Philosophy of religion Books

Book SynopsisSpanning centuries and continents, this timeless chronicle of Christian sainthood details the lives of martyrs and virgins, scholars and soldiers, bishops and priests, and Christians of all sorts. Regarded as an enduring classic of spiritual devotion, offering prayer intercession from Heaven and guiding us by example, Butler?s provides inspirational narratives, often accompanied by reflection and prayers. Organized by day, this book aligns with the calendar months, providing entries on saints whose feast days fall within those months. As both a spiritual tool and a repository of historical fact, Butler?s captures the essence of saints? lives, miracles, martyrdom, and lasting influence. Its profound yet accessible prose is a journey through history, theology, and spirituality, guiding readers toward a deeper understanding of their own faith. Includes cross-indexing for easy reference and a new foreword by leading theologian and bestselling author Rev. James Martin, SJ.

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Book SynopsisThis two-volume set examines the Tibetan debate regarding the possibility of knowledge in the context of Madhyamaka initiated by the 15th century philosopher Taktsang's attack on Tsongkhapa's presentation of epistemology and Madhyamaka. Volume II presents translations of the principal texts.Trade ReviewI celebrate the arrival of this extraordinary book. It marks an important step forward in our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. * Guy Newland, Central Michigan University, The Journal of Religion *Table of ContentsChapter 1. Taktsang Sherab Rinchen, Freedom from Extremes Accomplished through Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy, Chapter V (translated by Thomas Doctor with Ryan Conlon, Jay L. Garfield, and John Powers) Chapter 2. Mikyö Dorjé, Karmapa VIII, An Excerpt from One Hundred Thousand Discussions of Mah?mudr? and an excerpt from Chariot of the Dakpo Kagyü Adepts (translated by Thomas Doctor with Jay L. Garfield and John Powers) Chapter 3. Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, The Lion's Roar of Scripture and 191 Reasoning: A Response to the Objections of Drapa Sherab Rinchen (translated by José Cabezón and Sonam Thakchöe with Jay L. Garfield and John Powers) Chapter 4. Wangchuk Dorjé, Karmapa IX, Concise Compendium of the Middle Way and Conferring the Definitive Meaning (translated by Ryan Conlon with Thomas Doctor, Jay L. Garfield and John Powers) Chaper 5. Purchok Ngawang Jampa, Diamond Slivers: A Rejoinder to Taktsang Lotsawa (translated by Ryan Conlon and Thomas Doctor with Jay L. Garfield and John Powers) Glossary of English Terms Glossary of Tibetan Terms Glossary of Tibetan Place Names and Orders

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“In this magisterial study, Vioulac proposes a radical reversal of thought, employing Biblical inspiration and philosophical rigor. Apocalypse of Truth dares to tap into a counter-archive that reaches deeper and further back than Heidegger’s rethinking of truth as unconcealment, reviving the long-ignored idea of apocalypticism. What results is not only a stunning rereading of St. Paul, Meister Eckhart, Hölderlin, Hegel, and others, but also a subtle loosening of the mythological grip that Western ontology has too long imposed on its subjects. A tour de force in its own right, Vioulac’s book builds on the recent breakthroughs in phenomenological and post-phenomenological thought, bringing a fresh realignment with Christianity and the 'incarnation of truth' it invites us to wager anew." -- Hent de Vries, New York University“In and through a learned, historically far-reaching, and textually rigorous meditation on Heidegger’s diagnosis of our modern nihilism, Vioulac turns to the apocalyptic revelation of Saint Paul for truth that would undermine modernity’s subjection of all beings to the logic of production and management by means of rational calculation and technological power. In sharp contrast to such machination, wherein humans become—like everything else—interchangeable, Vioulac advances a thinking of the frailty and vulnerability of finite, embodied, and mortal existence, and of the love and mourning essential to such existence. Thanks to an admirably graceful and faithful translation by Matthew J. Peterson, English readers will encounter a challenging and original thinker who sheds light on the disasters of our capitalistic and technological age.” -- Thomas A. Carlson, University of California, Santa Barbara"Including a foreword by Jean-Luc Marion, this book introduces French philosopher Jean Vioulac to an English-speaking audience. In six chapters, each with multiple sections, Vioulac takes readers through an analysis of Heidegger’s understanding of the disclosure of truth only to challenge that disclosure with the concepts of apocalypse, absence, and abyss. The climax of the book is the fourth chapter, in which Vioulac’s challenges reveal a productive encounter between Heideggerian thought and Christianity, with the latter characterized as a task of mourning an end already past. Along the way, Vioulac engages with Marx, Nietzsche, Meister Eckhart, and Hölderlin among others to provide a rich reading of Heideggerian epochal Being and the metaphysical destiny of the West." * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface Jean-Luc Marion Translator’s Note Matthew J. Peterson Chapter 1. Clarifications §1. Clairvoyance, Evidence, Lucidity §2. Sufficiency and Faultiness §3. History and Determination: Destiny §4. Language and Community Chapter 2. From the Equal to the Same §5. Machination §6. Cyberspace §7. Equalization §8. Equalization and Appropriation Chapter 3. Truth and Its Destiny §9. Ontology and Truth §10. Abyss and Mystery §11. Origin and Beginning §12. Decay of Truth §13. Safeguard of Truth §14. Teleology and Eschatology Chapter 4. Apocalypse and Truth §15. The Concept of Apocalypse §16. Pauline Thought of the Apocalypse §17. The Apocalyptic Regrounding of Truth Chapter 5. On the Edge of the Abyss §18. Apocalypse of the West §19. Poetics of Truth Chapter 6. Abyss of the Deity §20. The Name of the Prophet §21. The Death of God §22. Friedrich Hölderlin §23. The Last God“Only a god can still save us” Meister Eckhart The Adieu Epilogue Notes List of Primary Sources Index

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Book SynopsisA wide-ranging illustrated history of transparency as told through the evolution of the glass windowTrade Review“With impressive detail and wide-ranging erudition, Jütte charts the history of a single material, glass, as a product of human ingenuity developed across centuries.”—James Gleick, New York Review of Books“A remarkable achievement—a work of stunning range and erudition. Revelation upon revelation follow in ways that readers will find dazzling and unexpected: very quickly the history of glass and transparency opens up into a much wider vista than the reader ever could have anticipated.”—Darrin M. McMahon, Dartmouth College“Glass is something we rarely look at, transparency something we almost never achieve. Daniel Jütte’s novel account of their fraught entanglement from ancient Rome to the present is a tour de force: lucid, surprising, and consistently illuminating.”—David Armitage, Harvard University“This enthralling book opens a window onto windows: what they’re made of and what they mean. The long history of piercing walls to let in light is rich in lessons about the aesthetics of light and shadow, the politics of privacy and publicity, and the economics of glitzy glass—whether in the stained glass of a medieval cathedral or the reflecting glass of a soaring skyscraper. Daniel Jütte’s long history of transparency is an object lesson in how matter can become metaphor.”—Lorraine Daston, director emerita, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science“Astonishingly erudite and global in embrace, Jütte examines a crucial concept across history, both in thought and, more important, embedded concretely—as building material. A remarkable marriage of intellectual and architectural history.”—Peter Baldwin, University of California at Los Angeles“This world history of the glass window across millennia will take you by surprise and make you think about the material bases of one of the key cultural metaphors of our time. An elegant and fascinating book.”—Francesca Trivellato, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton “Daniel Jütte is already known for a brilliant study of thresholds and power in western history. Transparency presents an equally brilliant history of windows and their associations with both surveillance and democracy, from ancient Rome to the present.”—Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge “Enthralling. Jütte’s book will make you think differently about Western history, architecture, art, literature, and your very surroundings. Full of surprises, brilliantly conceptualized, impressively researched, a joy to read and feast for the eyes, it ranks among the best works on material history and cultural studies.”—Ulinka Rublack, St. John’s College, Cambridge

