Taking Hugh of St. Victor's On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith as his source text, Dillard applies the methods of analytic philosophy to develop a systematic theology in the spirit of Christian Platonism, exploring questions that remain pressing for readers interested in philosophy, theology, religion, and the history of medieval thought.

How the Light Gets In: Ethical Life I presents a systematic account of the teachings of the Christian faith to offer a vision, from a human, created, and limited perspective, of the ways all things might be understood from the divine perspective. It explores how Christian doctrine is lived, and the way in which beliefs are not simply cognitive sets of ideas but embodied cultural practices. Christians learn how to understand the contents of their faith, learn the language of the faith, through engagements that are simultaneously somatic, affective, imaginative, and intellectual. In the first of four volumes, Graham Ward examines the complex levels of these engagements through three historical developments in the systematic organization of doctrine: the Creeds, the Summa, and Protestant dogmatics. He outlines a methodology for exploring and practicing systematic theology that captures how the faith is lived in cultural, social, and embodied engagements. Ward then unpicks several fundamental theological concepts and how they are to be understood from the point of view of an engaged systematics: truth, revelation, judgement, discernment, proclamation, faith seeking understanding, and believing as it relates to and grounds the possibilities for faith. This groundbreaking work offers an interdisciplinary investigation through poetry, art, film, the Bible and theological discourse, analysing the human condition and theology as the deep dream for salvation. The final part relates theology as a lived and ongoing pedagogy concerned with individual and corporate formation to biological life, social life, and life in Christ. Here an approach to living theologically is sketched that is the primary focus for all four volumes: ethical life.

A comprehensive study which highlights the practical nature of Hugh of St. Victor's pioneering program of spiritual reformation.

In Divine Audacity, Peter Dillard presents a historically informed and rigorous analysis of the themes of mystical union, volition and virtue that occupied several of the foremost theological minds in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In particular, the work of Marguerite Porete raises complex questions in these areas, which are further explored by a trio of her near contemporaries. Their respective meditations are thoroughly analysed and then skilfully brought into dialogue. What emerges from Dillard's synthesis of these voices is a contemporary mystical theology that is rooted in Hugh of Balma's affective approach, sharpened through critical engagement with Meister Eckhart's intellectualism, and strengthened by crucial insights gleaned from the writings of John Ruusbroec. The fresh examination of these thinkers - one of whom paid with her life for her radicalism - will appeal to philosophers and theologians alike, while Dillard's own propositions demand attention from all who concern themselves with the nature of the union between the soul and God.

Using Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy as his springboard, Peter S. Dillard provides a radical reorientation of contemporary Christian theology. From Heidegger’s initially obscure texts concerning the holy, the gods, and the last god, Dillard extracts two possible non-metaphysical theologies: a theology of Streit and a theology of Gelassenheit. Both theologies promise to avoid metaphysical antinomies that traditionally hinder theology. After describing the strengths and weaknesses of each non-metaphysical theology, Dillard develops a Gelassenheit theology that ascribes a definite phenomenology to the human encounter with divinity. This Gelassenheit theology also explains how this divinity can guide human action in concrete situations, remain deeply consonant with Christian beliefs in the Incarnation and the Trinity, and shed light on the Eucharist and Religious Vocations. Seminal ideas from Rudolf Otto and Ludwig Wittgenstein are applied at key points. Dillard concludes by encouraging others to develop an opposing Streit theology within the non-metaphysical, Heidegerrian framework he presents.

Born in Saxony in 1096, Hugh became an Augustinian monk and in 1115 moved to the monastery of Saint Victor, Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life, eventually becoming the head of the school there. His writings cover the whole range of arts and sacred science taught in his day. Paul Rorem offers a basic introduction to Hugh's theology, through a comprehensive survey of his works. He argues that Hugh is best understood as a teacher of theology, and that his numerous and varied writings are best appreciated as a comprehensive pedagogical program of theological education and spiritual formation. Drawing his evidence not only from Hugh's own descriptions of his work but from the earliest manuscript traditions of his writings, Rorem organizes and presents his corpus within a tri-part framework. Upon a foundation of training in the liberal arts and history, a structure of doctrine is built up, which is finally adorned with moral formation. Within this scheme of organization, Rorem treats each of Hugh's major works (and many minor ones) in its appropriate place, orienting the reader briefly yet accurately to its contents, as well as its location in Hugh's overarching program of theological pedagogy.