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How is it that Christian faith can be said to be in accordance with reason and at the same time to transcend reason? On the one hand, the concordance of faith with reason appears to reduce faith to rational thinking and to natural human experience; on the other hand, the difference between faith and reason seems to make belief unreasonable and arbitrary. In The God of Faith and Reason, Robert Sokolowski treats this theological difficulty not by speaking directly about faith and reason, but through an examination of the Christian understanding of God that focuses on God the creator and the world as created. In so doing, he demonstrates how the Christian concept of God preserves both the integrity of reason and the distinctiveness of faith. Sokolowski begins with a statement of the Christian understanding of God developed in terms provided by St. Anselm, in whose writings the issue of faith and reason surfaces in an historically significant way. He next brings to light the special character of the Christian understanding of God by contrasting it with the pagan understanding of the divine. While pagan and other natural religions see god as the most powerful part of the world, Christianity understands God to be separate from the world, not added to in any way by the act of creating it. This understanding of God and the world lies behind the belief in Creation, and is shown to provide the context for the other Christian mysteries, such as the Incarnation, Redemption, the Church, grace, and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. The author also shows how the Christian understanding of God and the world helps clarify the difference between natural human virtues and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. In an appendix, he deals with the relationship between political philosophy and Christian revelation, and, through a discussion of the ideas of Leo Strauss, speaks of the place of politics and political reason in Christian belief. Throughout the book Sokolowski employs a method of theology based on phenomenology in order to show how the things of Christian faith differentiate themselves from the phenomena given to natural experience.With its insightful, straightforward arguments, The God of Faith and Reason is ideal for use in both introductory and advanced courses in natural theology, fundamental theology, Christian philosophy, philosophy of God, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics.Robert Sokolowski, a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, has taught philosophy at The Catholic University of America since 1963. He has written six books and numerous articles dealing with phenomenology, philosophy and Christian faith, moral philosophy, and issues in contemporary science. He has been an auxiliary chaplain at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., since 1976 and was named monsignor in 1993. ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――"Robert Sokolowski, already an accomplished author in the field of philosophy, has now written a sophisticated and profound little book about the frontiers where philosophy and theology, natural reason and Christian faith, overlap and blend into a single harmonious act, whose components can be differentiated by reflective thinking. . . . This book will provide useful clarifications to theologians, philosophers and believers, convinced in principle that religious faith should be reasonable . . . but unclear as to how faith and reason can be blended without collapsing one into the other."―International Journal for Philosophy of ReligionThe simple purpose of this profound and disquieting work is to identify what is most radically distinctive about Christian belief. Addressed to a nontechnical audience . . . the book possesses the kind of lucidity and intellectual simplicity achieved only by teachers of the highest order. Its conclusi

"Pictures, quotations and distinctions" presents an anthology of the essays of Robert Sokolowski, a thinker who specialises in questions on conceptual analysis. The essays constitute Sokolowski's sustained project of critical phenomenological analysis of many different forms of presentation as well as many different forms of human experience. Aimed at the specialist in phenomenology and the generalist in the philosophical tradition, Sokolowski's work describes various ways in which things appear, as pictured, quoted, measured, distinguished, explained, meant, and referred to. Through the analysis of appearances, he probes the question of being and aims to clarify the human condition. The 14 essays are grouped into pairs or triplets. "Picturing" and "quotation" describe representation in image and speech. "Making distinctions" clarifies how we can isolate something as an issue for thought, and "explaining" discusses what we do after we have isolated it. "Timing" and "measurement" describe two ways in which wholes are articulated into parts, and "exact science and the world in which we live" further develops the theme of measurement. "Exorcising concepts" and "referring" are a phenomenological attempt to treat sense and reference. "Grammar and thinking" and "Tsarskian harmonies in words and pictures" discuss the formal composition of sentences and images and their relationship to the way things are disclosed. The final three essays are studies in the phenomenology of ethical performance. By providing concrete analyses of human themes familiar to everyone, such as picturing and quotation, these examples of applied phenomenology take appearances seriously, while making philosophical distinctions among them.

Product Description: Robert Sokolowski, a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, has taught philosophy at The Catholic University of America since 1963. He has written six books and numerous articles dealing with phenomenology, philosophy and Christian faith, moral philosophy, and issues in contemporary science...read more

The structure and key elements of Husserl's philosophy are analyzed in this chronological examination of his doctrines. Bibliogs