The Ashley Reader: Redeeming Reason

by Benedict M. Ashley

As one of the leading Catholic thinkers of our day, Benedict Ashley collects some of his most important and influential essays tacking such issues as human personhood, the nature of metaphysics, man's ultimate end, Jesus' knowledge of the Father, John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the hierarchical structure of the Church, Humanae Vitae and much more. This is a treasure trove for those seeking sound instruction in philosophy and Theology.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Benedict M. Ashley, O.P. is Emeritus Professor of Moral Theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. Before his conversion to Catholicism, Fr. Ashley was a professed atheist and communist. He found his way to the Church through his study of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas under Mortimer Adler at the University of Chicago. Before his ordination to the priesthood through the Order of Preachers in 1948, he received his Doctorate in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Fr. Ashley also holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a Master’s in Sacred Theology. He is an Associate Faculty of Philosophy for the Institute for Advanced Physics, and was a Senior Fellow of the National Catholic Center for Bioethics. Among Fr. Ashley’s books is Health Care Ethics, co-authored in 1975, a fundamental text on the topic of Catholic medical ethics, now in its fifth edition.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Kahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good sampling of Ashley’s wide-ranging thought: philosophy, theology, ethics, and philosophy of science...all synthesized in the manner of his master, St. Thomas Aquinas. He represents a version of Thomism that seeks to root all knowledge in the physical sciences while avoiding a reductionist materialism.