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Robert J. Spitzer
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The Soul's Upward Yearning: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason (Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 17, 2015

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 152 ratings
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Since the early twentieth century, scientific materialism has so undermined our belief in the human capacity for transcendence that many people find it difficult to believe in God and the human soul. The materialist perspective has not only cast its spell on the natural sciences, psychology, philosophy, and literature, it has also enthralled popular culture, which offers very little to encourage the "soul's upward yearning".

There are many signs of the widespread loss of confidence in our ability to soar upward, and these have been noted by thinkers as diverse as Carl Jung (psychiatrist), Mircea Eliade (historian of religion), Gabriel Marcel (philosopher), and authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Their observations were validated by a 2004 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry that linked the absence of religion with a marked increase in suicide, meaninglessness, substance abuse, separation from family members, and other psychological problems.

Thus, the loss of transcendence is negatively affecting an entire society. It is stealing from countless individuals their sense of happiness, dignity, ideals, virtues, and destiny.Ironically, the evidence for transcendence is greater today than in any other period in history. The problem is, this evidence has not been compiled and made widely available—a challenge Father Spitzer aspires to meet with this book.

Father Spitzer's work provides a bright light in the midst of the darkness by presenting traditional and contemporary evidence for God and a transphysical soul from several major sources. It shows that we are transcendent beings with souls capable of surviving bodily death; that we are self-reflective beings aware of and able to strive toward perfect truth, love, goodness, and beauty; that we have the dignity of being created in the very image of God. If we underestimate these truths, we undervalue one another, underlive our lives, and underachieve our destiny.

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Previous page
  1. Book 2 of 4
    Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence
  2. Print length
    375 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Ignatius Press
  5. Publication date
    September 17, 2015
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 0.88 x 9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    1586179551
  8. ISBN-13
    978-1586179557
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Father Spitzer displays a broad range of arguments in favor of the reality and the compelling importance of the transcendent dimension of our existence on the basis of religious literature, our interior awareness of transcendent reality, the cosmic struggle between good and evil, metaphysics, our natural desire to experience perfect goodness, love and beauty, the evidence of near-death experiences, and contemporary science, especially astrophysics."
—Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York

"Spitzer's brilliant use of physics, cosmology, psychology, neuroscience, NDE studies, and contemporary philosophy reveals how all disciplines and shared human experiences converge on the truth of our spiritual nature. A grand synthesis from the pen of a master."
—Michael Augros, Ph.D., Author, Who Designed the Designer?

"An intellectual triumph. Those who think faith is a matter of emotion and self-delusion could not intelligently defend that position if they read this book with an open mind and comprehended its arguments. Magnificent."
—Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author

About the Author

Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D. is the President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center. He was the President of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009. He is the author of many books, including Healing the Culture, Finding True Happiness, Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life, The Light Shines On in the Darkness, The Soul's Upward Yearning, and God So Loved the World.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ignatius Press; Sewn edition (September 17, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 375 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1586179551
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1586179557
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.88 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 152 ratings

About the author

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Robert J. Spitzer

Robert J. Spitzer

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Born in Honolulu, Hawaii on May 16, 1952, Fr. Robert J. Spitzer is a Catholic Priest in the Jesuit order, and is currently the President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center. He has taught courses on faith and reason, metaphysics, philosophy of God, and philosophy of science to graduate and undergraduate students at Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Seattle University, and St. Louis University. He was President of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009, during which he led the efforts to build 20 new facilities, increased the student population by 75%, and raised more than $200 million for scholarships and capital projects. Fr. Spitzer has produced two television series for EWTN and received a Templeton Grant for teaching physics and metaphysics. He has made multiple media appearances including: Larry King Live (debating Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, and Deepak Chopra on God and modern physics), the Today Show (debating on the topic of active euthanasia), The History Channel in “God and The Universe,” and a multiple part PBS series “Closer to the Truth,” and the Hugh Hewitt Show. He has also appeared on dozens of nationally syndicated radio programs. For more information, please visit the Magis Center of Reason and Faith website at www.magisreasonfaith.org

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
152 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

booklover
5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking Range Combined with As Much Clarity as the Subject Will Allow
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2017
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It's amazing. He pulls together a breathtaking range of disciplines to show that we have a soul and how that soul points to God. Examples from Godel's law concerning the limitations of math (not sure I worded that right), to evidence from near death experiences, to the soul's yearning for myths (like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars), to Lonergan, to Kant, to Polyani, and a lot more. He not only goes deep, but he is organized and explains himself well. For example, he's given me the best definitions I've had of what a scientific law is and what life is (as well as a couple other foundational issues).

Some of have mentioned that it's hard to read. I didn't find that to be the case, but that may partially be because I've been trying to read a lot of books in this category. Some sources that might help you get a good grounding for this book are: 1) Videos by SpItzer. My family and I watched "New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy." Parts of it were dry, but I don't think there was any easier way to tackle those deep concepts. Also, Spitzer makes it as interesting as possible. I believe he came to tears over quantum mechanics and the glory of God. You can also check MagisCenter for more. 2) David Bentley Hart's "The Experience of God" (which, admittedly, is also rather heady if you haven't read in this field yet).

In conclusion, if the book is hard, it's because of the challenging nature of the topic and not because of the author. Spitzer is well organized and thorough. He breaks the issues down into logical segments, with helpful headings. He also repeatedly reviews/summarizes what he has taught and shows how it connects with the rest of the material. He is as clear as it is possible to be with this subject. He avoids unnecessary jargon that makes so many other philosophical works even more confusing than they have to be.
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5.0 out of 5 stars The souls upward yearning
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024
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As with the first book in the series it was very thought provoking. I was able to understand most of the series.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Page Turner--but slowly!
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2024
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This is not an easy read. However, it is beautifully constructed and elegantly explained. It masterfully unites the works of many of the world's greatest thinkers to explain why the soul behaves as it does.
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Samuel A. Nigro
5.0 out of 5 stars There is more than this crazy life on earth...
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2018
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Book Review on The Soul's Upward Yearning: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason by Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.
by Samuel A. Nigro, MD, copyright c 2016

This is a mandatory book for any one interested, pro or con, in the "God" phenomenon. Human suggestibility, especially when prurient, promotes the abandonment of religiosity, as first openly articulated by the Nazis. Today's press and media, being in the advertising "suggestibility" business, flood the world with selfish prurience and violence to manipulate the people into mindless imitation of the editors' beliefs from junk food to junk ideas, including "there is no God, so follow orders of the powers to be." The Soul's Upward Yearning offsets today's continuation of original sin.

Youths especially have been vulnerable to replacing ancient secrets with contemporary selfishness and superficial quick-fixes for everything. The loss of the transcendentals parallels the loss of the Ten Commandments. The "common good" is now arbitrary Journalism metastasizing as Political Power. The corruption is buried by sensationalism, celebritism, and truly, "Satan has turned into an angel of light...(1)" from glowing pocket phones to huge sport stadium screens. Youth does not stand a chance of escaping from Nazi-like obedience following the crowds as manipulated by powers in charge. "Achtung! What dirty-minded, brain-washing, violent sensational celebrity should we imitate today? He jumped off the building and lived--we can too! And killing is not really killing! He said so. Hurry up. What next? What next?"

An understanding that "There is more than this craziness" is needed and Spitzer's book does a wonderful job of historical review and contemporary elaboration of the ancient secrets on the basis for God, brought up to date. He begins with "the numinous experience"--that mysterious interior presence of seeking joy which propels the self. The "awareness of something" leads to personhood which is "conscious of consciousness (or C2)" best elevated by concepts of the transcendentals especially, truth, love (sic), good, and beauty. In spite of a few incompletions (from my perspective infra), Spitzer's elaborations are intellectual ecstasy from start to finish!

