Professor Sell explores the lives and ideas of four unjustly neglected Anglican philosophers: W.G. De Burgh (1866-1943); W.R. Matthews (1881-1973); O.C. Quick (1885-1944); H.A. Hodges (1905-1976). This study fills an important gap in the history of twentieth-century philosophical and theological thought. Sell argues that these writers covered a wide range of philosophical topics in an illuminating way, and that a comparison of their respective standpoints and methods is instructive from the point of view of the viability or otherwise of Christian philosophizing. He discusses the challenges these four philosophical Anglicans issued to certain important trends in the philosophy and theology of their day, and argues that some of them are of continuing relevance.

About the Author
Alan Sell has published 25 books, mostly on philosophico-theological relations, two of them with Ashgate: Mill on God, and Testimony and Tradition. He was General Editor and Co-ordinating Editor of Vol. 2 of the series, Protestant Nonconformist Texts. He has held academic posts in England, Canada and Wales, ecclesiastical posts in England and Geneva, and continues to work full-time as researcher/author/editor, and as a Visiting Professor at home and abroad.

Reviews

'Alan Sell has earned our warmest thanks for showing us the rich resources of Christian philosophy in these recent thinkers who were too early to be beholden to our current apologetic fashions. Anglicans should be proud of them'. Terence Penelhum, University of Calgary, Canada We should be grateful to Alan Sell for this thoroughgoing and detailed discussion of four largely unread twentieth-century philosophical theologians. This book, which is at once erudite and entertaining, reads like the account of a seminar in which the author is a sympathetic outsider who wants to understand what makes people think the way they do about God and the world - and then to see whether this can still inform the task of Christian theology and apologetics today. Mark D. Chapman, Ripon College Cuddesdon and University of Oxford, UK '... the arguments are presented clearly and critically, and even when the particular views of the four philosophical Anglicans seem dated, the issues such as the value of scientific reasoning and the metaphysical basis of doctrine are abiding concerns of Christian thought.' Anglican & Episcopal History '[This book] is a tightly argued, thought provoking critique of four Church of England clerics whose scholarship and erudition were substantial and alas not that widely known. Sell in my view successfully redresses this imbalance. De Burgh, Matthews, Quick and Hodges should indeed be recognised as 'prophets not without honour', both in their home country and beyond.' The Expository Times

Book Information
ISBN 9781409400592
Author Alan P.F. Sell
Format Hardback
Page Count 340
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g