Acta Congressus Internationalis de Theologia Concilii Vaticani II ed. by A. Schoenmetzer, S. J.

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 135 to one Person cannot in the same way be appropriated to another. (cf. I Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2, ad Sum) Contemporary investigations into the phenomenon of language tend to confirm the propriety of this sort of linguistic device in speaking of the divine. All in all, a certain inadequacy of Fr. Cooke's attempt continues to force itself upon us. Contemporary theologians seem not to have ventured beyond the endeavor to seek a delicately balanced dialectical movement between preconceptual, lived theology and notional theology. The reemphasis on existential faith-experience below the threshold of concepts has been a welcome corrective to a cerebral re-ifying of logical entities. But we have now reached a sort of halfway house; the real task remains. Here and now the theological tools to forge such concepts may be lacking, but there are such clues as Wittgenstein's notion of the person as not " the thinking, presenting subject ... but the metaphysical subject, the limitnot a part of the world." (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.631-5.641) The question needs to be asked whether in such thinking insights are being newly discovered out of the perspective of today's intellectual milieu, insights that bear continuity with those of primitive Christian theology and their elaboration in the High Middle Ages but that will be differently rendered into concepts and hopefully somewhat deepened. At any rate, the theological task is still that of seeking to conceptualize what in reality lies beyond concepts but is affirmed by faith. Thus there remains the need to employ the metaphysical resources of human intelligence (either as reflective science or in a spontaneous, ordinary, "vulgar" way) to conceptualize the realities of faith simply because, if the perfective term of every cognitive act lies in the existential grasp of reality and union with it as it actually is, this is humanly possible only from that angle of insight and at that depth of intelligibility that comes to birth in the concept. This is not less true as regards our cognitive union with the Three Persons of God, where it IS more a case of our being grasped by Ultimate Reality. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. WILLIAM J. HILL, 0. P. Acta Congressus lnternationalis de Theologia Concilii Vaticani II. Ed. by A. ScHOENMETZER, S. J. Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1968. Pp. 881. An international congress met in Rome from September 26th to October 1st, 1966, to discuss the theological implications of the Second Vatican Council. This volume presents the papers that were read, along with the 136 BOOK REVIEWS scientific apparatus to verify, expand, and elucidate the texts. The points made regarding institutional and doctrinal development offer a broad conspectus of thought among Roman Catholics at what historians will likely regard as a turning point in the life of the Christian churches. The episcopal college and the origin of the office of bishop formed the subject matter of eleven conferences. Here an outstanding contribution is that of Dr. Jean Colson, who treats the period from the election of Matthias in the Acts of the Apostles to the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. What the author brings out most clearly is his conviction that an evolution was taking place within the New Testament regarding the special teaching role of certain Christians. This was continued, he maintains, in the period to which the Apostolic Fathers belong. Dr. Colson's performance is of the quality Jaroslav Pelikan has indicated theologians must achieve if dogmatic development is not to be regarded as too important a topic to be left to them. He establishes what is a scientifically respectable case for a line of continuity in the New Testament . First, through the election of Matthias, the apostolic college that had been depleted by the loss of Judas is expanded. The role of apostle at the beginning of Acts is to be understood as the Christian analogue of the priestly paqid or mebaqqer of the Jewish sects. And the addition of Matthias completes the college of twelve in such wise that the eschatological state of Israel (symbolized by the HW there present) had a representative of the Lord at the head of each...