Anyone interested in the relationship between culture and the intellectual life, has no doubt turned to the works of Christopher Dawson. This collection of ten essays from a recent conference at Oxford acts as an excellent commentary on Dawson’s main academic concerns: recovering history as a philosophical-theological category, and the reintegration of the disciplines so as to provide future generations with an understanding of culture in the truest sense of the term. As John Morrill points out in his introductory essay, (...) Dawson’s “passionate commitment to metahistory and his proclamation of the deeply moral purpose of the historian” —although out of favor in some academic circles—marks his as a unique voice in the search for truth. Dawson’s daughter, Christina Scott, offers the reader some otherwise inaccessible insights into her father’s life, especially regarding his early interest in Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Aidan Nichols, OP provides a bigger picture. His essay, “Christopher Dawson’s Catholic Setting,” highlights the “theology of culture” affecting all parts of English life during the earlier part of this century: the literature, art, architecture, and philosophy that brought “a Catholic sensibility to bear on cultural life”. The Chelsea set, a vibrantly orthodox Catholic salon to which Dawson belonged, centered their thought around the Neo-Thomism of Gilson and Maritain, the literature of Fumet and Julian Green, as well as the social thought of Emmanuel Mounier. (shrink)

The head of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, Curtis Chang turns to the seminal works of Augustine and Thomas as a way of engaging the challenges of postmodernity. He accordingly argues that Aquinas’s De Civitate Dei and Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles were composed precisely to challenge a world growing suspicious, if not negligent, of the Christian story. The rhetorical strategy Chang cleverly uncovers in both DCD and SCG is threefold: both Augustine and Thomas enter their opponents’ unique (...) stories and worldviews, both retell that story by reinterpreting that story on their opponents’ own terms, and finally, each capture that retold tale and tell the eternal story of Christianity in a way that is now intelligible and attractive to their interlocutors. (shrink)

This volume picks up where Vaught's Journey toward God in Augustine's Confessions: Books I-VI concluded. The three chapters of this present work follow the Confessions' three central books, looking at Augustine's Neoplatonic moment of ecstasy, his conversion to Christianity in the Milanese garden, and the shared vision with his mother Monica in the house at Ostia. Very much appreciated in Vaught's approach here is his insistence that Augustine never intended to present these experiences as exclusively his own, but rather as (...) "archetypical expressions" of what occurs whenever any human soul comes upon the divine. The method employed throughout helpfully analyzes these major events within the Confessions in terms of chronological development, how Augustine engages or is engaged by those around him, and those encounters with God which shape a soul's story. (shrink)

Every year in connection with the Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, a special seminar in gnosticism and later Platonism is held. Ten of the papers presented between 1993 and 1998 have been gathered into this volume. Each essay here examines some particular theme where the exchange between gnostics and later Platonic philosophers has proven particularly rich.

Echoing much of the neo-Thomistic revival of the twentieth century, Fides et Ratio §76 sketches the two main characteristics of a Christian philosophy: it is a type of thinking which simultaneously employs yet always seeks to purify reason and, secondly, it does not close itself off to the concerns and content of revelation. In this way, Pope John Paul II calls for a contemporary understanding of faith which is seen as a virtue freeing human reason from presumption, "the typical temptation (...) of the philosopher." In his latest, Bruno Niederbacher likewise calls for such learned docility in both the human soul as well as in the modern Academy. Divided into six main sections, this work concentrates on two main arguments. First, he shows why Thomas held that faith enables assent to what is and thus proves to be a necessary virtue for correct thinking and action and, secondly, what significance such a claim has for us today. (shrink)

In the earlier part of the sixth century, John of Scythopotis collected and edited the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. Elevated to the episcopacy of the important see of Palestina Secunda, sometime between 538 and 544, John not only gathered these texts of Dionysius, he also lent his own Neochalcedonian Christology to them in order to have one more apostolic authority from which to quote against the Monophysites of his day. Thanks in large part to Beate Regina Suchla's recent work (...) in John's original Syrian, scholars have been able to discern more easily his commentary on the Dionysian corpus from Maximus the Confessor's, as both were unfortunately melded together by Père Migne. This excellent study from Rorem and Lamoreaux thus introduces us to John of Scythopolis: both a compiler and commentator on the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius as well as a theologian and defensorfidei in his own tight. (shrink)

