The Human Quest for Meaning is a comprehensive reference book that reads like a story. It traces the human quest for meaning from the origin of religion down to postmodernism. Western culture has had the greatest influence on the world today. So, this treatise dedicates a significant amount of its material to the history of Christian theology, which played a significant role in shaping the Western world. It also provides an overview of the major world religions including: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and the Bahá’í Faith. It looks at the role Zoroastrianism played in the development of Western religions and how other thinkers like Confucius changed the world.

This book reviews classical Greek philosophy, including formative ideas introduced by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, and how they influenced Christian theology. It traces Christianity from its humble beginning as a Jewish cult, through a period of internal conflict and external persecution, to it becoming the imperial church. It addresses the trinitarian and incarnation controversies along with Augustine’s influence on Western theology. This book reviews the rise of the papacy and the power struggle between the popes, councils and the nobility. It addresses the split between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. It reviews concepts advanced by Anselm and Thomas Aquinas during the medieval scholastic period. It examines the medieval three estates, sacramentality and ideas taught by early reformers and pre-modern thinkers like Wycliff, Jan Hus, Occam and Erasmus.

This treatise explains why the renaissance emerged in Florence after the Black Death devasted Europe. It examines why Luther’s dichotomy of law and gospel resonated with the populace, sparking the Protestant Reformation. It discusses other reformers such as Zwingli, Calvin, and John Knox. It points out how the emotional inner-city Black congregations, the conservative evangelicals and the heady liberal traditional Protestants owe their existence to the seeds planted by the nearly forgotten Moravians. This book traces the emergence of Anabaptists, the Anglican Communion, Presbyterianism, Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists, and compares their beliefs and practices. It also includes a detailed flowchart to help the readers visualize the connections between the numerous Christian denominations.

This treatise looks at the birth of the Modern era with the scientific revolution and the role various key intellectuals played, such as Fransis Bacon, Galileo, and Sir Issac Newton. It reviews how philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant inspired the Enlightenment, and its relationship to Deism, Pietism, and Schleiermacher’s liberal theology. The book looks at the Holiness movement and the creation of the unique American religions: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventist, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It also covers the masters of suspicion: Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, and shows how fundamentalism emerged as a reaction to all of these Modern influences.

This volume reviews the birth of Pentecostalism which later blended with Protestant fundamentalists under the influence of Billy Graham to inspire the non-denominational evangelical movement. The book traces the charismatic movement to its roots in Russia. It looks at Kierkegaard and Barth’s emphasis on the greatness of God introducing neo-orthodoxy as the solution to society’s decrease of faith in the Modern world. This book also looks at Christianity’s role among slaves in the Americas and the development of liberation theology.

This volume concludes with twentieth-century philosophy taking two different paths with analytical philosophy’s pursuing an epistemological approach with a turn to language and reduction while European continental philosophy continued its ontological approach leading to the development of phenomenology, critical theory and postmodernism.

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