Evil and the Augustinian Tradition
Evil and the Augustinian Tradition
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This explores the 'family biography' of the Augustinian tradition by looking at Augustine's work and its development in the writings of Hannah Arendt and Reinhold Niebuhr. Mathewes argues that the Augustinian tradition offers us a powerful, though commonly misconstrued, proposal for understanding and responding to evil's challenges. The book casts light on Augustine, Niebuhr and Arendt, as well as on the problem of evil, the nature of tradition, and the role of theological and ethical discourse in contemporary thought.
- Focuses on the difficulties which evil and sin present in modernity and postmodernity
- Charts the connections between ancient and modern thinkers
- Addresses a broad field of conversation partners - includes discussions of Gothic culture, the Holocaust, and secular philosophy and psychoanalysis
Reviews & endorsements
'This sort of book is very much to be welcomed … an engaging book, from which much can be learned.' Theology
'… I plan to re-read it soon, so full is it of lively wisdom and insight about material I thought I knew well already.' Church Times
'In a sensitive, creative and beautifully written account of augustine … Matthewes presents an account of evil that is in part metaphysical (supra-personal), but conceived more as energy than substance …' Church Times
'While constantly demonstrating the author's impressive erudition and capacity for complex argumentation, this eloquent treatise never loses its readability. Whether or not they ultimately accept the book's persuasive argument, readers will find their thought productively stimulated by this rich volume.' Reviews in Religion and Theology
Product details
January 2005Adobe eBook Reader
9780511029080
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: reaching disagreement
- Part I. Preliminaries: Evil and the Augustinian Tradition:
- 1. Modernity and evil
- 2. The Augustinian tradition and its discontents
- Part II. Genealogy: Remembering the Augustinian Tradition:
- 3. Sin as perversion: Reinhold Niebuhr's Augustinian psychology
- 4. Evil as privation: Hannah Arendt's Augustinian ontology
- Part III. The Challenge of the Augustinian Tradition to Evil:
- 5. Demythologising evil
- Conclusion: realising incomprehension, discerning mystery
- Works cited
- Index.
