Friendship and Ways to Truth

David B. Burrell, C.S.C., is currently Theodore Hesburgh Emeritus Professor in Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (Notre Dame Press, 1986) and Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame Press, 1993). He has been asked to direct the University's Jerusalem program, housed at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, each spring until 2004.

• Grieving the death of a friend -- Friends in conversation: the language and practice of faith -- Role of dialogue and friendship in cross-cultural understanding -- Friendship with God in Al-Ghazali and Aquinas -- Friendship and discourse about divinity: lest God be God.

"Father Burrell's weaving together of philosophy, friendship, and faith recalls classical models, wherein a life of holiness is seen as a portal rather than an obstacle to intellectual excellence. Indeed, Father Burrell's book reunites elements of the Christian life that in the modern world seem always in danger of being rent asunder. It is thus a timely antidote to the current tendency to segregate thought from life, scholarship from participation in community, the academic from the ecclesial." —Crisis"Opening as a meditation on the death of a friend, this slender volume blossoms into a disarmingly profound essay on discourse about divinity...Philosophical theologians will be in no way surprised by Burrell's depth of learning. Reflective clergy should also be acquainted with this author, whose gentle and generous spirit befits a most companionable guide to God's promise of friendship." —Theology Today"A philosophical and theological, yet very personal, reflection on what makes for friendship. Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Lonergan, and many others come into play in Father Burrell's argument that friendship requires an inter-subjectivity that is impossible without an understanding, based on personal experience, of faith as a way of knowing the truth." —First Things"The story is beautifully told, in a low key and reticent manner, framing the narrative of a Christian friendship by invoking Aristotle's teaching about the Good, without apology or embarrassment, quite as one recalls Thomas Aquinas doing. [A] delight to read." —Modern Theology