Books on Theology/Philosophy

This book an anthology of some of the best columns that Fr. Ripperger ever wrote for The Latin Mass Magazine on many different topics involving Catholic tradition as it relates to current issues in our modern world. Some of the topics include:  The Different Kinds of Tradition Subversion of Tradition Immanentism and the Ecclesiological Devastation Modern Man's Superiority Complex The Value of a Mass The Spirituality of the Ancient Liturgy Teaching Modesty Liturgical Development Christian Art...

In this work, Fr. Ripperger addresses questions in regard to the theological tradition on the consensus of the Fathers and the Theologians. With careful theological precision, he demonstrates who is to be considered a Father of the Church, as well as who is to be considered a Theologian, and what demonstrates a true consensus of their thought throughout the ages. In our modern age where everything seems to be up in the air and drawn into controversy, Fr. Ripperger gives a rare window into the...

When one observes the theological and philosophical collapse among many members of the Church, even some of the higher levels of the Magisterium, as the result of centuries of philosophical and theological decay, one is struck by the lack of rational principles governing the reasoning process in philosophy and theology. This is nowhere more evidenced than in relation to the principle of the integral good as it governs theological discussions in key areas of morality, ecclesiology, and cosmolo...

The Morality of the Exterior ACT, brought to you by the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, is the ultimate resource for exploring how we know what we are doing morally. With an in-depth discussion led by St. Thomas and other moralists, this text delves into a range of topics related to morality, ranging from an analysis of the object of the moral act and how it differs from natural acts to a thorough exploration of circumstances and the fundamental option. Boasting a wealth of knowledge from ren...

Clear, precise and inspiring, Theology for Beginners has been acclaimed as one of the outstanding modern introductions to theology. More than a compendium of the central doctrines of Catholicism, however, the book is designed to equip you with the information you need to understand key doctrines and to explain them to others. Along the way, you will find yourself falling more deeply in love with your faith and more confident of your ability to bring healing and hope to what Frank Sheed called...

Josef Pieper’s “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” provides powerful insight into the corruptive power of language when manipulated by those in power. Pieper reflects on how language has been abused to control and manipulate people at the cost of truth, wisdom and reality. He shows how tyranny and propaganda distort reality through their use of language, and shows readers a way out of this dangerous situation. With an energy that is both forceful and restrained, Pieper's book is the perfect r...

The Middle Ages witnessed tremendous strides in the development of Western philosophical thought, culminating in the arrival of Aristotelianism, the installation of Scholasticism, and the great triumph of Thomism. Conventional wisdom on the topic, however, often elides an essential element of the Medieval philosophical project: namely, in Étienne Gilson’s powerful phrasing, that it was “crowned by mysticism, [as] numberless living souls were on the watch, seeking an order of ideas and things ...

Max Weber's celebrated thesis, which explores the relationship between Protestant work ethic and the emergence of capitalist enterprise, is presented here inclusive of his lengthy notes. In coining the phrase 'Protestant work ethic', Weber demonstrates a series of parallels between certain Protestant denominations and the modern business. The veneration of hard work, discipline, and carefulness with money birthed a culture that led over generations to the establishment of capitalism; with eno...

A Critique of Contemporary Scientism For many years, Wolfgang Smith has been putting forward an expansive vision of the traditional Christian cosmos alongside an incisive critique of the truncated perspective of contemporary scientism. In Ancient Wisdom and Modern Misconceptions he shows how the physical sciences, freed from prevailing misconceptions, actually corroborate the traditional wisdom long thought to be dead. Basing himself in part upon epistemological considerations first enunciate...

Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire While the term acedia may be unfamiliar, the vice, usually translated as sloth, is all too common. Sloth is not mere laziness, however, but a disgust with reality, a loathing of our call to be friends with God, and a spiteful hatred of place and life itself. As described by Josef Pieper, the slothful person does not "want to be as God wants him to be, and that ultimately means he does not wish to be what he really, fundamentally is." Sloth is a hell...

Discover the mysteries of Christianity like never before with A Metaphysics of the Christian Mystery, an Introduction to the Work of Jean Borella. Written by a renowned metaphysician, this invaluable work provides readers with an entirely new perspective on Christianity and its associated phenomena. The author's deep thinking about the subject has opened a fresh path for understanding this age-old faith, one that is otherwise unfamiliar to many English-language readers. Now, you can dive into...

Revised and Expanded Edition In this new revised edition of his groundbreaking work, Professor J. Budziszewski questions the modern assumption that moral truths are unknowable. With clear and logical arguments he rehabilitates the natural law tradition and restores confidence in a moral code based upon human nature. What We Can't Not Know explains the rational foundation of what we all really know to be right and wrong and shows how that foundation has been kicked out from under western socie...

Growing in the spiritual life can be challenging, but with the right tools it’s sure to be a fulfilling experience. Now, novice and experienced prayer warriors alike have access to invaluable insights in Peter Kreeft’s Prayer for Beginners. Based on timeless guidance from Brother Lawrence’s classic The Practice of the Presence of God, this book enables readers to discover how to connect with God through prayer in meaningful ways. Kreeft shows readers the necessity of prayer, outlining various...

