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In Reasonable Hope considers three foundational responses to this quest for some understanding of the existence, meaning, and value of everything. Other approaches can be considered as combinations or variations of these. Firstly, there is the approach which claims that it is our humanity, exercising its unique intelligent subjectivity, that is the source and measure of all possible meaning and value. Nothing can be thought of as existing, meaningful or of value apart from a thinking human subject. This is a broadly Humanist approach to ultimate meaning. Man is the measure of all things. Secondly, there is the approach of Scientism. This claims that an ultimate understanding of the world and ourselves must be sought, less anthropocentrically, in terms of the findings of basic empirical sciences such as physics and chemistry. We live in a world ever-increasingly dominated by the autonomous system of science and technology. Such Scientism implies an explicitly reductionist and materialist conception of the meaning and value of everything. Thirdly, there is the approach of Theism which maintains that, in the final analysis, the meaning and value of everything, insofar as this can be known, is to be explained in terms of a transcendent infinitely perfect personal being we call God. The first two approaches are carefully considered. However, it is the third to which most attention is devoted. Consideration is given to the traditional impersonal metaphysical approach to questions about the existence and nature of God. The alternative approaches of linguistic philosophy and phenomenology, which reject such metaphysical speculation are also discussed. These various approaches are judged to be complementary rather than strict alternatives. In the latter half of the book is devoted to a more personal and self-involving discussion of the relevance of an affirmation of the existence of God. It explores the implications of a rational commitment to live one's life in accordance with the requirements of values which transcend explanation in purely physical terms, such as truth, goodness, beauty, and especially love. It provides a personal and existential development of the rational hope that such values are ultimately more objectively real and dependable than the eventual universal material chaos predicted by empirical science. It argues that the existence of God as the infinite expression and source of these values is the necessary and sufficient condition of this rational hope in their enduring significance. Finally, there is an account of how the Christian Revelation illuminates and transforms our rational hope in the enduring significance of love of God and neighbor.

Life is good at the young University of Saint Chinian in sunlit south-west France. All involved enjoy a happy time: some teaching is required, but research is entirely optional. The students too are a joyful group. For a moderate amount of study, which does not greatly encroach upon their leisure time, they are assured of a fairly decent degree and a job - possibly even a pensionable one - and have plenty of free time to engage in the serious business of hanging around, drinking coffee, playing pinball and fornicating. However, this blessed state of affairs is under threat. The authorities in Paris have imposed a visit from an external committee of international experts to compile a detailed report on the academic quality of the university. The cold wind of managerial intimidation, so common in other areas of contemporary life, is about to blow through the hallowed halls academia. The serpent is insinuating itself into paradise. A comic campus novel in the style of Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge, Quality Time at St Chinian is guaranteed to raise a wry smile from anyone who has come into contact with the unusual world of academia, as student, teacher or (whisper it) administrator.

Approaching God explores the ways in which phenomenology, metaphysics and theological enquiry can throw light upon each other. This is a matter of great interest and importance to the future of philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion. What, if anything, has philosophical reflection about God to contribute to Christian theology? And if indeed philosophy plays a positive role in theological reflection-what kind of philosophy? The first-person philosophical perspective of phenomenology or the objective philosophical perspective of metaphysics?Masterson devotes three chapters to, respectively, phenomenological, metaphysical, and theological approaches to God. Each are seen as animated by a first principle from which a comprehensive account of everything is said to follow-'Human Consciousness'in the case of phenomenology;'Being'in the case of metaphysics; and'God'in the case of theology. Although philosophers and theologians such as Ricoeur, Levinas, Kearney, Caputo, and Barth are considered briefly, Approaching God essentially provides a dialogue about theological and theistic issues between the phenomenological approach of the leading French Christian phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion and the realist metaphysical approach of Aquinas.Masterson maintains that all three approaches are needed in trying to speak appropriately about God-they are irreducible but complementary.

What kind of experience might help to confirm and make sense of the puzzling belief in divine creation, so central to the main monotheistic religions? Anselm and Aquinas developed a philosophical understanding of'Creation'as an asymmetrical relationship between the world and God, that is, that the world is really related to God in a relationship of total dependence but God is in no way really related to or modified by this created world. This idea of an asymmetrical relationship is the key concept unifying all aspects of this book which discusses the three main inter-related questions in a philosophical discussion about God -- the question of meaning, the question of existence, and the question of co-existence. The book explores various'ciphers'of this asymmetrical relationship in our pre-philosophical lived experience. These are experiences such as that of the relationship between our knowledge and what we know, or our sense of obligation to our vulnerable neighbour. It argues that deciphering such experiences helps to make sense of the'asymmetrical'relation of creation and that it in turn makes sense of them. Masterson argues further that this idea of asymmetrical relationship provides insight into the main questions of philosophy of religion and is an illuminating source of critical dialogue with contemporary Anglo/American and Phenomenological approaches in philosophy of religion.