Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar

The appetite for knowledge--wanting to know things--is very strong in humans. Some will sacrifice all other goods (sex, power, food, life itself) for it. But this is not a simple appetite, and this book treats some of its complications, deformations, beauties, and intensities.

Christian thinkers have traditionally distinguished between good and bad forms of the appetite for knowledge, calling the good "studiousness" and the bad "curiosity." The former is aimed at joyful contemplation of what...