Godsends

<p><b><i>Godsends</i> is William Desmond's newest addition to his masterwork on the borderlines between philosophy and theology.</b></p><p>For many years William Desmond has been patiently constructing a philosophical project-replete with its own terminology idiom grammar dialectic and its metaxological transformation-in an attempt to reopen certain boundaries: between metaphysics and phenomenology between philosophy of religion and philosophical theology between the apocalyptic and the speculative and between religious passion and systematic reasoning. In <i>Godsends</i> Desmond's newest addition to his ambitious masterwork he presents an original reflection on what he calls the companioning of philosophy and religion. Throughout the book he follows an itinerary that has something of an Augustinian likeness: from the exterior to the interior from the inferior to the superior. The stations along the way include a grappling with the default atheism prevalent in contemporary intellectual culture; an exploration of the middle space the metaxu between the finite and the infinite; a dwelling with solitudes as thresholds between selving and the sacred; a meditation on idiot wisdom and transcendence in an East-West perspective; an exploration of the different stresses in the mysticisms of Aurobindo and the <i>Arnhem Mystical Sermons</i>; a dream monologue of autonomy a suite of Kantian and post-Kantian variations on the story of the prodigal son; a meditation on the beatitudes as exceeding virtue in light of Aquinas's understanding; and culminating in an exploration of Godsends as telling us something significant about the surprise of revelation in word idea and story. <i>Godsends</i> is written for thoughtful persons and scholars perplexed about the place of religion in our time and hopeful for some illuminating companionship from relevant philosophers. It will also interest students of philosophy and religion especially philosophical theology and philosophical metaphysics.</p>