On Presence

Book excerpt: The Reverend Ralph Harper, a philosopher and theologian, has been credited with introducing existentialism to North America in 1948 with his work Existentialism: A Theory of Man. Forty years later, Harper delved deeper into the interior life of the human imagination in On Presence: Variations and Reflections. Winner of the 1992 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, On Presence is an insightful articulation of mankind's experience of presence. Drawing from philosophers like Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Marcel, theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, and Tillich, mystics like Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross, and novelists like Dostoevsky and Proust, this compelling work considers the transcendent and religious dimensions of the ordinary mysteries in everyday life.