The Ways of Wisdom

The Ways of Wisdom answers the demand for a new kind of theology appropriate for a postsecular, global civilization, showing how to engage questions of meaning and value across as well as within traditions. Arguing that humanity is the desire to be God, The Ways of Wisdom analyzes the diverse ways in which humanity has pursued this aim, and argues for a synthesis that draws on the great spiritual traditions of the Axial Age as well as on the humanistic secular commitment to innerworldly civilizational progress and social justice. At the same time, it rejects both the technocratic god-building that it argues is the hegemonic ideal of the Saeculum in which we live and the radical immanentism that imagined that we could create a collective political subject that would make us the masters of our own destiny, proposing instead what it calls Sanctuary, a way of life centered on seeking wisdom, doing justice, and ripening Being. ""Anthony Mansueto's The Ways of Wisdom reads the human adventure in spiritual terms--but without abandoning the material basis--as 'the desire to be God,' a project which he charts across civilizations and which he sees as embracing the Saeculum, East and West, as well as more traditionally religious projects. His argument is supported by an encyclopedic knowledge of history and philosophy and driven by personal engagement with the diverse spiritual and civilizational projects it discusses. The result joins existential vigor to a passionate search for the truth."" --Francois Houtart, Professor Emeritus, the Catholic University of Louvain; Professor, the National Institute of Higher Studies of Quito (Ecuador) A scholar of religion with roots in social theory, philosophy, and theology, Anthony Mansueto is Associate Professor of Global Studies at the University of the District of Columbia and President of Seeking Wisdom, an interfaith research, education, and organizing institute.