Bruno Barnhart (1931–2015)

Bruno Barnhart, in this book on wisdom, is trying to revive an older sapiential tradition before Augustine and Thomas Aquinas took full hold on Catholic thought. He points back to patristic and monastic traditions of the past. He looks at four moments in human religious history that are significant: the Axial Age, the Christ Event, the Western Axial period, and now postmodernity and globalization that play in his argument. His book is divided into four turnings in the current age: a sapiential awakening, starting off with Henri de Lubac (famous for reviving talk about the four senses of scripture) and Jean Leclerq (who distinguishes between scholastic and monastic learning in the Middle Ages); the Eastern turn where religions of Eastern Asia have had significant influend in today's religious understanding; the Western turn with its modernity and concepts of freedom and individusalism; and the Postmodern turn with its encompassing of globalism, but also is questioning of old beliefs and its questing for something new. This a good book to read through, but we are in the middle of the coming of a newer age, so we need to keep our eyes open.… (más)