Basics of Roman Catholic Theology

The author says: what I say here briefly will be found stated and elaborated at appropriate places in the course of the book. But anyone who considers reading a book has a right to know some things before he or she decides whether the book id worth looking into. I gather here such helpful information. First, a few words about the title of the book. Some may be shocked or repelled or both by the qualification Roman Catholic. So I shall try to provide a shock-absorber. I Entitle the book as I do simply to be coherent with my conception of what theology is, and my intention to set forth some basics of the theological works which I myself project. As I understand it, theology is the effort to understand within a life of faith. As a work, it is the result of that effort. The matrix, the living setting in which alone a theology can develop, is religious experience of the theologian within his or her community of believers. Outside, or apart from, such a concrete setting, no one can reflect in any meaningful way on the structures of such experience, and of the experienced reality. I cannot, therefore, write a book of basics of theology in general, for I have no experience of what it is to be a Jew or a Moslem, for example, and I could say nothing which would have any claim to account for Jewish or Moslem theology