The Catholic as Historian

When historians adhere to a Christian worldview, should that worldview have an influence on their understanding of the history that they write about? On the one hand, the answers to this question sometimes seem to be “a God of the gaps,” in which God fills any explanatory gaps that the historian might find, or even a presumption to know the full historical course, down to the details of modern history, of God’s providential plan. Yet, on the other hand, achieving a “neutral” historiography is not possible either, since every historian brings to the study of the words and deeds of the past a certain framework as to what kinds of meaning are possible. This collection of studies by eminent Catholic historians moves the discussion to a new level.