David Bentley Hart

In times that feel apocalyptic, where do we place our hope? It's an apocalyptic moment. The grim effects of climate change have left many people in despair. Young people often cite climate fears as a reason they are not having children. Then there’s the threat of nuclear war, again in the cards, which could make climate worries a moot point. The paradoxical answer ancient Judaism gave to such despair was a promise: the promise of doomsday, the “Day of the Lord” when God will visit his people and establish lasting justice and peace. Judgment, according to the Hebrew prophets, will be followed by renewal – for the faithful, and perhaps even for the entire cosmos. Over the centuries since, this hopeful vision of apocalypse has carried many others through moments of crisis and catastrophe. Might it do the same for us?On this theme: creation is transformed and made new.That’s what the “end of the age” meant to Jesus and his early - Peter J. Leithart says when old worlds die, we need something sturdier than the myth of progress. - Brandon McGinley says you can’t protect your kids from tragedy. - Cardinal Peter Turkson points to the spiritual roots of the climate crisis. - David Bentley Hart says disruption, not dogma, is Christianity’s grounds for hope. - Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz reminds us that the Book of Revelation ends well. - Lyman Stone argues that those who claim that having children threatens the environment are wrong. - Eleanor Parker recounts how, amid Viking terror, one Anglo-Saxon bishop held a kingdom together. - Shira Telushkin describes how artist Wassily Kandinsky forged a path from the material to the spiritual. - Anika T. Prather learned to let her children grieve during the pandemic.Also in the issue: - Ukrainian pastor Ivan Rusyn describes ministering in wartime Bucha and Kyiv. - Mindy Belz reports on farmers who held out in Syria despite ISIS. - New poems by winners of the 2022 Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award - A profile of newly sainted Charles de Foucauld - Reviews of Elena Ferrante’s In the Margins, Abigail Favale’s The Genesis of Gender, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility - Readers’ forum, comics, and morePlough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

Venetian Mirrors takes the reader on a meandering tour, whose path traces a poetic portrait of Venice-as mediated through the history of its representations-in which multiple voices and layers intermingle: fact and fiction, waking consciousness and dream, the past and the present, the living and the dead. This imaginal itinerary also presents, as much through its form as through its content, a sustained reflection on reflection-hence, on the relation between original and image-and on the inseparable, if tense, bond between nature and art, which that city so consummately exemplifies.

A lively and wide-ranging collection from David Bentley Hart, A Gathering of Leaves invites readers to rediscover the sheer joy of reading. David Bentley Hart brings together reflections on everything from literature and music to baseball and tortoises in his newest book. The pieces roam freely in subject and tone—sometimes serious, sometimes playful—but are united by Hart's distinctive voice: witty, attentive, and unafraid of digression. Rather than advancing a single argument or theme, Hart lets each essay follow its own path. Short notes sit alongside longer meditations; close readings give way to cultural commentary or unexpected enthusiasms. Hart focuses on the joys of style, observation, and thought in motion. A Gathering of Leaves is a book for readers who enjoy the art of the word—writing that informs and entertains, wanders and returns, and reminds us why reading itself remains a pleasure.

A lively and wide-ranging collection from David Bentley Hart, A Gathering of Leaves invites readers to rediscover the sheer joy of reading. David Bentley Hart brings together reflections on everything from literature and music to baseball and tortoises in his newest book. The pieces roam freely in subject and tone—sometimes serious, sometimes playful—but are united by Hart's distinctive voice: witty, attentive, and unafraid of digression. Rather than advancing a single argument or theme, Hart lets each essay follow its own path. Short notes sit alongside longer meditations; close readings give way to cultural commentary or unexpected enthusiasms. Hart focuses on the joys of style, observation, and thought in motion. A Gathering of Leaves is a book for readers who enjoy the art of the word—writing that informs and entertains, wanders and returns, and reminds us why reading itself remains a pleasure.

