Christian Wisdom Meets Modernity - (Illuminating Modernity) by Kenneth Oakes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Modern thinkers know they are modern. It is a self-conscious age that, having despised and then forgotten the past, struggles to understand itself. "What...am I to make of the world into which I was born? How else can I make sense of that complacent love of moral squalor, that luxuriant banality, that is the singly spiritual achievement of our age?" asks the nineteenth century French poet Charles Baudelaire via the pen of David Bentley Hart. Deploying a perennial Christian wisdom, these essays provide brilliant insight into modernity's allure and indigence, offering a genuine alternative to the banality of a postmodernity.
Simon Oliver, Durham University, UK

Over the past decade, Notre Dame's systematic theology faculty has become the center of creative and constructive research on the twentieth-century Resourcement renaissance, who powerfully present both well-known and neglected figures - from von Balthasar and Guardini to Przywara and Ulrich - in dialogue with modern continental philosophy. The result is a brilliant guide to the fundamental sources and evangelizing concerns of a tremendously fruitful theological style.
Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary, USA

This delightful volume enacts a serious dialogue between Christian theology and modern thought in a continental mode - be it with eminent moderns like Heidegger or Baudelaire or reflecting upon great theologians' various engagements with modernity. At once learned and enlightening.
Christopher Ben Simpson, Lincoln Christian University, USA

About the Author

Kenneth Oakes is a postdoctoral fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Alongside Francesca Aran Murphy and Balazs M. Mezei he is one of the editors of the 'Illuminating Modernity' series.