Life in the Flesh An Anti-Gnostic Spiritual Philosophy [Hardcover]

Christianity is deeply interested in the body. In its central mysteries -- creation, incarnation, and resurrection -- the body and human flesh are radically implicated. Bodies are persons, and persons are spiritual beings, bearers of the divine image and destined for bodily union with God. From the Bible to the Second Vatican Council, from Irenaeus and Tertullian to Aquinas and Luther, the classic sources of the Christian tradition engender a spiritual philosophy that challenges the ever-present gnostic impulse either to marginalize, or else to worship, the body. Adam G. Cooper brings these rich sources into conversation with numerous contemporary voices in philosophy and theology, offering an illuminating and critical perspective on such pressing social and ethical questions as pornography, feminism, philosophy of mind, sterility, and death.

Adam G. Cooper has lectured and published widely in patristics, incarnational theology, and historical and pastoral theology. His doctoral research at the University of Durham (2002) was on the deification of the body in the theological vision of St Maximus the Confessor. An Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne, he teaches historical theology at the United Faculty of Theology, spiritual theology at the Lutheran School of Theology, and philosophical anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family, all in Melbourne.