Abstract
Dr. Philip Rolnick will give the New Frontiers in Theological Research lecture this spring, discussing his book A Post-Christendom Faith, The Long Battle for the Human Soul. Dr. John Boyle will give a response. Confronted by multiple religious possibilities, the rise of atheistic naturalism, and moral relativism, one can easily become perplexed about what matters most—or be tempted to conclude that nothing could matter most. As the first volume of A Post-Christendom Faith, a set of three interrelated theological works, The Long Battle for the Human Soul examines major historical developments that have led to our contemporary confusion—so that we might chart a way forward. Separated from Christian faith, and oftentimes fiercely opposing it, early forms of secular humanism poured their energies into reshaping social and political structures, while the crescendo of critique profoundly altered the spiritual landscape of the West. With foundational certainties shattered, new movements arose that pulled in different directions, some of them dangerous and deadly. Rolnick maps this fracturing through Feuerbach's atheism, the excesses of Romantic literature, the rise of nihilism, the "moral inversion" of Marxism, Comte's positivism, and Nietzsche's all-out war against Christianity. Philip A. Rolnick is Professor of Theology and Chair of the Science and Theology Network at the University of St. Thomas. He is also the author of Origins: God, Evolution, and the Question of the Cosmos; Person, Grace, and God; and Analogical Possibilities: How Words Refer to God. Dr. Boyle is Professor of Catholic Studies and chairs that department at the University of St. Thomas. He writes on Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More and published a lost work of Thomas Aquinas. A graduate of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, he has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the Aquinas Medal from the University of Dallas, and delivered the Aquinas Lecture at the National University of Ireland. Co-sponsored by the Departments of Theology, Catholic Studies, and Philosophy.