The Gospel and the Mind Section at the 2011 Southern Festival Books
Greetings folks. I am happy to share that at the upcoming Southern Festival of Books (October 14-16, 2011) in Nashville, Tennessee, there will be a panel/section devoted to my book The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life. This is a first for me, and I am looking forward to it. I believe there will be a review/critique or two or three, and then I will share a few words about the book, and respond to the other folks. The event web site is here. I will be speaking about the book at 2:00 pm, Sunday, October 16, in the Capitol Library.
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- Category: Recommended Reading Recommended Reading
- Published: 13 July 2011 13 July 2011
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Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine--Book Published
Greetings to you from Tennessee (and a hot Tennessee summer!). I hope this note finds all well with you.
I am writing to share about a recent publication. I am pleased to share that Wipf and Stock has recently published my dissertation: Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine: The Theology of Colin Gunton in Light of Augustine. Lewis Ayres was kind enough to write the Foreword (thanks Lewis!). Wipf and Stock has been a joy to work with, and I am very pleased with the final product. A number of you have been supporters and cheerleaders over the years. Thank you!
The book is available through . . .
· Amazon
Here is a synopsis of the book:
Colin Gunton argued that Augustine bequeathed to the West a theological tradition with serious deficiencies. According to Gunton, Augustine’s particular construal of the doctrine of God led to fundamental errors and problems in (1) grasping the relationship between creation and redemption, and in (2) rightfully construing a truly Christian ontology. A closer reading of Augustine challenges Gunton’s understanding.
Gunton argued that (1) Augustine’s supposed emphasis of the one over the many severed any meaningful link between creation and redemption (contra the theological insights of Irenaeus); and that (2) because of Augustine’s supposed emphasis on the timeless essence of God at the expense of the three real persons, Augustine failed to forge a truly Christian ontology (effectively losing the insights of the Cappadocian Fathers). For all of Gunton’s insights (and there are many), (1) Augustine did not sever the link between creation and redemption, but rather affirmed that the created order is a means of genuine knowledge of God, the created order is indeed the only means by which redemption is accomplished, the cross of Christ is the only means by which we can see God, and the created order is fundamentally oriented toward a telos— redemption. (2) Concerning ontology—Augustine's teaching on the imago Dei, and the prominent role which relationship plays in Augustine's doctrine of man and doctrine of God provides the kind of relational Christian ontology Gunton sought. In short, Augustine could have provided Gunton with key theological resources in countering the modernity he so rightfully challenged.
I appreciate the support and endorsements from the following folks:
“The late Colin Gunton was an ardent and influential critic of Augustine's Trinitarian theology. His work was influential on many in the English speaking theological community. Brad Green's book offers the most sustained critique currently available of Gunton's work and should be read by anyone who has been swayed by Gunton's presentation. But more than this, Green's work also makes available a very different Augustine. Building on the work of a growing body of scholarship Green reveals to the theological community a vision of Augustine that will help us to think again about this most important of the Church Fathers in the west.”
Lewis Ayres, University of Durham
“Dr. Green is an accomplished scholar with a deep knowledge of Augustine and other church fathers. His proposed reply to the line recently taken by Colin Gunton and others is necessary and timely. Professor Gunton overplayed his hand and distorted Augustine's perspectives in various ways, which Dr. Green aims to elucidate. There is a growing secondary literature which takes Gunton at face value on this subject and it is essential to refute it before it becomes a new orthodoxy. Dr. Green's proposal is therefore most welcome.”
Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School and Latimer Trust
“Brad Green offers a persuasive reading of Augustine that corrects misapprehensions found, not just in the work of Colin Gunton, but much more widely across contemporary theology. He also shows us how Augustine, rightly understood, can be recovered as a positive resource for contemporary theology. The book is not merely corrective, however: the reader will discover a perceptive and sympathetic reading of Gunton's own thought that gives us insight into a significant contemporary figure. This book will open up ancient and modern theology, and how they should be related. These are important matters, and I hope it will be widely read.”
