The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity

Is it possible to see, hear, touch, smell and taste God? How do we understand the biblical promise that the 'pure in heart' will 'see God'? Christian thinkers as diverse as Origen of Alexandria, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar have all approached these questions in distinctive ways by appealing to the concept of the 'spiritual senses'. In focusing on the Christian tradition of the 'spiritual senses', this book discusses how these senses relate to the physical senses and the body, and analyzes their relationship to mind, heart, emotions, will, desire and judgement. The contributors illuminate the different ways in which classic Christian authors have treated this topic, and indicate the epistemological and spiritual import of these understandings. The concept of the 'spiritual senses' is thereby importantly recovered for contemporary theological anthropology and philosophy of religion.

Author: Paul L. Gavrilyuk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 11/30/2011
Pages: 338
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.20w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780521769204

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2012

About the Author
Gavrilyuk, Paul L.: - Paul L. Gavrilyuk is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at the University of St Thomas, Minnesota. He is the author of The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (2004) and Histoire du catéchuménat dans l'église ancienne (2007).Coakley, Sarah: - Sarah Coakley is Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Her previous publications include Powers and Submissions: Philosophy, Spirituality and Gender (2002) and she was the editor of Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (2003) and co-editor (with Charles M. Stang) of Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite (2009).

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