"God Is an "Unrestricted Act of Thinking" (page 113) blends well with my own defining of Eternity, by basic physics, as the pre-BigBang Statimuum --which, to use Spitzer's words is "an unrestricted act" of Everything-Loving in the timeless spaceless Triune Immediacy from which we came and into which we shall recompress at death but limited by the unforgiven conscious entropy we chose when in the space/time continuum (2).

The "hard problem of consciousness" (page 208) is remarkably expanded to the "Transphysical Ground of Consciousness (page 266) called "Self-Consciousness" and "Self-Apprehension" coinciding with my own elaborations on consciousness-squared or C2. This is "personhood"--the unique awareness of one's own consciousness such that one is partially free from space/time biology and that one is part of the Statimuum able to fleeting touch any and all of the Statimuum by Love at that moment-less moment. This was brought home to me when attending Mass in prison: Each word (spoken, written, sung, read) was a spark to flame "elsewhere" in Eternity (Of course, there is no "elsewhere" in the Statimuum) with an escape from evil, craziness, all entropy. At the Mass (and in all Sacramental living), one can live the Immediacy of everything, anything, all things everywhere for all time at the mind's (C2's) call. I savored "the Unrestrained Act of Thinking" Tri-Personified God including all Transcendence which is Love and excluding all entropy except as sanctified by the right words angelically bringing truth, oneness, good and beauty (Besides cutting bread with Jesus, I must have read Spitzer's book during that non-time moment at Masses?). In addition, such experiences reveal the angelic nature of words! Words are messengers from God identical to the angelic elaborations of St. Thomas Aquinas (3)--a formulation supporting all in The Soul's Upward Yearning.

This brings to my objection to Spitzer's limiting "love" as a specific transcendental rather than a generic embracing of all the transcendentals (page 93). He defines "love" as "unity" which is what he should maintain, but the transcendental should be "unum" or "unity" or "oneness"--all meaning "the confluence of a being with itself and all desirability related to it: its integrated, whole entirety" (4). "Love" is more. It saddens me that all the Transcendentals are not coherently defined by Spitzer who must have erroneously thought that they are common knowledge--For the record, the Transcendentals are seven: being, matter, identity, truth, oneness, good and beauty (I add Grace)--Know them and you enter the Statimuum.

The Conclusion chapter, page 269, which should be read first and last, is an amazing compilation coinciding with my own "Ensoulment of the Anthropic Principle (5). Spitzer's Numinous Experience, Religious Intuition, Conscience, The Desire for Perfect Truth, The Desire for Perfect Love(sic-should be Unity), The Desire for Perfect Good, and The Desire for Perfect Beauty respectively coincide with my own Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, Verum, Unum, Bonum, and Bella. Very reassuring and pleasing.

Unless distorted or censored by the First Amendment frauds of the press & media, The Soul's Upward Yearning should help all, especially those prone to be suggestible to the celebrity fakery of our prurient and violent culture. There is more to life than all this craziness. Who are you? What are you? Where are you going? Read this book and find out.

References:
1. Samuel A. Nigro, MD: "And Satan Turned Into An Angel of Light", pamphlet of Social Justice Review, St. Louis, MO. 1994--available from me at Sam@DocNigro.com.
2. Samuel A. Nigro, MD: "The Theogeocalculus of Life: Natural Law Thinking has the Answer to Everything," The Linacre Quarterly, August 2006.
3. A chapter in my three books expand on the fact that "Angels are words"--Happy Ending, Everybody For Everybody, Soul of the Earth.
4. Samuel A. Nigro, MD: "Male/Female Differences in Natural Law", pamphlet of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, presented at Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, March 26-27 1993--a ground-breaking defining of the transcendentals available from me at Sam@DocNigro.com :
1. Ens--what has existence...the being.
2. Res--which is the corporeal body, i.e., the confluence of the being with matter completing it.
3. Aliquid--which is the identity or form of the being, i.e., the confluence of the being with its essence.
4. Verum--which is the truth of the being, i.e., the confluence of the being with reality.
5. Unum--which is the oneness of the being, i.e., the confluence of the being with itself and all desirability related to it: its integrated whole entirety.
6. Bonum--which is the good of the being, i.e., the confluence of the being with proper function in nature, or for mental beings, with proper choice in Natural Law (or Rational Environmentalism).
7. Bella--(Italian...) which is the beauty of the being, i.e., its confluence with ascendancy of the "bringing out the best of itself and all around it."
8. Grace (not in original article but added later)--which is the Transcendental force part of ens...the Transcendental strings between beings.

