Redeeming the Enlightenement: Christianity and the Liberal Virtues

As we move further away from the historical period known as the Enlightenment, it seems the debate about its impact becomes increasingly polarized. Arguments focus on either rejecting or claiming its legacy. In this book Bruce Ward contends that the concern should be neither to reject or claim, but to see how it can be redeemed. / Ward sets up a three-sided dialogic encounter among primary thinkers and critics of modernity ? philosophical, theological, and literary ? using Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky to focus the discussion. Ward does not neglect other significant thinkers ? notably Kant, Heidegger, Tolstoy, Charles Taylor, Locke, Kafka, Ren? Girard, and Martha Nussbaum ? but uses them to illumine the questions at issue among the primary three. Though each chapter of this book can be treated as a relatively independent reflection, the book as a whole offers innovative redemption of the Enlightenment values of equality, authenticity, tolerance, and compassion.