be more historical than contemporary and include a mixture of the scholarly and the more popular. Some contemporary papers reflect a more conservative contemporary Roman Catholic perspective. The volume stands as a fitting tribute to the centennial celebration of St. Anselm College, but the wide variety of subjects treated and the different ways in which they are treated make the volume less helpful for the scholar or the general reader.

Charles E. Curran
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX.