Author Peter Kreeft will speak at an event for the Saint Benedict Education Foundation, to be held at 7 p.m. Friday, October 24. 2008, at the Carey Performing Arts Center at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, is the author of more than 0 books, including Because God Is Real: Sixteen Questions, One Answer (2008); Before I Go: Letters to Our Children About What Really Matters (2007) and The Philosophy of Jesus (2007). Kreeft is considered one of the foremost Catholic philosophers in the United States. His ideas draw on religious and philosophic tradition, including the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Socrates and C.S. Lewis. He received his master of arts and his doctorate from Fordham University and his bachelor’s degree at Calvin College. He has done post-graduate studies at Yale University.
He has served on the full-time faculty of Boston College since 1965 , and prior to that at Villanova University. He has also taught part-time at eighteen colleges and seminaries. Kreeft has received the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the Yale#45;Sterling Fellowship, the Newman Alumni Scholarship, the Danforth Asian Religious Fellowship and the Weatersfield Homeland Foundation Fellowship.
Born a Calvinist who regarded the Catholic faith with suspicion, Kreeft was asked by a professor to investigate some of the tenets of the Catholic Church, with the idea of disproving them. Instead, Kreeft’s investigations led to his conversion to Catholicism.
Topics of his prolific writings have included death, C.S. Lewis, the Socratic dialogs, great philosophers, apologetics, theology, spirituality, Jesus, and a variety of philosophical issues. He has also written five books for young people.
His latest book, Because God is Real explores sixteen questions about the meaning of life, ranging from “Can you prove there is a God?” to “Why is Jesus different?” to “Why must we die?”
Kreeft writes: “The good news of the Gospel is as exciting as a murder mystery. For at its heart there is a murder: the murder of God two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. And this God is the greatest of mysteries: who He is and why He put us here, and why He came here and what His plans are for us. The story is literally a matter of life or death eternal life or death.” Another recent book, Before I Go is about 67 things Kreeft has learned about life, faith, morality, priorities,marriage, written as his legacy to his children–and to readers. He shares his practical wisdom, as well as his concern for truth and goodness. The Philosophy of Jesus looks at four great philosophical questions: what is real? how can we know what is real? who are we? and how should we live? These questions motivate the disciplines of metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical anthropology, and ethics, Kreeft writes. From a Christian perspective, the answer to all four is Jesus.