Phillip Cary | Eastern University (original) (raw)

Books by Phillip Cary

This book argues that the distinctive meaning of Protestant theology derives from the conviction ... more This book argues that the distinctive meaning of Protestant theology derives from the conviction that the Gospel is a sacramental word that gives what it signifies, and what it signifies is Christ in the flesh. I trace (1) how this concept of the Gospel arises in Luther and grounds his doctrine of justification of faith alone, (2) how it modifies the Augustinian context in which it arose, and (3) what its consequences are for later Protestant theology, which does not always share Luther's robust sacramental doctrine.

By Phillip Cary and Jean-François Phelizon. A philosopher and a business leader have a friendly ... more By Phillip Cary and Jean-François Phelizon. A philosopher and a business leader have a friendly debate about whether it makes sense to speak of God having a strategy for the human race. What might a divine strategy look like, in light of the biblical portrait of God and the historical record of religions that claim to carry out God's strategy? With so much violence in our religious history, between Christians, Jews and Muslims, can there be a divine strategy of peace rather than war—where our religions do not strategize to defeat their enemies but to bless them? In other words, could God have a strategy that overcomes rather than continues the legacy of Cain and Abel? If so, to what future might it point us?
http://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Have-Strategy-Dialogue/dp/1498223958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446651286&sr=1-1

A theological commentary on the biblical book of Jonah, focusing on the relation of Jew and Genti... more A theological commentary on the biblical book of Jonah, focusing on the relation of Jew and Gentile, and situating the Christology of the book in the context of its "Israeology," its understanding of the meaning of Israel as a blessing for all nations. Literary as well as theological in focus, the commentary is also meant to be fun to read.

Argues that Augustine was the first thinker to conceive of the self as a private inner space, usi... more Argues that Augustine was the first thinker to conceive of the self as a private inner space, using conceptual materials derived from Platonism and the Latin rhetorical tradition.

Traces the development of Augustine's doctrine of grace, its roots in Platonism and Paul, its use... more Traces the development of Augustine's doctrine of grace, its roots in Platonism and Paul, its use against Pelagius, and its famously problematic predestinarian implications. Argues that what makes Augustine's doctrine of grace new is its focus on divine grace as inward gift.

Argues that Augustine invented "expressionist semiotics" (where words are outward signs expressin... more Argues that Augustine invented "expressionist semiotics" (where words are outward signs expressing the inner will of the soul) and used it to formulate his doctrine of sacraments as outward signs of grace. But because his Platonism does not allow the external to have power over the inner, he has no place for the medieval notion of sacraments as outward signs that can confer an inner gift of grace upon the soul.

A popular book trying to convince anxious evangelicals that notions like hearing God speak in you... more A popular book trying to convince anxious evangelicals that notions like hearing God speak in your heart, finding God's will for your life, and giving God control of your life, are unbiblical as well as bad for you.

A collection of scholarly essays by Johannes Brachtendorf, John D. Caputo, Jesse Couenhoven, Fred... more A collection of scholarly essays by Johannes Brachtendorf, John D. Caputo, Jesse Couenhoven, Frederick Van Fleteren, Alexander R. Eodice, Wayne Hankey, John Peter Kenney, Paul A. Macdonald Jr., Gareth Matthews, Roland Teske, James Wetzel and yours truly.

Articles by Phillip Cary

Argues that Luther's concept of the salvific power of the Gospel promise is based on a medieval C... more Argues that Luther's concept of the salvific power of the Gospel promise is based on a medieval Catholic concept of sacramental efficacy, because the Gospel is an outward word that gives what it signifies. This must be received by faith alone, but unlike later Protestantism it does not require "reflective faith," the belief that "I believe." This paper gets at the heart of my own theological thinking.

"Did God create evil? On the contrary, since God created all things, all things are good. That... more "Did God create evil?
On the contrary, since God created all things, all things are good.
That means evil must be in essence a form of non-being.
Augustine follows that thought through to the end."

Explanation of the basic logic of the doctrine of the Trinity, originating as a talk for a gradua... more Explanation of the basic logic of the doctrine of the Trinity, originating as a talk for a graduate student fellowship. The journal in which it was published is now defunct and very hard to find, so the paper is posted here.

Sequel to the previous paper, again originating from a talk for graduate students and posted here... more Sequel to the previous paper, again originating from a talk for graduate students and posted here because the journal is defunct and hard to find.

God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views, 2017

This is my contribution to God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views (IVP Academic, 2017) together ... more This is my contribution to God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views (IVP Academic, 2017) together with my response to co-authors (William Lane Craig, “A Molinist View”; William Hasker, “An Open Theism View”; Thomas Jay Oord, “An Essential Kenosis View”; and Stephen Wykstra, “A Skeptical Theism View”).

The classic view, as I present it, is an Augustinian view, as modified by Martin Luther's conception of the Gospel. The key to understanding evil is to locate it within the Gospel, the story of Jesus Christ, which is actually the story of the world. Evil has a place in that story--as a defeated enemy. But at present, in the middle of the story when the defeat of this enemy is far from completed, we cannot see the glory of the happy ending to the story, which gives meaning to the sufferings in the middle.

Modern thought typically opposes the authority of tradition in the name of universal reason. Pos... more Modern thought typically opposes the authority of tradition in the name of universal reason. Postmodernism begins with the insight that the socio-historical context of tradition and its authority is inevitable, even in modernity. Modernity can no longer take itself for granted when it recognizes itself as a tradition that is opposed to traditions. The left-wing postmodernist response to this insight (represented for example by Derrida and Foucault) is to conclude that because tradition is inevitable, irrationality is inevitable. The right-wing postmodernist response (represented for example by Gadamer and MacIntyre) is to see traditions as the home of diverse forms of rationality. This requires an understanding of the Socratic, self-critical aspect of intellectual traditions, which include both modern sciences and the great world religions.

Based on my talk in January 2007 at the annual symposium on the Lutheran Confessions at Concordia... more Based on my talk in January 2007 at the annual symposium on the Lutheran Confessions at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne IN.

Argues that we cannot know other persons without believing at least some of what they say. For r... more Argues that we cannot know other persons without believing at least some of what they say. For respect for others is a requirement of knowing them as other, and this in turn requires acknowledging their authority to speak for themselves, which means considering that what they have to say about themselves might be true. Thus others may give themselves to be known in their words, especially their promises. This replaces the common picture of penetrating through outward words to see the inner state of the person.

Review of George Hunsinger, Reading Karl Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal, in First ... more Review of George Hunsinger, Reading Karl Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal, in First Things 252 (April 2015), pp. 49-53.

In Dante, the bottom of hell is cold and heaven is more like fire. This is because of ancient phy... more In Dante, the bottom of hell is cold and heaven is more like fire. This is because of ancient physics, in which fire (which is the substance of light) is the lightest, most heavenly element, and earth the lowest and coldest. Following Augustine, Dante uses this physics as the metaphorical landscape representing the movement of the soul, drawn by its love up to God or down to the bottom of the earth.

Augustine contends that grace and free will are compatible, in that God can choose that we shall ... more Augustine contends that grace and free will are compatible, in that God can choose that we shall freely choose to accept his grace. This results in Augustine's doctrine of election: that the choice God makes to give grace to some persons rather than others is the ultimate cause of the difference between the saved and the damned. This is unequal but not unjust, Augustine argues, because every fallen person merits only damnation, which means the damned are punished justly while the saved benefit from a mercy that is undeserved but not unjust. I argue on the contrary that the unequal distribution of grace raises unanswerable questions about divine justice, and that Augustinian compatibilism about grace and free will can and should be affirmed without Augustine's doctrine of election.

Gadamer values Augustine's concept of inner word because it seems to indicate the fundamental uni... more Gadamer values Augustine's concept of inner word because it seems to indicate the fundamental unity of language and thought. But it turns out that Augustine himself believes that the inner word is prior to and apart from all human language. His reasons for this stem from the Platonist ontological convictions that underlie his semiotics of language.

God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views, 2017

Why does Augustine try so hard not to grieve over his mother's death? In his early ethical writi... more Why does Augustine try so hard not to grieve over his mother's death? In his early ethical writings, he wants to order human loves so as not to love what can be lost. The stunning new development in Confessions is that one can do this with human beings: properly ordered love means loving your friends "in God," so that there is no possibility of losing them. This possibility is portrayed in Monica herself, who loves her son Augustine by grace in such a way that "the son of these tears cannot perish."

For Augustine, the city of God is the community whose being is to share in love for God. Since wh... more For Augustine, the city of God is the community whose being is to share in love for God. Since what gives any society its being is inward unity in love, neither language (external words) nor what we call politics is natural or essential to human life, except as a result of sin.

A biblical meditation on the good of sabbath-keeping for The Mockingbird 4 (Winter 2015), 24-30.

Argues that the distinctively Thomistic concept of grace as a created but supernatural quality of... more Argues that the distinctively Thomistic concept of grace as a created but supernatural quality of the soul arises in order to reconcile a strong Dionysian doctrine of divine incomprehensibility with an Augustinian commitment to beatific vision: no creature can by nature see the essence of the incomprehensible God unless elevated by supernatural grace.