This book provides a detailed, updated exposition and defense of five of the historically most important (but in recent years largely neglected) philosophical proofs of God's existence: the Aristotelian, the Neo-Platonic, the Augustinian, the Thomistic, and the Rationalist. It also offers a thorough treatment of each of the key divine attributes--unity, simplicity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, and so forth--showing that they must be possessed by the God whose existenc...

John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1993, is widely recognized as one of the most original and influential philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages.Ordered by Love offers a sympathetic exploration of a wide range of Scotus's thought. Topics covered include his understanding of the relationship between faith and reason, his doctrine of individuation by "haecceity" (thisness), his theory of the univocity of the concept of being, his emphasis on God's freed...

Looking for a book that offers thoughtful insight into why someone may have chosen to convert from fundamentalist Protestantism to Catholicism? David Currie's Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic is the perfect read. In this book, Currie provides a comprehensive exploration of his personal spiritual journey, tracing his roots in his religious upbringing of fundamentalist Protestantism and how it eventually led him to embrace Catholicism. From theology professors at Moody Bible Institute t...

Mary's Virginity as the "Form" of Christian Life We are victims of a contagious amorphism which dilutes the mysteries of faith into a current of humdrum uniformity. We have lost the form, the principle that determines the essence of a thing, distinguishing it from all others. The invitation to become perfect is open to everyone, but we have forgotten that there is a hierarchy of levels in the states of Christian life. Consequently, both marriage and the consecrated life are going through a pr...

According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross Christian Perfection and Contemplation is an entire treatise on the operation of grace in the spiritual life that clearly and skillfully explains the great principles of the spiritual life according to St. Thomas Aquinas and other sterling Catholic Sources. In fact, the author's fascinating and extremely informative footnotes are themselves worth the price of the book.

Those new to Gilson can get a sense of the theme that dominated most of his life’s work in the central essay on the historical significance of Thomism. Those familiar with him will perhaps be surprised by the sympathy with which he treats the more traditional theologians who resisted Aquinas and the Latin Averroists alike. Gilson prolongs his seminal demonstration of Scholastic influence on Descartes’s philosophy by showing that there is also some unfortunate Scholastic influence in what we w...

In this book, Peter Kreeft offers readers a comprehensive view of Thomas Aquinas' seminal work, The Summa Theologica. This timeless volume follows the great medieval theologian in his explorations of faith and reason, revelation and philosophy, and the Biblical and Greco-Roman heritages. Kreeft combines the great philosopher's passages with detailed analyses written in a professional tone that makes the work accessible to modern readers. The volume features powerful essays by Kreeft related t...

The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism offers a timely and thought-provoking rebuttal of modern atheism. In this book, Edward Feser argues that the new atheism which so often dominates discourse is based on an unfounded and mechanistic worldview—one which fails to properly acknowledge the fundamental teleological view of life espoused by the ancient philosophers. Using careful reasoning and logic, Feser refutes the notion of atheism as a valid path in life. He demonstrates why...

"Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart" by Josef Pieper is an essential guide for anyone interested in exploring the power and importance of moral character. Through his philosophical insights, Pieper gives readers a more informed understanding of their moral development and ethical responsibilities. This book will help you to understand yourself better, strengthen your relationships with others, and foster a sense of contentment through living virtuously. It is a thought-provoking r...

Few books have had as profound and lasting an impact on Christian thought as St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. A masterpiece of synthesis, the Summa brings together all that can be known about God and humanity's relationship with the divine. Written in a clear and concise style, the work is divided into three parts, with each part dealing with a specific aspect of the Christian faith.The first part, which focuses on God Himself, His nature and His attributes, is perhaps the most important...

What has liturgy to do with life? The sacred with the secular? This study proposes that the liturgy calls us, in the words of Aidan Kavanagh, "to do the world as the world was meant to be done." The sacramental liturgy of the Church and the personal liturgy of our lives should be as a seamless garment. Consecrating the World continues David Fagerberg's exploration of the Church's lex orandi (law of prayer) by expanding two major themes. The first considers liturgy as the matrix wherein our en...

From Saint Paul to Meister Eckhart Basing himself principally upon the teachings of Saint Paul and the Clementine Stromata, the author begins the present treatise by distinguishing the idea of gnosis in nascent Christianity from its Gnostic counterfeit. He then considers the implications of authentic gnosis for cosmology, a question that connects intimately with his earlier studies, notably his ground-breaking work regarding the interpretation of quantum theory. The same considerations, howev...

In Mere Christianity, legendary 20th-century author C.S. Lewis outlines the foundations of Christian faith in a concise and profound way. Drawing from his acclaimed books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, this volume provides an ideal platform to comprehend the core principles of Christian belief. In Mere Christianity readers will learn about classic topics such as the existence of God and original sin, as well as more nuanced concepts including morality a...

Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas.  From a lifetime of studying the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, popular author Peter Kreeft says that his amazement has continually increased not only at Aquinas' theoretical, philosophical brilliance and sanity, but also at his personal, practical wisdom, his "existential bite." Yet this second dimension of St. Thomas has usually been eclipsed by the other. Kreeft wrote this book to help bring that sun out from its eclipse. He provides easily dig...