It was Plato who informed the Greek philosophical tradition of how the King of Egypt declared that writing will inevitably “implant forgetfulness in men’s souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks”. Plotinus likewise knew how these “wise men of Egypt” therefore chose to inscribe only one image in their temples and thus “manifested the non-discursiveness of the intelligible (...) world”. Sara Rappe reminds us that such passages are not infrequent throughout the history of Neoplatonism, suggesting how Plato and his followers struggled to understand the proper use of the written word, the role of images and symbol, as well as the very possibility of the transmission of truth itself. Focusing on the question: “How is intuitive wisdom communicated, especially within the context of a philosophy that repudiates language but continues to practice speculative metaphysics?”, Rappe has produced a helpful work aimed at examining the Neoplatonic hermeneutic. (shrink)

There is something appropriate about Lyotard’s last printed work being his most intimate and revealing. Best known for The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard died in the April of 1998, leaving his Confession d’Augustin, as Dolorès Lyotard tells us in her “Forewarning,” “scarcely half” finished. Although his New York Times obituary claimed that “awaiting publication is his final book about the ‘Confessions’ of St. Augustine”, this work is less a book about the Confessions as it is an insight (...) into a twentieth century philosopher at the end of his life. Revealed here is a philosopher struggling with the perennial themes of Augustine’s own odyssey: confession as praise and contrition. Perhaps it was Lyotard’s own battle with leukemia and his growing sense of mortality that gave him such insights into Augustine’s early fallacy of thinking of God as encircling and filling all things throughout space that he is able to write, “Such is flesh visited, co-penetrated by your space-time, disturbed and confused with this blow, but steeped in infinity, impregnated and pregnant with your overabundant liquid: the waters of the heavens” ; and regarding the relationship between time and immunity, Lyotard understands that, “God only sees himself in God. Compared with the incomparable brightness, all is night, and speech is noise after the silence of lauds. In the sky of skies, the heaven of heavens, wisdom celebrates its glory. The intelligence with which the angelic creatures are infused is not co-eternal with their creator, but it is exempt from becoming”. Passages like these not only present Augustine in a new light, but invite readers to see themselves in this light as well. (shrink)

These six lectures from the twentyfirst Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, an annual series exploring various dimensions of Roman life, provide an invaluable reflection on the relationship, Pelikan’s “counterpoint,” between Genesis and the Timaeus down through the ages. How did the only Platonic dialogue known in its entirety during the Middle Ages influence Judaeo-Christian cosmology? Pelikan chooses to answer this question by first discussing “Classical Rome: ‘Description of the Universe as Philosophy’” and Lucretius’ theological and literary contributions to the history of (...) cosmogonic speculation. In rejecting divine causality, Lucretius’ atomism made room for natural science and for a teleology without explicit reference to direct heavenly agency. Talk of the divine was thus interpreted apophatically and the poetry of de Rerum Natura allowed the truths of what remains for us a “likely story” to be conveyed without a historical or anthropomorphic literalness. Lucretius’ indebtedness to Epicurean materialism is obvious and as Pelikan stresses, “it was from Athens that classical Rome learned to think philosophically about cosmogony”. In “Athens: Geneseôs Archê as ‘The Principle of Becoming’,” Pelikan poses the fundamental questions: Why was the cosmos created? And according to what model had it been created? Plato’s answer is of course that the world of becoming is an image of an immutable and perfect model. This patterning is due to God as Goodness and his willing that all things act together for a purpose. Chapter 3 continues this inquiry with “Jerusalem: Genesis as a ‘Likely Account’ of One God Almighty Maker.” Here Pelikan focuses in on Jerusalem’s contribution of the imago Dei. While the Timaeus defines “the terms of the counterpoint,” Genesis sets “the outline and sequence” of creation, the crowning achievement of which is the rational and sovereign human person. Therefore, whereas Plato may have understood the entire universe to be in God’s image, Moses reserved this exalted position for humanity alone, a dignity Pelikan treats in his discussion of free moral choice. (shrink)

It has been over a decade since the first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Augustine was published. In that time, reflection on Augustine's life and labors has continued to bear much fruit: significant new studies into major aspects of his thinking have appeared, as well as studies of his life and times and new translations of his work. This new edition of the Companion, which replaces the earlier volume, has eleven new chapters, revised versions of others, and a comprehensive (...) updated bibliography. It will furnish students and scholars of Augustine with a rich resource on a philosopher whose work continues to inspire discussion and debate. (shrink)

Why are we sometimes drawn to our own pain, fascinated with our own melancholy? How is it that we can choose to injure ourselves and to rebel against our innate hunger for wholeness and perfection? This article discusses St. Augustine’s understanding of self-loathing and how it stems from the Fall and a consequent false love of self. Augustine analyzed sin as a way of establishing myself as my own sovereign, creating an idol which must eventually be pulled down if I (...) am to be made whole. For Augustine, then, sin destroys that which had already become tarnished through his own bad choices. However, he also taught that the incarnate Word steps into this vicious cycle of self-destruction in order to call each person into a conscious and confessional relationship with himself. (shrink)

