Great suggestions. I've started listening to the podcast already.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Is it all kinds of philosophy that is causes you to feel this way? I'm not a Christian, but I find that philosophy and theology, as long as they are varieties open to the sacred (Platonic, Aristotelian, Christians, Islamic, Dharmic, etc.), actually has a positive influence on my spirituality. Obviously, not all are equal in this regard. There are some philosophers who balance the spiritual and intellectual particularly well. The Fathers, especially the Alexandrine and Cappadocian Fathers, spring to mind as obvious Christian examples. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Victorines and the School of Chartres, amongst others, stand out.

Mostly it is philosophy that has theological implications. For instance, Aquinas' Five Ways, when studied intently, can have a negative side effect on my spirituality. I feel as if I'm objectifying something that ought to be viewed in a more sacred manner--as if I'm reducing faith to a matter of propositions and formal reasoning, like someone who reduces the beauty of a painting to splotches of oils and dyes. I can't help but think, however, that this is an error on my part, that I'm just falsely viewing philosophy and spirituality as competitors.

Philosophy does create doubt at first. It scrutinizes all our presuppositions, and most of what we hold dear. It's hard to imagine it not creating doubt (and, so, hard to imagine it not having a negative effect on spirituality).

I've heard that starting with the philosophy of the Schools helps. The idea, I suppose, is that whereas many classes now present philosophy as a series of problems, the scholastics presented it as a body of knowledge.