How should philosophy approach religious experience? Can philosophy do more than describe religious experience without discussing its object? Can religion make genuine truth claims? These are some of the questions raised in these essays.

I hope that this book will be widely read, and I especially commend it to four classes of persons: I. For myself I have come across nothing more important than M. Marcel’s writings here and elsewhere on the problem of metaphysics. I say problem advisedly: for we are all of us these days in the end puzzled as to what exactly metaphysics is. The strict Thomist has his answer: so has the positivist: so too the Biblical theologian who is much too ready to find in the decay of ontology an argument for the authenticity of ‘Biblical perspectives’. M. Marcel was trained in the tradition of idealism: and he knew the influence both of Bergsen and of W. E. Hocking. His conversation with himself certainly betrays their influences: but it is of far wider significance. Professor Ayer and Dr. E. L. Mascall have their answer to the question what ontology is: they have their formulae. Marcel probes beneath these answers; for him ontology is much more than a body of doctrine. It is the intellectual expression of the human situation; what is expressed in the syllogisms of, for instance, Père Garrigou-Lagrange, is valid only in so far as it catches and summarises the very being of man and the universe, as that being is lived through and met with by man in his pilgrimage through life. I find as I read M. Marcel that the frontiers are blurred reflection, metaphysics, spirituality. And that is the strength of his seemingly inconsequent method. In a way he is too wise to suppose that the arguments of the philosophia perennis are enough in their abstract form to convince a man; they only carry conviction in relation to a whole experience of life of which they are the expression. The issues between the Thomist, the positivist, the idealist are not issues simply of doctrine but of life; and to see what they are, one must probe, stretching language beyond the frontiers of poetry, somehow to convey the issues as things through which men live. 2. The book should be studied closely by the moralist whether he be philosopher or moral theologian. Where some of the most familiar ethical ideas are concerned, Marcel reminds us of their ‘inside’ when we so often in our discussion think simply of their ‘outside’. What is a promise? We have our answer pat, our formula which permits us to go on with the discussion of our obligations to keep the promises we have made and so on. We don’t wait to probe. I find myself inevitably using that word ‘probe’ again and again in connection with M. Marcel: for what he does is to probe the unsuspected profundities of the familiar. Most professional students of ethics are morally philistine, men who give little time to penetrating the ‘inside’ of the ideas they are handling. And there Marcel pulls them up short. 3. The book should be widely read by the many Christian ‘fellow-travellers’ of today, those who follow, as it were, afar off the Christian way without themselves coming yet to the point of an act of faith in the Crucified. Its very incompleteness will respond to their groping anxiety, and it will enrich their vision of life. And this it can do because it eschews dogmatic exposition seeking rather to shew the inside of the truly Christian way of life. Fidelity, hope, charity, mystery—these are fundamental categories of the Christian way: and of all these Marcel has much to say, which is in every way fresh and yet at the same time rooted in the tradition of Catholic Christianity. The reader of such a work as Albert Camus’ La Peste, with its preoccupation with the problem of an atheistic sanctity, will understand M. Marcel. In a way he challenges the possibility of Camus’ vision; and he does so not on dogmatic grounds but by an analysis of holiness and goodness which shews indirectly their inseparability from acknowledgment of the all-embracing mystery of God. An age which has known evil as ours has and does still know it, is inevitably interested in goodness; and it is with goodness, as something inevitably issuing out of God because a gift from him, that Marcel’s studies deal. 4. And lastly I commend this book because at a time when minuteness and subtlety of mind are too often the prerogatives of the light-heartedly destructive, he reminds us that a true minuteness and a true intellectual subtlety are rooted in humility and purity of heart, and manifest the soil in which they are nourished by graciousness whose charm none can escape and a strength of argument which none can break.

"MYSTERY and MEANING" is a compilation of inspirational quotes, mystical prose, philosophical polemics, and poetic verse from the mind and heart of GEBRE MENFES KIDUS ("Servant of the Holy Spirit"). The authors words provide a unique and valuable perspective on many of the vital religious, social, and moral issues of our time. Gebre Menfes Kidus balances contemplative reflections with impassioned argument, leaving the reader both challenged and inspired. These essays and aphorisms provide edification for the philosopher, the theologian, the spiritual seeker, and the lay Christian. The author addresses a variety of topics, such as: + Orthodox Theology + Spiritual Warfare + Mysticism + Social Justice + Metaphysics + Christian Pacifism + Biblical Commentary + Human Rights + The Teachings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church This book was written with the permission and blessing of the author's Priest, Tsebate YemaneBrhane Asrat GebreMariam. All opinions and views contained within are subject to the scrutiny and correction of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) was a French existentialist and playwright who authored some 30 plays and an equal number of philosophical writings. This volume presents a translation of his four act play, The Broken World, with illustrations, commentary, a companion essay by Marcel titled Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery, and a number of relevant appendices. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A couple’s bizarre fantasy life goes awry in this electric psychological thriller for fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley. ​ The modern world holds no wonder for Arnoldo Signori. A man born in the wrong age, he yearns to escape the chaos of present-day New York and slip back into the glorious eighteenth century, when culture reigned, art was plentiful, and people lived with effortless grace. He’d do anything to be part of that bygone era. Eccentric millionaire Irene Ibis is the only person Arnoldo has ever felt a true kinship with. So when she offers to help him realize his dream, he eagerly accepts. The only condition: He must hand over every aspect of his life to her. Soon, he finds himself installed in a sumptuous palace, surrounded by magnificent beauty, with his every need taken care of. It’s heaven on earth. But it’s not perfect. And when the veil of fantasy drawn around the couple slips, cruel reality insinuates itself into their all-too-fragile existence. Now they may lose their paradise—and their lives. . . . A true renaissance man, H. F. Heard was a historian, science writer, educator, and philosopher who infused his novels—including his popular Mycroft Holmes Mysteries—with a stark, unflinching view of humanity that proved both disturbing and irresistible. Hailed by the New York Times as a “psychological horror story . . . of spine-tingling originality and excellence,” Murder by Reflection remains utterly unique and deeply chilling.