Este artículo examina tres momentos de éxtasis, según han quedado recogidos en los libros 6-9 de las "Confesiones". Los relatos de las conversiones de Agustín a lo largo de las "Confesiones" están claramente señalados por tres compromisos intelectuales: el maniqueísmo, el neoplatonismo y el cristianismo. Sostiene que Agustín usa la experiencia del éxtasis para señalar cada una de estas tres fases de su odisea espiritual. Más aún, al hacer esto, este método de argumentación ilumina una escena memorable que, a primera (...) vista, no encaja fácilmente en la historia de Agustín: la de Alipio en los espectáculos. (shrink)

Expelled from Moscow in 1922, Boris Vysheslavtsev spent most of his life at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. This volume captures what was most dear to Vysheslavtsev during those fruitful years: the nature of freedom and the working out of an anthropology that is able to make sense of power, suffering, and what he calls the “tragically sublime,” as well as the human longing for immortality. The issues Vysheslavtsev poses here are clearly marked by his response to Soviet ideology, (...) opening with these words: “The main problem in the world today is the problem of freedom and slavery, of freedom and tyranny—anyway, this has always been the main theme of Russian philosophy”. If the questions with which he opens are peculiarly Russian, the answers provided throughout are confidently Christian. For, Vysheslavtsev sees the human person’s imago Dei and the role of sanctifying grace in the world as the most convincing arguments against all forms of unjust authority and despair. (shrink)

Bringing decades of expertise to his examination of many diverse issues in the history of philosophy, Sweeney begins with Émil Bréhier’s criticism that “Christian” and “philosophy” are mutually exclusive in both content and method. Sweeney places himself firmly in the middle of this century’s Thomistic renewal by arguing that no philosophy is absolutely free from belief and, as such, philosophy is only enriched in serving revealed truth. Sweeney, with Maritain and others, accordingly reads all of Greek philosophy as preparing the (...) way for Christian revelation. Thus the first of five parts, Christian Philosophy: Fact or Fiction, meets Bréhier’s challenge by examining not only the possibility but the richness of Christian philosophy. (shrink)

Contending that much of modern ethical discourse relies too often on impersonal rules or some outcome-based theory, Jean Porter proposes a new look at the virtues as found in St. Thomas Aquinas. Focusing on the question, "How does one decide to do the right thing?" Porter attempts to demonstrate a theory of morality which lies between perfunctory norms and capricious whims.

Arraj's aim in this book is to examine the noetic activities involved in the intuition of being, mystical contemplation, and mysticism of the self within the whole of Jacques Maritain's writings. Arraj shows how these three activities are directed ultimately toward God but achieve this end differently and in different depths. Chapter 1 provides a good examination of Maritain's earlier years and Arraj indicates that Maritain begins by stressing the importance of the intuition of being and its necessity for any (...) metaphysician. Convinced that the human person could truly know what is, Maritain combines Bergson's insights on subjectivity and duration with the Thomistic reliance upon the primacy of existence. In doing so, Maritain insists that the individual metaphysician go beyond what things are and intuit that they exist. This spontaneous acknowledgment of being allows one to see that all things, by the very fact that they are, point to Ipsum esse subsistens. Accordingly, this indirect and analogous knowledge of God is the "final conclusion" of knowing any created thing. (shrink)

Pattersons work is ultimately an investigation into postmodern hermeneutical theories. She proceeds by applying Wittgensteins distinction between languages ability to describe but never justify matters of empirical fact to theological questions raised by later twentieth century thought. Patterson realizes that as speaking persons we inevitably play language-games, and it is precisely these games which allow us to relate to other persons, both human and divine. In exploring such a line of thought, she clearly sees her own work as the pursuit (...) of a more helpful Wittgenstein, the goal of which is to bring many voices together to construct a way that enables Christianity to hold on to an unwavering realism while simultaneously admitting that all use of human language is inevitably fragmentary and idolatrous. As she rightly asks, For who but God is able to comprehend the whole?. In other words, how can Christianity maintain the absoluteness of the Divine amid the contingency and flux of human experience as manifested in temporal relationships, in language? It is unfortunate that from the start Patterson provides no clear definition of how she will use the term postmodernism, pays no attention to its roots in post-Cartesian thought, and, in limiting her treatment to the linguistic, overlooks elemental critiques against modernity such as, the claim to power and the deification of progress. (shrink)