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1984, The Need for Certainty explores the different ways in which people can be religious within the conventional traditions of the main Christian denominations. Based on in-depth analysis of letters sent to John Robinson, then Bishop of Woolwich, after the publication of his book Honest to God, The Need for Certainty describes five contrasting ways of being religious and explores how, despite being mutually incompatible, they are able to coexist in the churches. In doing so, it argues that a proper grasp of this wide variation in styles of religiousness is a prerequisite for quantitative surveys of religion. Each contrasting religious style is explored in turn and illustrated with quotations from the original letters. The intense desire for religious certainty is extensively explored and presented as a debased, but common, form of religious aspiration that often leads to the degeneration of faith. The Need for Certainty is Table of ContentsPreface; 1: Varieties of Religion; 2: Exemplarism; 3: Conversionism; 4: Theism; 5: Gnosticism; 6: Traditionalism; 7: Implications and Conclusions; Notes; Appendix; Index

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Book SynopsisThe NKJV Word Study Reference Bible balances deep study of the biblical languages with clear application to help transform the way you live. Uncover a wealth of meaning in Scripture with more than 2000 Greek and Hebrew word studies.Bring the words of Scripture to life and discover the richness and significance of the original languages of the Word of God. The NKJV Word Study Reference Bible includes in-text subheadings and 2,000 easy-to-use word studies with select Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words explained in every chapter from Genesis to Revelation. By looking into these ancient texts, we are able to read scripture as it was originally written and passed on from generation to generation. In addition, this Bible’s Topic-by-Topic studies give a practical framework for understanding scripture, along with more helpful resources.Features include: Presentation page allows yo

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Book SynopsisPresents a Catholic worldview of creation and the universe and shows that it is reasonable in the light of the best of human experience, both modern and pre-modern. The Catholic worldview maintains that the Liturgy of the Church - the image of eternity - is the blueprint for material and immaterial reality.

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Book SynopsisA century ago the dominant philosophical outlook was not some form of materialism or naturalism, but idealism. However, this way of thinking about reality fell out of favour in the Anglo-American analytic tradition as well as the Continental schools of the twentieth century.The aim of this book is to restage and reassess the encounter between idealism and contemporary philosophy. The idealist side will be represented by the great figures of the 19th-century post-Kantian tradition in Germany, from Fichte and Schelling to Hegel, followed by the towering Hegelians in Britain led by T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet. Their twentieth-century adversaries will be represented by the secular existentialists, especially the famous French trio of Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus, who sought to follow Nietzsche in philosophizing in light of the death of God. And the arena of encounter will be the philosophy of religionmore specifically, questions relating to the nature and exist

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Book SynopsisCreating Human Value is a powerful public management theory that places the person at the centre of all decision making. It is founded on millennia-old natural law philosophy, updated to cope with contemporary problems. At the heart of Creating Human Value is the ideal of human flourishing â this is achieved through pursuing the common good, via public policy, in a way that respects human dignity. To paraphrase Socrates, it is about caring for the city, rather than merely the cityâs possessions.This book is the product of almost a decade of research and teaching of this compelling alternate public management theory to government decision-makers in Australia and abroad. In sum, Creating Human Value is a much-needed antidote to currently popular public management approaches that have unduly prioritised the common good over dignity with catastrophic consequences for the lives of many people.This book will appeal to readers interested in public management, public policy an

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Book SynopsisKant's defence of religion and attempts to reconcile faith with reason position him as a moderate Enlightenment thinker in existing scholarship. Challenging this view and reconceptualising Kant's religion along rationalist lines, Anna Tomaszewska sheds light on its affinities with the ideas of the radical Enlightenment, originating in the work of Baruch Spinoza and understood as a critique of divine revelation. Distinguishing the epistemological, ethical and political aspects of such a critique, Tomaszewska shows how Kant's defence of religion consists of rationalizing its core tenets and establishing morality as the essence of religious faith. She aligns him with other early modern rationalists and German Spinozists and reveals the significance for contemporary political philosophy. Providing reasons for prioritizing freedom of thought, and hence religious criticism, over an unqualified freedom of belief, Kant''s theology approximates the secularising tendency of the radical EnlighteTrade ReviewAnna Tomaszewska’s book offers an accurate, original, compelling reassessment of Kant’s thinking about religion, against the background of the radical Enlightenment and its impact on Kant’s mind. This masterly account, which has mastered Kant in many ways, provides fresh food for thought on the relationship between the Enlightenment and religion. * Diego Lucci, Professor of Philosophy and History, American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria *By examining Kant’s religious thought through the lens of recent debates about the Enlightenment, Tomaszewska offers valuable insight into the relationship between divine transcendence and human autonomy. Impressively grounded in the sources, the work challenges current views concerning Kant’s religious thought and, more broadly, concerning the very idea of secularization. * Gordon E. Michalson, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Humanities, New College of Florida, USA *This book offers a valiant attempt to synthesize traditional interpretations of Kant’s theory of religion, as radically reductionist, and recent readings emphasizing his moderate, affirmative tendencies. Skillfully balancing various divergent interpretations of Enlightenment approaches to religion, Tomaszewska judiciously assesses how Kant’s position relates to those of his forerunners, especially Spinoza. * Stephen R. Palmquist, Independent Scholar (D.Phil., Oxford University), UK *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Towards the Radical Enlightenment: Setting the Stage for a Debate 2. Spinoza’s God in Kant’s Pre-Critical Writings: A Departure from Theistic Metaphysics 3. The Moral Atheist and a Schwärmer. Kant’s Critique of Spinoza 4. The Primacy of the Practical in Kant and Spinoza 5. Kant’s Religious Rationalism and Spinoza 6. The Enlightened Church. Kant’s Contribution to Debates on Secularization 7. The Divinity of Reason in the Opus postumum Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisSimone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the foremost French philosophers of the 20th century; a mystic, activist, and writer whose profound work continues to intrigue and inspire today. Mirror of Obedience collects together Weil''s poetry and autobiographical writings translated into English for the first time. It offers a rare glimpse into a more personal and introspective Weil than we usually encounter. She was writing and re-working her poems until the end of her life and in a letter from London to her parents, dated 22 January 1943, she expressed the wish for her verses to appear together in print in chronological order, a wish which this volume honours.Weil was a thinker who wrote with discipline and spareness and cherished the poetic form for its power to compress language and distill meaning. In these poems and literary writings, we see her own efforts to craft poems as essential expressions of thought, bringing into view another aspect of Weil's quest for beauty and truth.Table of ContentsTranslators’ Biographies Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Simone Weil as Poet Chapter 2: Simone Weil and Literature List of Abbreviations Further Reading Poems À une jeune fille riche / To a Rich Girl Vers lus au Goûter de la Saint Charlemagne / Verses Read at the Feast of Saint Charlemagne Éclair / Lightning Promethée / Prometheus À un jour / To a Day La mer / The Sea Nécessité / Necessity Les astres / The Stars La porte / The Gate Four Excerpts from Venice Saved Jaffier 1-3 Violetta Selected Prose Conte: Les Lutins du feu / Tale: The Fairies of the Fire Le conte des six cygnes dans Grimm / The Tale of the Six Swans in Grimm On the Translation Translators’ Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThere has been a bad-tempered quarrel between defenders and critics of religion in recent years. Both sides have expressed themselves acerbically because there is a very great deal at stake in the debate. This book thoroughly and calmly examines all the arguments and associated considerations offered in support of religious belief, and does so in full consciousness of the reasons people have for subscribing to religion, and the needs they seek to satisfy by doing so. And because it takes account of all the issues, its solutions carry great weight. The God Argument is the definitive examination of the issue, and a statement of the humanist outlook that recommends itself as the ethics of the genuinely reflective person.Trade ReviewA lucid, informative and admirably accessible account of the atheist-secular-humanist position * New Statesman *Precise and incisive … Mr Grayling is a talented apologist. His brand of humanism comes across as sensible, reasonable and characterized by generosity of spirit that is often absent from religious structures, many of which involve compiling lists of what is forbidden and dreaming up creatively horrendous punishments for those who fall short * Economist *A calm and intelligent look at different religions and their various arguments for the existence of their gods * Daily Mail *Grayling writes with clarity, elegance and the occasional aphoristic twist ... straight alpha material * Independent on Towards The Light *There is an immense depth of human wisdom on display here, and five minutes with any passage will have you contemplating all day * Independent on The Good Book *Undeniably thought-provoking * The Sunday Times *Professor Grayling himself neatly exemplifies the values of calm rationality which are at the heart of Stoicism, and which influenced early Christian thought * Church Times *Debunks the teleological, ontological and cosmological arguments employed throughout Christendom for the literal existence of God … Those looking for a succinct analysis of these centuries old debates will appreciate Grayling’s insights * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy is often seen as anything but practically relevant to everyday life. In this brief, accessible introduction, Ross Inman explores four hidden assumptions that lurk behind questions involving philosophy's relevance. He shows that philosophy is one of most practical subjects of study, for it satisfies our deep human need to make sense of it all. This book recovers a more classical vision of Christian philosophy as an entire way of life. Inman shows that wonder is the distinctively human posture that drives and sustains the examined life and makes a compelling case that philosophy is valuable, practical, and significant for every aspect of Christian life and ministry. Living philosophically as a Christian enables us to be properly attuned to what is true and good in Christ and to orient our lives to the highest goals worth pursuing. This is an ideal introductory book for students of philosophy, Christian thought, and worldview studies. It will also work well in classical school, high school, and homeschool contexts.Table of ContentsIntroduction1. An Invitation to Wonder2. Wonder as the Lifeblood of Philosophy3. Philosophy as a Way of Life4. Recovering Christian Philosophy as a Way of Life5. Diagnosing Our Existential Ailments6. Christian Philosophical Remedies for Our Existential Ailments7. Philosophy for the Sake of What, Exactly?8. Philosophy Is Practical? Are You Kidding?9. The Pilgrim Way and the Christian Philosophical Way of Life10. Philosophy, the Contemplative Life, and the ChurchConclusion: Philosophy Can Change Your Life, ReallyIndexes

