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R e v i e w s
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 9
 November 2002 
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Fresh Hope in the Abortion Debate
Chances are you consider yourself pro-life on the issue of abortion, and you know quite a few people who aren't. Unfortunately, until now, the twain have seldom met-at least not in the sort of vital exchange that makes "pro-choicers" realize that what they really advocate is the killing of babies.
Peter Kreeft's new book may change this. Subtitled "A Thoughtful and Compassionate Guide to Today's Most Controversial Issue," his Three Approaches to Abortion is the answer to every pro-life Christian's prayers. Here, as only he can write it, is a tidy 133-page manual for presenting the truth about abortion to those who favor it, as well as to those who oppose it because they instinctively recognize abortion as evil but can't give a logical argument as to why.
Kreeft, a professor of philosophy at Boston College, is the author of over 40 books. His great gift as a writer is the ability to present complex material in clear, graceful prose so that his readers not only understand the concepts but also enjoy the read. And, yes, even a book about the greatest evil of our time can be enjoyed-for its content and readability and for the fresh hope it generates.
The author's hope for his new book is "that clear reason, rather than force, will help convince people of the truth about abortion and the need to protect innocent human life." Dividing the book into three parts and using a formal dialogical method, Kreeft presents the objective arguments against abortion, the subjective motives of the pro-life movement, and how the interpersonal combination of these two factors influences debate between pro-choice and pro-life advocates.
Sandwiched between the first two sections is a brief but worthy "Historical Postscript" that drives home the point that "the war we are in today is a continuation of the age-old war of the forces of life against the forces of death." Kreeft cites the cultures of the Caananites, the Aztecs, and Nazi Germany as forerunners to our modern culture of death.
Beginning in the first section of the book with the simple premise that we all know what an apple is, Kreeft seeks to prove "not only that it was wrong to legalize abortion, but that it was clearly wrong; not only that it was criminal to decriminalize abortion, but that Mother Teresa was exactly on target (as usual) when she said, 'If abortion isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong.'"
His argument proceeds through fifteen logical steps to the conclusion that abortion, which arises from the abandonment of morality and the rejection of reality, must be outlawed. At the chapter's conclusion he writes with characteristic modesty, "I honestly wish that some day some pro-choice thinker would show me one argument that proved that the victim of abortion was not a human person with a right to life. That would save me and millions of other pro-lifers enormous grief, worry, effort, time, work, and money. But until that time, I will keep arguing because it is what I do as a philosopher. It is my weak version of a mother shouting and screaming that something terrible is happening: Babies are being slaughtered."
Kreeft describes the second part of the book, "Why We Fight: A Pro-Life Motivational Map," as "a confession of fifteen motives that fuel pro-life work." He considers this vital information for pro-lifers, as well as for pro-choice people about whom he writes, "Most of them do not understand us, some of them do not understand why they do not understand us, and some of them do not even understand that they do not understand us." In brief, pithy articles on the topics of meaning, obligation, honesty, patriotism, civilization, families, sex, violence, women, children, survival, religion, ethics, and the image of God, Kreeft lays out the building blocks of the pro-life movement.
"What Happens When an Irresistible Force Meets an Immovable Object?" is the book's final section. Featuring the literary characters Libby, a "sassy, black feminist" who is pro-choice, and Isa, a "Muslim fundamentalist philosopher" who takes the pro-life view, this conversation is described as "a typical pro-life/pro-choice dialogue, which addresses the fifteen most common pro-choice arguments." Although some of the dialogue is strained, it conveys the moral and logical flaws in the pro-choice stance. It does this without specific reference to Christian doctrine, relying only on logic, natural law, and philosophical and scientific argument.
If there is a weakness in this otherwise powerful book, it is that occasionally Kreeft allows a caustic tone that distracts from the point he is making. Yet outrage is the natural and moral response to abortion, and letting it seep through an otherwise brilliant argument is easy to forgive.
-- Ann Applegarth
Three Approaches to Abortion
By Peter Kreeft
Ignatius Press
133 pages
$9.95
ISBN: 0-898-709-156
Eucharistic Enlightenment
Anyone who knows the name and work of Stephen Clark will know that any book that appears under his name will be a book of depth, substance, orthodoxy, perspicacity, and spiritual wealth. Years ago we were all grateful for his monumental Man and Woman in Christ, and have doubtless felt over the intervening years that if only Catholics (and all Christians) would read that book, most of the confusion and agony over gender, sex, and marriage would have been obviated.
We now have this book on the Eucharist. As one who has himself written a smallish book on this topic, I can say that Stephen Clark's book towers over most of what gets written on the subject. It glows-I think that is not too rhapsodic a word-with his unfailing tact, patient and exhaustive scholarship, wonderful lucidity, and massive coverage of every conceivable.aspect of the matter at hand.
Clark begins straight off with a discussion of the two fundamental principles that must undergird all consideration of the Eucharist: the incarnational principle and the sacramental principle. Taking the burning bush as a case in point of the first, he says: "The bush is so important because of what could be called 'the incarnational principle.' A bush is something in our world that is material (and alive), of little significance in itself. But the burning bush was the means of contact between Moses and God. When God 'comes down' the principle he normally follows is the incarnational principle."
With respect to the second, he takes the two trees in Eden: "They were not just means of communication. They were intended to have interior transforming effects. . . . We might call the two trees the first 'sacraments.' The word sacrament in this context means something of a holy nature or character that makes human beings holy." (If readers of this review are curious about those two trees as sacraments, I might quote one more sentence of Clark's here: "The tree of wisdom foreshadows the Scriptures. The tree of life foreshadows the Eucharistic sacrament."
All of the above is "merely" introduction. We move straightaway into the body of the book, which beings with two chapters on Scripture. The following statement will perhaps seem to entail an anomaly, even an oxymoron, since all of us, Catholic and Protestant alike, have imbibed by some sort of vague osmosis, the notion that when it comes to Scripture, the Protestants carry the day since the Bible (sola) is their specialite de la maison.
Not so. Without wishing to be quarrelsome, one must point out that the full richness of Scripture can only be opened up when apostolicity, patristics, the magisterium, the Church, and the sacraments are front and center. Christianity is not Islam. We are people of the Book, to be sure: but the Book is coeval and coterminous with the Incarnation and the sacraments. Clark's book would be worth publishing if it contained only the two chapters on Scripture. Certainly any Catholic who might have supposed that the Bible is really a Protestant specialty should find himself delighted by the discussion of Scripture here.
The strong temptation for a reviewer (this one, anyway) is to give a close summary of the whole book, complete with scores of lines of quotation. That would be profitable; but editors are a hard lot, and tend to keep in check (enthusiastic) reviewers. Let me just say, then, that Clark's chapters on "Eucharist and Covenant," "The Eucharistic Offering," "The Eucharist as Life-Giving," and "The Eucharistic Presence," not only open up these tremendous mysteries: They belong among the classics of the spiritual life which the Catholic Church has so munificently given to us down through the centuries.
-- Thomas Howard
Catholics and the Eucharist
By Stephen B. Clark
Servant Publications
274 pages
$11.99
ISBN: 1-569-551-332
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