Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom

This book traces the development of conceptions of God and the relationship between God’s being and activity from Aristotle, through the pagan Neoplatonists, to thinkers such as Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas (in the West) and Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas (in the East). The result is a comparative history of philosophical thought in the two halves of Christendom, providing a philosophical backdrop to the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.

• Studies the development of Greek patristic thought from a philosophical standpoint • A comparative history of philosophical thought in the two halves of Christendom • Provides the philsophical backdrop to the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches

Preface; 1. The Aristotelian beginnings; 2. The prime mover; 3. Between Aristotle and Plotinus; 4. Plotinus and the theory of two acts; 5. The Plotinian heritage in the West; 6. Gods, demons and theurgy; 7. The formation of the eastern tradition; 8. The flowering of the eastern tradition; 9. Palamas and Aquinas; 10. Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

\'… learned and carefully argued …\' Lloyd P. Gerson, University of Toronto

\'Bradshaw\'s text admirably exposes a key philosophical divergence that rests at the heart of the East West schism. … the text is a successful blend and extension of dissertation and supplemental research. … his argument has great merit. Bradshaw succeeds in creating an important text that illuminates the shared foundations of eastern and western philosophy and theology, and should be taken seriously for its validation of a tradition that values the ontological as much as the epistemological.\'

– British Journal for the History of Philosophy