The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity Book

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     1
A Preliminary Overview     1
The Bias     3
The Taste     3
Thinking about Wisdom     5
The Christian Wisdom Tradition     7
The Eclipse of Wisdom in the West     13
The Time of Vatican II: Toward a Rebirth of Christian Wisdom     14
The Way of Wisdom     16
Four Historical Moments     17
Four Movements     18
Spirit and History     19
Movement I: The Sapiential Awakening     21
Wonder and Awakening     21
The Sapiential Event and Its Eclipse     22
The Sapiential Awakening of the Twentieth Century     23
Henri de Lubac: The Anatomy of Christian Wisdom     24
Jean Leclercq: The Two Medieval Theologies     27
Cipriano Vagaggini: Between Two Wisdoms     28
The Quaternary Unfolding of the Christ-Mystery     30
The Revolution of Jesus     31
Rationalization of the Mystery     33
Thomas Merton: Opening Christian, Wisdom (I)     34
Karl Rahner: Opening Christian Wisdom (II)     41
The Paradox of Christian Wisdom: The Word of the Cross     51
Conclusion     52
Movement II: The Eastern Turn     53
The New East-West Relationship     53
Nonduality     56
Christian Nonduality I     61
Baptismal Initiation: Point of Contact with the East and Pivot of Identity     64
Theological Corollaries of the Principle of Nondual Baptismal Identity     68
(I) Breaking through the Container of Dualistic Christianity     70
(II) Unitive Interpretation of the Christ-mystery     72
(III) Unitive Interpretation of the New Testament     73
(IV) A New Theology Centered in the Explicit Unitive Principle     76
(V) Unitive Anthropology     78
(VI) Fullness at the Beginning     82
(VII) The Trajectory of Life: From Baptism to Eucharist     85
(VIII) Contemplation as Conscious Experience of Baptismal Identity     89
(IX) History Understood in the Light of Unitive Self-realization     90
Movement III: The Western (Modern) Turn     93
Modernity     93
The Vocation of the West     97
The Shape of Western History     99
Renaissance     103
The Modern Individual     117
Freedom     121
Jesus' Revolution and the History of the West     127
Participation and History     130
Wisdom and the West     134
The Shadow and the Destiny of the West     143
Movement IV: The Global (Postmodern) Turn     146
Postmodernity     146
Interpretations of Globalization     152
Toward a Global Consciousness     160
Resistance to Incarnation     164
The Descent of History     169
Global Christianity: The Southern Turn     173
Christian Nonduality II: Incarnation     176
The Incarnation of Wisdom     180
Epilogue     185
Notes     191
Bibliography     209
Index     219