Bernard Mcginn

Biographic Data

ID267805
NAMEBernard Mcginn
GIVEN NAMESBernard
FAMILY NAMEMcginn
SIGNATUREMCGINN B
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Chicago
ORCID0000-0003-0952-4372
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS88
TOTAL CITATIONS34
AUTHOR COUNT87
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1971
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX4

  • Reason and Faith in Meister Eckhart: An Historical Approach

    Bernard McginnARTICLELaval théologique et philosophique2025

    Eckhart’s view of the relation of reason and faith is known for eliding the careful line between the two ways of knowing God set out by Thomas Aquinas. This is true, but needs to be qualified. First, Eckhart insisted there was a difference in the certainty of the teaching of revelation and of human knowing. Second, the theologian could make use of forms of knowing accessible to reason, as well as forms dependent on divine light raising the mind t…

  • Seeing the Beauty of the Lord: Mystics on Nature as Theophany

    Open AccessBernard McginnARTICLEReligions2025References: 8

    Mystics are often thought to have little interest in the natural world, given their concern with the inner self. Many mystics, however, have had a profound sense of the beauty of creation. Their interest is not in nature as such, but in the world as a manifestation (theophania), a veil in which and through which God reveals and conceals Godself. This essay will sketch the line of "theophanic mysticism" in three figures. In several texts (e.g., Co…

  • Reiner Schürmann on Meister Eckhart

    Bernard McginnARTICLEPhilosophy Today2024

    Reiner Schürmann’s early engagement with Meister Eckhart seems to have been of major significance for his original thought as a philosopher and social critic. Schürmann thought “along with” Eckhart, something which enabled him to write a challenging interpretation of Eckhart at the outset of his career in 1972, a book which maintains its value fifty years after its original publication. This essay evaluates the significance of that book, Wanderin…

  • Mystical handbooks of the late middle ages

    Open AccessBernard McginnARTICLEActa Theologica2022

    Mystical handbooks, or how-do-it books describing the path to union with God, was a genre that arose in Western Europe in the 12th century and lasted into the Early Modern period. These works, though rarely original, have often been overlooked, but they played an important role in disseminating mystical teaching to an increasingly broad audience. Many religious writers contributed to the genre: Benedictines, Cistercians, Carthusians, Dominicans, …

  • Niht Enwil Und Niht Enweiz Und Niht Enhât: Eckhart’s Triple Negation and Its History

    Bernard McginnARTICLEMedieval Mystical Theology2021

    German Sermon 52 (Pr. 52) is one of Meister Eckhart's most famous. Preached on the first beatitude, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven' (Mt. 5:3), the homily analysis the de-creation of the self by three negations, ‘not willing, not knowing, not having.’ Pr. 52 has often been commented on; what has not been studied is the use the triple formula by a number of later mystics down to 1700. This, part two of two-part…

  • Niht Enwil Und Niht Enweiz Und Niht Enhât: Eckhart’s Triple Negation and its History

    Bernard McginnARTICLEMedieval Mystical Theology2021

    German Sermon 52 (Pr. 52) is one of Meister Eckhart’s most famous. Preached on the first beatitude, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’ (Mt. 5:3), the homily is an analysis of the de-creation of the self by three negations, ‘not willing, not knowing, not having’ (niht enwil, niht enweiz, niht enhât). Eckhart appears to have adopted this triple negation from Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls, Pr. 52 has b…

  • Teresa de Jesús

    Bernard McginnARTICLEEnglish Language Notes2018

    Teresa of Ávila has long been noted as one of the most influential Christian mystical teachers for her doctrine on contemplative prayer, mystical graces, and union with God. Her writings, especially the Life and The Interior Castle, have been widely read from the later sixteenth century to the present. Nevertheless, Teresa was far more than an enclosed contemplative totally separated from the world. Rather her biography reveals her as one of the …

  • Mysticism and the reformation: A brief survey

    Open AccessBernard McginnARTICLEActa Theologica2016

    A number of influential theologians over the past two centuries have denied that Protestant Christianity has a place for mysticism understood as the mingling of the divine and human natures. Today a more adequate understanding of the mystical element of Christianity as a deeper awareness of God’s presence in the life of believers suggests a new evaluation of the relation of Protestantism and mysticism, beginning Martin Luther, and continuing with…

  • Thomas Aquinas's "Summa theologiae": A Biography: A Biography

    Bernard Mcginn, Daren MageeBOOKThomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae2014

