{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026450116009280742, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0009280742459396752, 'mean_word_length': 4.458227848101266, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul Tillich: A Comparison of Systems

S.-A., in fact, insists that throughout he has avoided all theoretical speculation so as to stay strictly on the religious level. He admits that, while Newman's approach does pose many basic problems for philosophers and theologians, he has bypassed all of these so as to treat unbelief strictly as a religious problem, and that, in so doing, he is only being faithful to Newman, who never pretended to be a theoretician. I must confess that, even while trying to avoid that most unforgivable of all reviewers' sins, which is to criticize an author for not writing a book he never intended to write, I cannot help but consider this to be a serious defect. One cannot simply dismiss all problems by labeling them philosophical or theological—at least not in a book that deals with so theological a topic as belief and unbelief. S.-A. resolutely refuses to move out of the nineteenth-century world of ideas which formed the setting for Newman's writings. Though the book is supposed to be addressed to us in our contemporary situation, no attention is paid to questions and problems that have arisen only in our time and which cannot but occur to the reader. Every now and again one suspects such a reference; but this is only by innuendo, as when S.-A. seems to be dismissing Bultmann's work on revelation with one line of print, without even mentioning him by name (p. 32). An important theme such as original sin is treated at length with no attempt to assess Newman's use of the concept in the light of contemporary theological speculation. More important still, the very cornerstone of the whole edifice, Newman's concept of conscience, is never once submitted to critical scrutiny. Yet much has been written on the subject of conscience recently which might give rise to doubts concerning the validity of Newman's basic assumption. S.-A. has given us a competent study of Newman's thought on unbelief. We can only hope that he will follow it up with an attempt to apply the results of his research more critically to the problem as it exists in our own times.