Whenever there is pain and sorrow, wealth is hidden from reality. Whenever there is confusion, disregard, unworthiness, there is a lurking fear that has not been uncovered. These shadows cover the essence of self. These shadows withdraw the self to a place of denial where the veil thickens, condenses and becomes a dense cloud full of misrepresentations. This, dear ones, is the challenge that is to be faced for all who are moved to choice: Denial or freedom. Freedom is the strength of self. Freedom is held with love and light. Freedom is within the arms of the Lord who carries this burden into the light of reason. Do you see my dears? Do you see the love that you have? Do you see the image of who you are? You are the image of the Lord Thy God. You are this light that shines through thy countenance of beauty. You are all of that and more! Gloria Excelsior

The Light of Christ provides an accessible presentation of Catholicism that is grounded in traditional theology, but engaged with a host of contemporary questions or objections. Inspired by the theologies of Iranaeus, Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman, and rooted in a post-Vatican II context, Fr. Thomas Joseph White presents major doctrines of the Christian religion in a way that is comprehensible for non-specialists: knowledge of God, the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the atonement, the sacraments and the moral life, eschatology and prayer. At the same time, The Light of Christ also addresses topics such as evolution, the modern historical study of Jesus and the Bible, and objections to Catholic moral teaching. Touching on the concerns of contemporary readers, Fr. White examines questions such as whether Christianity is compatible with the findings of the modern sciences, do historical Jesus studies disrupt or confirm the teaching of the faith, and does history confirm the antiquity of Catholic claims. This book serves as an excellent introduction for young professionals with no specialized background in theology who are interested in learning more about Catholicism, or as an introduction to Catholic theology. It will also serve as a helpful text for theology courses in a university context. As Fr. White states in the book’s introduction: “This is a book that offers itself as a companion. I do not presume to argue the reader into the truths of the Catholic faith, though I will make arguments. My goal is to make explicit in a few broad strokes the shape of Catholicism. I hope to outline its inherent intelligibility or form as a mystery that is at once visible and invisible, ancient and contemporary, mystical and reasonable.”

If there is any one author in the history of moral thought who has come to be associated with the idea of natural law, it is Saint Thomas Aquinas. Many things have been written about Aquinas's natural law teaching, and from many different perspectives. The aim of this book is to help see it from his own perspective. That is why the focus is metaphysical. Aquinas's whole moral doctrine is laden with metaphysics, and his natural law teaching especially so, because it is all about first principles. The book centers on how Aquinas thinks the first principles of practical reason, which for him are what make up natural law, function as laws. It is a controversial question, and the book engages a variety of readers of Aquinas, including Francisco Suarez, Jacques Maritain, prominent analytical philosophers, Straussians, and the initiators of the New Natural Law theory. Among the issues addressed are the relation between natural law and natural inclination, how far natural law depends on knowledge of human nature, what its obligatory force consists in, and, above all, how it is related to what for Aquinas is the first principle of all being, the divine will.

One of the main original aims of philosophy was to give us guidance about how to live our lives. The ancient Greeks typically assumed that a life led in accordance with reason, a rational life, would also be the happiest or most fulfilling. Ingmar Persson's book resumes this project, which has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy. But his conclusions are very different; by exploring the irrationality of our attitudes to time, our identity, and our responsibility,Persson shows that the aim of living rationally conflicts not only with the aim of leading the most fulfilling life, but also with the moral aim of promoting the maximization and just distribution of fulfilment for all. Persson also argues that neither the aim of living rationally nor any of the fulfilmentaims can be rejected as less rational than any other. We thus face a dilemma of either having to enter a retreat of reason, insulated from everyday attitudes, or making reason retreat from its aspiration to be the sole controller of our attitudes.The Retreat of Reason explores three areas in which there is a conflict between the rational life and a life dedicated to maximization of fulfilment. Persson contends that living rationally requires us to give up, first, our temporal biases; secondly, our bias towards ourselves; and, thirdly, our responsibility to the extent that it involves the notion of desert and desert-entailing notions. But giving up these attitudes is so overwhelmingly hard that the effort to do so not only makesour own lives less fulfilling, but also obstructs our efficient pursuit of the moral aim of promoting a maximum of justly distributed fulfilment.Ingmar Persson brings back to philosophy the ambition of offering a broad vision of the human condition. The Retreat of Reason challenges and disturbs some of our most fundamental ideas about ourselves.

Tackles a question as old as Plato and still pressing today: What is reason, and what roles does and should it have in human endeavor? The eminent intellectual historian Martin Jay surveys Western ideas of reason, particularly in German philosophy from Kant to Habermas.

This book sheds new light on the role of freedom in Descartes' thought and defends the theory of an internal relation between freedom and reason in his metaphysics.

In Christ the Light, Whidden argues that illumination is a critical systematic motif in Aquinas’ theology, one that involves the nature of truth, knowledge, and God; at the root, Aquinas’ theology of light, or illumination, is Christological, grounding human knowledge of God and eschatological beatitude. This volume establishes the theological network formed by the crucial motif of light/illumination in Aquinas, from how theology operates to the systematic, sacramental, and moral coordinates in Aquinas’ theology.

Orah and Nathaniel return home with miracles from across the sea, hoping to bring a better life for their people. Instead, they find the world they left in chaos. GOLD MEDAL: Feathered Quill Book Awards - 2018 - Science Fiction/Fantasy BRONZE MEDAL: Readers' Favorite Book Awards - 2017 - Fiction Dystopian WINNER: Pinnacle Book Achievement Award - Winter 2017 - Best Science Fiction WINNER: Awesome Indies Approved "But what are we without dreams?" A new grand vicar, known as the usurper, has taken over the keep and is using its knowledge to reinforce his hold on power. Despite their good intentions, the seekers find themselves leading an army, and for the first time in a millennium, their world experiences the horror of war. But the keepmasters' science is no match for the dreamers, leaving Orah and Nathaniel their cruelest choice-face bloody defeat and the death of their enlightenment, or use the genius of the dreamers to tread the slippery slope back to the darkness. "In this third installment, Litwack gives fans a plot both action-driven and cerebral. All around, a superbly crafted adventure. An enthralling finish to a thoughtful, uplifting sci-fi series." Kirkus Reviews EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS the multiple award-winning third book in the extraordinary "The Seekers" series of dystopian sci-fi adventures, from the author of such award-winning greats as The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky, Along the Watchtower, and The Time That's Given.