Contemplative Prayer: A New Framework

David Foster, author of the bestselling Reading with God and Deep Calls to Deep, extends his discussion of contemplative prayer in terms of its philosophical framework. Contrasting a traditional framework with one based on continental philosophy, Foster explores a number of metaphysical and epistemological questions as well as the place of silence in a philosophy of language. Defending traditional insights of the mystical tradition, including its underlying metaphysical realism, religious experience as awareness of God, and the role of apophatic discourse in mysticism, Foster argues that the sense of God's absence can be a threshold of prayer.

Dom David Foster is a Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey and Chaplain of Downside School. He now lives in San Anselmo in Rome.