A Certain Faith

A masterpiece of modern apologetics, this book builds upon the fact that there is an intrinsic, formative principle within thought — namely, being. Those unfamiliar with the idea of analogy of being will be amazed by the concept’s depth and compass. After securing it within natural theology, Dr Pearlman goes on to thread the analogy of being through cosmology, Christology, the nature of the Church, and the moral and spiritual life. The book is designed to take the reader from a situation of doubt, then through faith and the understanding of virtue, to arrive finally at the threshold of contemplation with the saints, including Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, and Mother Teresa.

Barry Pearlman has lived and worked in the UK, USA, and Australia, and currently lives in Wales. A Certain Faith is a remarkable achievement, both inspiring and uplifting – an accessible synthesis of traditional metaphysics and fundamental theology that offers the basis for a renewal of apologetics. Such clarity, in such depth and breadth, is exceedingly rare in our time. Nor are theology and philosophy here separated from spirituality and the interior life, as is too often the case. It should find its way into libraries and reading lists. It is easily available from Amazon UK or Amazon US.


Here is a longer version of this review, as it will appear in Second Spring, issue 15.

A masterpiece of modern apologetics, this book would be an excellent read for the Year of Faith that began in October 2012. It builds upon the fact that there is an intrinsic, formative principle within thought — namely, being. It was the mistake of Descartes to begin with “I think, therefore I am.” We should begin at the very beginning, with “Being is” or “Something is”, closely followed by “It is what it is,” and “It cannot both be and not be” (the principle of non-contradiction). Having established the idea of being and indeed of Absolute Being as essential to all coherent thought whatever, the second chapter (on Creation) shows that it was a failure to appreciate the analogy of being – meaning the different degrees or levels of being – that led to the disastrous errors of Kant and postmodern philosophy. The analogy of being links everything that exists (at the same time differentiating it from God), providing the foundation for a high-level but extremely succinct and accessible introduction to cosmology, revelation, Christology, the nature of the Church, and the moral and spiritual life.

Though the book begins with philosophy, and is clearly aimed at the demolition of postmodernism, its deeper purpose is to strengthen and nourish the life of faith. In order to do this it takes the reader on a most extraordinary journey before it reaches the consummation of the life of faith in mystical union.

Barry Pearlman has lived and worked in the UK, USA, and Australia, and currently lives in Wales. He clearly has a very profound grasp of modern physics and mathematics, and is able to integrate this into his discussion of Creation in a way that alone would make the book worth having. But this is only the beginning, since he moves then into the questions surrounding the notions of good and evil, and from there to the more properly theological part of the book when he turns to Revelation. Pearlman is extremely good on biblical exegesis, and able to demonstrate the collapse of form criticism in the face of modern criticism by the likes of Richard Bauckham and John Redford, not to mention N.T. Wright and Roch Kereszty. With Pope Benedict, Pearlman adopts not a pre-critical but a post-critical approach, replacing the dichotomy of “Jesus of History” and the “Jesus of Faith” with the “Jesus of Testimony.” It can be clearly established that the Gospels are based on eye-witness accounts, that miracles are possible, that Jesus knew he was God, and that his rising from the dead is the most likely explanation for the survival of Christianity.

Reason and likelihood can only take us to the threshold of faith, and in the second half of the book the author takes us over that threshold – explaining how Christ founded the Church, and gave it a structure, with Peter as its foundation. He defends the Church, too, against common accusations that are largely based on misconceptions or deliberate propaganda by the Church’s enemies (Inquisition, Crusades, the repression of thought and science). In the third Part of the book, “Spirit”, he examines the way of Purgation, Illumination, and Union – the way of grace, prayer, and sacrament, by which the individual members of the Church may be sanctified and transformed by faith into the likeness of God.

Whether you are inquiring into Christianity or simply attempting to deepen your understanding, possessing a single book that covers so much and gives an organic sense of the Catholic faith as an inter-connected whole is a great gift, and this thoroughly up-to-date and intelligent volume is worth more than its weight in gold. A Certain Faith is a remarkable achievement, both inspiring and uplifting – an accessible synthesis of traditional metaphysics and fundamental theology that offers the basis for a renewal of apologetics. Such clarity, in such depth and breadth, is exceedingly rare in our time. Nor are theology and philosophy here separated from spirituality and the interior life, as is too often the case. It should find its way into as many libraries and reading lists as possible.

Queen of the Sciences

Here is a passage from Fr Robert Barron's wonderful book The Priority of Christ (pp. 155-6):

In the thirteenth century, Bonaventure maintained that all of the non-theological arts and sciences taught in the university find their proper center in theology, that science which speaks directly of Christ the Logos. As the rationality of God the creator, Christ is the physical, mathematical, and metaphysical center of the universe and hence the point of orientation for all of the sciences dealing with those dimensions.

