Theology and Prayer: Ignatian Discernment as Theological Methodology
Ebook
What does it mean for rigorous thought about God to be guided by prayer? What do Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises teach us about discernment? How can that discernment become a spiritual discipline which guides our choices throughout life? How can that discipline guide the theological choices we all make, including those of academic theologians?
This book moves beyond the abstract notion that theology should be prayerful to bring theology together with a particular spiritual practice. It argues that the Spiritual Exercises are a system of prayerful discernment which already provide for reason to be used alongside an openness to all experience and all the ways that we can be guided by the Holy Spirit. This book provides a constructive interpretation of the Exercises as a path of prayerful discernment which can be used throughout life. It sees, in the Exercises, a way of active receptivity to all experience, treating all experience as worthy of attention but also approaching that experience with humility and caution. This book sees theology practiced in this way--as a discerning spiritual discipline--as more resistant to the challenges of modernity than theology which has been sundered from our spiritual life.
“This book does theologians an unusual service. It is common to find authors writing about the connections between theology and prayer, but rare to find such rich and specific guidance as Gary Eaborn gives here. With striking clarity and compelling insight, he shows that Ignatian prayer might enable theologians to grow in spiritual discernment and wean themselves from dreams of mastery.”
—Mike Higton, professor of theology and ministry, Durham University
“It is easy to lament the gap between theology and spirituality, and it is not too hard to make broad claims about bringing theology and prayer together. But what does it actually look like to do so? I don’t know of anyone who addresses this question as seriously and responsibly as Gary Eaborn has done in this wonderfully clear and reliable work.”
—Karen Kilby, professor of Catholic theology, Durham University
“Gary Eaborn’s Theology and Prayer is a genuinely significant and distinctive contribution to the growing academic literature on the relationship between theology and prayer. At once learned, insightful, encouraging, and deeply experientially reflected, it deserves to be widely read by any who are interested in the practice of theology as vocation and in theological epistemology.”
—Paul D. Murray, professor of systematic theology, Durham University
- Title: Theology and Prayer: Ignatian Discernment as Theological Methodology
- Author: Gary Eaborn
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666753226, 9781666753202, 1666753203, 9781666753219, 1666753211, 166675322X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666753226
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-07-04T22:39:41Z
Gary Eaborn is assistant curate at St. John’s Wood Church in the Church of England Diocese of London.