Man And God In The World [Hardcover]

Man and God in the World is a book about the truths of our human nature and about our expanding knowledge and understanding of ourselves. All insight into human nature begins from the fact that the Lord god fashioned us in his own human image and likeness. The great medieval philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, working from the joint wisdom of the Judaic and Greek traditions, continued to ponder the nature of humanity and of our place in the world. Now, in this age, we witness the explosion of systematic knowledge brought to us by the social and life sciences, a cornucopia of knowledge about our nature. No one can tell what truths lie ahead of us as we explore that source, but the entire evolution of understanding is a single theme which is the subject of this book.


Book Review

Man and God is a thought-provoking romp through a wide range of topics crucial to contemporary intellectual and political debates. The author s reflections are thoughtful, well informed, and, at times, innovative.


Book Reviews

Joel Clarke Gibbons, Man and God in the World: A Treatise on Human Nature(Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2009)

Reviewed by Lloyd E. Sandelands, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

How can the findings of social science be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church? Although the two canvas the same subject human nature they conceive it in different ways. The individual organism and social collective examined by science are not the human person and spiritual communion ministered to by the Church. Where the former are material facts in a natural world, the latter are spiritual facts in a supernatural world. Indeed, one can be forgiven for wondering if the phrase Catholic social science might not be an oxymoron.

Joel Clarke Gibbons faces this challenge with glee in this smart, engaging, and wonderfully unclassifiable book. I say this last about the book because it is not plainly oló4