This study undertakes a comprehensive inquiry into the concept of experience in the thought of George Tyrrell from his earliest writings to 1900. No aspect of experience is passed over in its human, religious, Christian, and Catholic inflections. Tyrrell pursued a vast array of subjects and addressed them in often novel ways, even in his formative years, and at every stage of his thought he encountered the question of experience wherever he roamed. A study of experience in Tyrrell’s early works thus effectively offers a sweeping survey of the full gamut of his early thought. In the beginning we see that he came to recognize only gradually the significance of this category for all his inquiries. While scholars have traced experience in Tyrrell’s mature thought and researched its role in such targeted fields as ecclesiology and fundamental theology, the early writings by contrast have been largely passed over. This suggests a need for an unrestricted search at the origin of Tyrrell’s thought that tracks his discovery, formation, and evolution of this concept. We discover that its flexible and enigmatic character shapes and unifies the various questions that Tyrrell addressed over the years, thus marking his mature theology with a distinct character that was passed on to others in the universe of experience.

This work undertakes a comprehensive inquiry into the concept of experience in the thought of George Tyrrell from his earliest writings to roughly 1900.

Acknowledgments – List of Abbreviations and Citations – Introduction: Theme, Method, Scope, and Life – George Tyrrell of St. Thomas – Early Soundings of a Philosophy and Theology of Experience – Experience in the Debate with Empiricism – A Potpourri of Pursuits: Defensive Plays, Offensive Starts – Recasting Traditions: Aesthetics, Morality, and Spirituality – The Aesthetic Pathway to Experience – Moral Experience: Reflections on the Virtue of Chastity – Spirituality and the Role of Experience – Interim Report –Appendix: Tyrrell’s Writings as Treated by Chapter and Sub-Chapter – Index.

Lawrence J. Donohoo has taught philosophy, fundamental theology, and systematic theology in several colleges and seminaries for nearly three decades. He is currently completing the next volume of his comprehensive study of George Tyrrell’s thought.

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