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Ethics as Theology #2
Finding and Seeking: Ethics as Theology, vol. 2
This is the second of three volumes in Oliver O’Donovan’s masterful “Ethics as Theology” project. In his first volume -- Self, World, and Time -- O’Donovan discusses Christian ethics as an intellectual discipline in relation to the humanities, especially philosophy, theology, and behavioral studies, and in relation to the Christian gospel.
In Finding and Seeking O’Donovan traces the logic of moral thought from self-awareness to decision through the virtues of faith, hope, and love. Blending biblical, historico-theological, and contemporary ideas in its comprehensive survey, this second volume continues O’Donovan’s splendid study in ethics as theology and adds significantly to his previous theoretical reflection on Christian ethics.
In Finding and Seeking O’Donovan traces the logic of moral thought from self-awareness to decision through the virtues of faith, hope, and love. Blending biblical, historico-theological, and contemporary ideas in its comprehensive survey, this second volume continues O’Donovan’s splendid study in ethics as theology and adds significantly to his previous theoretical reflection on Christian ethics.
261 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 30, 2014
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About the author
Oliver O'Donovan
48 books58 followersOliver O'Donovan FBA FRSE (born 1945) is a scholar known for his work in the field of Christian ethics. He has also made contributions to political theology, both contemporary and historical.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 9, 2025
3.5 Stars.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. At times it’s simply brilliant in content and style. O’Donovan writes with authority and clarity, unapologetically theological, refreshingly concise. At times it remains so abstract and leaves so many things unexplored that I found myself being frustrated by all the open questions that remained. I guess a wiser person would have been able to read more between the lines and draw out unsaid implications that I simply missed.
What I did not miss and what I will remember both for my personal life and moral reasoning in general is O’Donovan’s triad of self, world, and time in which we find ourselves as moral agents. The relating virtues of faith, love, and hope with their corresponding sins of doubt, folly, and anxiety offer a helpful paradigm to make sense of what it means to be human: called and freed by God to self-agency, knowing and loving the world and exploring its meaning, anticipating the future and hoping in the promise of a consumation of history.
“If "new every morning" is the tempo of divine grace and the tempo of our personal responsibilities, it is because the morning is a time when one can look back intelligently and look forward hopefully. It is the tempo of practical reason. The media's "new every morning" (quickly becoming"new every moment") is, one may dare to say, in flat contradiction to that daily offer of grace. It serves rather to fix our perception upon the momentary now, preventing retrospection, discouraging deliberation, holding us spellbound in a suppositious world of the present which, like hell itself, has lost its future and its past.”
I wanted to like this book more than I did. At times it’s simply brilliant in content and style. O’Donovan writes with authority and clarity, unapologetically theological, refreshingly concise. At times it remains so abstract and leaves so many things unexplored that I found myself being frustrated by all the open questions that remained. I guess a wiser person would have been able to read more between the lines and draw out unsaid implications that I simply missed.
What I did not miss and what I will remember both for my personal life and moral reasoning in general is O’Donovan’s triad of self, world, and time in which we find ourselves as moral agents. The relating virtues of faith, love, and hope with their corresponding sins of doubt, folly, and anxiety offer a helpful paradigm to make sense of what it means to be human: called and freed by God to self-agency, knowing and loving the world and exploring its meaning, anticipating the future and hoping in the promise of a consumation of history.
“If "new every morning" is the tempo of divine grace and the tempo of our personal responsibilities, it is because the morning is a time when one can look back intelligently and look forward hopefully. It is the tempo of practical reason. The media's "new every morning" (quickly becoming"new every moment") is, one may dare to say, in flat contradiction to that daily offer of grace. It serves rather to fix our perception upon the momentary now, preventing retrospection, discouraging deliberation, holding us spellbound in a suppositious world of the present which, like hell itself, has lost its future and its past.”
October 31, 2019
Not my field
I wish I could rate this book higher. Unfortunately, it felt like reading Middle English, able to pick up words and ideas but not feeling that one has grasped the entire concept. This is not the author’s fault but is completely on my shoulders. O’Donovan is not at fault here. Ethics is not my strongest field of study, I am sure that if it were I could rate it higher.
I wish I could rate this book higher. Unfortunately, it felt like reading Middle English, able to pick up words and ideas but not feeling that one has grasped the entire concept. This is not the author’s fault but is completely on my shoulders. O’Donovan is not at fault here. Ethics is not my strongest field of study, I am sure that if it were I could rate it higher.
March 24, 2020
Powerful work of the same quality as the first volume of this three part series. Really a must read for anyone interested in a sophisticated account of ethics from a theological perspective.
October 7, 2018
Especially exercised and excited by O’Donovan’s reflections on what he calls “sin against time” (last 13rd of book) - the way we confuse & misapply our understanding and conception of time: anxiety, anticipation, and their relationship to hope and decision making.
January 2, 2016
Another extraordinary volume by Oliver O'Donovan. The recommendations on the back, to read the book carefully, slowly and self-reflectively, by the likes of Richard Hays and Gilbert Meilaender, speak to the richness this book offers.
In this book, Oliver O'Donovan extends his account of practical reason in the context of being led by the Spirit. As in the previously volume, this book is richly biblical, offering an understanding of human agency with the Gospel of Jesus Christ always at the center.
Read pp.24-27 on faith as the root of action—but really, you could pick this book up and read any section and be struck by its wisdom.
For an interview with O'Donovan about this project: http://bit.ly/1Or3R37
In this book, Oliver O'Donovan extends his account of practical reason in the context of being led by the Spirit. As in the previously volume, this book is richly biblical, offering an understanding of human agency with the Gospel of Jesus Christ always at the center.
Read pp.24-27 on faith as the root of action—but really, you could pick this book up and read any section and be struck by its wisdom.
For an interview with O'Donovan about this project: http://bit.ly/1Or3R37
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews