In this wide-ranging and engaging collection of interviews, Brian Brock discusses how Christian faith makes a difference for life in the modern world. Beginning with a discussion of teaching Christian ethics in the contemporary academy, Brock takes up environmental questions, political and medical ethics, the modern city and Christian responsibility to it, energy use, the information age, agriculture, political consensus and coercion, and many other issues. The reader is thus offered a broad and incisive discussion of many contemporary topics in a brief, illuminating, but never superfcial manner. The book's unusual conversational style allows strikingly clear, creative, and concrete theological connections to emerge in the spaces between moral questions rarely thought of as linked. As the title suggests, the running theme of the interviews is being bound to Christ and placed into the contemporary world. Brock's theological readings of contemporary cultural trends are vigorous, unapologetic, and insightful, and they offer delightful surprises as well as fertile new ways through the sterile impasses of many issues currently being debated in the public square.This book provides an excellent starting point for those interested in fresh theological insights into contemporary ethical questions and an accessible introduction to Brock's previous works.

Olivier-Thomas Venard's Thomas d'Aquin poete theologien trilogy, an in depth analysis of the scripture of St. Thomas Aquinas, is translated for a new audience in this streamlined anthology. Featuring selections from all three books in the trilogy, chosen in accordance with Venard's direction and discernment, it introduces not only arguments pertinent to the theme of this volume, but an invitation to explore the full breadth of Venard's work. Concentrating on the subjects of scripture, theology and literature, language as a theological question and the word of God, Murphy and Oakes capture the scope and energy of Venard's trilogy while collating many of its key passages. Ranging from the themes of a poetic gospel and Christology to the Thomist theories of semiology and the metaphysics of the Word, this volume sets scholars on the path to a deeper understanding of Aquinas's systematic theology.

The 'Illuminating Modernity' series examines the great but lesser known thinkers in the 'Romantic Thomist' tradition such as Erich Przywara and Fernand Ulrich and shows how outstanding 20th century theologians like Ratzinger and von Balthasar have depended on classical Thomist thought, and how they radically reinterpreted this thought. The chapters in this volume are dedicated to the encounter between the presuppositions and claims of modern intellectual culture and the Christian confession that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the power and wisdom of God and is the lord of history and of his church. The scholars contributing to this discussion do not assume that Christianity and modernity are two discrete entities which can be readily defined, nor do they presume that Christian wisdom and modernity meet each other only in conflict or by coincidence. They engage with a variety of great figures - Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Rahner, Przywara, Guardini, Karl Barth, and Karol Wojtyla - to illustrate the connection between modernism and Christian wisdom. The volume concludes with a programmatic statement for the renewal of Christian philosophy that has been able to retain the cosmo-theological vision as outlined by Mezei in the final chapter.

This textbook will give students a clear understanding of the connection between faith and reason. "Illuminating Faith" gives students a clear and accessible introduction to some of the major ways faith and the relationship between faith and reason have been understood within Western Christianity. In twenty-six short and easy to digest units it covers different accounts of faith beginning with Scripture, moving through the history of Christian thought, and ending with contemporary views.Along the way it explores some of the decisive theological and philosophy accounts of faith, such as faith seeking understanding, faith and supernatural virtue, faith and skepticism, and faith and science. Yet it also includes significant issues and movements not typically covered in introductory texts, such as documents from church councils, faith as knowledge, assent, and trust in the Protestant scholastics, faith and the heart in pietism, secularized accounts of faith, faith after Auschwitz, and faith and liberation. The goal of each unit is to introduce students to topical issues surrounding the nature of faith, to provide historical background for each topic, and to generate further discussion and reflection on the nature of faith. The result is a well balanced and unique introduction to various understandings of faith. Designed specifically with classroom use in mind, "Illuminating Faith" includes a glossary of words, an update-to-date bibliography, and each chapter ends with questions for discussion as well as suggestions for relevant reading material.

This textbook will give students a clear understanding of the connection between faith and reason. "Illuminating Faith" gives students a clear and accessible introduction to some of the major ways faith and the relationship between faith and reason have been understood within Western Christianity. In twenty-six short and easy to digest units it covers different accounts of faith beginning with Scripture, moving through the history of Christian thought, and ending with contemporary views.Along the way it explores some of the decisive theological and philosophy accounts of faith, such as faith seeking understanding, faith and supernatural virtue, faith and skepticism, and faith and science. Yet it also includes significant issues and movements not typically covered in introductory texts, such as documents from church councils, faith as knowledge, assent, and trust in the Protestant scholastics, faith and the heart in pietism, secularized accounts of faith, faith after Auschwitz, and faith and liberation. The goal of each unit is to introduce students to topical issues surrounding the nature of faith, to provide historical background for each topic, and to generate further discussion and reflection on the nature of faith. The result is a well balanced and unique introduction to various understandings of faith. Designed specifically with classroom use in mind, "Illuminating Faith" includes a glossary of words, an update-to-date bibliography, and each chapter ends with questions for discussion as well as suggestions for relevant reading material.

