The Conversation of Faith and Reason: Modern Catholic Thought from Hermes to Benedict XVI

Fr. Aidan Nichols' book The Conversation of Faith and Reason has extreme relevance today as Catholics continue to come to grips with moral relativism and conscience in an increasingly secular world where at times reason and science are pitted against religion. Just as secularism and modernity can tear at the fabric of faith, liturgy pulls faith and reason together. Aidan Nichols charts the development of the faith and reason through the key figures who set the terms of the debate between faith and reason where official Catholic teaching is concerned, and whose theologies influenced modern theological thought as the twentieth century drew to its close in the encyclical letter Fides et ratio (1998) of John Paul II. This study will awaken a long needed English language interest in modern Catholic thought and illustrates how liturgy sometimes is being misunderstood as being merely a morally edifying or socializing human institution. The Conversation of Faith and Reason is a superb and balanced study by one of the great theological minds in English-speaking Catholicism. It is a testimony to serious and rigorous thinking, presented in elegant language.