Search results for ""Author David B. Burrell""

Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology delineates the ways that Christianity, Islam, and the Jewish tradition have moved towards each another over the centuries and points to new pathways for contemporary theological work. Explores the development of the three Abrahamic traditions, brilliantly showing the way in which they have struggled with similar issues over the centuries Shows how the approach of each tradition can be used comparatively by the other traditions to illuminate and develop their own thinking Written by a renowned writer in philosophical theology, widely acclaimed for his comparative thinking on Jewish and Islamic theology A very timely book which moves forward the discussion at a period of intense inter-religious dialogue

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Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology delineates the ways that Christianity, Islam, and the Jewish tradition have moved towards each another over the centuries and points to new pathways for contemporary theological work. Explores the development of the three Abrahamic traditions, brilliantly showing the way in which they have struggled with similar issues over the centuries Shows how the approach of each tradition can be used comparatively by the other traditions to illuminate and develop their own thinking Written by a renowned writer in philosophical theology, widely acclaimed for his comparative thinking on Jewish and Islamic theology A very timely book which moves forward the discussion at a period of intense inter-religious dialogue

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FAITH AND FREEDOM In this book, David Burrell, one of the foremost philosophical theologians in the English-speaking world, presents the culmination of his work on creation and human freedom. Drawing on his philosophical and theological insights from the last twenty years, he develops an integrated argument with far-reaching consequences for capitalist cultures. Engaging with the Islamic, Judaic and Christian traditions, and with modern and pre-modern systems of thought, Burrell dismantles the ‘libertarian’ approach to freedom that dominates Western politics and economics, proposing that alongside freedom of choice we need freedom of consent. The author’s rigorous approach, wry humor and generous spirit are evident throughout.

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In Knowing the Unknowable God, David Burrell traces the intellectual intermingling of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian traditions that made possible the medieval synthesis that served as the basis for Western theology. He shows how Aquinas's study of the Muslim philosopher Ibn-Sina and the Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides affected the disciplined use of language when speaking of divinity and influenced his doctrine of God.

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True religious faith cannot be confirmed by any external proofs. Rather, it is founded on a basic act of trust - and the common root of that trust, for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, is a belief in the divine creation of the universe. But with "Learning to Trust in Freedom", David B. Burrell asks the provocative question: How do we reach that belief, and what is it about the universe that could possibly testify to its divine origins? Even St. Augustine, he points out, could only find faith after a harrowing journey through the lures of desire - and it is that very desire that Burrell seizes on as a tool with which to explore the origin and purpose of the world. Delving deep into the intertwinings of desire and faith, and drawing on Saint John of the Cross, Edith Stein, and Charles Taylor, Burrell offers a new understanding of free will, trust, and perception.

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The manifest strength of the medieval period has always been the ways in which particular thinkers negotiated the twin criteria of reason and faith. What seemed to the Enlightenment a weakness appears to our time as a virtuoso performance. Less well-known in the West has been the inherently interfaith and intercultural character of the discussion. This collection of essays, which originated in 1987 at a symposium titled "God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium in Comparative Religious Thought," is devoted to the doctrine of creation in the three Western monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For the first time scholars from all three traditions investigate the historical and constructive aspects of this doctrine within an ecumenical environment. Several important comparative dimensions, especially on the relation between creation and emanation, have been highlighted in new ways. While some dimensions of the problematic were shared, notably the Aristotelian challenge of an eternal universe, others turn out to be specific to different traditions.

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In Truthfulness and Tragedy Stanley Hauerwas provides an account of moral existence and ethical rationality that shows how Christian convictions operate, or should operate, to form and direct lives. In attempting to conceptualize the basis of Christian ethics in a manner that will render Christian convictions morally intelligible, the author casts fresh light on traditional theoretical issues and articulates the distinctive Christian response to contemporary concerns such as suicide, medical ethics, and child care. The first section of the book deals with methodological issues: the meaning and nature of practical reason, obligation claims, natural law, and self deception, and the affinity of story and ethics. It focuses on the relation of truthfulness and tragedy and the need for a story—a set of religious convictions or “grammar of theology”—that does justice to the tragic character of human existence. The second section addresses substantive issues: suicide, euthanasia, and the value of survival; the moral limits of population growth; the definition of “person” for medical reasons; and social involvement and Christian ethics. The overall theme is the need for a community in which truthfulness is a way of life. In the final section, devoted to the problem of how to care for disabled children, the implications of the author’s ethical position are given concrete expression. He discusses the assumptions underlying the willingness to have children, criteria for humanness, medical ethics, and how truthful communities deal with suffering. In Truthfulness and Tragedy Stanley Hauerwas extends and clarifies the ethical position set forth in his earlier books Character and the Christian Life and Vision and Virtue.

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