Oxford theologian Leonard Hodgson's first course of Gifford Lectures surveyed the revealed structures that undergird natural theology. For this his second course of lectures, published as For Faith and Freedom volume two and delivered in 1956/7, Hodgson presents a ten-part exposition of key Christian Doctrines which point to the revelation of God in the Person and Work of Christ. Hodgson argues that this revelation is evidenced in the fabric of cosmic history and epitomised by the eschatological and messianic community of the Christian Church.

Bernard Bosanquet follows Plato in arguing that human life is a ‘finite’ expression of an infinite Mind underlying all of reality. The ‘world’ is a community of experiences, all of which point to a transcendent Mind within which we can expect to find our complete existence fulfilled. We get a hint of this through science, which seeks to establish ‘general rules’ governing many particular instances. Those general rules indicate that our ‘experience’ constantly tends toward the ‘universal’. The same goes for religious experience. Bosanquet theorizes that religion, or ‘religious consciousness’, as he calls it, cannot ‘prove’ the existence of God, but it can direct our minds toward the ‘infinite’. Even in ‘evil’ and ‘pain’ we can find something of the Absolute. Pain and evil are necessarily a part of our finite beings because they help us to realise the ‘good’ by contrasting with it. For Bosanquet, the ‘good’ is perfection and harmony within the universe, and human life is most valuable when we seek this ‘perfection’ intellectually and spiritually. ‘Evils’ and ‘suffering’ are the phenomena and sentiments that lead us away from this harmony. By resisting such pains, we come closer to harmony with the Absolute, and move away from the material satisfaction we are often led to pursue in our hedonistic lives.

Gabriel Marcel delivered two series of ten lectures on the ‘mystery of being’, comprised of ordered reflections on nature and the goal of philosophy from an existentialist standpoint. In the first volume, Reflection and Mystery, he explains that rather than proceeding by expounding a system, his philosophy proceeds in a fashion more akin to a journey. First, he examines the need for philosophy as arising from a certain exigence or disquiet in the seeker, through lived situations, expectations and truth. The lectures go on to explore the distinction between truth and universal validity alongside the relation of a sense of the ego to feeling and to situations in what he describes as our broken world. Volume I concludes with a discussion of the quality of mystery, which not only prompts philosophical enquiry but also coincides with the depths it reaches. Volume II takes the significance of mystery as its starting point, and Faith and Reality as its title. In the first four lectures, Marcel presents an existentialist response to metaphysics, outlining his understanding of existence and being and the value and purpose of ontology. He then distinguishes opinion and faith, characterising faith as ‘believing in’ rather than ‘believing that’. This leads neatly to his existentialist interpretation of Christian themes such as prayer and humility, freedom and grace, and then testimony, death and hope. He concludes by showing the boundaries of philosophy as he sees it, past which the ‘fires of revelation’ can take over.

Gabriel Marcel delivered two series of ten lectures on the ‘mystery of being’, comprised of ordered reflections on nature and the goal of philosophy from an existentialist standpoint. In the first volume, Reflection and Mystery, he explains that rather than proceeding by expounding a system, his philosophy proceeds in a fashion more akin to a journey. First, he examines the need for philosophy as arising from a certain exigence or disquiet in the seeker, through lived situations, expectations and truth. The lectures go on to explore the distinction between truth and universal validity alongside the relation of a sense of the ego to feeling and to situations in what he describes as our broken world. Volume I concludes with a discussion of the quality of mystery, which not only prompts philosophical enquiry but also coincides with the depths it reaches. Volume II takes the significance of mystery as its starting point, and Faith and Reality as its title. In the first four lectures, Marcel presents an existentialist response to metaphysics, outlining his understanding of existence and being and the value and purpose of ontology. He then distinguishes opinion and faith, characterising faith as ‘believing in’ rather than ‘believing that’. This leads neatly to his existentialist interpretation of Christian themes such as prayer and humility, freedom and grace, and then testimony, death and hope. He concludes by showing the boundaries of philosophy as he sees it, past which the ‘fires of revelation’ can take over.

Farrer’s work is a strong argument for freedom against determinism, which won wide praise from fellow philosophers, including his Oxford colleague P. F. Strawson. The work is dominated by a didactic assessment of libertarian and determinist arguments, in which the full weight of the determinist argument is given credence. Yet the fulfilment of the work places ultimate credence to the role of creativity and invention as the primary action of the will.

The Life of the Mind was originally intended to cover an examination of three fundamental aspects of mind: Thinking, Willing, and Judging. Arendt’s death in 1975 precluded the completion of the entire work, leaving only the first two volumes for publication.