The Weight of Belief

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” These words of William Butler Yeats are often cited in reference to the problems peculiar to the modern age. Foremost among these is the problem of belief in an age when the study and speech pertaining to God is frequently performed without faith—a pseudo-theology that “threatens to deprive the average man of any possibility of experiencing faith.” In The Weight of Belief, Josef Pieper harmonizes philosophy and theology to show the relationship between God and man, grace and nature, revelation and reason, ultimately rebutting the notion that “the purpose of human existence lies in man’s liberation from his own nature and past, and his consequent freedom to make his own choices.”

Dating from 1965 to 1973, on such topics as sacraments and language, hope and despair in the face of nuclear proliferation, history and salvation, war and peace, prayer and sacred architecture, rights and duties, and including such outsanding essays such as “Not Words but Reality: The Sacrament of the Bread”; “Down-to-Earth Contemplation”; “What Does It Mean to Say ‘God Speaks’?”; “The Art of Not Yielding to Despair”; and “The Abuse of Language and the Abuse of Power”—The Weight of Belief presents a portrait of Pieper at his philosophically perceptive best.

Paperback. 326 pages.