Independent scholar, reviewer, Book Reviews Editor Medieval Mystical Theology, Secretary The Margery Kempe Society, St Margaret's King's Lynn, late Hon. Librarian, The Julian Centre, Norwich.
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The Essential Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Medieval mystical theology, Jan 2, 2023
Gerardi Magni Versiones Latinae Mysticorum, Opera omnia pars 5, 2 (Versiones latinae mysticorum)
Medieval mystical theology, Jan 2, 2023
Reshaping Ecumenical Theology: The Church Made Whole? By Paul Avis
How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others. By T.M.Luhrmann. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020. Pp. xviii, 238. £25.00
The Heythrop Journal, Mar 1, 2022
Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland
Hiperboreea, Jul 1, 2021
Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy: Interchange in the Wake of God. Edited by DavidLewin, Simon D.Podmore, and DuaneWilliams. Abingdon – New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. x, 268. £96.00(HB)/£29.59(PB)
The Book of Revelation. By Simon Woodman. Pp. xii, 260, London, SCM Press, 2008, $12.50
The Heythrop Journal, Feb 27, 2012
Communion, Covenant, and Creativity: An Approach to the Communion of Saints through the Arts. By P.S.Fiddes, BrianHaymes, and Richard L.Kidd. Pp. xiv, 196. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020, £20.00
The Heythrop Journal, Aug 16, 2021
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: Family Trouble in the Infancy Gospels. By Christopher A.Frilingos. Pp. xvi, 188, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, £33.00.The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages. By MaryDzon. Pp. xii, 414, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press...
The Heythrop Journal, Oct 9, 2020
Adam and Eve in Scripture, Theology, and Literature. Sin, Compassion, and Forgiveness by Peter B. Ely
The revival of virtue ethics is now well established, and an author writing an introduction is fa... more The revival of virtue ethics is now well established, and an author writing an introduction is faced with a dual task: to address those who are unfamiliar with or even hostile to virtue theory, and to engage with the growing corpus of literature within the field. In addition, works in theological ethics must address the question of theological virtue and how it differs from naturally acquired virtue. One of the great virtues of Nicholas Austin SJ's Aquinas on Virtue is the manner in which it speaks to these various demands. Austin lays his cards on the table with the book's title in which he proposes 'a causal reading' of Aquinas's virtue theory. By causal he means the Aristotelian understanding of the four causes which act as explanatory principles in diverse fields of enquiry, and not the modern reduction of cause to the role of mechanical explanation. The challenge facing Austin is to show why an account of virtue requires the four causes and how we can make sense of them in the context of modern science. The two sides of this challenge play against each other: if we can make sense of the four causes then we will begin to see their application in an account of virtue, and conversely seeing the need for the four causes to make sense of virtue we come to see that they are not made redundant in the modern context. The success of the book in pursuing the uninitiated or unconvinced will depend of whether the reader is willing to engage in this interplay. For those who are already influenced by Aquinas's virtue ethics, the book provides an important overview of the interconnections between Aquinas's logic, metaphysics, physics and ethics. In stark contrast to approaches to virtue ethics which downplay or even deny the importance of these connections, Austin's careful reading of Aquinas coupled with his clear presentation of key arguments and discussions show how Aquinas's thought forms an integrated whole. To this end Austin explains how Aquinas uses the four causes to understand the nature of virtue, and moreover how they remain relevant for contemporary questions in virtue ethics. The reader may question Austin's solutions to given questions, such as how to understand how those with the infused virtues can continue to find it difficult to perform good acts (p. 193). Austin argues that we
Contemporary scholars have taken up the gauntlet thrown down at them by C. S. Lewis who famously ... more Contemporary scholars have taken up the gauntlet thrown down at them by C. S. Lewis who famously admonished that while '[t]o the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it ' (1960, p. 87). Indeed, Lewis would hopefully look favourable upon contemporary attempts to make sense of friendship, whether in history ), in Politics (Smith, 2011), in International Relations (Koschut and Oelsner, 2014), or in Foreign Policy Analysis . While these works debate the essence of friendship, other works focus on the narratives of friendships between political actors . In the media as well, friendships between politicians can count upon heightened scrutiny, best illustrated by the attention newspapers give to the joint walks on the beach of French Presidents and German Chancellors. Indeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy even earned the moniker Merkozy in the press (Van Hoef, 2014, p. 63). Ancient works on friendships can count upon renewed interest as well, and it is here where John Von Heyking's work, based upon an elaborate reading of Plato and Aristotle, can be placed. Because of the renewed interest in friendship, the first critical question must be whether Von Heyking has anything to add to previous interpretations (such as: Smith . Because friendship pervaded both Greek personal and political culture, it is no wonder that the Greeks made friendship the centre of their political theory. Despite Plato's prominence, most works focusing on friendship draw upon Aristotle's three conceptualizations of friendship, rather than those of Plato. Friendship is addressed in several of Plato's works, most prominently in his Symposium, Lysis, and also in his Phaedrus. Plato's account of friendship has been criticized for being cold-hearted and egocentric, most prominently by Gregory Vlastos who concluded that Plato was not interested in other individuals for their own sake, but for his own needs and desires (a spiritual
Authors generally take one of two approaches to surveying Buddhist philosophy. There is the histo... more Authors generally take one of two approaches to surveying Buddhist philosophy. There is the historically oriented introduction, which charts the development from early Abhidharma to later Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. Examples of this style include David Kalupahana's A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities and Discontinuities (1992) and Paul Williams and Anthony Tribe's Buddhist Thought (2000). Then there is the topic-oriented introduction, which focuses on major questions under discussion (What is suffering and how do we end it? What is the theory of no-self? How does the concept of emptiness square with the doctrine of rebirth?). Mark Gowan's Philosophy of the Buddha: An Introduction (2003) and Mark Siderits' Buddhism as Philosophy (2007) and are two instances of this approach. The risk in focusing on historical development is losing the philosophical thread in a morass of texts and commentaries, schools and sub-schools. On the other hand, isolating topics from their historical context runs the risk of misrepresentation and oversimplification. An excellent survey, using either method, will be attentive to the situatedness of philosophical claims without losing sight of the overarching conversation. This enables a reader to engage in the conversation from within her own philosophical tradition, equipped with an awareness of how it relates to Indian Buddhism, so that she might, in Gadamerian terms, aim toward a fusion of horizons. In her recent book, Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Amber D. Carpenter marries both historical and topical approaches in an excellent introduction to the themes and texts of Indian Buddhist philosophy. If the book leans toward one of the two styles, it is toward the topical (despite the book copy advertising it as "roughly chronological"). However, she doesn't fall into historical oversimplification for the sake of philosophical dialectic. Carpenter's aim is to unfold the development of Indian Buddhist thought with a particular focus on ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Since her goal is to orient the reader only to Indian Buddhist philosophy, she does not emphasize non-Buddhist interlocutors. Nor, since she focuses on Indian philosophy, does she continue much beyond the seventh century, since, by this point in history, Buddhism was making inroads into Tibet through Śāntarakṣita and others. Carpenter organizes Indian Buddhist Philosophy into eight chapters, which take the reader from the auspicious birth of Siddhartha Gautama in the fifth century b.c.e. up to the Mādhyamika Śāntideva's miraculously levitating recitation of the Bodhicāryāvatāra in the eighth century c.e. Chapter 1 introduces the history and legends of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path. In this chapter, Carpenter explores different ways to frame suffering, concluding that it is best under-
Beloved of My Heart: The Writings and Prayers of St Gertrude the Great for Everyone. Simplified and illustrated by Elizabeth RuthObbard. Pp. 150, London: New City, 2020, £7.50
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