A world-renowned philosopher’s genre-defying exploration of the mystery of consciousness “[A] masterpiece. . . . The most thorough and rigorous account of the nature of reality to be published in a century.”—James Matthew Wilson, World Magazine In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, “Do you see this flower, my love?” So begins David Bentley Hart’s unprecedented exploration of the mystery of consciousness. Writing in the form of a Platonic dialogue, he systematically subjects the mechanical view of nature that has prevailed in Western culture for four centuries to dialectical interrogation. Powerfully rehabilitating a classical view in which mental acts are irreducible to material causes, he argues through the gods’ exchanges that the foundation of all reality is spiritual or mental rather than material. The structures of mind, organic life, and even language together attest to an infinite act of intelligence in all things that we may as well call God. Engaging contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind, free will, revolutions in physics and biology, the history of science, computational models of mind, artificial intelligence, information theory, linguistics, cultural disenchantment, and the metaphysics of nature, Hart calls readers back to an enchanted world in which nature is the residence of mysterious and vital intelligences. He suggests that there is a very special wisdom to be gained when we, in Psyche’s words, “devote more time to the contemplation of living things and less to the fabrication of machines.”

In The Light of Tabor, award-winning theologian David Bentley Hart proposes an approach to the nature of Christ that is profoundly radical yet deeply classical. For centuries, Christian theology has rested on a paradox. Beginning with the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century, the major Christian traditions have held that Jesus Christ combines two distinct natures: he is fully God and, somehow, fully human. Yet this tenet has traditionally invited irresolvable metaphysical contradictions. David Bentley Hart delves deeply into the seemingly irresoluble tensions, providing the first theological attempt to show how the logic of the earliest churches' angelomorphic Christology is continuous with later Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Hart draws on theologians from every epoch of Christian thought, from Origen to Sergei Bulgakov, while making free use of concepts from other spiritual traditions, such as Vedanta. The Light of Tabor proposes an approach to Christology that is thoroughly monistic, both as regards Being and as regards nature. Hart argues that the only coherent reading of the figure of Christ is one that fully embraces the essential unity of all things divine and natural through him, proposing an approach to Christology that affirms classical doctrine without retaining the dualistic presuppositions that have haunted theology since the age of the great councils.

A world-renowned philosopher’s genre-defying exploration of the mystery of consciousness “[A] masterpiece. . . . The most thorough and rigorous account of the nature of reality to be published in a century.”—James Matthew Wilson, World Magazine In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, “Do you see this flower, my love?” So begins David Bentley Hart’s unprecedented exploration of the mystery of consciousness. Writing in the form of a Platonic dialogue, he systematically subjects the mechanical view of nature that has prevailed in Western culture for four centuries to dialectical interrogation. Powerfully rehabilitating a classical view in which mental acts are irreducible to material causes, he argues through the gods’ exchanges that the foundation of all reality is spiritual or mental rather than material. The structures of mind, organic life, and even language together attest to an infinite act of intelligence in all things that we may as well call God. Engaging contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind, free will, revolutions in physics and biology, the history of science, computational models of mind, artificial intelligence, information theory, linguistics, cultural disenchantment, and the metaphysics of nature, Hart calls readers back to an enchanted world in which nature is the residence of mysterious and vital intelligences. He suggests that there is a very special wisdom to be gained when we, in Psyche’s words, “devote more time to the contemplation of living things and less to the fabrication of machines.”

From one of the most-read religious and philosophical scholars in the United States comes a collection of creative, thought-provoking fables. Alongside David Bentley Hart's widely read work in philosophy, theology, and religious studies there has always been the other side of his writing—the fiction, poetry, and literary essays—which has often enjoyed a separate, if equally appreciative, readership. In this, his most recent book, these two worlds draw near to one another in a new way. In Prisms, Veils: A Book of Fables, Hart explores the elusive nature of dreams and the enduring power of mythologies. Moving over themes ranging from the beauty of the natural world to the very nature of consciousness itself, each narrative is threaded through with Hart's deep religious, cultural, and historical knowledge, drawing readers into an expertly woven tapestry of diverse allusions and deep meaning. Prisms, Veils will appeal to fans of Hart's work, philosophers, theologians, and general readers of fiction. The collection affords a special opportunity to engage with the creative side of Hart, its pages sparkling with bright gems of short fiction that are enchanting, thought-provoking, and imbued with spiritual truth.