Modernity assumes that traditions are irrational. Hence modernity can't survive the recognition t... more Modernity assumes that traditions are irrational. Hence modernity can't survive the recognition that modernity itself is a tradition. The postmodern insight is that tradition is inevitable. So if traditions are inherently irrational, then irrationality is inescapable--which is the sceptical conclusion of what I call leftwing postmodernism (e.g. Derrida, Foucault, deconstructionism, etc). But suppose tradition is the home of rationality? That is the premise of rightwing postmodernism, whose implications for the arts I explore here.

A review article supporting Kevin Giles' critique of the recent contention among some evangelical... more A review article supporting Kevin Giles' critique of the recent contention among some evangelical theologians that there is an eternal subordination of roles within the Trinity, after which the subordination of women is modeled.

A summary of my argument that Augustine invented the private inner self, in the sense of an inner... more A summary of my argument that Augustine invented the private inner self, in the sense of an inner space you can enter into.

The Manichaeans thought the soul was a fragment of God's being lost in this dark evil world--a fo... more The Manichaeans thought the soul was a fragment of God's being lost in this dark evil world--a form of psychological optimism against a background of cosmic pessimism. Young Augustine was attracted to this notion of an untarnished oasis of divinity in the self, but later ended up reversing Manichaean valuations and adopting a cosmological optimism (all God's creation is good) and psychological pessimism (the source of evil is the soul and its sinful will). Yet the residue of his Manichaean optimism remains in his epochal invention of the inner self as a place in which to find God.

A brief introduction to what I call "right-wing postmodernism," as an introduction to a intervie... more A brief introduction to what I call "right-wing postmodernism," as an introduction to a interview I will be doing for a radio show broadcast "across the pond" in Britain.

Seminar paper on Christian Smith, What is a Person? An incomplete version of this paper, without... more Seminar paper on Christian Smith, What is a Person? An incomplete version of this paper, without full notes, was published as “The Person before God” in Religion and the Social Sciences: Conversations with Robert Bellah and Christian Smith, ed. R. R. Reno and Barbara McClay (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015).

How can Christians possibly read the biblical command to exterminate the Canaanites as a good wor... more How can Christians possibly read the biblical command to exterminate the Canaanites as a good word? My theological suggestion is that we recognize ourselves in the Canaanites, as those who deserve death. That locates us properly in the story, as those whose only hope is the undeserved mercy of God. The talk includes reflections on what it means to read this way, identifying ourselves with people in the story--a version of the ancient biblical form of reading called typology.

A 45-minute podcast with Scott Oakland interviewing me about my book, Good News for Anxious Chris... more A 45-minute podcast with Scott Oakland interviewing me about my book, Good News for Anxious Christians. It went by fast!
http://www.100huntley.com/video.php?id=iPyGqNDqQnE

Why we don't have to monkey around with the concept of truth in order to have respectful discussi... more Why we don't have to monkey around with the concept of truth in order to have respectful discussions about our religious disagreements.

Why Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists have traditionally gotten anxious about different things.

If faith is "how to get saved," then it inevitably becomes a work, because you have to do a good ... more If faith is "how to get saved," then it inevitably becomes a work, because you have to do a good job at it. But if your faith is about the truth of what you believe in--i.e., about Christ, who he is and what he does, rather than about what I do to get saved--then everything is different. There is a kind of intellectual conversion that takes place when you realize that what your faith is really about is Jesus Christ.

Provides a definition and conceptual description of the nature of virtues, and also a sense of wh... more Provides a definition and conceptual description of the nature of virtues, and also a sense of why they matter.

To write clearly about free will, you need to understand several distinctions, without which you ... more To write clearly about free will, you need to understand several distinctions, without which you are likely to get confused when you talk about free will and evil. You are required to read and understand the following before you write on these topics (i.e. I will hold you responsible for understanding these distinctions and not getting confused about them in your papers).

Augustinian Studies, 2004

Augustinian Studies, 42/1 (2011)

There was a time when Augustine was known as the master of the psychological analogies. As great ... more There was a time when Augustine was known as the master of the psychological analogies. As great a psychologist as a theologian, he discerned triadic structures in our souls (such as memory, understanding, and will) that were images at the natural level of the supernatural truth that God is three-in-one. This was not so long ago, in the heyday of 20thcentury neoscholasticism. Then came the reaction, led by Karl Rahner with related developments in the work of Colin Gunton and John Zizioulas, and represented in Augustine scholarship by Oliver du Roy's massive treatise L'intelligence de la foi en la trinité selon saint Augustin. The psychological analogies were now seen as static and stultifying, emblems of a self-enclosed self reflecting a nearly modalist, "Western" version of the Trinity, and Augustine's interest in them was regarded as promoting a disastrous separation between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity-as if the Trinity in se (its incomprehensible and irrelevant logic displayed by the psychological analogies) were something other than the Trinity in the economy of salvation, by which we are led to the Father through the incarnate Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Irish Theological Quarterly

Review of Gerald O'Collins, SJ, Saint Augustine on the Resurrection of Christ, Oxford University... more Review of Gerald O'Collins, SJ, Saint Augustine on the Resurrection of Christ, Oxford University Press, 2017.

