Passionate Intellect : Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education

by Klassen, Norman, and Jens Zimmermann

• ISBN13: 9780801027345
• ISBN10: 0801027349
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-01
• Publisher: Baker Academic

Summary

Too often Christian college students feel they must either downplay their faith or stick to a small circle of like-minded friends and organizations. Somewhere along the way assumptions have taken root that intellectual university life and Christian faith cannot be synthesized. Klassen and Zimmermann assert that much is at stake for the young university student. A worldview takes a lasting shape and faith is usually discovered, deepened, or discarded during a collegiate journey. This new work is designed to give students, parents, and other interested readers a guide to the intellectual culture of the modern university and its contribution to society, helping them to realize the power of the university's influence and discover how to connect Christian belief to cutting-edge thinking.

Author Biography

Norman Klassen (D.Phil., University of Oxford) is associate professor of English at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of Chaucer on Love, Knowledge, and Sight.Jens Zimmermann (Ph.D., University of British Columbia) is associate professor of English and Canadian Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion, and Culture at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. He is the author of Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation.

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(6)
Introduction	13	(16)
Part 1 Clearing the Ground
1 Can Christians Think?	29	(18)
Part 2 The Story of Humanism from Its Holistic Medieval Beginnings to Postmodern Fragmentation
2 A Holistic Beginning: Medieval Humanism	47	(14)
3 Letter and Spirit: Literary Humanism	61	(10)
4 Secular Scientific Humanism	71	(14)
5 Dare to Think! Enlightenment Humanism and Dualism	85	(14)
6 The Birth of the Humanities: Giambattista Vico's Critique of the Enlightenment	99	(8)
7 Non-Christian Criticism of Enlightenment Humanism	107	(16)
Part 3 Postmodernism and Humanism
8 Postmodern Humanism	123	(12)
9 Postmodern Antihumanism and the University	135	(12)
10 Incarnational Humanism	147	(20)
Part 4 Applying Incarnational Humanism
11 Incarnational Humanism and Common Grace	167	(18)
12 Conclusion	185	(14)
Suggested Further Reading	199	(4)
Index	203