Metaphor, Analogy, and the Place of Places

Carl Vaught is one of the very few philosophers to have a deep, participative knowledge of religious life coupled with a command of both metaphysics and philosophy of language. For years he has been developing a metaphysics of analogy for understanding God as Being. At the same time he has elaborated an extraordinary interpretation of Augustine. Now he demonstrates a remarkable subtlety in distinguishing and connecting different types of religious and theological discourse. In this book he brings all these together to present a genuinely systematic philosophical theology. A splendid dividend is that he uses the systematic position and its language to reflect back on the history of Western philosophy with remarkable insights. Metaphor, Analogy, and the Place of Places makes Vaught's position a major contender in contemporary philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. At the very least, after this book, no one can claim that philosophy and religion are not integral to each other.

~Robert C. Neville, School of Theology, Boston University

He holds that both philosophy and faith start in childhood with the power of imagination, in advance of reflection... The distinction between imagination and reflection prompts people to seek wholeness and unity... Recommended.

~CHOICE

Only someone as well-versed in Anglo-American analytical philosophy's demand for rigor and clarity could tread so nimbly where such philosophers rarely venture, namely, in relating Being and God to time and space as well as relating Continental philosophers such as Hegel and Heidegger to ancient and medieval philosophers. Vaught offers a grand philosophical vision with deft attention to detail, promising medieval philosophy as the bridge that can span mystery and structure, metaphor and realism, Being and God.

~Dan R. Stiver, Hardin-Simmons University and author of Theology After Ricoeur