It is uncommon to write a book review on a book that was first published in 1918. However, an abiding interest in the work and thought of the French Dominican philosopher and theologian Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP (1877-1964) led professor Minerd to translate the last authorized Latin edition of the friar's De Revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita of 1950 into English and publish it in two volumes. Garrigou-Lagrange's work is a classic but above-standard university Thomistic interpretation of fundamental theology in its scope and speculative level. Thanks to its precise fidelity to the original text (including quotations with adequate explanatory notes), this translation retains its contemporary character and is thus both a source of an inspiring doctrine and a document of its time. The work has hitherto been known in English only in an abridged and revised version of Thomas Joseph Walshe's The Principles of Catholic Apologetics published in 1926.
The first volume is introduced by Fr. Cajetan Cuddy OP and his study Garrigou-Lagrange and the Renewal of Catholic Theology (I, pp. 1–43), followed by Translator's Introduction (pp. 45–53), and the original Preface by Pope Benedict XV from 1919 (I, p. 57), and Garrigou-Lagrange's Author's Preface from 1944 (I, pp. 59–63). Cuddy, in his very careful introduction, using a very rich and updated bibliography, has chosen a difficult goal: to place this book in a contemporary context and limits, while at the same time pointing out its lasting contribution. Cuddy accomplishes this through an objective account of Divine Revelation and the often unhelpful fragmentation and subjectivity that much of today's work in the field of fundamental theology cannot avoid, and even considers it an asset. Cuddy sees the place of this book in a continuous process of theological renewal as a kind of counterpoint to the ‘uncertainty’ accompanying the post-conciliar conception of fundamental theology, already pointed out in 1980 by Jean-Pierre Torrell OP (I, p. 31). Although Cuddy takes a rather critical view of the ‘new theology’, using quite reasonable arguments, he offers a rather optimistic solution in the rediscovery of objective theology as a science. However, the question remains, would the exponents of the nouvelle théologie themselves be as receptive and optimistic about integrating Garrigou's concepts and vice versa?
Garrigou-Langrage's work itself is divided into two large sections (‘books’), corresponding to our current two-volume edition. The first is devoted to Sacred Theology itself, to the methodology of apologetics and to the notion, possibility, necessity, and discernibility of Revelation. The second is on the motives of the credibility and on the existence of Revelation. The second volume includes a useful Index of Subjects and More Notable Persons (II, pp. 611–628), corresponding to the Latin original, but the summary bibliography is missing and, although not in the original edition, could have been added to the modern translation. A major shortcoming of this index, however, is the fact that the pagination corresponds to the Latin text, which readers may not have at their disposal.
Garrigou accurately distinguishes (I, p. 96) between revelation, theology, and faith (which is not entirely true of the English translation of the book's title!) and implicitly identifies sacred theology with sacred doctrine, which is an acceptable, though not the only, Thomistic solution. It can be summarized, then, that theology is an acquired and speculative science on God from the perspective of his Deity and under whose notion it knows all other things, even though theology as a science is not essentially a supernatural habit (I, pp. 84, 94), although it necessarily presupposes an infused Catholic faith as a virtue (I, p. 97). Given the state of theology today, the first book section on the self-conception of theology as a science probably remains the most stimulating, although there are multiple interpretations of it even among Thomists, and chapter 5 On the Notion of Mystery and of Dogma (I, p. 297), because just today the term ‘mystery’ often takes on a very different, agnostic dimension. Probably the greatest emotion and perhaps even serious discussion can be aroused by the chapter 15 of the first volume On the Duty of Receiving Divine Revelation After It Has Been Proposed by the Church (I, 551). Garrigou's exposition refers not only to natural religion, but also to the moral obligation to accept Revelation on a personal and social level too. This theme is deeply related to the Thomistic conception of freedom and grace, which is certainly not and has not been shared by all other theological schools. As a good beginning for a possible serious discussion on this very delicate topic, it is sufficient for the time being to recall the natural certainty of the knowledge of God's existence and the generally valid ethical duty to live according to the truth known.
But what is perhaps most surprising and most lacking in the text, although the second volume is devoted to a careful defence of the credibility of the Bible, is a near-complete omission on the definition of the Divine Tradition as the second of the two most important sources of Revelation. In vain would we look for its definition or division between the Divine and immutable Tradition, as a revealed depositum, and the traditions that are purely apostolic, whether ecclesiastical or human and regional, the latter of which which may be subject to legitimate changes. In this respect, the Author's predecessors (e.g. J. B. Franzelin SJ and his De Divina Traditione et Scriptura from 1870), and successors (e.g. Y. M.-J. Congar OP and his La Tradition et les traditions: essai historique of 1960), have done very valuable work and this book should be studied in their context, and this, among other things, with regard to today's very ambiguous and confused term ‘living tradition’.
In the second volume, chapter 14, On the Act of Faith in Relation to Credibility, is probably of particular interest. It is also a very relevant subject. Alongside the commonly held sentimental and subjective views that confuse faith as an infused virtue whose origin and motive is God Himself with an undifferentiated religious view, there emerges a very well-explained Catholic conception of this theological virtue (II, p. 655).
From the point of view of Thomism itself, this book is undoubtedly a development, supplement, update and systematic application of Aquinas's principles. The 13th century simply did not know any ‘fundamental theology’, nor did it know any ‘ecclesiology’. Garrigou also, in his work, quite objectively compares the views of other Thomists as Capreolus, Cajetan or John of St. Thomas and Gonet, although he does not spare his modern opponents (Blondel, Le Roy). In Garrigou's theological production, as for the whole of Neo-Scholasticism, there remains the weakest part of so-called positive theology, the work with original sources. However, a strength that far surpasses the weakness is the speculative and rational argumentation indispensable for apologetics: in contemporary theology, these are severely lacking, but in this regard the book has permanent value.
The book can benefit at least two audiences: to remind university students of Catholic theology of the objective character of Divine Revelation or theology as a real science and the plausibility of its arguments, and to inspire contemporary lecturers of theology to prepare a just as brave but contemporary and updated work on the same topic.
