Figuring Out the Church: Her Marks and Her Masters

The Church is a mystery. Believers who want to enter more deeply into that mystery will reflect on the Church’s basic characteristics, the ＂marks of the Church＂ what it means for the Church to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Non-Catholics and nonbelievers looking to appreciate how Catholics regard the Church also will desire to understand these ＂marks＂.

In this book, renowned Dominican theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols explores the Church’s characteristics. Drawing on insights from four theological masters-Henri de Lubac, Jean Tillard, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Charles Journet-Nichols seeks to help Catholics and non-Catholics to ＂figure out＂ the Church, on at least a fundamental level. The four masters in question do not claim to exhaust the mystery of the Church, nor does Nichols. They do, however, assist the reader in going deeper into the mystery.

To accomplish this goal, Nichols appeals to both the Scholastic tradition and authors influenced by the ressourcement movement in theology. In this way, he provides readers with a sense of Catholicism’s breadth, which is at once orthodox and yet generously conceived.

Aidan Nichols, O.P., is a Dominican friar who has taught theology in England, Italy, the United States, and Ethiopia. He held the John Paul II Memorial Lectureship in Roman Catholic Theology and was for many years a Member of the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity. He has published over fifity books on a variety of topics in fundamental, historical, and ecumenical theology, as well as on the relation of religion to literature and art. His books include Lovely Like Jerusalem, Conciliar Octet, Figuring Out the Church, Rome and the Eastern Churches, and The Theologian’s Enterprise.