Nicholas Lash – författare

Nicholas Lash’s new collection of essays exposes the crisis in our thinking about God which is at the root of our misunderstandings and mistakes about science and politics, ethics and economics, life and death. Opening with a devastating critique of Richard Dawkins, he goes on to discuss the `impossibility of atheism’, disentangle faith and reason, retrieve the legacy of the Second Vatican Council, and – amongst many other delights – offer sparkling insights into Diderot and Joseph Conrad. Theology for Pilgrims exhibits Nicholas Lash’s characteristic exuberance, combativeness and wit, and shows again his unrivalled ability to make the reader `come to see the point about Jesus’.

This brief interpretation of the Apostles' Creed enables readers to thoroughly understand the Creed, structurally and theologically, in the face of widespread contemporary misreading.

This brief interpretation of the Apostles' Creed enables readers to thoroughly understand the Creed, structurally and theologically, in the face of widespread contemporary misreading.

The title of Lash's book, inspired by a combination of George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, symbolizes his answer to the problem with which he is concerned, that of religious experience. 'I propose,' he says, 'to argue, on the one hand, that it is not the case that all experience of God is necessarily religious in form or content and, on the other hand, that not everything which it would be appropriate to characterize as "religious" experience would thereby necessarily constitute experience of God.'To sustain his argument he begins by building up an account of the relationship between the principal elements of human experience which contrasts quite fundamentally with that proposed and presupposed in William James's classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, drawing on writers as different as Schleiermacher and Buber, Rahner and Newman. 'However,' he goes on, 'this is not a book about James or Newman, Rahner or Schleiermacher. It is the issues, or the argument, which interest me.' 'I want to try to understand the senses in which, and the circumstances in which, our common human experience may be said, from the standpoint of a Christian account of such experience, to furnish us with experience and knowledge of the mystery of God, and to indicate the doctrine of God that is implied in this attempt.'

The title of Lash's book, inspired by a combination of George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, symbolizes his answer to the problem with which he is concerned, that of religious experience. 'I propose,' he says, 'to argue, on the one hand, that it is not the case that all experience of God is necessarily religious in form or content and, on the other hand, that not everything which it would be appropriate to characterize as "religious" experience would thereby necessarily constitute experience of God.'To sustain his argument he begins by building up an account of the relationship between the principal elements of human experience which contrasts quite fundamentally with that proposed and presupposed in William James's classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, drawing on writers as different as Schleiermacher and Buber, Rahner and Newman. 'However,' he goes on, 'this is not a book about James or Newman, Rahner or Schleiermacher. It is the issues, or the argument, which interest me.' 'I want to try to understand the senses in which, and the circumstances in which, our common human experience may be said, from the standpoint of a Christian account of such experience, to furnish us with experience and knowledge of the mystery of God, and to indicate the doctrine of God that is implied in this attempt.'

The title of Professor Lash's new book, inspired by a combination of George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, symbolizes his answer to the problem with which he is concerned, that of religious experience.'I propose,' he says, 'to argue, on the one hand, that it is not the case that all experience of God is necessarily religious in form or content and, on the other hand, that not everything which it would be appropriate to characterize as "religious" experience would thereby necessarily constitute experience of God.'To sustain his argument he begins by building up an account of the relationship between the principal elements of human experience which contrasts quite fundamentally with that proposed and presupposed in William James's classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, drawing on writers as different as Schleiermacher and Buber, Rahner and Newman. 'However,' he goes on, 'this is not a book about James or Newman, Rahner or Schleiermacher. It is the issues, or the argument, which interest me.''I want to try to understand the senses in which, and the circumstances in which, our common human experience may be said, from the standpoint of a Christian account of such experience, to furnish us with experience and knowledge of the mystery of God, and to indicate the doctrine of God that is implied in this attempt.'

This concise introduction to the main themes of the Apostles' Creed emphasizes the fundamentally Trinitarian character of the Creed, which is often overlooked, and thereby the essential contours of the Christian faith. The author shows that, in using the Creed, we grow in knowledge of ourselves, each other, the world and the mystery of God. This is a practical, rather than an academic, book, which aims to bring ordinary Christians to a deeper understanding of the words they say in the Creed.

The common view that 'religion' is something quite separate from politics, art, science, law and economics is one that is peculiar to modern Western culture. In this book Professor Lash argues that we should begin to question seriously that viewpoint: the modern world is ending and we are now in a position to discover new forms of ancient wisdom, which have been obscured from view. These essays explore this idea in a number of directions, examining the dialogue between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture and questions of Christian hope. Part One examines the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism, while Part Two considers the relations between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture, and questions of Christian hope, or eschatology.

Nicholas Lash shows how the main contours of the Christian doctrine of God may be mapped onto principal features of our culture and its predicaments. After an introductory chapter on 'The Question of God Today', Nicholas Lash considers - in chapters entitled 'Globalization and Holiness', 'Cacophony and Conversation' and 'Attending to Silence' - three dimensions of our contemporary predicament: globalization, a crisis of language, and the pain and darkness of the world, in relation to the doctrine of God as Spirit, Word, and Father.