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Book SynopsisPopular philosopher Jordan Peterson has captured the imagination of Western world. For some, Peterson represents all that is wrong with patriarchal culture; for others, he is the Canadian academic prophet who has come to save civilization from dizzying confusion. Regardless of how one feels about him, his influence in North America--and beyond--is difficult to deny. While the "Peterson phenomenon" has motivated numerous articles and responses, much of what has been written is either excessively fawning or overly critical. Little has been produced that explores Peterson's thought--especially his immensely popular 12 Rules for Life--within the context of his overall context and scholarly output. How is one to understand the ascendency of Jordan Peterson and why he's become so popular? Does his earlier Maps of Meaning shed light on how one might understand his worldwide bestseller, 12 Rules for Life? In Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson, scholars across various disciplines explore various aspects of Jordan Peterson's thought from a Christian perspective. Both critical and charitable, sober-minded and generous, this collection of ten essays is a key resource for those looking to faithfully engage with Jordan Peterson's thought.

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Book SynopsisA provocative history of race, empire and myth, told through the stories of men who have been worshipped as gods - from Columbus to Prince Philip. Spanning the globe and five centuries, Accidental Gods introduces us to a new pantheon: of man-gods, deified politicians and imperialists, militants, mystics and explorers. From the conquistadors setting foot in the New World to Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, elevated by a National Geographic article from emperor to messiah for the Rastafari faith, to the unlikely officers hailed as gods during the British Raj, this endlessly curious and revelatory account chronicles an impulse towards deification that persists even in a secular age, as show of defiance or assertion of power. In her bravura final part, Subin traces the colonial desire for divinity through to the creation of 'race' and the white power movement today, and argues that it is time we rid ourselves of the white gods among us.Trade ReviewOften colourful and bizarre, Accidental Gods opens new perspectives, shines light on overlooked corners of our global history, and conveys its powerful messages at first quietly, in subtext, and then more and more explicitly... Always enlightening and engrossing -- Lydia Davis, author of Essays One and TwoRich, witty, acerbic and often astonishing, Accidental Gods reveals how terror and divinity are intertwined - in the colonial enterprise, in present-day strong leader cults and nationalist statecraft. A highly original, revelatory study, entertaining and sobering at once as it identifies a persistent danger: the mythopolitics that fails to distinguish between men and gods. -- Dame Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic and Fellow of All Souls', OxfordAccidental Gods relates, with tremendous intellectual ingenuity and resourcefulness, a new history of the modern world: how the quest for divine sanction and spiritual transcendence remain at the center of our ostensibly rational and secular political and economic struggles. -- Pankaj MishraWhy do some people become gods? This is the question that Subin asks in an impressive study that travels from the Caribbean to the British Raj and back to the New World. This is no summary analysis, but rather a provocative and innovative study of imperialism, race, and decolonisation. -- Ruth HarrisA bravura performance... a searching study of the relation between the political and the divine written with great panache. Subin returns us to fundamental questions about human beings, their capacity for tyranny and violence, and their desire for transcendence... A book to relish and to argue with, and a writer to watch. -- Alison Light, author of Mrs Woolf and the ServantsThe best new non-fiction book I read this year... A stylish, playfully rigorous intellectual performance worthy of Marina Warner or Roberto Calasso -- Mark O'Connell, Books of the year * Irish Times *Anna Della Subin has lit upon a startling strand in the history of the sacred... The book's strength lies in the sensitivity of her analysis, which homes in on the inter-relations of power and powerlessness, colonialism and nationalism: worship as a response to terror, and a desire to propitiate -- Books of the year * TLS *Phenomenal - erudite, provocative, scandalous, and comic and tragic by turns * Sunday Times *A fascinating slice of history * The Times *Accidental Gods is a playful, ironic and ambiguous book about religion, at a time when religion - outside of Dealey Plaza - has grown as solemn as an owl ... [it] leaves us hankering, like QAnon's unlovely faithful, for a wider, wilder pantheon * Telegraph *A fascinating tour through the endless diversity of the divine... * Spectator *Engaging * The Times *A beautifully written, subtly crafted history... [An] inspiring book * TLS *Fascinating... thoughtful and subtle * The Irish Times *A subversive history * Guardian *Remarkable... exceptional... -- James Hamilton-Paterson * Literary Review *[Subin writes] with a poise and lucidity that allow full play to the comic aspects of her subject, while considering the frequently disastrous consequences... -- Rosemary Hill * London Review of Books *Inventive... Subinexpertly brings out the nuance and ambivalence of deification -- Lola Seaton * New Statesman *So eloquently portrayed... With her sense of the uncanny, the ironic, the profane and the weird, Subin is a charming guide... What Subin helps us to see is that at the very core of modernity lies the white god, sweating in his pith helmet -- James Robins * New Humanist *

