I am always thankful when senior scholars continue to write and produce.  And it is always a treat when a senior scholar is able to summarize significant material in a relatively succinct way.  Witness: Alasdair MacIntyre's recent God, Philosophy, Universities:  A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (Rowman and Littlefied, 2009).  These lectures are based on a popular course MacIntyre has taught at Notre Dame for some time.  Ralph Wood has shared in his notes on his sabbatical at Notre Dame that at the end of the semester the students in MacIntyre's class gave him a standing ovation!  MacIntyre has thought long and hard on these issues, and there is much in this book that Christians (including Protestants) can learn from.  There is much one might cull from this book.  MacIntyre recognizes that all true learning must ultimately deal with certain key questions (in one way or another).  And one of the key question is--what does it mean to be human?  He writes, "any adequate account of what it is to be a human being will explain how and why human beings are capable of the relevant kind of self-knowledge.  Such an account will have to integrate what we can learn about the nature and constitution of human beings from physicists, chemists, and biologists, historians, economists, and sociologists, with the kind of understanding of human beings that only theology can afford" (177).

• Prev
• Next