Joseph Ratzinger in Dialogue with Philosophical Traditions

Alejandro Sada is Professor of Theology at the Universidad Panamericana, Mexico.Tracey Rowland is St. John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. Rudy Albino de Assunçao is Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Centro Universitário Católica de Quixadá, Brasil.

Joseph Ratzinger was one of the most important theologians and Christian thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As professor, cardinal, and pope, he engaged with many of the central philosophical, political, and cultural questions of the modern age, bringing to them a perspective shaped by Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and the great tradition of Catholic theology. This distinguished volume places his thought in conversation with major philosophers from antiquity to the present, from Aristotle to Žižek. Written by an accomplished group of scholars, its chapters illuminate with insight and subtlety the ways in which Ratzinger’s thought at times converges with these thinkers and at times subjects their positions to a searching critique from within the Catholic intellectual tradition. The editors are to be warmly congratulated on a learned and stimulating collection which shows with great clarity the continuing significance of Ratzinger’s thought for the intellectual and spiritual challenges of the modern world. Strongly recommended.

• Abbreviations (J. Ratzinger Collected Works)Introduction Study: Philosophy and Theology According to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (Pablo Blanco-Sarto, Pontifical University of Holy Cross, Italy)1. Aristotle: Some Theological Inklings (María-Elena García-Peláez, Panamericana University, Mexico)2. Stoicism and Epicureanism: Nature and Logos (Claudia Carbonell, University of Piura, Peru)3. Francis Bacon: Science, Democracy, Freedom (Euclides Eslava, University of La Sabana, Colombia)4. Rene Descartes: Healing the Ruptures of Modernity (Michael Dominic Taylor, The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, USA)5. Blaise Pascal: A Theology of Experience (Alejandro Sada, Panamericana University, Mexico)6. Baruch Spinoza: “The War Between the Gods” – Deus sive natura or Deus caritas est (Michael Hanby, John Paul II Institute, Catholic University of America, USA)7. Giambattista Vico: Verum quia factum (Thomas V. Gourlay, Catholic Institute of Western Australia, Australia)8. Jean-Jaques Rousseau: The Comprehension of Nature and Freedom (María Esther Gómez de Pedro, University of Santo Tomás, Chile)9. Søren Kierkegaard: Cinnamon for a Bland Christianity and the Entweltlichung Project (Emery de Gaál, University of St. Mary of the Lake / Mundelein Seminary, USA)10. Wilhelm Dilthey: Hermeneutic Theory and Divine Pedagogy (Jacob Phillips, St. Mary’s University, UK)11. Karl Jaspers: Philosophical Faith and Christian Revelation (Josef Zöhrer, Higher School of Pedagogy in Freiburg, Germany)12. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno: Justice and Resurrection – Faith, Reason and Dialectic of Enlightenment (Rudy Albino de Assunção, Italian-Brazilian Catholic University Center, Brazil)13. Clive Staples Lewis: The Tao, Relativism and the Abolition of Man (Julio Borges Junyent, Cardenal Herrera University CEU, Spain)14. Leo Strauss: A Theologian Open to the Challenge of Philosophy (Davide De Caprio, University of Strasbourg, France)15. Emmanuel Levinas: Ostende faciem tuam – On the Concept of the Face (Donald Wallenfang, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, USA)16. Hannah Arendt: Freedom and Politics (Stephan Kampowski, Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute, Italy)17. Karol Wojtyla: Gratia supponit naturam (Jaroslaw Kupczak, Pontifical University of John Paul II, Poland)18. Leszek Kolakowski: The Priest and the Jester (Tracey Rowland, University of Notre Dame, Australia)19. Slavoj Žižek: Anthropos, Eros, Christos, Logos (Matthew Tan, University of Notre Dame Australia, Australia)Thematic Dialogues20. Sacred Scripture and Philosophy (Julián Arturo López Amozurrutia, Pontifical University of Mexico / Catholic University Lumen Gentium, Mexico)21. Liturgy and Philosophy (Matthew Levering, University of St. Mary of the Lake / Mundelein Seminary, USA)22. The Enlightenment Movement (Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai, Catholic Institute of Technology, Italy)23. The “Fruitful Reciprocity” of Science and Faith (Michael Dominic Taylor, The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, USA)24. Faith and Experience (Mariano Crespo, University of Navarra, Spain)25. The Paradox with Paradox (Michaela Christine Hastetter, Catholic University ITI, Austria)BibliographyContributors