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Book SynopsisThis exposition is rooted first in a thorough analysis of the Hebrew text, employing helpful insights from archaeology and linguistics, and second in the major theological and literary themes discovered in each section. Finally the author brings the fragments together in an expository treatment ‘that is not ashamed to stoop to the level of application.’Trade ReviewOne of the reasons I enjoy Davis's exposition so much is that I feel confident that he has done his exegetical homework, and so is not just delivering blessed, unhistorical thoughts on the text. Yet at the same time, he applies the text so well. -- Simon Gathercole (Director of Studies, Theology and Religious Studies, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, Cambridge)What a great book... not only faithful to the text but also full of great illustrations, practical challenges and conetmporary language. This is a great addition to any library! -- Evangelical Times... The blurb on the back cover is on the point: 'Readable, Reliable, Relevant', and I wish I could have thought of those words first to describe this book. -- Churchman Journal"A happy blend of exegetical and historical study on the one hand, and homiletical treatment and application on the other. Ideas pop out everywhere, even in the most unlikely places. New insights abound. No one who reads this book will ever find Joshua dull and tedious again." -- Richard A. Bodey, Professor of Homiletics, Trinity Evangelical Divinity SchoolOne of the reasons I enjoy Davis's exposition so much is that I feel confident that he has done his exegetical homework, and so is not just delivering blessed, unhistorical thoughts on the text. -- Themelios Journal

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Book SynopsisThis comprehensive and easy to use textbook is endorsed by OCR for use with the Philosophy of Religion unit of the OCR AS Religious Studies specification. KEY FEATURES Co-authored by experienced examiners, "Stretch and Challenge" material for advanced students, a timeline of philosophers, an appendix on revision notes. Each chapter includes; essential new vocabulary with definitions, extracts from primary texts, examination tips, discussion topics and practice exam questions, suggestions for further reading. Fundamental concepts covered include arguments for the existence of God, including the Ontological, Cosmological, Moral and Teleological Arguments, as well as challenges to faith from the Problem of Evil and other sources. Background material from Ancient Philosophy and the Judaeo-Christian tradition is explained, and there are specially developed sections on Boethius and the Divine Attributes and Modern Science, both new to the specification. A particular feature of this book is substantial "Stretch and Challenge" material throughout which allows students to develop further. This material is clearly highlighted as additional to the text.Trade ReviewTitle mention in Dialogue."The book is a testament to the authors' enthusiasm both for Philosophy in general and for the Philosophy of Religion in particular. The task of introducing philosophical methods and concepts with clarity and coherence is not easy, and the authors embrace it enthusiastically. Their delight in their subject is manifest... and the fruits of their experience are apparent in the text." Paul Fitzpatrick, Open House, August/September 2009.I cannot recommend [this] text highly enough... gives students the tools to become independent philosophers and if your students don't have copies they are a must! -- Philosophical InvestigationsTable of ContentsIntroductory chapter on methodology; Timeline; 1. Ancient Greek Influences: Plato; 2. Ancient Greek Influences: Aristotle; 3. Judaeo Christian Influences: God as Creator; 4. Judaeo Christian Influences: God and Goodness; 5. Arguments for the Existence of God: The Ontological Argument; 6. Arguments for the Existence of God: Cosmological Argument 1; 7. Arguments for the Existence of God: Cosmological Argument 2 - Copleston -Russell Debate; 8. Arguments for the Existence of God: The Design Argument; 9. Arguments for the Existence of God: The Moral Argument; 10. Challenges to Belief: Evil: Augustinian Theodicy; 11. Challenges to Belief: Evil: Irenaean Theodicy; 12. Challenges to Belief: Religion and Science 1: The Darwinian Challenge; 13. Challenges to Belief: Religion and Science 2: Intelligent Design; Appendix: Revision notes; [Please note: each chapter structure follows precisely the new OCR course syllabus].

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Book SynopsisThe need for spirituality in the Western world has never been greater. At the same time, churches are losing more and more members. The West is in a deep crisis of faith. How so? Because too often we are content with superficial answers and shallow conceptions of God. God, as he encounters us in the Bible and in prayer, is not simply `nice' and certainly not trivial or comfortable. God is fascinating and intimidating at the same time. He is a God who astounds. An astonishment and wonder that many have lost. In this rejection of `feel-good' Christianity, Johannes Hartl describes how one can rediscover this sense of wonder, pointing the way to what the Bible calls the `beginning of wisdom'. A compelling challenge to get out of our spiritual comfort zones to find a real, truly fulfilled and fulfilling faith.

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Book SynopsisHuman Nature, and Other Sermons is a sermon collectionby Joseph Butler, an 18th-century English theologian and philosopher. The book is an excellent collection of Butler's moral and theological insights, addressing significant issues of human nature, ethics, and religious thought. Butler digs into the moral and ethical components of human existence in this work, that examines the intricacies of human nature. He argues that people have an innate moral awareness that guides them toward virtue and ethical decision-making. Butler's sermons examine the idea of conscience, its role in impacting how people act, and its compatibility with Christian ideals. The sermons in this collection also address bigger theological issues, such as divine providence, the essence of God, and the compatibility of reason and faith. Butler's literature displays his belief in the compatibility of human reason and religious belief, pushing for a rational and considered approach to religious problems. The intellectual depth and moral clarity of Human Nature, and Other Sermons are lauded. Butler's work influenced moral philosophy and Christian theology, and it is still studied and praised for its ongoing relevance in questions of ethics, human nature, and the link between reason and faith.

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Book SynopsisTrue Christianity is a seminal work of Christian spirituality authored by Johann Arndt, a German Lutheran theologian, and pastor. This famous work is a cornerstone of Lutheran devotional literature and also an essential contribution to the Protestant Reformation. The Real Deal Christianity through Arndt seeks to lead readers to a deeper and more authentic understanding of their faith. It emphasizes the importance of developing a personal relationship with God through sincere devotion, prayer, and moral conduct. Arndt invites Christians to go beyond observances of religion and embrace a true, transformative Christian experience. The work of literature emphasizes the function of divine grace as well as the importance of inner regeneration in the Christian path. Arndt promotes humility, love, and compassion as key Christian qualities. He additionally explores the Bible's role in forming one's faith and character. For ages, True Christianity has had a lasting impact on Christian theology and spirituality, inspiring theologians, pastors, and faithful Christians. It provides timeless direction on how to live a truly Christian life, emphasizing faith, humility, and the pursuit of God's favor. Johann Arndt's work continues to inspire individuals seeking a more profound and meaningful relationship with their faith.

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Book SynopsisThis book contains a number of essays on various fundamental topics of philosophy in the area of epistemology and metaphysics. Topics like doubt, memory, perception, truth and validity, the self, consciousness and universals are explored from the perspective of Indian philosophy. The discussion here is based on Indian philosophical texts which bear the evidence of analytical mind of the Indian thinkers and their critical approach to the subject. The author has suggested some new interpretation in some cases and offered some alternative solution to certain problems. These essays are the results of the author''s intensive study of the subject. This book will be useful for students and researchers.

