Michael J. Buckley – författare

The rise of atheism in the modern world is a religious phenomenon unprecedented in history, both in the number of its adherents and in the security of its cultural establishment.  How did so revolutionary a conviction as this arise?  What can theological reflection learn from this massive shift in religious consciousness? In this book, Michael J. Buckley investigates the origins and development of modern atheism and argues convincingly that its impetus lies paradoxically in the very attempts to counter it.  Although modern atheism finds its initial exponents in Denis Diderot and Paul d’Holbach in the eighteenth century, their works bring to completion a dialectical process that reaches back to the theologians and philosophers of an earlier period.  During the seventeenth century, theologians such as Leonard Lessius and Marin Mersenne determined that in order to defend the existence of god, religious apologetics must become philosophy, surrendering as its primary warrant any intrinsically religious experience or evidence.  The most influential philosophers of the period, René Descartes and Isaac Newton, and the theologians who followed them accepted this settlement, and the new sciences were enlisted to provide the foundation for religion. Almost no one suspected the profound contradictions that this process entailed and that would eventually resolve themselves through the negation of god.  In transferring to other areas of human experience and inquiry its fundamental responsibility to deal with the existence of god, religion dialectically generated its own denial.  The origins and extraordinary power of modern atheism lie with this progressive self-alienation of religion itself.

The existence of God as demonstrated from motion has preoccupied men in every age, and still stands as one of the critical questions of philosophic inquiry. The four thinkers Father Buckley discusses were selected because their methods of reasoning exhibit sharp contrasts when they are juxtaposed. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The existence of God as demonstrated from motion has preoccupied men in every age, and still stands as one of the critical questions of philosophic inquiry. The four thinkers Father Buckley discusses were selected because their methods of reasoning exhibit sharp contrasts when they are juxtaposed. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The remarkable development of the Catholic university in the United States has raised issues about its continued identity, its promise, and its academic constituents. Michael J. Buckley, SJ, explores these questions, especially as they have been experienced in Jesuit history and contemporary commitments. The fundamental proposition that grounds the Catholic university, Buckley argues, is that the academic and the religious are intrinsically related. Academic inquiry encourages a process of questioning that leads naturally to issues of ultimate significance, while the experience of faith is towards the understanding of itself and of its relationship to every other dimension of human life. This mutual involvement requires a union between faith and culture that defines the purposes of Catholic higher education. In their earliest and normative documents, Jesuit universities have been encouraged to achieve this integration through the central role given to theology.Buckley explores two commitments that implicate contemporary Catholic universities in controversy: an insistence upon open, free discussion and academic pluralism - to the objections of some in the Church; and, an education in the promotion of justice - to the objections of some in the academy. Finally, to strengthen philosophical and theological studies, Buckley suggests both a "philosophical grammar" that would discover and study the assumptions and methods involved in the various forms of disciplined human inquiry and a set of "theological arts" founded upon the more general liberal arts. Entering into the contemporary discussion about the Catholic university, this book offers inspiring and thought-provoking ideas for those engaged in Catholic higher education.