It's About Eternal Life After All: Revisiting Catholic Beliefs by Edward Jeremy Miller

Abstract

Reviewed by: It's About Eternal Life After All: Revisiting Catholic Beliefs by Edward Jeremy Miller Christopher Cimorelli It's About Eternal Life After All: Revisiting Catholic Beliefs BY EDWARD JEREMY MILLER Hobe Sound, FL: Divina Press, an Imprint of Lectio Publishing, LLC, 2021. xxxi + 263 pages. Paperback: $22. ISBN: 9781943901982. Many NSJ readers will be familiar with the life and work of Edward Jeremy Miller, long a contributor to the field of Newman studies.1 His works John Henry Newman on the Idea of the Church (1987)2 and the edited volume, Conscience and the Path to Holiness: Walking with Newman (2014),3 stand out in this regard and across a career spanning more than forty years. It's About Eternal Life After All: Revisiting Catholic Beliefs departs from these earlier academic works given that it contains Miller's memoirs and reflections on Catholic beliefs, as indicated by the subtitle.4 It would not be accurate to describe Eternal Life as a book about John Henry Newman, but Newman is nevertheless present throughout—explicitly mentioned or otherwise—given his influence on the author. Miller establishes two major facets of this influence at the outset, which include the following Newmanian distinctions: that is, the distinction between the visible and invisible world, on the one hand, and the distinction between notional and real assent, on the other.5 He ultimately aims to bolster the possibility of real assent in the Catholic faithful, so that many believers can come to the same realization made possible through Miller's own labor and contemplation, namely: that the invisible world is not some remote location, but rather is manifest here and now; the God who is love truly indwells the believer, drawing one further into the divine life that will be fully realized upon death. The concrete approach to support this aim includes prefatory material that contains an overview of Miller's life story, eight chapters, and six short appendices. The first chapter treats the way that the Bible works from a Catholic perspective, which sets the stage for a reconsideration of creation and the fall of humanity (ch. 2). Here, Miller reflects on, among other things, limitations stemming from the Council of Trent's literal understanding of Adam and Eve's fall from paradise. Chapters three and four treat the understanding of God and the rich subject of [End Page 94] prayer; the aforementioned idea of God's indwelling receives its form in these pages and is carried forward throughout the rest of the book. Chapters five and six explore the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, as well as other features of resurrection belief—including thought-provoking considerations of traditional Catholic teachings like purgatory, hell, and the "timing" of the resurrection. Miller here makes the case that full resurrection life is enjoyed immediately upon death and is not something reserved for the end of time, which would lead to a view of disembodied—and thus not-quite-human—souls lurking about. These two chapters are rather substantial, which is apropos given their main topics and centrality to the Christian faith in general. Chapter seven considers the view of eternal life previously established, but in the concrete and imperfect setting of the church, which is further explored via its sacraments and controversial social issues. Chapter eight considers the relationship between faith and science, two areas that Miller's own educational background has connected in the pursuit of truth, as well as few final, but ancillary topics. In authoring these memoirs, Miller intended to not only give expression to his developing view of Catholic life and beliefs, but to do so in a simplified manner that could benefit Catholic laity—the primary audience of the text—who are invested in their faith and the quest to understand it more deeply, but who may not have had any formal theological education. Miller is largely successful in "translating" esoteric and dense theological topics into more relatable language and helpful analogies. Nevertheless, there are passages where even an invested layperson will need to sit with subsections treating complex theological content. An example includes the valuable treatment of the doctrine of Original Sin when reading the book...