Thinking the Faith With Passion: Selected Essays

In his teaching and his writing, Paul L. Holmer (1916-2004), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota (1946-1960) and Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School (1960-1987), made many important contributions to recent American theology. One of the most insightful American students of Kierkegaard of his generation, Holmer perceived early on Wittgenstein’s importance for theology, and employed both thinkers to inspire his own fresh consideration of perennial issues in philosophical theology: understanding, belief, faith, the emotions, and the importance of the virtues. While best known for his essays in The Grammar of Faith (1978), Holmer penned numerous other interesting and original essays, some published but many unpublished, which circulated widely in typescript during his tenure at Yale. Following his death, the Holmer family in 2005 donated his papers to the Yale Divinity School Library; in reviewing Holmer’s papers, the editors have chosen a selection of his most seminal essays, beyond those in The Grammar of Faith, demonstrating the breadth and range of his contributions. In this, the second volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers, the editors present pieces that illuminate four significant areas of Holmer’s contributions: essays on Kierkegaard; essays on Wittgenstein; Theology, Understanding, and Faith; and Emotions, Passions, and Virtues. Taken together, these essays invite in-depth exploration of the thought of this important American philosophical theologian. This is the second volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers, which includes also volume 1, On Kierkegaard and Truth: Selected Essays, and volume 3, Communicating the Faith Indirectly: Selected Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers.

David J. Gouwens is Professor of Theology at Brite Divinity School. He is the author of Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of the Imagination (1989) and Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker (1996).

Lee C. Barrett III is Stager Professor of Theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Heidelberg Catechism (2007), Foundations of Modern Theology: Kierkegaard (2009), and co-editor of Kierkegaard and the Bible (2010).