R J Snell

A world lacking transcendence is a world lacking hope-a world locked in the despair of utter immanence. Humans cannot long endure despair, and so they contrive false substitutes for hope. But these always disappoint. This book first explores the despair that follows from radical immanence, then the manifold false and flailing attempts to provide hope, and then, finally, hope in its fullness. It is a troubling tale of malaise and feverish attempts to conjure alternatives, especially through political rationalism, humanitarianism, and faux enchantment. But, after looking despair full in the face, Lost in the Chaos also offers us a dynamic ontology, a cognitional theory, and the virtue of hope itself. Yes, ours is in many ways a hopeless age, but in the end this hopelessness is a call to renewed hope, which has never truly been lost.

A world lacking transcendence is a world lacking hope-a world locked in the despair of utter immanence. Humans cannot long endure despair, and so they contrive false substitutes for hope. But these always disappoint. This book first explores the despair that follows from radical immanence, then the manifold false and flailing attempts to provide hope, and then, finally, hope in its fullness. It is a troubling tale of malaise and feverish attempts to conjure alternatives, especially through political rationalism, humanitarianism, and faux enchantment. But, after looking despair full in the face, Lost in the Chaos also offers us a dynamic ontology, a cognitional theory, and the virtue of hope itself. Yes, ours is in many ways a hopeless age, but in the end this hopelessness is a call to renewed hope, which has never truly been lost.

In a series of fascinating interviews, a cradle Catholic (Robert P. George) and an adult convert (R. J. Snell), offer the stories of sixteen converts, each a public intellectual or leading voice in their respective fields, and each making a significant contribution to the life of the Church. Mind, Heart, and Soul is a Surprised by Truth for a new generation. It will reinvigorate the faith of Catholics and answer questions or address hurdles those discerning entering the Church may have...by people have had the same questions and the same road. While some of the converts are well-known, their stories are not. Here they speak for themselves, providing the reasons for belief that prompted these accomplished men and women to embrace the ancient faith. Included are interviews with a bishop, a leading theologian and priest, a member of the International Theological Commission, a former megachurch pastor, a prominent pro-life scholar, professors from Harvard and other universities, as well as journalists and writers, novelists and scholars. Each are interviewed by another leading scholar, many of whom are themselves converts and familiar with the hesitations, anxieties, discoveries, and hopes of those who discover the Faith. These conversion stories remind us that the Catholic Church retains her vitality, able to provide answers and reasons for hope to new generations of believers, always sustained by the Holy Spirit. It is all too-easy to become discouraged in our day and age, but God never fails to call people to Himself, as evidenced by these remarkable stories.

An exploration of the underpinings of Christian higher education, in which the mission of the university can develop an authentic mode of living based on love. Humans are lovers, and yet a good deal of pedagogical theory, Christian or otherwise, assumes an anthropology at odds with human nature, fixed in a model of humans as "thinking things". Turning to Augustine, or at least Augustine in conversation with Aquinas, Martin Heidegger, the overlooked Jesuit thinker Bernard Lonergan, and the important contemporary Charles Taylor, this book provides a normative vision for Christian higher education. A phenomenological reappropriation of human subjectivity reveals an authentic order to love, even when damaged by sin, and loves, made authentic by grace, allow the intellectually, morally, and religiously converted person to attain an integral unity. Properly understanding the integral relation between love and the fullness of human life overcomes the split between intellectual and moral formation, allowing transformed subjects -authentic lovers - to live, seek, and work towards the values of a certain kind of cosmopolitanism. Christian universities exist to make cosmopolitans, properly understood, namely, those persons capable of living authentically. In other words, this text gives a full-orbed account of human flourishing, rooted in a phenomenological account of the human as basis for the mission of the university.