SPIRIT MATTERS – Reaching for the Divine

The Soul of the World by Roger Scruton

I was alerted to this recent publication by hearing Roger Scruton (http://www.roger-scruton.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Scruton ) on the radio last week. The publisher’s outline is as follows. In The Soul of the World, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today’s fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic […]

The Soul of the World by Roger Scruton Read More »

Hildegard of Bingen by Sabina Flanagan

Belatedly canonized on 7 October 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, Christian mystic and visionary Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) (http://www.hildegard-society.org/faq.html) had been revered in the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. Apart from her work as an abbess of a Benedictine convent, and for her scholarship, Hildegard is one of the earliest known composers in the Western

Hildegard of Bingen by Sabina Flanagan Read More »

The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Niebuhr

The Nature and Destiny of Man (1943) issues a vigorous challenge to Western civilization to understand its roots in the faith of the Bible, particularly the Hebraic tradition. The growth, corruption, and purification of the important Western emphases on individuality are insightfully chronicled here. This book is arguably Reinhold Niebuhr’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr and http://niebuhrsociety.typepad.com/) most important work.

The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Niebuhr Read More »

Systematic Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg

For anyone with questions about the concept of God and wishing to delve into theological matters, try Systematic Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannenberg) (1988-1994, 3 volumes in the English translation published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company). This is an exhaustive analysis of all the key points in Christian doctrine. Required reading for Divinity students. For

Systematic Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg Read More »

The Christian Tradition by Jaroslav Pelikan

This monumental work of scholarship is a breathtaking panorama of the development of Christian doctrine written by Jaroslav Pelikan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Pelikan#Death) over a period of 18 years between 1971-1989. It is nothing less than a history of the subject from the year 100 to our own times. This will demand a place in the bookcase of anyone

The Christian Tradition by Jaroslav Pelikan Read More »

Insight by Bernard Lonergan

Fr. Bernard J.F. Lonergan, CC, SJ (1904-1984) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonergan and http://www.bernardlonergan.com/) was a Canadian Jesuit Priest and a philosopher-theologian in the Thomist tradition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomism). In this landmark work of 1957 he offers a general account of knowledge in the natural sciences, humanities, philosophy and common sense. He presents a Transcendental Deduction with a Kantian flavour, a position on objectivity, the outline

Insight by Bernard Lonergan Read More »

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

In 1945 fifty-two papyrus texts, including gospels and other secret documents, were found by a local farmer named Mohammed al-Samman near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi. They were concealed in an earthenware jar. These so-called ‘Gnostic’ writings were Coptic translations from the original Greek dating from the time of the New Testament and

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels Read More »

Jesus and Philosophy by Don Cupitt

Don Cupitt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Cupitt) has been a theologian at Cambridge for over 40 years, writing over 40 books in that time. He came to public attention with the broadcast in 1984 of the BBC television series The Sea of Faith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Faith_(TV_series)). The programme dealt with the history of Christianity in the modern world, focussing especially on

Jesus and Philosophy by Don Cupitt Read More »

The Idea of the Holy by Rudolph Otto

A classic of religious philosophy, The Idea of the Holy (1917) by Rudolph Otto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Otto) has been revered by generations of lay readers as well as divinity students. In the work, Otto introduces the concept of the ‘numinous’ which he defines as a ‘non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the

The Idea of the Holy by Rudolph Otto Read More »

Scroll to Top