Augustine's Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement considers the relationship between Augustine's account of God's judgment and his theology of grace in his early works. How does God use his law and the penal consequences of its transgression in the service of his grace, both personally and through his 'agents' on earth? Augustine reflected on this question from different perspectives. As a teacher and bishop, he thought about the nature of discipline and punishment in the education of his pupils, brothers, and congregants. As a polemicist against the Manichaeans and as a biblical expositor, he had to grapple with issues regarding God's relationship to evil in the world, the violence God displays in the Old Testament, and in the death of his own Son. Furthermore, Augustine meditated on the way God's judgment and grace related in his own life, both before and after his conversion. Bart van Egmond follows the development of Augustine's early thought on judgment and grace from the Cassiacum writings to the Confessions. The argument is contextualized both against the background of the earlier Christian tradition of reflection on the providential function of divine chastisement, and the tradition of psychagogy that Augustine inherited from a variety of rhetorical and philosophical sources. This study expertly contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion on the development of Augustine's doctrine of grace, and to the conversation on the theological roots of his justification of coercion against the Donatists.

What is the principal secret of the universe? The ancient mystery saying called on the human being to 'Know Yourself ' Rudolf Steiner explains that this maxim is not asking us to study subjectively our own personal character, but rather to come to a knowledge of our true, archetypal human nature-and with it the position we occupy in the universe. In these eloquent lectures - formerly published as Man, Hieroglyph of the Universe - Rudolf Steiner speaks of the human being as the model of creation, the primary focus of the cosmos. In an extensive exposition he talks of the constellation of cosmic forces, zodiac and planets amongst which we find ourselves situated. Only a true knowledge of our human nature and the spiritual forces which surround us - the microcosm within the greater macrocosm - can enable humanity to progress, he says. This book is an important contribution to that goal: the development of a contemporary spiritual science of the human being.

In The Persistence of the Sacred in Modern Thought, Chris L. Firestone, Nathan A. Jacobs, and thirteen other contributors examine the role of God in the thought of major European philosophers from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. The philosophers considered are, by and large, not orthodox theists; they are highly influential freethinkers, emancipated by an age no longer tethered to the authority of church and state. While acknowledging this fact, the contributors are united in arguing that this is only one side of a complex story. To redress the imbalance of attention to secularism among crucial modern thinkers and to consolidate a more theologically informed view of modernity, they focus on the centrality of the sacred (theology and God) in the thought of these philosophers. The essays, each in its own way, argue that the major figures in modernity are theologically astute, bent not on removing God from philosophy but on putting faith and reason on a more sure footing in light of advancements in science and a perceived need to rethink the relationship between God and world. By highlighting and defending the theologically affirmative dimensions of thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, F. W. J. Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel, and others, the essayists present a forceful and timely correction of widely accepted interpretations of these philosophers. To ignore or downplay the theological dimensions of the philosophical works they address, they argue, distorts our understanding of modern thought. Contributors: Nicholas Adams, Hubert Bost, Philip Clayton, John Cottingham, Yolanda Estes, Chris L. Firestone, Lee Hardy, Peter C. Hodgson, Nathan A. Jacobs, Jacqueline Marina, A. P. Martinich, Richard A. Muller, Myron B. Penner, Stephen D. Snobelen, Nicholas Wolterstorff.