David Tracy

"Long a vital fixture in the University of Chicago's intellectual community, David Tracy (b. 1939) is also widely considered the most important Catholic theologian in North America. He is known for his work on the pluralistic context of theology and his embrace of ambiguity as a necessary and enriching facet of religious life. Tracy's work is unusual for its disciplinary breadth, drawing on science, literature, the arts, Continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, and non-Western religious traditions. This second volume of his "Selected Essays" is devoted to profiles of significant theologians, philosophers, and religious thinkers. The first volume (already transmitted) gathers Tracy's most important essays on broad theological questions. The title of volume 2 refers to Walt Whitman's "filaments," which are thrown out from the speaking self to others (ancient, medieval, modem, and contemporary) in order to "catch somewhere, O my soul." Tracy's essays on these individual interlocutors are arranged in rough chronological order from ancient theology (Augustine) through medieval (William of St. Thierry) to early modem (Martin Luther) to modem and contemporary (Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, et al.). Taken together, these essays can be understood as a partial initiation into a history of Christian theology, defined by Tracy's key virtues of plurality and ambiguity. These two volumes of essays--Tracy's first books in over twenty years-will be greeted as a major event for Catholic theology and religious studies more generally"--

Theological Profiles, Selected Essays

Filaments

Frank Reynolds

The first volume in a new series generated by a multiyear project at the U. of Chicago Divinity School. Twelve essays (all but two are edited versions of papers presented at one of six semi-annual conferences) address the nature of religion, the nature of philosophy, and their relationships. Several argue that the philosophy of religions should be global in its orientation, comparative in its approach, and grounded in the empirical study of religious traditions. Others deal with historical data, shifting from the discussion of theoretical and methodological issues. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Myth and Philosophy

In Blessed Rage for Order, David Tracy examines the cultural context in which theological pluralism emerged. Analyzing orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, and radical models of theology, Tracy formulates a new 'revisionist' model. He considers which methods promise the most certain results for a revisionist theology and applies his model to the principal questions in contemporary theology, including the meanings of religion, theism, and of christology.

David Tracy

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