The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain; A Spiritual Life -Ralph McInerny

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-About the Author (Wikipedia)

-First Things Article: Ralph McInerny (1929-2010) by Thomas S. Hibbs

-About Maritain (Wikipedia)

-First Things Article: The Achievement of Jacques Maritain by Micheal Novak

The Savage Detectives -Roberto Bolano

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-About the author (Wikipedia)


-Review from The New Yorker


-NYTimes Sunday Book Review


"I picked up The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño with high hopes. There are few pleasures rarer than when an American publisher begins releasing translations of a foreign writer all at once. When you feel you’ve exhausted the writers you love most and become overly familiar with the establishment canon it gives you renewed faith in the possibility of something new. I had not ever run across Mr. Bolaño’s work before, but I had read a few reviews online that had prepared me for a novel in the traditions of Celine or Kerouac perhaps. The reality is that, at least in translation, The Savage Detectives is not a work of distinction. It reads in fact very much like a deliberate pastiche of Celine with a fair dose of Henry Miller thrown in for good measure. For some reason it doesn’t ring true and I was left with the sense that he embarked on a literary shell game and lost track of precisely who was fooling whom." -edwinesmith 


"I give up. I don’t know how to review The Savage Detectives.

Everyone told me I was supposed to love this book, but I didn’t. There, that’s a review. Not a good review, but there. I can’t remember a book ever taking me so long to finish or a book that I put down so often. When I truly love a book, I am moved. Often physically. Sometimes I have to stand up to read a book, I’m so moved. That’s a good book. (I never had to stand up during The Savage Detectives, although I often had to force myself to read thoroughly and not just skim). When I truly love a book, I’m a little sad and deflated when it’s over. I know a book is great if I’m compelled to go back and immediately reread sections. (Again, with Detectives, this didn’t happen). But it looks like I’m trashing the book. I shouldn’t. It has a lot going for it."    -ed biblioklept

The Science of God; The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom - Gerald L. Schroeder

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-About the author (Wikipedia)


-Author's Official Website


-Dr. Schroeder speaking on cosmology: a 30 min. clip from the documentary, "Has Science Discovered God?"


Watch This! It's long, and poor video quality, but worth it.


"The medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote that conflicts between science and the Bible arise from either a lack of scientific knowledge or a defective understanding of the Bible. This is a continuing problem. Acknowledged experts in science may assume that although scientific research requires diligent intellectual effort, biblical wisdom can be obtained through a simple reading of the bible. Conversely, theologians who have devoted decades to plumbing the depths of biblical wisdom often satisfy their scientific curiosity through articles in the popular press and then assume they can evaluate the validity of scientific discoveries. The "opposition" is viewed with a level of knowledge frozen at a high school or pre-high school level. No wonder the other side seems superficial, even naive. To relate these two fields in a meaningful way requires an in-depth understanding of both. Nobel laureate and high energy physicist Steven Weinberg is unsympathetic to the idea that ancient commentators on the Bible foresaw modern cosmological concepts regarding the origin of our universe. Yet in his recent book Dreams of a Final Theory, he readily admits, It should be apparent that in discussing these things....I leave behind any claim to special expertise."


"Here we come to a basic tension between religion and science: biblical literalism. Haven't those who demand a literal reading of Genesis noticed that Genesis is literally filled with contradictions? Two millennia ago, long before paleontologists discovered fossils of dinosaurs and cavemen, long before the data from the Hubble and Keck telescopes hinted at a multibillion-year old universe, the Talmud stated explicitly that the opening chapter of Genesis, all thirty-one verses, is presented in a manner that conceals information (Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 11b, 112a, 500 C.E.). The kabalistic tradition has come to elucidate that which is held within those verses. Kabalah is logic, not mysticism, but logic so deep that it might seem mystical to the uninitiated. Literalism is simply not an effective way to extract meaning from the Bible."    (10)


"The first step in a rapprochement between science and Bible is for each camp to understand the other. Distancing the Bible from a few misplaced theological shibboleths will do wonders in furthering this mutual understanding.

I have already treated several. Earth need not be at the center of the universe for biblical religion to survive. As Genesis 1:1 stated, first came the heavens and then came the Earth. Western religion has learned to forgo its misplaced dream of a universe revolving around Earth, to accept gravity as a part of nature and not the machinations of a perverted mind, and most important, to read the Bible, as Moses insisted three times on the day of his death, as a poem, as a text having within it a subtext harboring multiple meanings (Deut. 31:19, 30; 32:44)"     (11)


"The conflict between science and the Bible is ironic. Throughout the Bible, knowledge of God is compared with the wonders of nature. As stated so well in Psalms (19:2): "The heavens tell of God's glory and the sky declares his handiwork."

Eight hundred years ago, the medieval philosopher Maimonides wrote that science in not only the surest path to knowing God, it is the only path, and for that reason the Bible commences with a description of Creation. In some communities that thought was sufficient cause to burn his books.