Characters in Search of Their Author - (Gifford Lectures, 1999-2000) by Ralph McInerny (Paperback)

About the Book

Is the conviction that there is a God the default position of the human mind? This is the suggestion of Vatican II's Gaudium et spes, as well as Cardinal Newman and even St. Thomas Aquinas. But however natural it is for human beings to acknowledge their maker, it seems almost as natural to throw up obstacles between man and God. Characters in Search of Their Author, the Gifford Lectures delivered by Ralph McInerny in Glasgow in 1999-2000, is devoted to clearing away some of these impediments, mainly those fashioned by philosophers. The first series of lectures traces the progressive dismissal of natural theology by modern and contemporary philosophers. Are all intellectual difficulties intellectual in origin? McInerny invites his reader to consider the ordinary acknowledgment or denial of God as analogous to falling into or out of love. The upshot may be a simple judgment, but the way to it is through the emotions and types of discourse that seldom appear in logic books. The recovery of natural theology is the theme of the second series of lectures. Making critical use of philosophers from Kierkegaard and Newman to Thomas Aquinas, McInerny brings us to the point where the age-old task can once more begin.

Book Synopsis

In Characters In Search of Their Author, the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1999-2000, Ralph McInerny discusses natural theology as it can be discussed in the present philosophical climate. The first five lectures ask "Whatever Happened to Natural Theology?", and trace the fate of philosophical efforts to establish the existence and nature of God in modern times. In the second set of lectures, dealing with "The Recovery of Natural Theology," McInerny defends the viability of the philosophical effort against certain dominant trends in contemporary philosophy. It has been the practise of Gifford Lecturers to write a book based on the lectures, often years after the event. This book contains the text of the lectures McInerny actually delivered.

Review Quotes

"...clear and lively...." --Times Literary Supplement

"...lively and wide-ranging discourses on the decline of natural theology and its prospects for recovery within contemporary philosophy, with reflections on the relationship between faith and reason, presented in a colloquial idiom and governed throughout by McInerny's genial Thomism." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"[V]intage McInerny, crackling with wit and insight." --New Oxford Review

"As John Paul II has insisted in his 1998 encyclical, Fides et Ratio, believers must come to the defense of natural reason, of the capacity of our created nature to know the world made by God. McInerny fulfills this injunction with an admirable combination of learning, wit, grace, and clarity." --Crisis

"In lucidity and breadth and depth, Characters in Search of their Author resembles Etienne Gilson's Unison of Philosophical Experience, and, like the work of Gilson, should be a permanent addition to the personal library of anyone who is attempting to understand the animosity of contemporary philosophy to matters of faith." --The Review of Metaphysics

"McInerny has done an excellent job of identifying and rejecting a number of widely current assumptions about the natural-theology tradition as found in Thomas Aquinas and still articulated in Catholic doctrine. For all Protestants, McInerny's fine discussion of preliminary issues is an opportunity to reevaluate whether our objections to natural theology are genuine objections to the classical view articulated by Aquinas and still taught by the Catholic Church today." --Calvin Theological Journal

"McInerny joins learning, wit, and lucidity in producing a reliable, and enjoyable, guide to reasoned faith and faithful reason." --First Things

"Ralph McInerny has effortlessly achieved what otherwise seems so difficult for philosophers in our time, excellent philosophy that is a joy to read. Characters is on the whole the best piece of philosophical writing I have read in several years. this is the work of a wise man. ...a work of such substance, clarity, and graceful style. Read it." --Ethics News

"The main strengths of the book are its breadth and conciseness in examining an important array of contemporary objections to natural theology and the interesting use and analysis of a variety of thinkers in the Christian religious and Western philosophical tradition. M.'s book is a well-written, philosophically interesting contribution to a contemporary philosophy of religion. I highly recommend it to both the scholar and the interested layperson." --Theological Studies

About the Author

Ralph McInerny is Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and director of the Jacques Maritain Center, University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous works in philosophy, literature, and journalism, including A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press.