DSPT Faculty Book Recommendations
Placher, William C. The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong 
. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Shanley, Brian, O.P. The Thomist Tradition . Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
Wallace, William A., O.P. The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis . Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
CHRISTIAN ETHICS
Pincakers, Servais, O.P. The Sources of Christian Ethics . Catholic University Press, 1995.
An important overview of the history of moral theologies with an in depth study of Thomistic understanding of freedom,virtue, and moral development. The material presented in this volume is essential to contemporary explorations in moral theology.
Pope, Stephen J. The Ethics of Aquinas . Georgetown University Press, 2002.
This anthology of articles on Thomas Aquinas' ethics covers various aspects of the Aquinas' work. The twenty-seven articles focus on all aspects of historical and contemporary interpretations of Aquinas. It is the starting point for anyone interested in studying Aquinas' moral theology.
ISLAM
Murata, Sachiko and William Chittick. The Vision of Islam . Paragon House, 1994.
A theology study of Islam. The authors present a unique, yet thoroughly comprehensive exposition of various aspects of Islamic belief and practice. People of all faiths will welcome this honest and deeply spiritual approach to understanding Islam.
Safi, Omid. Progressive Muslims . One World, 2003.
An anthology covering the topics of democracy, pluralism and gender justice in Islam. The scholars represented in this volume are some of the leading Muslim thinkers in the world today. The introduction essay alone is worth the price of this volume.
Anderson, Cheryl B. Women, Ideology, and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law . London & New York: T & T Clark International, 2004.
Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan . New York: Amistad, 2005.
Durham, John I. The Biblical Rembrandt: Human Painter in a Landscape of Faith . Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004.
This beautiful book explores some of the famous Dutch painter’s art which expresses biblical texts, commenting on artistic interpretation, technique, and also the artist’s deep faith. Filled with drawings and other reproductions, and not so expensive as you might dread!
McDonnell, Kilian, OSB. The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal . Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.
McKenzie, Steven L. How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature—Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference, and What It Means for Faith Today . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
McKenzie is both an academic biblical scholar and a believer and is thus able to bridge realms that are often held separate. Moderns need to know certain things that scholars have learned over the past centuies, and this is a useful book for clarifying some of those issues.
Sacks, Rabbi Jonathan. To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility . New York: Schocken Books, 2005.
Many people wonder about the responsibility of God for big events, interventions, so-called, into human lives. Sacks rather urges that we look at the many ways in which human beings, presumably or arguably motivated by their God-relationships, do good deeds of all sizes, which reflect God’s care.
Cates, Diana Fritz. Choosing to Feel . South Bend Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.
This beautifully written book develops the importance of compassion in the framework of the Aristotelian/Thomist tradition of the virtues in general, and of friendship in particular.
Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves . Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960.
One of C.S. Lewis' great classics, is a "simple," yet thoroughly profound, analysis of the ways in which human beings love (as those who have affection for one another, as friends, as "lovers," and as lovers of God). It remains unsurpassed in its interweaving of practical wisdom, metaphysical insight, and Christian sensibility.
Porter, Jean. The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics . Louisville KY, Westminster/John Knox Press: 1990.
This was the first book of Jean Porter, one of the premier Roman Catholic moral theologians in the country. In it she eloquently develops Aquinas' basic understanding of the moral life, with emphasis on the place of the virtues in such a life.
Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind . New York, Harmony Books (Crown): 1991.
This is a landmark, one-volume, narrative intellectual and cultural history of the Western tradition from its ancient Greek origins to "post-modernity." Written with great fluency and style, Tarnas makes easily accessible the broad development of the tradition in a balanced, synthetic, and nuanced fashion.
Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche . New York, Viking: 2006. (Buy from Amazon.com!)
Tarnas' second major work is a scholarly retrieval of elements of the astrological tradition which stresses its archetypal, indicative, and participatory nature. His argument is that the Greek concept of form, which was lost in the development of modern thought, has been rediscovered in both depth psychology and archetypal astrology; the latter provides an important avenue for reuniting the subjective and objective aspects of form that have been bifurcated for so long.
Weinandy, Thomas. Does God Change? The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation . Still River, MA, St. Bede's: 1985.
Although dealing with the complex development of the doctrine of the Incarnation and its metaphysical suppositions, Weinandy is able to articulate with remarkable clarity the crucial issues that the Christian tradition has wrestled with for two millennia; his sections on Cyril of Alexandria and Thomas Aquinas are particularly well-written and cogent.
