God the Unknown; And Other Essays
London: The Harvill Press, 1956. First edition. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket. Small bookseller's stamp, neat ownership signature, slight spotting to top edge, faint toning to price-clipped dust jacket. An excellent copy. Item #1141
"IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY OF GOD WHAT HE IS"
First edition of the English Dominican's meditations on God's revelation to human consciousness. God the Unknown was the follow-up to God and the Unconscious (1952), the fruit of White's study (in collaboration with Carl Jung).of the role of psychology in theology.
White's Catholic perspective on the development of modern psychology captured the attention of contemporary figures such as Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Day: "I've been reading a very stimulating book recently, God the Unknown, by Fr. Victor White; he says that while you are lifted to great heights of awe and worship contemplating God the Unknown, all that He is not, you are suddenly overwhelmed with thankfulness that He is Love" (The Dorothy Day Book).
These thirteen essays, collecting twenty years of work by the onetime editor of the Dominican journal Blackfriars, are preceded by a brief Author's Preface and grouped in three sections: 1. Theology in General (including The Unknown God), 2. Particular Theological "Problems" and, 3. Ecumenical or Eirenic. Consists of: Part I. I. The Theologian's Task, II. The Unknown God, III. Talk about God, IV. Prelude to the Five Ways, V. The Platonic Tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part II. I. Incarnations and the Incarnation, II. The Atonement, III. Word of God and Natural Law, IV. The Concept of Justice in St. Thomas Aquinas, Western and Eastern Theology of Grace and Nature, Part III. I. The Meaning of the Church, II. Membership of the Church, III. The Background to Papal Infallibility. There is no index, but each essay is supplemented with endnotes. Approbations.
Price: $75.00