Books on Theology/Philosophy

Introducing the must-have for any theologian or philosopher’s collection – A Shorter Summa, from the renown author, Peter Kreeft. This shortened overview of the iconic Summa Theologica provides an elucidating and persuasive look into one of the greatest philosophical works ever penned. It captures the essential elements of St. Thomas Aquinas’ vast knowledge in a 500 page tome that is easy to understand. Contained within its pages are excerpts, explanations and introductions written by Kreeft ...

Theology is in fact the intellectus fidei-the intelligence of the one faith, the same yesterday and today, composed of distinct but analogical mysteries. The truth is symphonic, as Hans Urs von Balthasar says. It is like one piece of music played by many instruments. The greater the variety of instruments playing the same piece, the better they express the beauty of that one musical score. The same should be true of the multitude of believers around the world. If this is not the case, there i...

It is evident that the culture and the family need healing, but before we can offer a cure, we need to know the spiritual disease ailing us. Pope John Paul II offers a diagnosis in his Letter to Families: the human family is experiencing a "New Manichaeism," a variant of an ancient heresy, that was released with the philosophical revolution of the 17th century philosopher René Descartes and has reached pandemic levels today. This New Manichaeism has deteriorated our understanding of ourselves...

The Church and War was written nearly a hundred years ago, but has not lost any relevance in our day. The author, Franziskus Stratmann, O.P. (1883-1971), was a long-standing advocate for peace. Making full use of the Catholic tradition, he shows how modern warfare is incompatible with the Church's teachings. While a few of his finer points may be debated by some, Stratmann's motivation for this study demands attention. His aim was "to learn how we can bring the world out of anarchy to order, ...

This is the first of a series of reprints by Arouca Press. It features an exact reproduction of the interior from the original work published in 1961. It includes a new and classically designed cover. Excerpt from the Preface:The term "dialogue" crops up today more and more frequently. It emerges before the reading public in publications as diverse as Theological Studies, Time, Harper's, or the New Yorker. While this book was never intended by its author as a contribution to the dialogue betw...

The Glories of Divine Grace: A Fervent Exhortation to All to Preserve and to Grow in Sanctifying Grace We know that through Baptism we become children of God and heirs of heaven--that we receive sanctifying grace and have a share in the life of God himself. But what does that mean in our daily lives? The Glories of Divine Grace describes the immense gift of grace won for us by the Savior and the inconceivable power this grace gives to our lives. Among the mysteries of faith, the doctrine of g...

An Arouca Press Reprint of Msgr. Van Noort's classic work that was originally translated into English in 1955. It features an exact reproduction of the interior with a newly designed cover. Excerpt from the Preface: All priests know of many excellent manuals of theology in Latin. Many, however, confess that their long years in the ministry have seen them lose their mastery of that language and, as a consequence, the urge to pick up their seminary textbooks is not too strong. Our own teaching...

This is the first of a series of reprints by Arouca Press. It features an exact reproduction of the interior from the original work published in 1957. It includes a new and classically designed cover. From the inside of the original book:This volume is one of the most interesting in the series. It gives a full treatment of the Church, how it was considered through the ages, what others object to in Catholic teaching and what true theology can prove to be the case. While accurately adhering to...

Jesus Christ (His Life, His Teaching, and His Work): Vol. 2 In the two comprehensive volumes of his monumental work on the life of our Lord Jesus Christ Father Prat has left to the world an enduring masterpiece. In clearly intelligible phrase the author conveys to us the earthly career of our Lord and Saviour, building up from the sacred books and from all authentic sources the background of the scenes described and the deeds enacted. At the same time copious notes keep us in touch with every...

Jesus Christ (His Life, His Teaching, and His Work): Vol. 1 In the two comprehensive volumes of his monumental work on the life of our Lord Jesus Christ Father Prat has left to the world an enduring masterpiece. In clearly intelligible phrase the author conveys to us the earthly career of our Lord and Saviour, building up from the sacred books and from all authentic sources the background of the scenes described and the deeds enacted. At the same time copious notes keep us in touch with every...

