Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics 1.1

Book excerpt: Where and how do we encounter God’s revelation made once for-all in Christ Jesus? The answer to this urgent question is explored in Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics, Book One: Theological Epistemology, Part One: The Objective Principles of Theological Knowledge, here translated for the first time in English by Michael J. Miller. Scheeben (1835–1888), a renowned German theologian, in this unabridged first part of a two-volume set, begins with a discussion of the nature and scope of dogmatic theology as a science. He treats divine revelation as the source of theological knowledge and as transmitted in Scripture and in the Apostolic Tradition. Included in this volume is Scheeben’s treatise, “The Objective Principles of Theological Knowledge.” Scheeben writes on faith in its source, contents, and handing on in the Church as it confronts the believer, eliciting his or her assent.