Thursday, July 02, 2009

The Shelf

I now have a bookshelf in my bedroom (my "office") that contains the most influential books in my theological work.  It contains several copies of the bible both in the original languages and in various translation, the Summa in Latin, and the Lord of the Rings.  The reason why the third, I really doubt I would be in theology at all, and perhaps wouldn't be a believer if the LotR had not allowed me to rethink the practical materialism of my youth.  Although I was a believer, I thought like a Cartesian, and therefore my understanding of the cosmos was materialistic.  I was intellectually very scientific and rationalistic, and therefore subject to the caprice of my emotions, much like Walker Percy describes American culture in Lost in the Cosmos.  LotR changed all that.  I realized the spiritual potential of matter in his imaginative work. I'm pretty sure some kind of apprehension of the reality of spirit and its connection to the material universe is necessary for a robust Christianity. 

My de Lubac collection takes up a large part of the next shelf down.

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