In the nineteenth-century, at the high-water mark of modern foundationalism, John Henry Newman felt compelled to call for the re-insertion of theology within the circle of university disciplines. Following the inner logic of Christian revelation, Newman, like Bonaventure, saw that theology not only should be around the table, but must be the centering element in the conversation, precisely because it alone speaks of the creator God who is metaphysically implicit in all finite existence.

A few lines later he adds: "Newman saw that once theology is displaced, some other discipline necessarily takes its position at the center and thereby disturbs the proper harmony among the sciences, for no other discipline has the range or inclusiveness properly to hold the center."

The same argument is made powerfully in Alasdair MacIntyre's recent book, God, Philosophy, Universities. But what is this "proper" harmony that Barron appeals to? Why is only theology capable of "holding the center"? The point is that, while theology cannot determine the methods or content of the individual sciences, it alone is concerned with that which transcends them all. It is a place-holder for that which connects everything - for what Barron terms "co-inherent relationality." Theology as a formal discipline is a quest for that relationality. Without it, rationality itself fragments and falls apart.

Icon by Solrunn Nes (www.icon-painting.com). "Just as the Virgin was called to offer herself entirely as human being and as woman that God's Word might take flesh and come among us, so too philosophy is called to offer its rational and critical resources that theology, as the understanding of faith, may be fruitful and creative. And just as in giving her assent to Gabriel's word, Mary lost nothing of her true humanity and freedom, so too when philosophy heeds the summons of the Gospel's truth its autonomy is in no way impaired. Indeed, it is then that philosophy sees all its enquiries rise to their highest expression" (John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 108).

The beauty of mathematics

For many of us, “mathematics” and “beauty” sit oddly together. We may remember math as boring or even frightening, but hardly beautiful. Yet math is the key to science, and science dominates our age. And there is another way to look at it.

The single most compelling reason to explore the world of mathematics is that it is beautiful, and pondering its intriguing ideas is great fun…. To study the deep truth of number relationships feeds the spirit as surely as any of the other great human activities of art, music, or literature. -- Calvin Clawson

This quotation is taken from p. 239 of a wonderful book called A Passion for Mathematics: Numbers, Puzzles, Madness, Religion, and the Quest for Reality, by Clifford A. Pickover. It is full of games and quotes and ideas that parents and teachers will find useful to get kids of all ages and all backgrounds interested and involved with maths and geometry. Pickover himself believes that “mathematics is the loom upon which God weaves the fabric of the universe” (p. 53).

Looking back on the maths classes I sat through as a kid, I can't help wishing I had been taught the subject not as a collection of seemingly arbitrary rules and procedures but (1) historically (starting with Pythagoras), (2) aesthetically (in relation to music, painting, architecture), and (3) symbolically (with a view to qualities, meanings, analogies inherent in numbers and shapes) - not to mention (4) playfully.

The religious and secular use of numbers are related, as I tried to show in The Seven Sacraments (Crossroad) as well as in Beauty for Truth’s Sake. The numbers particularly prominent in Christian tradition are 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 10 and 12. One is the source of all other numbers, 2 is the beginning of multiplicity, there are three divine Persons and three theological virtues, four cardinal virtues and four Gospels, seven sacraments as well as seven days of creation, ten commandments, twelve apostles and twelve tribes. And all these numbers are interrelated: 7 is 3 plus 4, 10 is 3 plus 7, 12 is 3 times 4. So in a way the fundamental structural numbers only go as high as 4, and all the others are made up from these. That takes us back to the sacred Tetraktys of the Pythagoreans, whose influence on the Christian tradition has been underestimated.

There is a fascinating article by Karen Kilby called MATHEMATICS, BEAUTY AND THEOLOGY that I recommend to your attention if the subject interests you. (Just follow the link.) And I also want to mention "The Curriculum of Beauty" by David H. Albert and Joyce Reed in Life Learning magazine. Albert writes:

Our children have within themselves, or so I am led to believe by my experience of them, an inner yearning for the beautiful, a potential wonderment and a delicious longing and love and trembling waiting to be empowered on its quest. This yearning is not likely to be fulfilled in a high school hallway or on the shopping mall checkout line. So what if we were to set as our task – as parents and as educators – acquainting our children with the beautiful without and the cultivation of the beautiful – the yearning – within? How might we go about our homeschooling lives differently if we were to conceive of what we are doing as primarily an aesthetic task?