Description
Incarnate Personhood in Historical, Metaphysical, and Systematic studies of Jesus of Nazareth
About the book
Person in Christ is the third in a series revealing a new understanding of ‘Person’. Previously published were the first two Person in Cosmos (1996) and Person in Analysis (1996) but he left this manuscript, Person in Christ, unpublished and is now posthumously being published. The first two books were the result of thirty years of teaching in North America, and complementary studies in psychoanalytic philosophy and in theoretical physics. Kevin had an increasing conviction that ‘person ‘was at the heart of relationship, and should be at the centre of theology’, writes Patrick Corbett CSsR in the Foreword to the book.
Kevin wrote of the trilogy: ‘The three together form an integral study of the meaning of person, personal relationships and personal communication. They work from a creative retrieval of the metaphysics of Aquinas.
Person in Cosmos begins a dialogue between this metaphysics and contemporary cosmology, especially in the discipline of physics.
Person in Analysis continues this work with a dialogue between the same metaphysics and contemporary psychology especially in the discipline of psychoanalysis.
Person in Christ will take the project further, with a dialogue between metaphysics, already refined by the two previous dialogues, and biblical studies of Jesus Christ, especially in the discipline of history of the early first century in Palestine. There is much to be learned about personhood here, not simply in its cultural manifestation at that time but in itself.
Person in Christ is an attempt to make use of a retrieved metaphysics, in a contemporary context, as a tool for systematic Christology. It has a contribution to make to biblical and historical studies of Jesus, to systematic and speculative studies of Christ, and to an integral and philosophical study of personhood itself.
Although it is the study of a particular person, it is also the study of personhood itself. The personal life of Jesus has demonstrated a new and original way of living personally. After Jesus, personhood cannot be the same.’
‘Person in Christ concludes this project: it was its principal purpose from the beginning and gives meaning to its preliminary phases. It is offered as a contribution to a dialogue and to a study that will never end . . . Person in Christ as presented here is an unfinished composition. For Kevin, it was never ready for publication. There are within its pages his own struggle with what he calls: a study that will never end . . .’ From the Foreword by Patrick Corbett CSsR’
About the author:
Kevin Francis O’Shea, CSsR (1930–2018) was an Australian Redemptorist priest and theologian. He was teacher and lecturer of Redemptorists students in Australia, and also taught for many years in the United States of America. He was well grounded in a classical training in the ways of theology. In a brilliant course of studies at the Angelicum in Rome, ‘this a brilliant young Australian’ caught the eye of many distinguished Dominican professors such as Pere Gagnebet, OP. Though Kevin was to go on and break new ground in his research into the philosophy of science current scripture studies psychology and French phenomenology, he remained firmly anchored in the great tradition of the philosophical and theological wisdom characteristic of St Thomas Aquinas and his eminent expositors. Following his return from overseas, Kevin contributed to any number of international theological journals and published his thesis on a profound aspect of the Incarnation.