    This concise book tells the story of the most important theological work of the Middle Ages, the vast Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, the Summa was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering …

  • The Role of Mysticism in Modern Theology

    Bernard McginnARTICLEAnnali di Scienze Religiose2014

    During the course of the twentieth century the study of mysticism in Catholic theology underwent dramatic changes. Around the turn of the century concern with mysticism was found mainly in Neoscholastic theology, which tried to measure a few selected mystics (e.g., Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross) according to the reigning Neothomist paradigm. But in the first three decades of the twentieth century a number of Catholic philosophers and theo…

  • The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity

    Open AccessMark Mcinroy, Matthew R Lootens et al.BOOKSpiritual Senses2011

    Is it possible to see, hear, touch, smell and taste God? How do we understand the biblical promise that the 'pure in heart' will 'see God'? Christian thinkers as diverse as Origen of Alexandria, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar have all approached these questions in distinctive ways by appealing to the concept of the 'spiritual senses'. In focusing on the Christian tradition of the 'spiritual senses', this book discusses h…

  • Regina quondam

    Bernard McginnARTICLESpeculum2008Cited by: 1References: 2

  • Silence and the Word: Negative Theology and Incarnation

    Open AccessPaul S Fiddes, Janet Martin Soskice et al.BOOKSilence and the Word2008Cited by: 9

    Negative theology or apophasis - the idea that God is best identified in terms of 'absence', 'otherness', 'difference' - has been influential in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of negation developed in continental philosophy. Apophasis also has a strong intellectual history dating back to the early Church Fathers. Silence and the Word both studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with con…

  • Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter

    Open AccessBernard McginnARTICLEHarvard Theological Review2005

    On 10 March 2005, Professor Bernard McGinn delivered the William James Lecture on Religious Experience at the Harvard Divinity School. The founding bequest of this annual lectureship was made for the purpose of having an outstanding scholar or scholars lecture on some aspect of this subject, which received classic treatment in William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience . James's aim was not to defend religion by scientific proof, but t…

  • The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart's German Sermons . Bruce Milem

    Bernard McginnARTICLESpeculum2004

  • Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America

    Jaroslav Folda, Oleg Grabar et al.ARTICLESpeculum2004

  • The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Philippe Levillain

    Bernard McginnARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2003

  • The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Dorothee Soelle

    Bernard McginnARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2003

  • Asceticism and Mysticism in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

    Bernard McginnCHAPTERAsceticism2002

    Scaramelli's two-stage view of Christian perfection remained normative down to living memory in Roman Catholicism. Among its last great monuments was the Precis de theologie ascetique et mystique of the Sulpician Adolph Tanquerey, who taught for fifteen years in the United States, before retiring to France, where his magnum opus appeared in 1923-1924. It went through nine French editions, was translated into at least ten languages, and remained a…

  • My Secret Is Mine: Studies in Religion and Eros in the German Middle Ages. Hildegard Elisabeth Keller

    Bernard McginnARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2002

  • The Making of the "Bibles Moralisées". John Lowden

    Bernard McginnARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2002

  • Les fausses terreurs de l'an mil: Attente de la fin des temps ou approfondissement de la foi? . Sylvain Gouguenheim Apocalypse et salut dans le christianisme ancien et médiéval . Claude Carozzi

    Bernard McginnARTICLESpeculum2001

  • Island of Saints and Scholars: Some Recent Books on Early Irish Christianity Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery . Thomas Owen Clancy , Gilbert Markus King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religi…

    Bernard McginnARTICLEThe Journal of Religion1999

  • The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200-1350)

    V Louise Katainen, Bernard McginnARTICLEItalica1999

  • Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione. Vol . 8: Saba-Spiritualii . Edited by Guerrino Pellicia (1962–1968) and Giancarlo Rocca (1969–). Rome: Edizione Paoline, 1988. xxvi + 2,040 cols. 230,000 lire.…

    Open AccessBernard McginnARTICLEChurch History1999

    Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione. Vol. 8: Saba-Spiritualii. Edited by Guerrino Pellicia (1962–1968) and Giancarlo Rocca (1969–). Rome: Edizione Paoline, 1988. xxvi + 2,040 cols. 230,000 lire. - Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione. Vol. 9: Spiritualità-Vézelay. Edited by Guerrino Pellicia (1962–1968) and Giancarlo Rocca (1969–). Rome: Edizione Paoline, 1997. 1,960 cols. 230,000 lire. - Volume 68 Issue 1