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Book SynopsisSoren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is one of the most widely read works of Continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion. While several commentaries and critical editions exist, Jeffrey Hanson offers a distinctive approach to this crucial text. Hanson gives equal weight and attention to all three of Kierkegaard's problems, dealing with Fear and Trembling as part of the entire corpus of Kierkegaard's production and putting all parts into relation with each other. Additionally, he offers a distinctive analysis of the Abraham story and other biblical texts, giving particular attention to questions of poetics, language, and philosophy, especially as each relates to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Presented in a thoughtful, well-informed, and fresh manner, Hanson's claims are original and edifying. This new reading of Kierkegaard will stimulate fruitful dialogue on well-traveled philosophical ground.Trade ReviewA thorough, considered, and provocative treatment of what justifiably remains Kierkegaard's most famous book. * Marginalia *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Titular Matters2. A Philosophical Preface3. A Narrative Approach4. A Rhetorical Rehearsal5. Beginning from the Heart6. Teleological Suspensions7. Absolute Duty8. Silence and SpeechConclusionNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA Secular Age is a work of stupendous breadth and erudition. -- John Patrick Diggins * New York Times Book Review *A Secular Age represents a singular achievement… Taylor is somehow uniquely able to combine chutzpah and good manners, making bold and imaginative claims, yet always attending respectfully to the whole range of disciplines that touch on the philosophical trajectory being drawn, whether that be history, sociology, theology, art theory, cultural studies, anthropology or social theory… A Secular Age succeeds in the same way as his previous work: in illuminating through complicating. At the same time, this book seems to step up the ambition somewhat: by attempting to provide a final definitive account of all the narratives and complications that make up our contemporary age, as they implode on themselves and interact with one another… Hegel knew, of course, that ‘the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk’; or, in other words, that philosophy can only fathom the truth about an age in hindsight, when the day has passed. But then again, that didn’t stop Hegel having a go; and we should be glad that it hasn’t stopped Charles Taylor, either. -- Christopher J. Insole * Times Literary Supplement *Charles Taylor’s remarkable book A Secular Age achieves something quite different from what other writers on secularization have accomplished. Most have focused on decline as the essence of secularism—either the removal of religion from sphere after sphere of public life, or the decrease of religious belief and practice. But Taylor focuses on what kind of religion makes sense in a secular age… Taylor is asking not only how secularism became a significant option in a civilization that not so long ago was explicitly Christian, but what that change means for the spiritual quest, both of those who are still religious and those who consider themselves secular. I doubt many people have even perceived that aspect of secularism, and Taylor’s book should be as much of a revelation to them as it was to me. -- Robert N. Bellah * Commonweal *Taylor’s book is a major and highly original contribution to the debates on secularization that have been ongoing for the past century. There is no book remotely like it. -- Alasdair MacIntyreOne finds big nuggets of insight, useful to almost anybody with an interest in the progress of human society… A vast ideological anatomy of possible ways of thinking about the gradual onset of secularism as experienced in fields ranging from art to poetry to psychoanalysis… Taylor also lays bare the inconsistencies of some secular critiques of religion. * The Economist *[A] thumping great volume. -- Stuart Jeffries * The Guardian *In A Secular Age, philosopher Charles Taylor takes on the broad phenomenon of secularization in its full complexity… [A] voluminous, impressively researched and often fascinating social and intellectual history…Taylor’s account encompasses art, literature, science, fashion, private life—all those human activities that have been sometimes more, sometimes less affected by religion over the last five centuries. -- Jack Miles * Los Angeles Times *A rich, complex book, but what I most appreciate is [Taylor’s] vision of a ‘secular’ future that is both open and also contains at least pockets of spiritual rigor, and that is propelled by religious motivation, a strong and enduring piece of our nature. -- David Brooks * New York Times *Taylor is arguably the most interesting and important philosopher writing in English today… What makes Taylor so important? Over more than 40 years, four large books, four or five slimmer essays and several volumes of articles, he has worked out a distinctive network of arguments and an exceptionally rich analysis of the modern self and its values—an analysis that reveals us to be altogether deeper and more interesting, but also less self-aware, than we tend to suppose… A Secular Age sets out to offer a richer characterization of secularization and the nature of contemporary belief, both religious and skeptical… Taylor writes brilliantly about the new social forms—the nation state, the market economy, the charitable enterprise—and the ideals of altruism and public service that have emerged with them… A Secular Age is effectively a polemic against dogmatic atheism… It is full of insights, and many of its component parts—notably Taylor’s discussion of the ‘pressures’ that make a settled view on the big ontological questions hard to sustain—are as good as anything by this magnificent philosopher. -- Ben Rogers * Prospect *Taylor’s masterful integration of history, sociology, philosophy, and theology demands much of the reader. In return you will be convinced that Charles Taylor is one of the smartest and deepest social thinkers of our time. -- Tyler Cowen * Slate *In an idiosyncratic blend of the philosophical, the historical, and the speculative, Taylor describes the shift from a world brim-full with spirits and magic to a world where divinity is absent. His account resists the idea that the rise of secularism is a process of subtraction, of loss, and of disenchantment. Rather, Taylor describes secularity’s birth as the migration of ideas, subtle changes in those ideas, and the opening of new possibilities. If Taylor’s communitarian scholarship celebrated historical and social rootedness, A Secular Age is an encomium to the sheer happenstance of how those circumstances arose. -- Azziz Huq * American Prospect *[A Secular Age] may become an enduring contribution to understanding religious belief, the evolution of the secular order, and the defining characteristics of modern secularism and contemporary spirituality. Like Charles Taylor’s earlier books, it is a product of prodigious erudition. Its 874 dense pages brim with original observation, cogent argument constructed from sources in a wide array of disciplines, and generous ecumenical gestures, even towards humanists. His story is complex, somewhat repetitious and yet unflaggingly interesting: it is loaded with so much novel detail and insight that the reader will be grateful for each scrap of familiar ground. -- Tamas Pataki * Australian Review of Books *Sophisticated, erudite…with excursions into history, philosophy and literature, A Secular Age is a weighty and challenging tome. It is also a brilliant account of the ‘sensed context’ in which secularization developed. And a moving meditation, by a believer, on the ‘ineradicable bent’ of human beings to respond to something beyond life, to keep open ‘the transcendent window.’ -- Glenn C. Altschuler * Baltimore Sun *If you are, as I am, often puzzled by the landscape of contemporary religious belief and unbelief, you will regard Charles Taylor’s huge and hugely rewarding intellectual history of the secularization of European and North American culture as a marvelous gift. A Secular Age is a first-class map of the spiritual terrain of Western modernity as well as the road that got us here. -- Robert Westbrook * Christian Century *A culminating dispatch from the philosophical frontlines. It is at once encyclopedic and incisive, a sweeping overview that is no less analytically rigorous for its breadth. Its subject is a philosophical history of the past, present and future of Western Christendom. As such, it begins with a deceptively simple question: How did it become possible for anyone to not believe in God?… A Secular Age recounts the history of an idea, in other words, but in it the past is not an inert, settled fact, but a reservoir to be drawn upon to shatter the sameness and the apparent inevitability of the present. As a history it clarifies crucial intellectual and theological divisions that continue to structure debates about divinity, but with the aim of reforming the way we think about them, ‘to show the play of destabilization and recomposition.’ Though this isn’t a book you take to the beach, it remains eminently readable. As philosophers go, Taylor is a kind of behaviorist, more concerned with elaborating the implications of a way of thinking than with showing its contradictions. Unlike most philosophers, though, Taylor seems at pains to remain accessible to a general audience to capture complex philosophical debate in ordinary language. An important part of Taylor’s argument is that religion and the belief in God, most particularly the experience of transcendence, are not at all outmoded… Though it avoids predictions or prescriptions, A Secular Age leaves us with the sense that the future will be a far poorer, less human place, if we do not discover some expression for that transcendent otherness. -- Steven Hayward * Cleveland Plain Dealer *It is, simply, the most comprehensive account of the process and meaning of secularization… Taylor’s depiction of the past two centuries is rich with insights and subtle analyses… Familiarity with Taylor’s book is now the entry ticket for any serious discussion of secularization. -- Peter Steinfels * Commonweal *Very occasionally there appears a book destined to endure. A Secular Age is such a book… A Secular Age is an important and deeply interesting work. Its central thesis is that secularization must be understood not simply as the decline of certain beliefs and institutions, but as a total change in our experience of the world… There are subtle, original discussions of the modern self, of changing conceptions of time, of the religious landscape of art, and much else besides. Taylor has a great gift of empathy, an ability to inhabit and bring to life the mental world of both believers and unbelievers. A true Hegelian, he sees the goal of philosophy as understanding, not judgment. -- Edward Skidelsky * Daily Telegraph *A Secular Age offers an invaluable map of how the modern religious–secular divide came into being. -- Andrew Koppelman * Dissent *Though this essential Canadian intellectual may overstate the triumph of secularity, his huge and elegant work takes on the transformation of the world from 1500, when it was almost impossible not to believe in a Creator, to 2000, when religion was simply one choice on a menu of belief systems. He finds the answer in ‘exclusive humanism,’ which sees ‘no final goals beyond human flourishing, nor any allegiance to anything else beyond this flourishing.’ -- Donald Harman Akenson * Globe & Mail *It is refreshing to read an inquiry into the condition of religion that is exploratory in its approach. Charles Taylor, a Roman Catholic as well as one of the world’s leading political theorists, does not aim to attack or defend any system of belief in his new book, A Secular Age. Rather, he wants to elucidate the very idea of a secular world. For Taylor, the difference between the pre-modern Western world and the modern West is not simply that beliefs held then are no longer accepted today; it is that the entire framework of thought has changed. -- John Gray * Harper’s *In a determinedly brilliant new book, Charles Taylor challenges the ‘subtraction theory’ of secularization which defines it as a process whereby religion simply falls away, to be replaced by science and rationality. Instead, he sees secularism as a development within Western Christianity, stemming from the increasingly anthropocentric versions of religion that arose from the Reformation. For Taylor, the modern age is not an age without religion; instead, secularization heralds ‘a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others.’ The result is a radical pluralism which, as well as offering unprecedented freedom, creates new challenges and instabilities. * London Review of Books *The real genius of this erudite and profound book resides in its grandeur of theme and richness of detail. For all its imposing intellectual density, it is a delight to read; at times, it was literally impossible to put down. Yet it is also a work that ought to be read by degrees—one chapter at a time, with ample pause for reflection. -- Lorenzo DiTommaso * Montreal Gazette *A salutary and sophisticated defense of how life was lived before the daring views of a tiny secular elite inspired mass indifference, and how it might be lived in the future. -- Michael Burleigh * New York Sun *Taylor reminds us that we remain spiritual creatures in our most essential natures, and that what we take for granted—our age’s lack of religious faith—is, in fact, an anomaly of history. Our forefathers did not live this way and our grandchildren might not either. Considering the doubts about extreme secularism, it is possible we are entering a new Age of Spirit. If so, Taylor’s latest magnum opus serves as a comprehensive guide to the reemergence of religious sensibility. -- Robert Sibley * Ottawa Citizen *The focus here is neither on the role of religion in public institutions nor on the extent of religious belief, but rather on its conditions… It is the slow emergence of secularity in this sense that Taylor sets out to explain, at formidable length, and in remarkable historical and philosophical detail. Binding all that detail together is an argument that Taylor manages to sustain over nearly eight hundred pages. Simply put, A Secular Age is a magisterial refutation of what Taylor calls the ‘subtraction story’ of secularisation. -- Jonathan Derbyshire * Philosopher’s Magazine *Taylor’s gargantuan philosophical history of modernity, which complicates the flattering and simplified story we like to tell ourselves about secularization, is a major intellectual event. -- Jonathan Derbyshire * Prospect *Grapples with the Christian–secular relationship, and with admirable nuance (unlike most theology). -- Theo Hobson * The Tablet *Taylor makes a strong case for the presence in ordinary moral life of something like Plato’s idea of the Good, however little acknowledged… A Secular Age carries the story further, into the question of the role of religion in constituting a person’s identity. Taylor wants to lay out what it takes to go on believing in God, in the absence of any equivalent to the intellectual, cultural and imaginative surroundings in which pre-modern religion was quietly embedded. This is what he calls our ‘social imaginary’: how we collectively sense what is normal and appropriate in our dealings with one another and with the world around us. This is something deeper and more diffused than philosophical theories or thought-out positions. -- Fergus Kerr * The Tablet *A Secular Age is a towering achievement… It shows the ways we have traveled from the automatic certainties of 1500 to the fragile alignments of today. It transforms the secularization debate. -- David Martin * The Tablet *Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age offers a uniquely rich historical and philosophical overview of how we came to take a disenchanted world for granted—quietly inviting us to reflect that if disenchantment and the absence of the divine were learned habits of mind, they might not necessarily be the self-evidently rational truths so many think they are. -- Rowan Williams * Times Literary Supplement *[A] big, powerful book… [Taylor’s] book is massive in its historical and philosophical scope. Penetrating and dense, it would take months to fully digest. Loosely structured, it’s crammed with original insights. Taylor, 75, can pack more into one of his complex paragraphs than most prevaricating, deconstructing academic philosophers can say in a chapter, or even a book… The book explores the immense ramifications of how the West shifted in a few centuries from being a society in which ‘it was virtually impossible not to believe in God’ to one in which belief is optional, often frowned upon. -- Douglas Todd * Vancouver Sun *If the author had accomplished nothing more than a survey of the voluminous body of ‘secularization theory,’ he would have done something valuable. But, although Taylor clearly articulates his disdain for the view that modernity ineluctably led to the death of God, he goes far beyond a literature review… In addition to its conceptual value, this study is notable for its lucidity. Taylor has translated complex philosophical theories into language that any educated reader will be able to follow, yet he has not sacrificed an iota of sophistication or nuance. A magisterial book. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age… Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor’s examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor’s inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this must-read virtuoso performance. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *This is Charles Taylor’s breakthrough book, a book of really major importance, because he succeeds in recasting the whole debate about secularism. This is one of the most important books written in my lifetime. I am tempted to say the most important book, but that may just express the spell the book has cast over me at the moment. -- Robert N. Bellah

