The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity

This is the most ambitious effort so far to communicate the depth and power of the Christian sapiential tradition, or "wisdom Christianity," and the promise of its dramatic rebirth in our time. While much of the writing of Rahner, von Balthasar, Merton, Bede Griffiths, Abhishiktananda, Leclercq, De Lubac, and Odo Cassel is of this kind, theologians have been slow to connect the dots and to awaken to the organic gestalt of sapiential theology in its unity and vitality. The book shows how the sapiential consciousness and its theological expression develop both the unitive depth (or "East") and the historical dynamism (or "West") of the mystery of Christ. The work unfolds in 4 stages: (1) the awakening of sapiential consciousness, (2) the Eastern turn, which opens Christianity to its own unitive (or nondual) core, (3) the Western turn, in which Christian wisdom is first challenged and then regenerated by its encounter with the personal and historical dynamism of the West (expressed in freedom, creativity, critical thinking, and historical progress), and (4) the global turn of postmodernity, global consciousness, and the world church of Vatican II, in which the unity and intentionality of history become visible and understandable in a Christocentric perspective.