Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics, Book 3

Book 3 of Matthias Joseph Scheeben's Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics contains his fullest treatments of the divine act of creation and of the created order as a whole, inclusive of both the visible cosmos and the invisible angelic hierarchies. Especially notable is his richly developed account of the nature of the human person as made in the image and likeness of God. It is in Book 3 that Scheeben provides his most detailed study of grace as the supernatural, considered both in the abstract in its nature and in its actual instantiation in the human and angelic worlds. Scheeben carefully defines and lays out his distinctive doctrine of grace as a "supernature" that elevates and divinizes human beings so that they can partake of the Triune God in the beatific vision as their supernatural final end. He offers a detailed treatment of the relation of grace to created freedom, he clarifies the nature of human receptivity for grace as obediential potency, and he gives his most sustained rendering of man's natural desire to see God. This book also contains Scheeben's fullest account of his controversial teaching on the substantial indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the just.