The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History

by John Warwick Montgomery

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2008

Overview

Dr. Montgomery contends that no one can “sit in a house by the side of the road and watch the world go by.” Everyone is caught up in the flux of human life, and there is no naturalistic resting resting place within human history from which one can gain a universal, absolute perspective on man’s life. Christianity is the only answer to this basic human predicament, for it claims, and by the resurrection backs up its claim, that there is a God and that He entered human history and revealed its essential nature.

Key Features

• Contends that no one can “sit in a house by the side of the road and watch the world go by.”
• Explains that Christianity is the only answer to this basic human predicament.
• Claims that there is a God and that He entered human history and revealed its essential nature.

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Part One: Philosophical Historiography
• Foreword
• 1. History and Historiography
• 2. History as Time Travel
• 3. The Classical-Christian Heritage in Historical Writing
• 4. Modern Historical Thought
• 5. The Christian Answer
• Afterword
• Part Two: Critical and Epistemological Essays
• Prefatory Note
• 1. Vico and the Christian Faith
• 2. The Importance of A Materialistic Metaphysic to Marxist Thought and An Examination of Its Truth Value
• 3. Constructive Religious Empiricism: An Analysis and Criticism
• 4. A Critique of William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience
• 5. The Dependability and Value of the Extant Gospel Manuscripts
• 6. The Petrine Theology Evaluated by Philology and Logic
• 7. A Critical Examination of Emil Brunner’s the Divine Imperative, BK. III
• 8. History: Public or Private? A Defense of John Warwick Montgomery’s Philosophy of History
• Index of Names
• Supplemental Index

Product Details

• Title: The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History
• Author: John Warwick Montgomery
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 2008
• Pages: 398
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• ISBNs: 9781606084496, 9781725224995, 1606084496, 1725224992
• Resource ID: LLS:SHPCHRSTNPHLHST
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-11-12T20:56:01Z

About John Warwick Montgomery

John Warwick Montgomery was born October 18, 1931, in Warsaw, New York. In 2007 he was named “Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Christian Thought” at Patrick Henry College. He continues to work as a barrister. He specializes in religious freedom cases in international Human Rights law. He is chiefly noted for his major contributions as a writer, lecturer and public debater in the field of Christian apologetics.