Stephen Holmes, University of St. Andrews
“Over the past few decades, Trinitarian theology has risen from the post-Enlightenment deluge in which it seemed to have sunk, and few have played as crucial a role in that development as the late Colin Gunton. Theologians and church leaders alike found in Gunton's work not only a rich theology of God but also the framework for a Trinitarian ontology, aesthetics, science, and cultural analysis - a Trinitarian theology useful in ways that Kant would never have dreamed. At the foundation of Gunton's work was the claim that Augustine early on steered Western theology into a reef, leaving contemporary theologians to gather the wreckage and rebuild. Through an appreciative yet critical examination of Gunton's project, and an equally cogent treatment of Augustine, Brad Green has gently corrected Gunton's reading of Augustine, showing that the Bishop of Hippo left Western theology far more seaworthy than Gunton believed. In the process, Green strengthens Gunton's case against modernity by providing some Augustinian equipment. This is theology of a high caliber—judicious, clear, convincing, and, above all, serviceable to the church as it navigates the roiling seas of modernity and postmodernity.”
Peter Leithart, New St. Andrews College
“Brad Green set out to vindicate Colin Gunton's revolutionary critique of Augustine—namely, that he is a proto-Unitarian who imports the ancient Greek emphasis on the One into his own doctrine of the Trinity. Instead Green came to see, in ways that others have not, that Gunton is quite wrongheaded in tracing our modern and post-modern ills to an alleged monergism in Augustine. Far from failing to emphasize the communal character of the Trinity—allegedly denying the insights of the Cappadocians in this matter—Augustine has a robust doctrine of the three Persons as dwelling in utterly self-offering community. In his carefully-argued and lucidly-written dissertation, Green shows that Augustine's trinitarian communalism—especially as it engaged ancient pagan culture—offers the real antidote to the perilous individualism that is the chief legacy of the Enlightenment.
Ralph Wood, Baylor University
I hope you and yours have a great summer!
Blessings to you,
Brad
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- Category: Recommended Reading Recommended Reading
- Published: 11 July 2011 11 July 2011
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Jean Leclercq on The Love of Learning and Desire for God
I have begun to read Jean Leclercq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (Fordham University Press, 1961; reprinted in 2009). The book is a delight, and a treasure of insight into aspects of the middle ages. Here is Leclercq on how a monk of this era might look at nature, how they would "see" nature. Note how the world is viewed through biblical/theological categories:
"Of course, these men admire nature; they praise the beauty of a spot which they sometimes say 'delights' them. A founder of a monastery would choose a site because of its pleasantness: loci iucunditas; a hermit will prefer for his retreat 'a beautiful forest.' But their admiration is not aroused, as ours is, by the picturesque. The pleasurable aspect they appreciate is more moral than material: a beautiful forest is above all a forest suited to the solitary life; a 'Beaulieu' is a place which has been made fertile. And since eschatology never loses its rights, every garden where spiritual delights are found recalls Paradise and is described in the lush images which, in the Bible, depicted the garden of the Spouse or of the first Adam. The cloister is a 'true paradise,' and the surrounding countryside shares in its dignity. Nature 'in the raw,' unembellished by work of art, inspires the learned man with a sort of horror: the abysses and peaks which we like to gaze at are to him an occasion of fear. A wild spot, not hallowed by prayer and asceticism and not the scene of any spiritual life, is, as it were in the state of original sin. But once it has become fertile and purposeful, it takes on the utmost significance." (p. 130)
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- Category: Recommended Reading Recommended Reading
- Published: 05 July 2011 05 July 2011
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Gospel and the Mind Interview/Video
Crossway, the publisher of my book, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (2010), has been kind enough to post a short video where I very briefly try to lay out the heart of the book. The video is linked here. Thank you Crossway.
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- Category: Recommended Reading Recommended Reading
- Published: 11 June 2011 11 June 2011
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