Back to Virtue

Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft, 195 pages

How to live the good life is the subject of Back to Virtue.  "The good life", Peter Kreeft tells us, is the life in which we are good, a life spent in pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.  The secret of happiness is that mere happiness is transitory - human fulfillment requires transcendence, and beatitude rather than happiness is the goal.  This means a life of virtue, and the first half of Back to Virtue is spent on the cardinal and theological virtues.  The second half looks at the vices in the form of the Seven Deadly Sins along with their cures as found in the Beatitudes.

In fiction, the best twists are both surprising and inevitable, leaving the delighted audience exclaiming "Of course!"  Peter Kreeft's writing, though nonfiction, often has the same effect, reminiscent of walking through tightly packed city streets and suddenly being confronted with a looming gothic cathedral - "How did I miss that?"  Indeed, Kreeft is at his best when reminding us that the greatest story ever told is also the strangest story ever told, the most unexpected but also the most fitting, and the most fitting because it is our story as well.