ONE rises from the perusal of this book with the sense of power, of power received and of power pressing for outlet, the potency of the good that is diffusive of self. Perhaps the secret of this lies, partly at least, in the spirit of the work, in that it is the expression of a person and consequently speaks to a person. It is not head speaking to head, nor yet heart to heart, but both to both, or rather the whole to the whole, the man to the man. The author has not simply rethought his subject; he has relived it and with the force and the beauty of life he enters into the life of the reader. No less, however, is the strength of the work in its method, a method which presents religion not as something extraneous, as coming to the individual from without, but as the deepest and fullest expression of his own personality, an expansion from within, an evolution of what is most real in his Very self. How this is compatible with the supernatural essence and origin of Christianity will presently be shown.
The book is essentially a contribution to the philosophy of religion. It unfolds the deeper principles of mans conscious relation to God, and if it stop short of just the deepest reasons of that relation, it doubtless is because the author was determined not to involve his reader in the complications of ultimate psychological and metaphysical analyses. The work is a masterpiece in the art of philosophy, its science being covered by the forms that beauty lends to truth. The intellectual craftsmanship might be discovered by the critical faculty, but the product speaks as a finished whole to the total self. Primarily, however, the work is an apology of religion. Yet is it far away from the stereotyped lines in which books under that title are wont to be cast. There is in it no polemic against the ?old apologetic,? the traditional ways of Christian defence. Doubtless the author would admit the abstract, the dialectical cogency of the time-honored methods. He explicitly indicates reasons function of establishing the motives of credibility, the grounds as well as the duty of faith. Nevertheless, as he says, however scientific and objectively valid this proof may be, when presented to this man or that it will be either rejected altogether or lie heavily on his mind as an undigested difficulty, until the truth be voluntarily appropriated by him through an act of faith. To prepare the unbelieving mind for this act of faith is of course the main business of the apologist. The act is not indeed a merely natural process, one elicited by the unaided powers of the mind. It must be essentially transfused with the light and heat of divine grace. None the less is it a vital act of the mental powers, and to prepare the agent for its performance is the first concern of the apologist. The ?old apologetic? systematizes this preparation from the objective and the explicitly intellectual viewpoint. Starting from definitions of religion and revelation, it demonstrates the criteria of revelation, the historical veracity of its documents, its concrete embodiment in Christianity and its complete expression in Catholicism. The logical cogency of this line of argument cannot be reasonably disputed. It is as valid to-day as it ever was....
--American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 30