(May 25, 2022 at 1:15 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: If I may...have you considered the texts of the Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and early mystics, like the author of Cloud of Unknowing? The mystic do not do apologetics in the same way as the Scholastics. IMHO they are guideposts to experience more than exposition, which is just another human strategy for knowing...through image and symbol. That includes Swedenborg, Blake, Bohem, among others. You also have historic sermons like John Edward's sinner before an angry God for the hard core Reformed.
For modern stuff, you might try David Benteley Hart for the Orthodox perspective. Online StrangeNotions.com has lots of approachable articles and for more academic philosophical reading I regularly visit maverickphilosopher.
Ultimately, it depends on your intent. If you truly want to understand various Christian perpectives then you will gain much from the above. If your goal is to justify your deconversion, then I wish you luck. I was an atheist until I started to comprehend what I was blithly dismissing. YMMV
Thank you. I am unfamiliar with Bentley, but it looks like he has some interesting works - I see there is one about universal salvation, which I am interested in checking out - not a subject I know much about.
To clarify, I'm not trying to justify anything in particular. I'm looking for perspectives from all directions. I know you were applying the word "blithe" to yourself, not me, but I can assure you my journey has been anything but. After decades of belief, church attendance as both a follower and a leader and teacher, etc, etc, and now literally thousands of hours of thought and study, I would certainly not call it blithe.
