For medieval Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers, the great theological challenge was to reconcile the Aristotelian idea of God—an unmoved, impersonal force—with the biblical God who engages with His creations, answers prayer, and is subject to human-like emotions. Many modern thinkers and scholar see the philosophical approach, associated with Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, and Averroes, as imposing on the Bible a fundamentally incompatible notion of the deity. Eleonore Stump, however, argues that the gap between the philosophical and biblical God is not so great, and that medieval philosophy can enhance our understanding of Scripture. (Interview by Joseph Ryan Kelly. Audio, 17 minutes.)

Reviewing Stranger Than Fiction, a new history of the 20th-century novel, Joseph Epstein draws attention to what’s missing:

A novelist and short-story writer who gets no mention whatsoever in Stranger Than Fiction is Isaac Bashevis Singer. When from time to time I am asked who among the writers of the past half century is likely to be read 50 years from now, Singer’s is the first name that comes to mind. His novels and stories can be sexy, but sex, unlike in many of the novels of Norman Mailer, William Styron, or Philip Roth, is never chiefly about sex. His stories are about that much larger subject, the argument of human beings with God. What Willa Cather and Isaac Bashevis Singer have that too few of the other novelists discussed in Stranger Than Fiction possess are central, important, great subjects.