5. Samuel A. Nigro, MD: Soul of the Earth, page 13.
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Rick Malloy
5.0 out of 5 stars Bob Spitzer's produced a SUMMA for the 21st century
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017
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This is a superb Quartet. Clearly written in an accessible style for the educated reader. Cogent arguments for the robust truth of the Christian faith. A four scale program for the attainment of true happiness. Shares much wisdom based on plenty of personal experience, especially his own struggles over the years with macular degeneration disease of his eyes. Summarizes and synthesizes an amazing amount of contemporary Wisdom and Knowledge based on everything from the most recent scripture scholarship ( e.g. N.T. Wright and John Meier) to Near Death Experience Research to nods to the value of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Great stuff. Read all four. And there's a fifth on the way!
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Texbonnet
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2019
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THis is one of a quartet of books written by Fr Robert Spitzer discussing the different types, depths of happiness. I recommend this book for understanding, deepening one's faith. Explains and assists the reader to use philosophy to explain and proof Christian approaches to human happiness, emotional and spiritual maturity.
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HAROLD J TOUPS
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and persuasive intellectual tour de force on the transcendent ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2016
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The 2nd volume in this quartet is carefully and skillfully put together, gathering evidence for the transcendent from all legitimate quarters, put together by a master teacher. Will take several reads to plumb the depths but appreciating the coherent arguments is available on first read. I just love Fr. Spitzer's work and can't wait for the the next volume.
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Top reviews from other countries

Jess
5.0 out of 5 stars Scientific reasoning, irrefutable evidence is abundant. Fascinating!
Reviewed in Canada on March 3, 2022
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Anyone with a rational openness to this type of information will be given much to think about. Not just for Christians, perhaps especially helpful to those who may be wondering about the validity or possibility of a transcendental nature.
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margaret lear
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!Fantastic uplifting book. Thank you Fr Spitzer.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2023
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How wonderful . Thank you Fr Spitzer for writing this book. How close we are to God.
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jeanpsimon92
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a modern masterpiece.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2021
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This is a modern masterpiece.
Fr Spitzer begins by analysing the transcultural and trans-societal manifestations of the numinous experience and religious intuitions in human beings. Grounded in sound logic, metaphysics, theology, he then proposes to show how our tendency to search for a complete, unlimited and unrestricted truth (manifested in the question “why is it so”), is the result of a transcendental intuition which can only, necessarily and ultimately come from God.
The human tendency for searching perfect truth, love, justice or goodness and beauty, are also philosophically analysed and proved, indicating thereby that their source must come from the a unique, unlimited and unrestricted act of thinking -namely, God.
He then embarks upon analysing near death experiences, and cites numerous scientific studies which show a constant, relatively uniform pattern of experience in the persons studied.
After debunking (I’d say crushing) the arguments for disproving the NDE studies in sound reason and logic, he investigates the theories which try to explain human consciousness, from a physicalist and quantum perspective to a transcendental and trans-material point of view.
Fr Spitzer’s writing style is, furthermore, organised, structured, friendly and didactic, and rigorous and well-cited at the same time.
This is a true modern masterpiece. It should be read by anyone who is struggling to grasp our soul’s transcendence and the existence of God himself.
Thank you, Fr Spitzer!
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