Synopsis: Karl Barth's 1922 The Epistle to the Romans is one of the most famous, notorious, and influential works in twentieth-century theology and biblical studies. It is also a famously and notoriously difficult and enigmatic work, especially as its historical context becomes more and more foreign. In this book, Kenneth Oakes provides historical background to the writing of The Epistle to the Romans, an introduction and analysis of its main themes and terms, a running commentary on the text itself, and suggestions for further readings from Barth on some of the issues it raises. The volume not only offers orientation and assistance for those reading The Epistle to the Romans for the first time, it also deals with contemporary problems in current Barth scholarship regarding liberalism, dialectics, and analogy. Endorsements: "Barth's Epistle to the Romans is notoriously opaque and challenging; Oakes' guide is lively, perceptive, and nimble, and will enable readers to approach Barth with confidence and discover for themselves the riches of this classic of twentieth-century theology." -John Webster University of Aberdeen "Cleary written and accessible, Reading Karl Barth offers a fascinating and much-needed commentary on Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans. Oakes' book is a helpful companion for those reading Barth for the first time, and there is also much here for those who have been thinking about Barth's revolutionary commentary for some time." -Tom Greggs University of Aberdeen Author Biography: Kenneth Oakes completed a doctorate in theology at the University of Aberdeen and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Eberhards Karl Universitat, Tubingen.

Olivier-Thomas Venard's Thomas d'Aquin poete theologien trilogy, an in depth analysis of the scripture of St. Thomas Aquinas, is translated for a new audience in this streamlined anthology. Featuring selections from all three books in the trilogy, chosen in accordance with Venard's direction and discernment, it introduces not only arguments pertinent to the theme of this volume, but an invitation to explore the full breadth of Venard's work. Concentrating on the subjects of scripture, theology and literature, language as a theological question and the word of God, Murphy and Oakes capture the scope and energy of Venard's trilogy while collating many of its key passages. Ranging from the themes of a poetic gospel and Christology to the Thomist theories of semiology and the metaphysics of the Word, this volume sets scholars on the path to a deeper understanding of Aquinas's systematic theology.

The 'Illuminating Modernity' series examines the great but lesser known thinkers in the 'Romantic Thomist' tradition such as Erich Przywara and Fernand Ulrich and shows how outstanding 20th century theologians like Ratzinger and von Balthasar have depended on classical Thomist thought, and how they radically reinterpreted this thought. The chapters in this volume are dedicated to the encounter between the presuppositions and claims of modern intellectual culture and the Christian confession that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the power and wisdom of God and is the lord of history and of his church. The scholars contributing to this discussion do not assume that Christianity and modernity are two discrete entities which can be readily defined, nor do they presume that Christian wisdom and modernity meet each other only in conflict or by coincidence. They engage with a variety of great figures - Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Rahner, Przywara, Guardini, Karl Barth, and Karol Wojtyla - to illustrate the connection between modernism and Christian wisdom. The volume concludes with a programmatic statement for the renewal of Christian philosophy that has been able to retain the cosmo-theological vision as outlined by Mezei in the final chapter.

Karl Barth is often assumed to have been hostile to philosophy, wilfully ignorant of it, or too indebted to its conclusions for his own theological good. These truisms of twentieth-century theology are challenged in this original and comprehensive account of Barth's understanding of the relationship between theology and philosophy. Drawing upon a range of material from Barth's earliest writings (1909) up until interviews and roundtable discussions that took place shortly before his death (1968), Kenneth Oakes offers a developmental account of Barth's thoughts on philosophy and theology. Beginning with the nineteenth-century intellectual background to Barth's earliest theology, Oakes presents the young and 'liberal' Barth's understanding of the relationship between theology and philosophy and then tracks this understanding throughout the rest of Barth's career. While Barth never finally settled on a single, fixed account of theology and philosophy, there was still a great deal of continuity regarding this topic in Barth's oeuvre. Looking through the lens of theology and philosophy Barth's continual indebtedness to nineteenth-century modern theology is clearly seen, as well as his attempts and struggles to move beyond it. In addition to locating Barth's account of theology and philosophy historically, this study also gives attention to the specific doctrines and theological presuppositions that inform Barth's different portrayals of the relationship between theology and philosophy. Oakes asks how and why Barth used material from the doctrines under consideration-such as revelation, theological ethics, Christology- to talk about theology and philosophy. Barth is shown to have been concerned not only with the integrity and independence of theological discourse but also with the idea that theology should not lose its necessary and salutary interactions with philosophy. Finally, Oakes also considers the reception of Barth's thought in some of the luminary figures of twentieth-century philosophy, and identifies the three main impressions philosophers have had of Barth's life and work.