Sign-In
Cart
The Invisible Source of Authority: God in a Secular Age
Paperback
Series: The Beginning and the Beyond of Politics
PhilosophyGeneral Political Science
ISBN13: 9780268209575
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: Jul 15 2025
Pages: 188
Weight: 0.57
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Invisible Source of Authority is a philosophical meditation on the secular age and challenges the notion that the secular can be understood without reference to God.
How does one reject God while denying belief? This is the central paradox of our secular age, where efforts to erase God only affirm his presence. In The Invisible Source of Authority, David Walsh examines this paradox and argues that a secular world actually reveals God more clearly, rather than bringing about what has been called the death of God. Unlike many critics of modernity, Walsh argues that secularism is not inhospitable to authentic religious faith and cannot be understood without reference to God.
Drawing on the writings of early modern thinkers like Montaigne, Descartes, and Grotius, Walsh asserts that God's absence from the secular world is testimony to God's transcendence. Because the secular is always that which has withdrawn from serving God, Walsh suggests that this presupposition proves that God remains indispensable to the self-understanding of secular society. The Invisible Source of Authority seeks to remind us that, despite his seeming absence, the transcendent God remains an essential presence.
Also from
Walsh, David
The Priority of the Person: Political, Philosophical, and Historical Discoveries
Walsh, David
Paperback
The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity: Development, Decline and Demise Ca. A.D. 270-430
Walsh, David
Paperback
The Priority of the Person: Political, Philosophical, and Historical Discoveries
Walsh, David
Hardcover
Also in
Philosophy
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Pirsig, Robert M.
Hardcover
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Julia, Annas
Annas, Julia
Barnes, Jonathan
Paperback
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Holiday, Ryan
Hanselman, Stephen
Hardcover
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
The Courage to Be Ordinary: Discover Your Surprising Superpower for a Thriving Life
Kishimi, Ichiro
Paperback
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
My Big TOE Awakening Discovery Inner Workings: The Complete My Big TOE Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics
Campbell, Thomas
Hardcover
Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga
Evola, Julius
Hardcover
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Easton, Dossie
Hardy, Janet W.
Paperback
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover