The Eyes of Faith: With Rousselot's Answer to Two Attacks

Pierre Rousselot was a young Jesuit when his article The Eyes of Faith was published in the French theological journal Recherches de Science Religieus in 1910. Though widely acknowledged today as one of the most penetrating and influential analyses of the act of faith in modern Catholic theology, it was perceived by the Neo-Scholastic theologians of the day as a major assault on their own method and doctrine, which they regarded as faithful to St. Thomas and the Thomistic tradition. The most serious critiques were written by the Abbe Hippolyte Ligeard, a specialist in the history of the treatises on faith and apologetics in the Middle Ages, and by Stephane Harent, Rousselot's former professor in the Jesuit scholasticate at Hastings, who published their criticism, respectively, in Recherches de Science Religieuse and in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique. Rousselot, defending his thesis, published his Answer to Two Attacks soon afterward. The present volume contains the first English translation of The Eyes of Faith, preceded by a substantial introduction placing Rousselot in the intellectual climate of the day and examining some of the presuppositions of the essay. A translation of Rousselot's Answer to Two Attacks is also included, as is an introduction that outlines Abbe Ligeard's and Professor Harent's main criticisms of The Eyes of Faith. Taken as a whole, the book offers a unique way of viewing the development of a significant aspect of modern Catholic theology.