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 […]
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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
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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
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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
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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
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When William James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_james) went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on ‘natural religion’, he defined religion as ‘the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine’. Considering religion,
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In this comprehensive book E.J. Michael Witzel (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Witzel) demonstrates the prehistoric origins of most of the mythologies of Eurasia and the Americas (‘Laurasia’). By comparing these myths with others indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia, and Australia (‘Gondwana Land’) Witzel is able to access some of the earliest myths told by humans. The Laurasian mythologies share
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Most autobiographies cover the main events of a life with the reader often left with only glimpses of the inner life of the author. Carl Jung’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung) autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections (first English translation 1963), focuses on the great psychologist’s spiritual and intellectual awakenings. The descriptions of his visions, dreams and fantasies, which he considered his
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Trappist monk Thomas Merton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton) wrote more than 70 books on spirituality, social justice and quiet pacifism. In No Man is an Island, he provides meditations on the spiritual life in sixteen thoughtful essays, beginning with his classic treatise ‘Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away.’ This sequel to Seeds of Contemplation (1949)
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