Dallas Willard is one of today’s great communicators of the Real Jesus and Real Christianity. Willard has for some time been a Prof. of Philosophy at USC. Years ago, after reading Richard Foster’s A Celebration of Discipline, I read Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines – a great, deep book on spiritual transformation.
Christianitytoday.com today has two feature articles on Willard. One is a very interesting bio, and the other, by Cornelius Plantinga, is about spiritual transformation.
Here, e.g., is a juicy Willard quote from the bio article: "There is knowledge of God and the spiritual nature of man, as well as other types of reality (e.g. moral obligations) that are not reducible to the world dealt with by the so-called 'natural sciences.' The idea that knowledge—and, of course, reality—is limited to that world is the single most destructive idea on the stage of life today." Willard is a great scholar of German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. Like Husserl, "Willard believes that we can have direct experiences with the world that transcend cultural and linguistic barriers." Willard’s work, among other things, escorts us into the presence of God which transcednds such barriers and who is able to renovate our hearts.
Dallas Willard is an extremely valuable resource for all who are interested in the Real Jesus.