The four books (Introduction to Theology, Revelation, The Channels of Revelation, The Church) conveniently gathered in this volume titled The Science of Sacred Theology, were written by the great but sorely neglected theologian, Fr. Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I. (1903-1976), as abbreviated texts of his Theologia Dogmatica, a two-volume work totaling over 2,000 pages. These four books were originally published by the Notre Dame Pontifical Catechetical Institute which was founded by Msgr. Eugene Kev...

The startling assertion that "the laity must be apostolic" requires unpacking as the Church becomes more and more confined in modern society. But, as Fr. Francis Wendell shows in this short book, there is a transformative "philosophy of presence that can be exercised only by lay people since they are present in and are of the world." In this short work, Fr. Wendell shows how: - the laity must avoid a purely external living of Christianity - how there is no one-size-fits-all program for the la...

Dorothy L Sayers' great lay contemporaries in the Church of England were T. S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, but none of them wrote a book quite like The Mind of the Maker. In this crisp, elegant exercise in theology, Sayers illuminates the doctrine of the Trinity by relating it to the process of writing fiction, a process about which she could speak with complete authority. She illustrates her thesis with many examples drawn from her own books, and even illuminates the Christian he...

The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Théologie: Concerning the Truth of Dogma and the Nature of Theology retrieves the most important and largely forgotten exchanges in the mid-20th-century debate surrounding ressourcement thinkers. It makes available new translations of works by the leading Thomists in the exchange: Dominican Fathers Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Michel Labourdette, Marie-Joseph Nicolas, and Raymond Bruckberger. In addition to a lengthy historical and theological introductio...

 Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods In his book, The Intellectual Life, A.G. Sertillanges synthesizes an instruction manual for future Dominicans on how to dedicate themselves to their studies as intellectuals and lovers of truth. By writing this book, Sertillanges makes a compelling account iterating what a vocation to the intellectual life should look like. Written shortly after the end of the Great War, Sertillanges fills his book with concrete examples of what a routine day of the life of an...

The classic debate over the existence of God is presented in a way like never before with Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. Written as a series of conversations between Lucy and AJ at a coffee shop, this unique book covers St. Thomas Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God in everyday language to make it easily accessible to readers. With helpful examples and analogies, Fradd and Delfino's dialogue helps bridge the gap between faith and underst...

To the medieval thinker, man was the center of creation, and all of nature existed purely for his benefit. The shift from the philosophy of the Middle Ages to the modern view of humanity's less central place in the universe ranks as the greatest revolution in the history of Western thought, and this classic in the philosophy of science describes and analyzes how that profound change occurred. A fascinating analysis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Gilbert, Boyle...

J. R. R. Tolkien was a profoundly metaphysical thinker, and one of the most formative influences on his imagination, according to this new study of his works, was the great thirteenth-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Structured around Tolkien’s Middle-earth creation myth, the Ainulindale, The Flame Imperishable follows the thought of Aquinas as a guide in laying bare the deeper foundations of many of the more familiar themes from Tolkien’s legendarium, including such notions as sub-cre...

Preliminaries to a Spirituality of Work In what way can human beings attain that Harmony whereby they become mediators between Heaven and Earth? In the mysterious language of symbols we can rediscover the sense of vocation that reflects Divine Activity. For God is, in reality, the sole Artisan. All the traditional crafts strive to imitate within their limitations the work of God, Who unceasingly creates and maintains the world. And in the end it is this that constitutes the sole foundation of...

The present work, the Compendium of Theology, was the last St. Thomas Aquinas undertook before his death. Thus the Compendium contains the central elements of St. Thomas's far-reaching theological vision after a lifetime of study and teaching. Here, in a seemingly effortless display, Thomas demonstrates one final time his marvelous clarity of mind, no matter the subject on which it is trained. The brevity of the work has the advantage of giving at a glance and in summary form the mature theol...

Aquinas and Modern Science: A New Synthesis of Faith and Reason is a revolutionary guide that bridges the gap between faith and reason, thoughtful speculation and rigorous scientific inquiry. It invites readers to discover the richness of Thomas's philosophy as it confronts questions about our rapidly changing world.Aquinas and Modern Science outlines a path inspiring readers to seek answers both from within our own tradition as well as from modern science in effort to construct a faithful re...

The Guide to Thomas Aquinas, by Josef Pieper, is an incredibly detailed look into the life and works of one of the most acclaimed philosophers in history – St. Thomas Aquinas. Pieper mixes his genius with faith to comprehensively explore the 13th-century world of Thomas Aquinas and his famous synthesis of Christian spirituality balanced against objective knowledge and Aristotelian theory. Striking a perfect balance between the religious and the secular, this book from one of the great twentie...

A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution Darwin's theory of evolution remains controversial, even though most scientists, philosophers, and even theologians accept it, in some form, as an explanation for the variety of organisms. The controversy erupts when the theory is used to try to explain everything, including every aspect of human life, and to deny the role of a Creator or a purpose to life. The overreaching of many scientists into matters beyond the self-imposed limits of s...