God, Christ and Us

Book excerpt: Here is a collection of Herbert McCabe's more popular spiritual writings. McCabe was highly regarded as a writer on philosophy and theology but in true Dominican tradition (the Order of Preachers) he was also a brilliant preacher. He always preached in a lively and witty way - his style has been compared to that of G.K. Chesterton. This collection of his sermons and spiritual addresses are never platitudinous or short of ideas, filled with questions, arguments and solid intellectual content. The major influence on McCabe was the Bible but he was also a devoted admirer of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas saturated his public speaking. From the Bible, McCabe derived the notion of God leading us to happiness through the work of grace and through the life and teachings of Jesus. From Aquinas, McCabe derived a hatred of idolatry, a powerful sense of the incomprehensibility of God and a recognition that we depend on God's gracious revelation of himself rather that what we can work out on the basis of our limited understanding. A presiding theme in this book is that we are saved because of the life of someone fully human. God, Christ and Us communicates the essence of the Gospel in an original and compelling way. It can therefore be mentioned in the same breath as works by Dean Inge, Donald Soper, H.A. Williams and Leslie Weatherhead. Here is a collection of Herbert McCabe's more popular spiritual writings. McCabe was highly regarded as a writer on philosophy and theology but in true Dominican tradition (the Order of Preachers) he was also a brilliant preacher. He always preached in a lively and witty way - his style has been compared to that of G.K. Chesterton. This collection of his sermons and spiritual addresses are never platitudinous or short of ideas, filled with questions, arguments and solid intellectual content. The major influence on McCabe was the Bible but he was also a devoted admirer of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas saturated his public speaking. From the Bible, McCabe derived the notion of God leading us to happiness through the work of grace and through the life and teachings of Jesus. From Aquinas, McCabe derived a hatred of idolatry, a powerful sense of the incomprehensibility of God and a recognition that we depend on God's gracious revelation of himself rather that what we can work out on the basis of our limited understanding. A presiding theme in this book is that we are saved because of the life of someone fully human. God, Christ and Us communicates the essence of the Gospel in an original and compelling way. It can therefore be mentioned in the same breath as works by Dean Inge, Donald Soper, H.A. Williams and Leslie Weatherhead.