The Essence of Catholicism: Religious Commitment within the Bounds of Humanism

Cover
Contents
Preface
1 Introduction
	1.1 Definitions
	1.2 Catholicism and the case for it
	1.3 Some comparisons
	1.4 Grim Hell, mortal sin, and Nulla Salus
	1.5 The conditions for commitment
	1.6 Commitment and worship
	1.7 The structure of this book
	Appendix 1: Axiarchism and Perfect Being Theology
	Appendix 2: A version of the Argument to Design
2 A Misguided Project?
	2.1 Lack of scholarship
	2.2 Offense, dishonesty, and arrogance
	2.3 Constructs
	2.4 Comprehending God
	2.5 Idolatry
	2.6 Conclusion: the proper context of religious argument
3 The Argument from Evil to Catholicism
	3.1 The Apologetics of Evil: overview
	3.2 The obvious lesson: life after death
	3.3 God is not averse to risk
	3.4 More on freedom
	3.5 God created what was lovely, but not out of love
	3.6 God now loves us both collectively and as individuals
	3.7 Values are objective but their ranking subjective
	3.8 Quasi-kenosis
	3.9 Transvaluation
	3.10 Communitarian Risk Theodicy
	3.11 Conclusion: turning theodicy into positive apologetics
	Appendix 1: Original Sin
	Appendix 2: Satan Theodicy
4 The Catholic Syntheses
	4.1 The catholicity of Catholicism
	4.2 Naturalism versus humanism versus spirituality
	4.3 A utilitarian god versus the God of love
	4.4 Divine mercy versus divine justice
	4.5 The individual versus the community
	4.6 This world versus the next
	4.7 The unity and plurality of the divine
	4.8 The at-onement syntheses
	4.9 Concluding remarks about the syntheses
5 The Argument from Tradition
	5.1 The criteria
	5.2 Unexpected content
	5.3 Responding to the Problem of Evil
	5.4 The love of God
	5.5 Common sense, science, metaphysics, history, and morality
	5.6 The Alternative History Test
	5.7 Types of inspiration
	5.8 One, holy, universal, and apostolic: the marks of a divinely guided tradition
	5.9 Applying the criteria
	5.10 The astounding Christian doctrines
	5.11 The holiness of the early Church
	5.12 Conclusion
6 The Negative Case for Essential Catholicism
	6.1 Against non-salvific religion
	6.2 Eschatological religion
	6.3 On Indian religion, reincarnation, and karma
	6.4 The Quran enigma and the Gabriel problem
	6.5 Against strict Protestantism
	6.6 Against Roman Catholicism
	6.7 Roman Catholic hyperdoxy
	6.8 The true religion, if there is one
	6.9 The objection from Ecclesiology
7 Conclusions
	7.1 Integrating the four arguments
	7.2 A thirteen-step program
	7.3 No religion versus Essential Catholicism
	7.4 Commitment, faith, and grace
	7.5 The role of experience
	7.6 The urgency of commitment
	7.7 The next Ecumenical Council
	Appendix: Some defensible theses
References
Index