Figuring out the Church: Her Marks, and Her Masters

by Aidan Nichols

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. 

Genres: Theology

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2013

About the author

John Christopher "Aidan" Nichols O.P., S.T.M. (born 17 September 1948) is an English academic and Catholic priest.

Nichols served as the first John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford for 2006 to 2008, the first lectureship of Catholic theology at that university since the Reformation. He is a member of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and is the Prior of St Michael the Archangel in Cambridge.