Faith as an “Essential Likeness” of Human and Divine Reason
Professor Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, was first of all a philosopher, a pre-eminent one, on par with any and all great philosophers in…
The Quandary of the Two Pope Francises
The December 2016 issue of Quadrant includes my reflection on Pope Francis’s contribution to Catholic social and political reflection. I write as both a Catholic and a…
Liberating Logos: Reason, Conscience, and the Future of the West
For more than a century and a half, the specter of secularization has haunted the West. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Max Weber famously spoke…
Voegelin’s Soteriology and Ours
Every religious tradition offers a soteriology – its own version of salvation called by whatever name – perhaps spiritual liberation as in the Hindu moksha or enlightenment…
God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher
God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher. Jerry L. Martin. Doylestown, PA: Caladium Publishing Co., 2016. God an Autobiography is a book of 360 pages…
Does God Have a History?
Let us begin our inquiry with the following datum: The human experience of the Divine Reality has often, though not always, been an encounter with a personal…
Éric Voegelin et l’Orient
Éric Voegelin et l’Orient: Millénarisme et religions politiques de l’Antiquité à Daech. Renaud Fabbri. Editions L'Harmattan, 2016. Renaud Fabbri is a professor of political science at l’Université…
The Forsaken Jesus and the Black Sun of Atheism
The Black Sun In an essay he wrote entitled: Atheism and Monotheism Jean-Luc Nancy used the metaphor of the “black sun” to describe atheism. He writes: “The…
We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God
We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God. David T. Koyzis. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014. It seems almost a truism that…
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. David Bentley Hart. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003. The Beauty of the Infinite is a…
Divine Presence and Epistemic Trust
A few years ago, in spite of being a life-long agnostic, I had occasion to pray. A wonderful woman had come into my life, and I felt…
The Fool of New York City
The Fool of New York City. Michael D. O’Brien. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 2016. Those who have read some of Michael D. O’Brien’s novels might think…
Russia’s Lost Reformation
Russia's Lost Reformation: Peasants, Millennialism, and Radical Sects in Southern Russia and Ukraine, 1830-1917. Sergei I. Zhuk. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2004. Suppressed by…
Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies
Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies. Mark D. Steinberg and Catherine Wanner, ed. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008. Since the collapse of the…
Beyond Radical Secularism: How France and the Christian West Should Respond to the Islamic Challenge
Beyond Radical Secularism: How France and the Christian West Should Respond to the Islamic Challenge. Pierre Manent. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2016. I have…