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Book SynopsisThis third volume in N. T. Wright's magisterial series, Christian Origins and the Question of GodTrade Review"The most monumental defence of the Easter heritage in decades . . . The Resurrection of the Son of God marches through a clearly organized case that confronts every major doubt about Easter, ancient and modern." -- Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press * Associated Press *A monumental achievement in its scope, depth and execution... a landmark in scholarly studies of the resurrection." -- Gerard O'Collins, The TabletWright has succeeded in building a theological cathedral of illuminated historical insights, convincing and surprising exegetical observations, and thoroughly argued systematic conclusions. No prophetic intuition is needed to predict thatthis book will remain a classic. * Scottish Journal of Theology *book really is a bomb thrown into the playground of the theologians. Not only that, it is perhaps even more unusual in being both a joy to read and nearly 850 pages in length . . . It is not only an excellent argument, it is a model for how scholarship should be done. * Themelios *Displays on every page an enviable competence and lucidity in handling all the evidence. * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisDrawn from a wide range of writings and featuring state-of-the-art translations, Basic Works offers convenient access to Thomas Aquinas' most important discussions of nature, being and essence, divine and human nature, and ethics and human action.The translations all capture Aquinas's sharp, transparent style and display terminological consistency. Many were originally published in the acclaimed translation-cum-commentary series The Hackett Aquinas, edited by Robert Pasnau and Jeffrey Hause. Others appear here for the first time: Eleonore Stump and Stephen Chanderbahn's translation of On the Principles of Nature, Peter King's translation of On Being and Essence, and Thomas Williams' translations of the treatises On Happiness and On Human Acts from the Summa theologiae.Basic Works will enable students to immerse themselves in Aquinas's thought by offering his fundamental works without internal abridgements. It will also appeal to anyone in search of an up-to-date, one-volume collection containing Aquinas' essential philosophical contributions--from the Five Ways to the immortality of the soul, and from the nature of happiness to virtue theory, and on to natural law.