From one of the most-read religious and philosophical scholars in the United States comes a collection of creative, thought-provoking fables. Alongside David Bentley Hart's widely read work in philosophy, theology, and religious studies there has always been the other side of his writing—the fiction, poetry, and literary essays—which has often enjoyed a separate, if equally appreciative, readership. In this, his most recent book, these two worlds draw near to one another in a new way. In Prisms, Veils: A Book of Fables, Hart explores the elusive nature of dreams and the enduring power of mythologies. Moving over themes ranging from the beauty of the natural world to the very nature of consciousness itself, each narrative is threaded through with Hart's deep religious, cultural, and historical knowledge, drawing readers into an expertly woven tapestry of diverse allusions and deep meaning. Prisms, Veils will appeal to fans of Hart's work, philosophers, theologians, and general readers of fiction. The collection affords a special opportunity to engage with the creative side of Hart, its pages sparkling with bright gems of short fiction that are enchanting, thought-provoking, and imbued with spiritual truth.

Not much time has passed since the thrilling adventure surrounding the stolen treasure of Castle MacGorilla, but our three intrepid investigators-Teddy, Porculina, and Gorilla-are once again called upon to solve a baffling mystery. On this occasion, the action moves from the stark, cold highlands of Scotland to the lush and warmly sunlit Loire Valley in France, but the perils encountered by the trio are no less daunting and the puzzle is, if anything, all the more perplexing. Indeed, it is a puzzle that stretches into the remotest reaches of history, all the way back to ancient Egypt. There are chases, secret doors, samples of Eastern wisdom and French poetry, and biscuits. And then, too, there is the little matter of a recurrent ghostly apparition. Can a small teddy bear detective, however seasoned, aided only by an even smaller plush pig and an easily distracted toy ape-with the occasional assistance of a wise and longsuffering dog-discover the terrible truth before the all-important day of the Cider Festival?

The second edition of David Bentley Hart’s critically acclaimed New Testament translation David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament, first published in 2017, was hailed as a “remarkable feat” and as a “strange, disconcerting, radical version of a strange, disconcerting manifesto of profoundly radical values.” In this second edition, which includes a powerful new preface and more than a thousand changes to the text, Hart’s purpose remains the same: to render the original Greek texts faithfully, free of doctrine and theology, awakening readers to the uncanniness that often lies hidden beneath doctrinal layers. Through his startling translation, with its raw, unfinished quality, Hart reveals a world conceptually quite unlike our own. “It was a world,” he writes, “in which the heavens above were occupied by celestial spiritual potentates of questionable character, in which angels ruled the nations of the earth as local gods, in which demons prowled the empty places, . . . and in which the entire cosmos was for many an eternal divine order and for many others a darkened prison house.” He challenges readers to imagine it anew: a God who reigned on high, appearing in the form of a slave and dying as a criminal, only then to be raised up and revealed as the Lord of all things.

David Bentley Hart offers an intense and thorough reflection upon the issue of the supernatural in Christian theology and doctrine. In recent years, the theological—and, more specifically, Roman Catholic—question of the supernatural has made an astonishing return from seeming oblivion. David Bentley Hart's You Are Gods presents a series of meditations on the vexed theological question of the relation of nature and supernature. In its merely controversial aspect, the book is intended most directly as a rejection of a certain Thomistic construal of that relation, as well as an argument in favor of a model of nature and supernature at once more Eastern and patristic, and also more in keeping with the healthier currents of mediaeval and modern Catholic thought. In its more constructive and confessedly radical aspects, the book makes a vigorous case for the all-but-complete eradication of every qualitative, ontological, or logical distinction between the natural and the supernatural in the life of spiritual creatures. It advances a radically monistic vision of Christian metaphysics but does so wholly on the basis of credal orthodoxy. Hart, one of the most widely read theologians in America today, presents a bold gesture of resistance to the recent revival of what used to be called "two-tier Thomism," especially in the Anglophone theological world. In this astute exercise in classical Christian orthodoxy, Hart takes the metaphysics of participation, high Trinitarianism, Christology, and the soteriological language of theosis to their inevitable logical conclusions. You Are Gods will provoke many readers interested in theological metaphysics. The book also offers a vision of Christian thought that draws on traditions (such as Vedanta) from which Christian philosophers and theologians, biblical scholars, and religious studies scholars still have a great deal to learn.

