Table Of Content

Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan Anthony T. Kronman Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund. Copyright © 2016 by Anthony T. Kronman. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Adobe Garamond type by Westchester Publishing Services. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955523 ISBN 978-0-30020853-5 (hardcover: alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Matt, Emma, Hope, and Alex The earth is not an echo. WALT WHITMAN, Leaves of Grass Contents Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction Part One GRATITUDE 1 The Good of Gratitude Dependence, Acceptance and Being at Home in the World 2 A World of Rights The Expulsion of Love and Gratitude from Public Life 3 “Endless Gratitude So Burdensome” Christian Theology and Western Civilization Part Two PRIDE 4 Greatness of Soul Aristotle’s Philosophy of Pride 5 Givers and Takers The Good of Self-Sufficiency 6 The Eternal and Divine What Everything Desires 7 The Best Life of All Politics and Contemplation 8 Friendship Gratitude and Human Fulfillment 9 The First Cosmopolitan Plato’s Discovery of an Invisible Self 10 Preparatio Evangelica Stoicism on the Way to Christian Thought Part Three SALVATION 11 Creation Making, Begetting and Creating 12 Will Human Freedom and the Problem of Evil 13 Grace Divine Omnipotence and the Augustinian Dilemma 14 “Not a Sparrow Falls” The Abolition of the Distinction between Form and Matter 15 The Contingency of the World That Whose Essence Is to Exist 16 The Pagan Temptation Aquinas and the Aristotelian Revival 17 God Unchained Ockham’s Defense of Divine Freedom 18 Theology of the Cross The Lutheran Reformation 19 The Hatred of Man Augustine Redux 20 The Absolute Spontaneity of Freedom Kant’s Christian Metaphysics 21 Our Better Selves The Morality of Autonomy 22 God Becomes a Postulate Reason, Freedom and Kant’s Defense of Divine Grace 23 Reaction Joseph de Maistre’s Revolt against Pride 24 “Fantastic and Satanic” The Illiberal Theology of Donoso Cortes and Carl Schmitt 25 The Oblivion of Being Martin Heidegger’s Reconstruction of Western Philosophy 26 The Disenchantment of the World Max Weber and the Problem of Nihilism Part Four JOY 27 The Worm in the Blood Spinoza’s Conception of Science 28 The God of Sufficient Reason Physics after Spinoza 29 “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” Darwin’s Divine Biology 30 The Navel of the Dream Freud and the Science of the Mind 31 “Man Is a God to Man” The Modern Research Ideal 32 The World as an Aesthetic Phenomenon Art, Truth and Morality in Nietzsche’s Philosophy 33 The Spider in the Moonlight Nietzsche’s Interpretation of the Will to Power as Art 34 “The Gift of Transmigration” The Theology of the Modern Novel 35 Genius and Sublimity Painting since the Renaissance 36 Theological, Not Political John Rawls’ Christian Defense of Liberal Democracy 37 Democratic Vistas Walt Whitman and the Divinity of Diversity Epilogue “Downward to Darkness, on Extended Wings,” Notes Index

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In this passionate and searching book, Anthony Kronman offers a third way—beyond atheism and religion—to the God of the modern world “An astonishing, . . . epically ambitious book. . . . An intellectual adventure story based on the notion that ideas drive history, and that to dedicate yourse