This short book offers a survey of recent philosophy and how its different patterns of thought have influenced Catholic theologians. Rooted in the questions raised by Vatican I and the directions pointed by Vatican II, Philosophy and Catholic Theology shows how theology has developed over the past two centuries and how it builds on the foundations philosophy has laid since the Middle Ages and the crises of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Begin to see how reason informs faith and how the two work together to yield knowledge of lifes most profound realities. This book will be of immediate appeal to students of both philosophy and theology as well as to the general reader.

15. Moderating the Magnanimous Man: Aquinas on Greatness of Soul - Marc D. Guerra -- 16. Charles De Koninck and Aquinas's Doctrine of the Common Good - Sebastian Walshe, O Praem -- 17. Reading Aquinas's Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Reply to Mark D. Jordan - Christopher Kaczor -- Afterword: Remembering a Genuine Lover of Wisdom: The Impressive Legacy of Ralph McInerny - Michael Novak -- Selected Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index

The thesis of this essay may be stated quite briefly: Vatican II is a demonstration model of the phenomenological method employed on an international scale. It exemplifies the final developmental stage, postulated by Husserl, of an inter subjective phenomenology which would take its point of departure, not from individual subjectivity, but from transcendental intersubjectivity. Vatican II, accordingly, offers a unique application of a universal transcendental philosophy in the field of religious reflection for the practical purposes of moral and socio cultural renewal. Phenomenology, as a distinctively European development, is relatively un known in America - at least in its pure form. Our contact with this style of 1 intuitive reflection is usually filtered through psychology or sociology. How ever, Edmund Husserl, The Father of Phenomenology, was originally trained in mathematics, and he entered the field of philosophy because he recognized 2 that the theoretical foundations of modern science were disintegrating. He foresaw that, unless this situation were rectified, modern men would eventually slip into an attitude of absolute scepticism, relativism, and pragmatism. After the First World War he saw this theoretical problem mirrored more and more in the social turbulence of Europe, and his thoughts turned to the need for a 3 renewal at all levels of life. In 1937 when Nazism was triumphant in Germany, and Europe on the brink of World War II, he wrote his last major work, The 4 Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy.

These are the documents that make history, and perhaps more than any of his other writings they distill the essence of the Holy Father's thought. Here they are in one meticulously prepared volume. The texts are the official Vatican translations, not unreliable "inclusive language" paraphrases. Extensive introductions place each encyclical in history, summarize the main points, and relate it to the other encyclicals. An essential reference for every school or parish library, and hours of thought-provoking reading for any sincere seeker of truth.