A Handbook of Fundamental Theology, Volumes I–II

Both volumes of Brunsmann's handbook in one file: why religion is owed, how mankind began with one God, and the case that God has spoken.

Brunsmann's handbook is the Catholic case for the faith from the ground up, and in this EPUB both volumes come as one file. It begins with whether a human being owes God anything at all and ends with the duty of every person to accept what God has said.

Volume I lays the ground. Religion is a duty of human nature, and the theories that it began in fear or fraud are answered one at a time. Then Brunsmann turns the familiar story around: the oldest names for God, Dyaus-pitar, Zeus and Jupiter, share one root, and the simplest peoples, the Pygmies, the Andaman Islanders and the Fuegians whom Darwin had described as having no religion at all, believe in one invisible God who made everything and punishes wrong. Mankind began with one God; paganism is the record of the drift.

Volume II argues that God has in fact spoken. It settles how a revelation could be recognized, then argues: the Gospels are the best attested writings of antiquity, Christ claimed to be the Son of God and was neither deceived nor deceiving, the tomb was found empty and the risen Christ was seen on twelve occasions by people who had called the first reports idle tales, and the spread of the Church and the martyrs' deaths have no natural explanation. The critics, Hume to Harnack, are quoted before they are answered.

Arthur Preuss adapted it for private study and reference, with notes, reading lists and a subject index.

About this edition

Set from the 1928 (Volume I) and 1929 (Volume II) editions of B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, adapted by Arthur Preuss from Fr. Brunsmann's Lehrbuch der Apologetik. The wording of the historical text is preserved in this newly typeset edition. EPUB edition.