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Book SynopsisPeter Adamson presents a lively introduction to six hundred years of European philosophy, from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. The medieval period is one of the richest in the history of philosophy, yet one of the least widely known. Adamson introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition, including Peter Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Roger Bacon. And the medieval period was notable for the emergence of great women thinkers, including Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. Original ideas and arguments were developed in every branch of philosophy during this period - not just philosophy of religion and theology, but metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, moral and political theory, psychology, and the foundations of mathematics and natural science.Trade ReviewAccessible and comprehensive. * Alban McCoy, The Tablet, Books of the Year 2019 *Peter Adamson's Medieval Philosophy gives fantastically compendious account of medieval philosophy. Adamson manages to be accessible, lucid, witty, incisive; luminously conveying the rambunctious ambivalences of the logic-chopping, devout, doubting, bawdy, bloodthirsty, mystical medievals. * Jane O'Grady, The Tablet *a volume that— despite its weight and heft—one could easily give to a non-philosopher as a first introduction to the field. For even the most obscure authors (such as that most prolific of medieval philosophers, Anon) and the most arcane of topics comes to life under Adamson's magic touch. But what is most impressive about the book is its sheer scope of knowledge. . . . If you want a good, light-touch, yet still not glossing over the difficulties, introduction to medieval philosophy, this is the book for you. * Sara L. Uckelman, Philosophical Quarterly *Adamson's history of medieval philosophy has, among its many merits, two great ones. First, is very clearly written and philosophically acute. . . .A second merit is that it proposes an updated interpretation of medieval philosophy, obtained by taking into account the most dominant trends present in literature. This makes Peter Adamson's volume a fine piece of work and a recommended volume. The history of medieval philosophy is investigated in its depth and full development, no significant gap can be found indeed in the proposed reconstruction. * Fabrizio Amerini, Philosophical Inquiries *Let me say at once on the evidence of this volume, [Adamson] succeeds brilliantly. Over some 78 sections he covers a huge range of figures ... Special attention is given - and rightly so - to female philosophers, such as Catherine of Siena ... This book (and the others in the series), which are a delight to read, will be of great interest to general readers, aside from students of culture. * Peter Costello, The Irish Catholic *Adamson writes with a light style, beginning each short chapter with an anecdote, which rewards both sticking with the long narrative and dipping in and out. * Nick Mattiske, Journey, Isolation Reading Recommendations *A staggering philosophical achievement ... the clarity of the animated text is further enhanced by the authors humour, bringing a light touch to complex matters ... This volume will surely attain classic status, and can be read either sequentially or consulted as a detailed encyclopaedia of mediaeval philosophy and its variegated personalities. * Paradigm Explorer *Table of ContentsPreface Early Medieval Philosophy 1: Arts of Darkness: Introduction to Medieval Philosophy 2: Charles in Charge: Alcuin and the Carolingian Period 3: Grace Notes: Eriugena and the Predestination Controversy 4: Much Ado About Nothing: Eriugena's Periphyseon 5: Philosophers Anonymous: The Roots of Scholasticism 6: Virgin Territory: Peter Damian on Changing the Past 7: A Canterbury Tale: Anselm's Life and Works 8: Somebody's Perfect: Anselm's Ontological Argument 9: All or Nothing: The Problem of Universals 10: Get Thee to a Nunnery: Heloise and Abelard 11: It's the Thought that Counts: Abelard's Ethics 12: Learn Everything: The Victorines 13: Like Father, Like Son: Debates over the Trinity 14: On the Shoulders of Giants: Philosophy at Chartres 15: The Good Book: Philosophy of Nature 16: One of a Kind: Gilbert of Poitiers on Individuation 17: Two Swords: Early Medieval Political Philosophy 18: Law and Order: Peter Lombard and Gratian 19: Leading Light: Hildegard of Bingen 20: Rediscovery Channel: Translations into Latin 21: Straw Men: The Rise of the Universities The Thirteenth Century 22: No Uncertain Terms: Thirteenth Century Logic 23: Full of Potential: Thirteenth Century Physics 24: Stayin' Alive: Thirteenth Century Psychology 25: It's All Good: The Transcendentals 26: Do the Right Thing: Thirteenth Century Ethics 27: A Light That Never Goes Out: Robert Grosseteste 28: Origin of Species: Roger Bacon 29: Stairway to Heaven: Bonaventure 30: Your Attention Please: Peter Olivi 31: None for Me, Thanks: Franciscan Poverty 32: Begin the Beguine: Hadewijch and Mechtild 33: Binding Arbitration: Robert Kilwardby 34: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Albert the Great's Natural Philosophy 35: The Shadow Knows: Albert the Great's Metaphysics 36: The Ox Heard Round the World: Thomas Aquinas 37: Everybody Needs Some Body: Aquinas on Soul and Knowledge 38: What Comes Naturally: Ethics in Albert and Aquinas 39: What Pleases the Prince: The Rule of Law 40: Onward Christian Soldiers: Just War Theory 41: Paris When it Sizzles: The Condemnations 42: Masters of the University:

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringWhat is faith? It usually means religious belief, and sometimes diverse religions are grouped together as ''faiths'', with reference to ''faith leaders'' or ''faith schools''. What we have faith in matters, and that involves our reason, involving claims to truths that affect everyone. Faith is not just a personal attribute, like tastes, but should be open to public examination and debate. In this Very Short Introduction, Roger Trigg argues that all faith needs reason. He puts contemporary discussions into historical perspective, particularly in the context of Christianity. The author argues that faith also involves a commitment to action and that matters for all social life. Because religion is typically directed at what is seen as of crucial importance for human life, faith should not be marginalized or privatized. It will permeate every idea of how people should behave, and has a role in the public square, however respectful it should be to competing views within a democracy. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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Book SynopsisExploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions - St Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Ruzbihan Baqli, this title provides a phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions.Trade ReviewSteinbock embarks on a full explication of three central dimensions of human experience; in doing so, he takes up and embodies the phenomenological project envisioned by Edmund Husserl. * Choice *Phenomenology and Mysticism stands out as an original work in a genre too often reduced to commentaries on classical figures. Steinbock is an acute phenomenologist in his own right, and this work sets a new standard for the interaction between phenomenology and theology/religious studies.VOLUME 35.1 MARCH 2009 -- Andreas Nordlander * Lund University, Sweden *. . . an incredibly rich book about the phenomenology of mystical experience in the Abrahamic traditions, a book that will certainly be required reading for anyone working in the areas of religious experience and the intersection between theology and philosophy, especially in the continental tradition.Vol. 31 2009 -- Andreas Nordlander * Pneuma Jrnl Society for Pentecostal Studies *A single short review of this treatise suggests a light approach which does not [do] justice to this profound work. The thoughts and insights gathered and proposed by Steinbock provoke an equally concerted response and offer topics for discussion on many different disciplinary levels. * Philosophy in Review *Broader contributions from Phenomenology and Mysticism rest in careful engagement with philosophical phenomenology, not simply as a descriptive method, but as a coherent disciplinary field with potential theoretical resources to address ranges of phenomena beyond those that are typically evoked.Vol. 9 December 2008 -- Janet Borgerson * University of Exeter *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Vertical Givenness in Human Experience1. The Religious and Mystical Shape of Experience2. St. Teresa of Avila and Mysticism of Prayer3. Rabbi Dov Baer and Mysticism of Ecstasy4. Rūzbihān Baqlī and Mysticism of Unveiling5. Matters of Evidence in Religious Experience6. Epiphany and Withdrawal7. On Individuation8. IdolatryEpilogue: On the De-Limitation of the Religious and the MoralGlossary of Main Hebrew and Arabic TermsNotesBibliographyIndex

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A witty and accessible dissection of the failure of Intelligent Design creationism, showing its inability to explain many basic features of human anatomy and highlighting its origins as a political rather than a scientific movement.

