This essay contends that René Girard is not a philosopher or a scientist whose ideas are open to theological appropriation. Instead, contrary to his assertions otherwise, the Girard corpus ought to be read as if it were articulating a form of theology whose primary intellectual home can ultimately be found on a theological map. As the field of Girardian theology grows, it becomes more evident that we need some theological lenses for examining the theology already lying waiting—sometimes inchoately, sometimes not—in (...) Girard's texts, and also for examining how theologians use and misuse his texts. If we can see that he is already doing theology then a theological critique becomes plausible and valid in principle, and indeed becomes an internal critique. Applying good interpretive lenses will provide some rigorous criteria for analyzing the degree to which Girardian theologians are following the internal logic of Girard's thought in their appropriations of it. The interpretive lenses I propose using on Girard are first the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar and then the theology of John Cassian . These two theologians provide us with lenses that help us see that Girard is fundamentally a Catholic theologian involved in resisting the speculative re‐writing of Christianity by proponents of “false gnosis” and that he belongs within the category of theologians who advocate spiritual transformation and “true gnosis.”. (shrink)

This essay is a theological interpretation of John Henry Newman’s 1877 Preface to the third edition of the Via Media of the Anglican Church. Looking at the 1877 Preface through the lens of his earlier Anglican sermons, particularly his Parochial and Plain Sermons, this essay explores Newman’s general pneumatology and its influence on his ecclesiology and considers the spirituality underlying Newman’s Christocentric and Trinitarian vision of the Church as a mutually informing and correcting symbiosis of the spiritual, theological, and hierarchical (...) dimensions of Christian faith. (shrink)

This essay—a revised version of a presentation at the Twelfth Annual Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (8 April 2006)—examines the role of theology in liberal education as both a restraint on sophisticated ideologies and as an avenue towards contemplative receptivity.

This essay examines the theological and rhetorical concerns animating John Henry Newman’s evaluation of efforts to prove the existence of God and/or the truth of Christianity with philosophical arguments about the design of nature. Newman’s complex position on arguments from design ought to be interpreted in light of his broader theological understanding of the challenges posed to the practice of Christian faith in his nineteenth century context. These challenges required that apologetics first and foremost defend the truth of Christianity as (...) a religion of holiness, not as a religion of reasonableness. (shrink)