David Bentley Hart offers an intense and thorough reflection upon the issue of the supernatural in Christian theology and doctrine. In recent years, the theological—and, more specifically, Roman Catholic—question of the supernatural has made an astonishing return from seeming oblivion. David Bentley Hart's You Are Gods presents a series of meditations on the vexed theological question of the relation of nature and supernature. In its merely controversial aspect, the book is intended most directly as a rejection of a certain Thomistic construal of that relation, as well as an argument in favor of a model of nature and supernature at once more Eastern and patristic, and also more in keeping with the healthier currents of mediaeval and modern Catholic thought. In its more constructive and confessedly radical aspects, the book makes a vigorous case for the all-but-complete eradication of every qualitative, ontological, or logical distinction between the natural and the supernatural in the life of spiritual creatures. It advances a radically monistic vision of Christian metaphysics but does so wholly on the basis of credal orthodoxy. Hart, one of the most widely read theologians in America today, presents a bold gesture of resistance to the recent revival of what used to be called "two-tier Thomism," especially in the Anglophone theological world. In this astute exercise in classical Christian orthodoxy, Hart takes the metaphysics of participation, high Trinitarianism, Christology, and the soteriological language of theosis to their inevitable logical conclusions. You Are Gods will provoke many readers interested in theological metaphysics. The book also offers a vision of Christian thought that draws on traditions (such as Vedanta) from which Christian philosophers and theologians, biblical scholars, and religious studies scholars still have a great deal to learn.

In the two thousand years that have elapsed since the time of Christ, Christians have been as much divided by their faith as united, as much at odds as in communion. And the contents of Christian confession have developed with astonishing energy. How can believers claim a faith that has been passed down through the ages while recognizing the real historical contingencies that have shaped both their doctrines and their divisions?In this carefully argued essay, David Bentley Hart critiques the concept of "tradition" that has become dominant in Christian thought as fundamentally incoherent. He puts forth a convincing new explanation of Christian tradition, one that is obedient to the nature of Christianity not only as a "revealed" creed embodied in historical events but as the "apocalyptic" revelation of a history that is largely identical with the eternal truth it supposedly discloses. Hart shows that Christian tradition is sustained not simply by its preservation of the past, but more essentially by its anticipation of the future. He offers a compelling portrayal of a living tradition held together by apocalyptic expectation--the promised transformation of all things in God.

The "genre" of the modern Gnostic novel encompasses an especially eclectic range of works. With this book-a fantasy by turns dark, absurd, comic, frantic, and lyrical-David Bentley Hart joins a company that includes figures as diverse as Georges Bernanos, Anatole France, David Lindsay, Philip K. Dick, Patrick White, Umberto Eco, William Gaddis, Harold Bloom, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, John Crowley, and Philip Pullman. In Kenogaia, a clockwork universe, an oppressive global society of ever-present surveillance, and the coming of age of its protagonist, Michael Ambrosius, are all disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious child from beyond the stars. Modeled on the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, Hart's tale is an imaginative exploration of the relation between good and evil, the difference between reality and illusion, the struggle to live life in truth, and the nature of spiritual existence. In these pages, Hart emerges as a master of mythopoesis even while spinning out a rollicking full-on adventure about friendship, loyalty, and the rescue of true goodness from a universe darkened by delusion.