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Book SynopsisIn Method in Theology, Vol. 14, Lonergan's intention was to provide a set of methods that would guide a collaborative community in the ongoing construction of a theology that would move from recovery of the data through resolution of conflicts to contemporary formulations and applications.Table of ContentsPart 1: Background The Human Good Meaning Religion Functional Specialties Part Two: Foreground Interpretation History History and Historians Dialectic Foundations Doctrines Systematics Communications The Church and the Churches

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Book SynopsisScholar, theologian and philosopher, Martin Buber is one of the twentieth century''s most influential thinkers. He believed that the deepest reality of human life lies in the relationship between one being and another. Between Man and Man is the classic work where he puts this belief into practice, applying it to the concrete problems of contemporary society. Here he tackles subjects as varied as religious ethics, social philosophy, marriage, education, psychology and art. Including some of his most famous writings, such as the masterful What is Man?, this enlightening work challenges each reader to reassess their encounter with the world that surrounds them.Trade Review'Martin Buber, mystic, Zionist leader, Bible translator, is also one of the outstanding religious philosophers of our time.' - Time and Tide'The address to the individual is inescapable. Spirit is not something that is, but something that happens. To learn this we must enter into life's spiritual experiences, not merely look into them. Spirit is nourished by unity of life, and unity with the world.' - Times Literary Supplement'Stimulating and moving.' - Times Educational SupplementTable of ContentsDialogue (Zwiesprache, 1929) 1 Section One: Description Section Two: Limitation Three: Confirmation Conversation with the opponent 2 The Question to the Single One (Die Frage an den Einzelnen, 1936) The question 3 Education (Rede über das Erzieherische, 1926) An address to the Third International Educational Conference, Heidelberg, August 1925, whose subject was "The Development of the Creative Powers in the Child" 4 The Education of Character (Über Charaktererziehung, 1939) An address to the National Conference of Palestinian Teachers, Tel-Aviv, 1939 5 What is Man? (Was ist der Mensch? 1938) Section One: The Progress of the Question I. Kant’s questions II. From Aristotle to Kant III. Hegel and Marx IV. Feuerbach and Nietzsche Section Two: Modern Attempts I. The crisis and its expression II. The doctrine of Heidegger III. The doctrine of Scheler IV. Prospect, Translator’s Notes Afterword: The History of the Dialogical

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Book SynopsisExpanding the Palace of Torah offers a broad philosophical overview of the challenges the women’s revolution poses to Orthodox Judaism, as well as Orthodox Judaism’s response to those challenges. Writing as an insider—herself an Orthodox Jew—Tamar Ross confronts the radical feminist critique of Judaism as a religion deeply entrenched in patriarchy. Surprisingly, very little work has been done in this area, beyond exploring the leeway for ad hoc solutions to practical problems as they arise on the halakhic plane. In exposing the largely male-focused thrust of the rabbinic tradition and its biblical grounding, she sees this critique as posing a potential threat to the theological heart of traditional Judaism—the belief in divine revelation. This new edition brings this acclaimed and classic text back into print with a new essay by Tamar Ross which examines new developments in feminist thought since the book was first published in 2004.Trade ReviewAddressing the practical and the theological challenges that feminism poses to halakah, Ross offers a brilliant study, informed not only by ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish sources, but also by postmodernism, the history of feminism, process theology, mysticism, and legal theory . . . She finds the key to change in women's increasing knowledge of halakah, whose meaning women can transform by weaving a different narrative . . . Highly recommended.”—CHOICE“[Expanding the Palace of Torah is] a brave, in many ways radical and essential, attempt to deal with the problem seriously, and is a model of erudition and scholarship… Her book offers a powerful alternate theological vision that challenges some of the basic assumptions of the Orthodox Jewish world, and gives a glimpse of just how revolutionary feminism could be to Orthodoxy.”—Forward"Ross' conjoining of the patriarchal past with a feminist future in the single unfolding process of divine revelation is an unprecedented, and I would suggest brilliant, move in the world of Jewish feminism... this book is ground-breaking in the field of theology (Jewish, feminist and otherwise). It is beautifully written, masterfully insightful in its analysis of earlier feminist attempts to resolve a similar set of challenges and subtly brilliant in the presentation of its own solutions. I simply cannot say enough positive things about it. It is thought-provoking and sophisticated. I have no doubt that this book will become a standard textbook for courses on Jewish feminism.”—Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues"In this exceptional book, Ross brings together philosophical, theological, legal, and feminist writings, presenting a many faceted critique of Jewish legal developments and an account of the latest thinking on problematic issues. Writing as a passionately engaged Orthodox Jew, her approach is a refreshing combination of the critical and the respectful, and her solutions to the problems she raises are both provocative and eloquent. Writing in a postmodernist vein, she offers a quantum leap in her complex yet trenchant perspective on the challenge posed by feminism to the concept of Revelation.”—Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg, author of Genesis: the Beginning of Desire, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for nonfiction"This may be one of the most important works to date in tracking the changes in Judaism over the past 2000 years." --Jewish Book World"This may be one of the most important works to date in tracking the changes in Judaism over the past 2000 years." * Jewish Book World *"[Expanding the Palace of Torah] is a brave, in many ways radical and essential, attempt to deal with the problem seriously, and is a model of erudition and scholarship. . . . Her book offers a powerful alternate theological vision that challenges some of the basic assumptions of the Orthodox Jewish world and gives a glimpse of just how revolutionary feminism could be to Orthodoxy." * Forward *"Addressing the practical and the theological challenges that feminism poses to halakah, Ross offers a brilliant study, informed not only by ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish sources, but also by postmodernism, the history of feminism, process theology, mysticism, and legal theory. . . . She finds the key to change in women's increasing knowledge of halakah, whose meaning women can transform by weaving a different narrative . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface, Acknowledgments, Part I: The First Stage: Acknowledging the Problem, Chapter 1 Feminism and the Halakhic Tradition, Chapter 2 Sources of Discontent and the Conservative Response, Part II: The Second Stage: Working Within the System, Chapter 3 Exploring Halakhic Malleability and Its Limits, Chapter 4 The Meta-Halakhic Solutions of Modern Orthodoxy, Chapter 5 Does Positivism Work?, Part III: The Third Stage: Revamping the System, Chapter 6 Sociological and Historical Revisionism, Chapter 7 Evaluating Revisionism, Chapter 8 Halakhic Proactivism, Part IV: Beyond the Third Stage: Expanding the Palace of Torah, Chapter 9 Halakhah Contextualized: Nonfoundationalism and the Role of Interpretive Traditions, Chapter 10 The Word of God Contextualized: Successive Hearings and the Decree of History, Chapter 11 Some Theological Remarks for the More Philosophically Inclined, Part V: Epilogue, Chapter 12 Visions for the Future, Afterword by Tamar Ross, Notes, Index

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Book SynopsisWhy are there religious beliefs in all cultures? Do they have features in common and why does religion persist in the face of science? Pascal Boyer shows how experimental findings in cognitive science, evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology are now providing precise answers to these general questions, and providing, for the first time, real answers to the question: Why do we believe?Trade ReviewA deep, ingenious, and insightful analysis of one of the deepest mysteries of the human species -- Steven PinkerAn excellent book in the spirit of the French Enlightenment, broadly learned and with modern behavioural science added. It deserves to be widely read * E.O. Wilson *This is a bold far-reaching book. His explanation of religion is lucid, entertaining, full of valuable insight -- Lord Habgood * Time Higher *The wisdom in its pages will be a revelation to any seeker after truth. While it lets daylight in upon magic, this book is never scornful and never dismissive, and Pascal Boyer's voice is as unpretentious as its title. If faith is the last refuge of the would-be believer, Religion Explained takes it away but puts something better in its place, enlightenment and understanding. * Ruth Rendell *A fascinating analysis of urge to believe * Scotland on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisPoet, philosopher and artist, Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 near Mount Lebanon, a region that has produced many prophets. His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste Rodin to the work of William Blake. Kahlil Gibran died in 1931. His most famous work The Prophet, was published in 1923. By the time of his death, it was already firmly established as a classic book.Trade ReviewHis power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life, else it could not have been so universal and so potent, but the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own -- Claude Bragdon

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