- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
The Challenge of the Catechism
The Challenge of the Catechism
October 20, 1994
- Chapter:
- (p.157) 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- Source:
- Church and Society
- Author(s):
Avery Cardinal Dulles
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
This chapter argues that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the boldest challenge yet offered to the cultural relativism that currently threatens to erode the contents of Catholic faith. According to a widely prevalent view, religious truth consists in an ineffable encounter with the transcendent. By confidently setting forth what the Church has taught down through the centuries, the Catechism by implication takes on modern scholars who have criticized the inherited patrimony on the basis of new methodologies in exegesis, historical research, and epistemology. The challenges may be seen as directed against four very popular tendencies: positivist exegesis, historicist dogmatics, revisionist speculation, and experience-based catechetics. The discussion holds that the challenges are mutual, since the Catechism is challenged by those it challenges.
Keywords: Catechism, cultural relativism, exegesis, theological speculation, historicism
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- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
