Priority of Christ

The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism by Robert Barron, 342 pages

According to Bishop Barron, the history of modern theology has been, to a substantial extent, the story of the application of prior philosophical commitments to the Christian faith.  What he proposes in The Priority of Christ is a return to a theology which begins with the person of Christ as He is revealed in Scripture and Tradition.  This involves the development of an epistemology which recognizes Christ as the Logos who orders creation and through whom creation is best understood.  Above all, it necessitates a recognition of the non-competitive relationship between the human and the divine, as demonstrated in the union of the two in the God-man.  This coinherence of divinity and humanity - the rediscovered complementarity of nature and grace - not only renders null many of the unprofitable theological arguments of the past few centuries, it also has profound implications for the moral and religious life.

The Priority of Christ, originally published in 2008, is considerably more academic and difficult than some of Barron's more popular works aimed at a mass audience, including Catholicism and Seeds of the Word.  Barron's evangelical commitment to lead others "out into the deep" is just as marked, however, as the metaphysical discussion is never divorced from practical realities - the book concludes with an application in the lives of four modern holy women (St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St Therese of Lisieux, St Katherine Drexel. and Bl Teresa of Calcutta) as exemplars of classical virtues elevated by grace.