In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christianity and Secular Reason: Classical Themes and Modern Developments ed. by Jeffrey BloechlJoseph W. Koterski, S.J.Christianity and Secular Reason: Classical Themes and Modern Developments. Edited by Jeffrey Bloechl. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. vii + 288. $40.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-268-02228-0.It does not bode well for a collection of essays when the introduction needs to make a concession like the one found here: (...) “This volume brings together a plurality of approaches to a loosely related set of questions, themes, and phenomena” (6). Yet, surely, truth in advertising is an uncommon virtue. The frank honesty of Jeffrey Bloechl, the editor of this volume, is much to be commended.What unifies the essays in this volume is not a common topic or a common approach but a common concern with the problem of understanding the relation between Christianity and secular reason. The issue in play is how much respect a religion that claims to be the recipient of divine revelation owes to autonomous reasoning in any particular age. The problem is exacerbated in those periods of history that are marked by strong claims for the powers of human reasoning.Bloechl’s introduction is particularly helpful due to its distinction between secular reason and secularized reason. Unless a believer takes the fideist position of holding that only claims grounded in faith are valid knowledge-claims, there is no reason to deny or cast skeptical aspersions on secular reason. The term simply names the use of reason according to its proper governing principles on any topic where the justifications for various truth-claims are drawn only from this-worldly experience and, for disciplinary reasons, make no use of divine revelation. It is the type of reasoning that is done within a saeculum, that is, within a given period of time, according to the canons of sound reasoning operative in that epoch. The term “secularized reason,” by contrast, names the view of reason that is hostile to the legitimacy of any knowledge-claim that involves the testimony of divine self-disclosure as its warrant. The proponents of secularized reason often conveniently overlook the likelihood that such hostility risks begging the question by disallowing any form of divinely backed testimony in principle, while allowing human testimony in such spheres as history or courts or law. If one is prepared in general to accept testimony as a justification for a truth-claim, then the proper criterion is the credibility of the source. But then there is no principled way to preclude in advance the possibility that testimony that originates with God might provide the strongest possible type of warrant for certain knowledge-claims. It is mere prejudice to decide in advance that this alternative is simply beyond the pale of consideration.Threaded through the essays in this volume is the perennial problem of the relationship of faith and reason. Earlier ages posed the problem on their own terms, sometimes quite different from modern assumptions. Readers unfamiliar with the thought of Thomas Aquinas, for instance, might well be [End Page 141] surprised to learn that the very first question of the Summa theologiae asks whether any sort of sacra doctrina is necessary beyond the philosophical sciences. Such a stance does not raise a question about whether faith can be a genuine source of knowledge, but merely asks if there is need for the sort of knowledge that is grounded in faith. Aquinas answers the question not only by reflecting on the difficulties that arise from expecting that everyone will have the necessary time, interest, and intellectual resources to figure out for themselves the things that they need to know for the sake of salvation; he also notes certain areas that are entirely beyond the scope of unaided reason, such as knowledge about the triune nature of God.By contrast, the proponents of secularized reason tend to cast doubt on the very possibility that any truth-claim based on religious faith could even be counted as knowledge. Brad Gregory’s recent book, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Harvard University Press, 2012) does a masterful job in tracing the unforeseen... (shrink)

By exploring the philosophical character of some of the greatest medieval thinkers, __An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy__ provides a rich overview of philosophy in the world of Latin Christianity. Explores the deeply philosophical character of such medieval thinkers as Augustine, Boethius, Eriugena, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, and Ockham Reviews the central features of the epistemological and metaphysical problem of universals Shows how medieval authors adapted philosophical ideas from antiquity to apply to their religious commitments Takes a broad philosophical approach of (...) the medieval era by,taking account of classical metaphysics, general culture, and religious themes. (shrink)

This book is a discussion of a wide range of topics that bear on the existence of God. For each topic, there is a chapter by one (or more) theists, and a chapter by one (or more) atheists. Topics: (1) Definition; (2) Method; (3) Logic; (4) Doxastic Foundations; (5) Religious Experience; (6) Faith and Revelation; (7) Miracles; (8) Religious Diversity; (9) Causation and Sufficient Reason; (10) A Priori; (11) Our Universe; (12) Human History; (13) Human Beings; (14) Ethics; (15) Meaning; (...) (16) Evil and Suffering; (17) Science; (18) Theories of Religion; (19) Prudential / Pragmatic Arguments; (20) Final Reckonings. (shrink)

Review of M. D. Chenu's "Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Technological Perspective in the Latin West".

Parallel to the perennial questions about the adequacy of any human language when used of God are questions about the proper interpretation of any divine self-disclosure in revelation. By the theoretical exploration of the latter in this book, Jorge Gracia also sheds a certain light on the former.

Having declared that metaphysics had come to its demise in the technologized sciences, Heidegger tried a new way to reopen the question of being. For Blanchette, that Heidegger never got beyond the analysis of Dasein to such an ambitious project is not merely the result of the distractions of other career requirements at the university or of other entanglements along his life’s path. The problem was that the road he took was a road to nowhere, metaphysically speaking.