Terrance W. Klein - Böcker

What is the meaning of the word `grace'? Can Wittgenstein's maxim that the meaning of a word is its usage help explicate the claims that Christians have made about grace? When Christians use the word, they reference within language the point of contact between humanity and the divine. Terrance W. Klein suggests that grace is not an occult object but rather an insight, a moment when we perceive God to be active on our behalf. Klein examines the biblical evidence that grace begins as a recognition of God's favour, before considering Augustine as the theologian who champions history rather than nature as the place of encounter with grace. Aquinas' work on grace is also explored, retrieving the saint's thought on three seminal concepts: nature, form, and the striving intellect. Overall, Klein suggests that grace is the perception of a form, an awareness that the human person is being addressed by the world itself.

This book offers a contemporary Christian explication of the word 'soul' that uses Wittgenstein and his interpreters to suggest that human intelligence and desire cannot be 'mapped into the world' that is described by science and metaphysics. It examines the Aristotelian notion of the soul as one who acts in the world, and suggests that we construct ourselves, our narratives, by our actions in history. Drawing upon the resurrection accounts of the gospels, where Jesus is presented as having been 'translated into the liturgy' it speculates that the core of the human person, his or her intelligence, can be translated into other material mediums, all the while maintaining personal identity. Reading Aquinas according to the insights of contemporary figures in Anglo-American philosophy of language, Klein argues that, ultimately, to be a soul is to be a narrative destined for Christic incorporation into the Book of Life spoken of in Revelation.