Reviews for Io. Bachonis Quaestiones in quatuor libros sententiarum & quodlibetales

The average rating for Io. Bachonis Quaestiones in quatuor libros sententiarum & quodlibetales based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-02-04 00:00:00 James Vail Prior to my conversion to Catholicism, I would have found this book's central question - why did C.S. Lewis never become Catholic - to be entirely perplexing if not a bit presumptive. From an Evangelical view of Lewis, he couldn't be farther away from Rome. Even his life as an Anglican seemed to be in contradiction with the otherwise Evangelical thrust of his writing. In reexamining his writing after my conversion, I find my perspective to be almost entirely the opposite. Yes, Lewis had Evangelical elements to his writing but he also had a plethora of positions that seemed to be more at home in Rome than in his Anglican Communion. Looking at him through Catholic eyes, I find myself puzzled as to why he didn't follow the path laid out by Newman and others when it seems his thinking would have found a welcome and comfortable home had he done so. It's this question that Christopher Derrick, one of Lewis' former students, sets out to answer. Although the question is ultimately unanswerable, Derrick's efforts are consistently commendable and his findings surprising. In knowing Lewis personally he encountered a man more than eager to debate and argue over nearly any theological questions - any question, that is, except this one. Discussions of the differences between Protestants and Catholics almost universally brought out a rare silence in Lewis and a quick demand that the subject be changed. Derrick presents Lewis as a figure whose intellect was largely reconciled with Rome but whose emotions still harbored a self-acknowledged prejudice grown in him from childhood. The material presents a fascinating case study of one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 20th century being unwilling to work through one of the major contradictions in his thinking. Next up for me is Joseph Pearce's book on the same subject. In the meantime, I highly recommend Derrick's treatment of C.S. Lewis and Catholicism.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-10-07 00:00:00 Richard Kaplan Don’t expect any simple, bare-faced answers in this book. It’s an unanswerable question - Why didn’t C.S. Lewis become Catholic? What the author (who was a friend of Lewis) does with that question is an exercise in beautiful logic, rhetoric, and philosophy. He constantly debunks easy tag-lines used in other rhetorics and carefully shows their inconsistency. This book requires your attention, but it is a book that teaches you to think as you read it, which is very rare indeed.