Back
The papers in this volume, cover a period of Fergus Kerr’s writing from 1961 to 2018. The Collection of Essays covers a wide range of philosophical and theological issues, literary figures, philosophers and theologians. The list includes: DH Lawrence, M-D Chenu, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, John Henry Newman, René Descartes, Augustine, GEM Anscombe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, David Hume, John Webster, Yves Congar, Vatican I, the Virgin Birth, and Radical Orthodoxy.
Academic theologians, when they write, normally decide for themselves what to discuss. Admittedly, these days, they may work under pressure, to ensure tenure, to advance their prospects, or to secure funding for a departmental project. Mostly, however, they work, sometimes for years, on the books which consolidate the vision of theology that has energised their teaching. Sometimes, of course, the contingencies of being invited to review a book, or take part in a conference, lead to what for medieval theologians were ‘quodlibets’—responses to ‘whatever’, topics raised by members of the class during open-ended discussions, sometimes unexpected, even random, treated suggestively rather than fully worked out. This volume is a miscellany of just such papers.
From the Introduction.
In New Blackfriars, Fergus once wrote of the necessity of listening if we are to preach: ‘Preaching requires listeners. Moreover, preaching assumes that what people will hear will make sense. It may challenge and provoke but in the end, if there is to be communication, it must awaken some response in the listeners—resonate with what they already believe. But listening never comes easily.’ Listening is a discipline of the mind, the imagination and the heart, and it is because Fergus has an acute ability to listen and so speak words that resonated in his brethren, his Dominican brothers
From the Foreword by Timothy Radcliffe OP
Fergus Kerr OP was born in Scotland in 1931. After studies at the University of Aberdeen, and national service in the Royal Air Force, he spent a year teaching at the Dominican school at Laxton before entering the Order of Preachers in 1956. After ordination he served as Regent of Studies and prior of the Dominican communities in Oxford and Edinburgh. In 1994 and 1995 he delivered the Stanton Lectures at the University of Cambridge, published as Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity (1997). While Regent of Studies at Blackfriars, Oxford he founded the Aquinas Institute, which continues to promote the theological vision of St Thomas in the University of Oxford and beyond. As a contributor to, and later Editor of New Blackfriars, he published widely on a varied range of topics, some of which are to be found in this present volume. He has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh, and he is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. Fr Fergus’ published works include: After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism; Theology After Wittgenstein; Work on Oneself: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Psychology; and Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction.
