Dallas Willard

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Dallas Willard (September 4, 1935 - ) is an American philosophy professor and author born in Buffalo, Missouri. His work in philosophy has been primarily in phenomenology, particularly the work of Edmund Husserl. His more popular work has been in the area of Christian spiritual formation, within the various expressions of historic Christian orthodoxy.

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[edit] Education

Willard attended William Jewell College and later graduated from Tennessee Temple College in 1956 with a B.A. in Psychology and from Baylor University in 1956 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion He went to graduate school at Baylor University and the University of Wisconsin, earning a Ph. D. in Philosophy with a minor in the History of Science in 1964.

[edit] Academic Career

Willard taught at the University of Wisconsin in Madison from 1960-1965. Since then he has taught at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he served as Director of the School of Philosophy from 1982-1985. He has also held visiting appointments at UCLA (1969) and the University of Colorado (1984).

His publications in philosophy are concerned primarily with epistemology, the philosophy of mind and of logic, and with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. He has translated many of Husserl's early writings from German into English.

[edit] Other Work

In addition to teaching and writing about philosophy, Willard gives lectures and writes books about Christianity and Christian living. His book The Divine Conspiracy was Christianity Today’s Book of the Year for 1999. Another of his books, Renovation of the Heart, won Christianity Today’s 2003 Book Award for books on Spirituality and The Association of Logos Bookstores' 2003 Book Award for books on Christian Living.

Though Willard evades easy categorization, it would be somewhat accurate to say that he is Calvinistic. He believes passivity to be a widespread problem in the Church, so his emphasis on choice and action and classical spiritual disciplines often make it hard for Reformed-minded thinkers to recognize his high view of God's sovereignty. An emphasis in his teaching is his theology of the Kingdom of God, which is similar to that of N.T. Wright, George Eldon Ladd, and Gordon Fee. He has been influenced by many, including Maritain, Aquinas, Augustine, Forsyth, John Calvin and John Wesley, William Law, Andrew Murray, Richard Baxter, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Brother Lawrence, and the Rule of St. Benedict.

He has served on the boards of the C.S. Lewis Foundation and of Biola University.

[edit] Selected publications

[edit] Translations of Works by Husserl

[edit] Christian Books

  • The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (1988). San Francisco: Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-069442-4
  • The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (1998). San Francisco: Harper, ISBN 0-06-069333-9
  • Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God (1999). Intervarsity Press (USA), ISBN 0-8308-2226-7
  • Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (2002). Colorado Springs: NavPress, ISBN 1-57683-296-1
  • The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship" (2006). San Francisco: Harper, ISBN 0-06-088243-3

[edit] External links

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