Apart from scholars with a specialized interest in mysticism-among whom there is a great deal of ... more Apart from scholars with a specialized interest in mysticism-among whom there is a great deal of disagreement-the dominant understanding of mysticism today is a simplified version of William James' picture in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) according to which an underlying ineffable experience of transcendence is inadequately expressed in the language of the mystics' theology or 'over-beliefs.' John Peter Kenney is among a growing number of scholars who follow Bernard McGinn's interpretation of Christian mysticism, according to which the theology of the mystics is more fundamental to the phenomenon of mysticism than James' picture makes it out to be. Kenney's new book extends and deepens McGinn's portrait of Augustine as the founding father of the tradition of Western mystical theology, whose writings-more than his experience-originated several distinctive features of what we have since come to call 'mysticism.' To this task Kenney brings expertise not only in Augustine but also in Augustine's philosophical background, in particular the theology of pagan Platonism, which is the subject of his earlier book, Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient Platonic Theology (Hanover and London: Brown University Press, 1991). If there is no mysticism without theology, there is no ancient Christian theology without a certain amount of

Kolbet, Paul R. Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal. Notre Dame: Universi... more Kolbet, Paul R. Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. ISBN 0-268-03321-8. Pp. xviii + 342. $45.00 (pb).

go to http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-08-08.html

It is surprising, given the vast literature on Augustine, that he is so little understood. He is ... more It is surprising, given the vast literature on Augustine, that he is so little understood. He is both strange to us and deep in our bloodstream, both a stumbling-block and a father in the faith.

First Things, 2016

Rabbi Sacks asks us to join him in re-reading biblical narratives of sibling rivalry (Isaac and I... more Rabbi Sacks asks us to join him in re-reading biblical narratives of sibling rivalry (Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau) that form religious identiy and have often fueled religious violence. At the end of this review I suggest how Christian theologians, following Jesus' lead in the parable of the prodigal son, might take up that invitation.
Published in First Things, May 2016

Some years ago, when revisionary theologians proposed baptizing people "in the name of the creato... more Some years ago, when revisionary theologians proposed baptizing people "in the name of the creator, the redeemer, and the sustainer," their opponents insisted that the traditional biblical formula, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," can't be dispensed with, because it is not merely a metaphor but God's own name. There is a problem with their argument, however, because these words do not really behave like a proper name. We get them by translation from the Greek, Pater, Huios and HAGION Pneuma, rather than by transliterating them from the original language, like true proper names such as "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Arguably the most beautiful and important theology of our time is being developed between the var... more Arguably the most beautiful and important theology of our time is being developed between the various churches, in ecumenical discussions which elucidate the structure of thought and practice common to all the particular Christian traditions. Robert Jenson's recent work is situated in that between, inhabiting the common space of ecumenical theology and examining its problems. The solutions he proposes are bold and innovative, often idiosyncratic and unlikely to be widely accepted--yet instructive and immensely suggestive to anyone who thinks theology should solve its problems not by conforming to the agenda set by the world (modernity, postmodernity, or any other age) but by renewing its attention to the Gospel of Christ.

Modern philosophical ethics has often tried to show how ethics can be independent of theology-wit... more Modern philosophical ethics has often tried to show how ethics can be independent of theology-with limited success. John Hare is a Christian philosopher, currently holding the Noah Porter chair of Philosophical Theology at Yale, who has devoted much of his career to exploring these limits. This book continues the exploration by presenting a history of philosophical ethics focusing on four main figures, Aristotle (384-322), Duns Scotus (1265-1308), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and R. M. Hare , the author's father, as representatives of four types of ethical theory (virtue theory, divine command theory, deontology and consequentialism) with special attention to their original theological context. The author argues that these four types of theory are not so radically opposed as they typically appear to be in most modern presentations, for when their theological presuppositions are retained there is an intelligible unity between the different roles that God plays in each: a kind of magnet of desire in Aristotle, a gracious lover in Scotus, a sovereign ruler in Kant, and a ideal model of moral reasoning in R. M. Hare. There four roles can be combined in one coherent conception of God, thus raising the possibility that the four types of ethical theory could also be combined--not something one would have considered possible on the basis of most modern presentations, which tend to neglect or downplay the theological component.

Augustinian Studies, 2009

‘Iudaei’, in: Augustinus-Lexikon, Band III, Fasc. 5/6, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 2008 [= June 2009], ... more ‘Iudaei’, in: Augustinus-Lexikon, Band III, Fasc. 5/6, Basel: Schwabe Verlag 2008 [= June 2009], 781-792