Educating Father Abraham: The Meaning of Fatherhood

by Leon R. Kass

Abraham’s education as father and . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

Christianity and the West

by Wolfhart Pannenberg

The importance of Christianity in the formation of Western civilization can hardly be denied. That importance is not simply a matter of the past. In the process of secularization Western culture did emancipate itself from its religious roots, but that emancipation was by no means complete. A . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

After Modernity, What?

by Wilfred M. McClay

Postmodern Times:A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Cultureby gene edward veith, jr. crossway, 234 pages, $11.99 We acquire language through repetition, and in everyday life the repetition of a word helps fix its meaning. But not always. Especially not in the academic world, where . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

Justifying God's Ways

by Ian S. Markham

Evil and the Evidence for God: The Challenge of John Hick's Theodicyby r. douglass geivettafterword by john hicktemple university press, 276 pages, $44.95 If God is all-powerful, then he must be able to abolish evil; if God is all-loving, then he must wish to abolish evil; but evil exists, . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

Briefly Noted

by Various

Jack:A Life of C.S. Lewis by george sayer crossway, 423 pages, $13.99 paper Most biographies of C. S. Lewis so far have been hagiographical chronicles, the great exception being A. N. Wilson’s notorious warts-and-all treatment, which, though it has unfairly been called a hatchet job, would rather . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

Re-Viewing Vatican II

by George Weigel

George Lindbeck, the distinguished Lutheran theologian, served from 1962 through 1965 as one of sixty “Delegated Observers” from other Christian communions at the Second Vatican Council. As Lindbeck has noted on previous occasions, the ecumenical observers from the worlds of Orthodoxy and . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 1994

Educating Father Abraham: The Meaning of Wife

by Leon R. Kass

It is not exactly traditional to speak about the education of Abraham. Pious tales of the patriarch regard him as a precocious monotheist even before God calls him, a man who smashed his father’s idols, a man who sprang forth fully pious and knowledgeable about the ways of God. But, in my view, a . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Nov 1994

Life at the Intellectual Barricades

by James Nuechterlein

“But why do you have to be so polemical?” It’s a not unfamiliar complaint (see, for example, this month’s correspondence), and one that I—and the other editors of First Things—take seriously, any possible appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. We live, by choice and . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 1994

Why We Need Interreligious Polemics

by Paul J. Griffiths

The intellectual life is essentially and constitutively agonistic. It progresses almost entirely by struggle, by challenge and response, by thesis and antithesis, by getting it wrong and then moving, always asymptotically, toward getting it right. Hegel was wrong, so far as I can tell, about most . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 1994

Learning from Sartre

by John T. Mullen

Jean-Paul Sartre is not, to put it mildly, very high on the reading list of those seeking to grow in Christian piety. Indeed, most would express mild shock at the suggestion that his writings could ever make such a list. His atheism would unsettle the tremulous soul, his contradictions would both . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 1994