The highly respected and influential philosopher Peter Kreeft presents a thought-provoking exploration of sixteen key questions about the existence of God in his latest book, Because God Is Real.For those looking for clarity on their spiritual journey, no matter where they stand on their faith today, this work of popular apologetics is an ideal starting point. Written from an inviting and easily digestible perspective that seeks to win minds as well as hearts, Kreeft tackles important questio...

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...

He Leadeth Me is a deeply personal story of one man's spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse. Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy", Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent some twenty-three agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. In He Leadeth Me, he relates how it was only through an utter reliance on God's will that he managed...

 The Book That Influenced C. S. Lewis In 1962, Christian Century asked the well-known Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, to name the books that had most influenced his thought. Among those that Lewis listed was Arthur J. Balfour's Theism and Humanism (1915). This was no passing whim. Almost twenty years earlier, in 1944, Lewis had lamented in "Is Theology Poetry" that Theism was "a book too little read." Many others shared Lewis' enthusiasm. When Balfour gave the original lectures on which the bo...

How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith What does Plato have to do with the Christian faith? Quite a bit, it turns out. In ways that might surprise us, Christians throughout the history of the church and even today have inherited aspects of the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, who was both Socrates's student and Aristotle's teacher. To help us understand the influence of Platonic thought on the Christian faith, Louis Markos offers careful readings of some of Plato's best-known texts...

To help celebrate the fourth centenary of the birth of St. John of the Cross in 1542, Edith Stein received the task of preparing a study of his writings. She uses her skill as a philosopher to enter into an illuminating reflection on the difference between the two symbols of cross and night. Pointing out how entering the night is synonymous with carrying the cross, she provides a condensed presentation of John's thought on the active and passive nights, as discussed in The Ascent of Mount Car...

When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Newsweek called it "a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world." Since that time, the book has been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies. Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release t...

A Reader in the Philosophy of Catholic Education No other living tradition has been thinking about thinking longer than the Catholic Church. With carefully selected readings from classical, patristic, medieval, modern, and contemporary sources, Renewing the Mind proposes the Catholic tradition as the noblest and best hope for a recovery of humane learning in our time. Edited by theologian and philosopher Ryan N.S. Topping, this anthology draws from a range of classical and contemporary philo...

The Dimensions of the Literary Imagination Christ and Apollo juxtaposes Christian definiteness to romantic mythologizing. A strong warning might be in order: anyone coming to this book expecting a comparison of Jesus Christ to the god Apollo or a treatment of Greek mythology next to the Christian story will be disappointed. Lynch's Apollo is not the god who batters Achilles' armor from the shoulders of Patroklos in Book XVI of the Iliad, but the symbol of art as dream reconceived by Nietzsche...

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...

In the struggle to find the touchstone between faith and reason, modern psychology is often a very problematic area for Catholics. Why? Because post-Freudian psychology is based on a mistaken idea that moral laws lead to neurosis. It argues that we must be freed from morality in order to become psychologically whole. In this powerful and assuring book, Fr. Brian Mullady examines the nature of a healthy Christian emotional life, and ultimately provides the Catholic answer to the problematic th...

The Sacred Liturgy, declares Vatican II, is the font from which all the Church's spiritual power flows. In his modern classic work The Wellspring of Worship, Fr. Jean Corbon explores the meaning of the Liturgy as the wellspring or source of the Church's life and worship of God. The Liturgy itself is a sharing in the mystery of the Triune God and in the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. Corbon writes that it is the mystery of the river of life that streams from ...

Who is God? What, if anything, can be known about him? For millennia, man has felt within himself a connection to the divine, sometimes rational, sometimes moral, sometimes aesthetic, but always a connection. Generation after generation passed down stories of divine origins, of divine interventions, of divine judgment. When the Greeks began first to philosophize, they too began to think about the gods. When the Christians first began to teach the love of Jesus, they too were soon drawn to ref...