The "genre" of the modern Gnostic novel encompasses an especially eclectic range of works. With this book-a fantasy by turns dark, absurd, comic, frantic, and lyrical-David Bentley Hart joins a company that includes figures as diverse as Georges Bernanos, Anatole France, David Lindsay, Philip K. Dick, Patrick White, Umberto Eco, William Gaddis, Harold Bloom, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, John Crowley, and Philip Pullman. In Kenogaia, a clockwork universe, an oppressive global society of ever-present surveillance, and the coming of age of its protagonist, Michael Ambrosius, are all disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious child from beyond the stars. Modeled on the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, Hart's tale is an imaginative exploration of the relation between good and evil, the difference between reality and illusion, the struggle to live life in truth, and the nature of spiritual existence. In these pages, Hart emerges as a master of mythopoesis even while spinning out a rollicking full-on adventure about friendship, loyalty, and the rescue of true goodness from a universe darkened by delusion.

Krasota est nechto bolshee, chem prosto "istina", ili, skoree, krasota neotdelima ot istiny kak mera togo, chto bogoslovie mozhet nazvat istinnym. Konechno, predprinjataja v dannoj knige popytka opravdat evangelskuju ritoriku posredstvom krasoty kak takovoj privodit k novym voprosam. Kto skazhet s uverennostju, chto prekrasnoe svobodno ot nasilija ili kakikh-libo ukhischrenij? Kak mozhno ubeditelno dokazat, chto "krasota" ne sluzhit samoj strategii vlasti, kotoroj ona, kak predpolagaetsja, sostavljaet alternativu? "Esteticheskij" otvet na uporstvo postmoderna v utverzhdenii, chto nasilie neizbezhno, adekvaten lish v tom sluchae, esli v nem soderzhitsja vrazumitelnaja otsenka krasoty vnutri samoj khristianskoj traditsii; tolko pri etom uslovii prekrasnoe mozhet oposredovat khristianskuju istinu bez malejshej teni nasilija.

Kniga amerikanskogo pravoslavnogo filosofa i bogoslova, odnogo iz osnovatelej "teoestetiki", posvjaschena polemike s "novymi ateistami" (Richardom Dokinzom, Denielom Dennetom, Kristoferom Khitchensom i drugimi).Avtor razoblachaet rasprostranennye mify i oshibochnye interpretatsii khristianstva populjarnykh sovremennykh kritikov religii. Obladaja blestjaschej eruditsiej, edkim i ironichnym chuvstvom jumora, avtor sochetaet ubeditelnuju apologetiku khristianstva s zakhvatyvajuschim povestvovaniem o ego istorii i o ni s chem ne sopostavimom vlijanii, kotoroe ono okazalo na chelovechestvo.V 2011 godu arkhiepiskop Kenterberijskij Rouen Uiljams nagradil knigu premiej po teologii.Perevodchik: Djakon Petr Longan

A stunning reexamination of one of the essential tenets of Christian belief from one of the most provocative and admired writers on religion today “A scathing, vigorous, eloquent attack on those who hold that that there is such a thing as eternal damnation.”—Karen Kilby, Commonweal “[A] provocative, informative treatise. . . . [Hart’s] resounding challenge to orthodox Christian views on hell and his defense of God’s ultimate goodness will prove convincing and inspiring to the open-minded.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) The great fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea once observed that, in his time, most Christians believed that hell was not everlasting, and that all would eventually attain salvation. But today, this view is no longer prevalent within Christian communities. In this momentous book, David Bentley Hart makes the case that nearly two millennia of dogmatic tradition have misled readers on the crucial matter of universal salvation. On the basis of the earliest Christian writings, theological tradition, scripture, and logic, Hart argues that if God is the good creator of all, he is the savior of all, without fail. And if he is not the savior of all, the Kingdom is only a dream, and creation something considerably worse than a nightmare. But it is not so. There is no such thing as eternal damnation; all will be saved. With great rhetorical power, wit, and emotional range, Hart offers a new perspective on one of Christianity’s most important themes.