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In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in Learning
World-renowned Christian philosopher. Beloved professor. Author of the classic Lament for a Son . Nicholas Wolterstorff is all of these and more. His memoir, In This World of Wonders, opens a remarkable new window into the life and thought of this remarkable man. Written not as a complete life story but as a series of vignettes, Wolterstorff’s memoir moves from his humble beginnings in a tiny Minnesota village to his education at Calvin College and Harvard University, to his career of teaching philosophy and writing books, to the experiences that prompted some of his writing—particularly his witnessing South African apartheid and Palestinian oppression firsthand. In This World of Wonders is the story of a thoughtful and grateful Christian whose life has been shaped by many loves—love of philosophy, love of family, love of art and architecture, love of nature and gardening, and more. It’s a lovely, wonderful story.
334 pages, Hardcover
Published January 16, 2019
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205 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Wolterstorff
84 books107 followersWolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, and Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theological interests, he has written books on metaphysics, aesthetics, political philosophy, epistemology and theology and philosophy of religion.
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May 16, 2019
Summary: A memoir tracing vignettes of the different periods of the author's life from childhood in rural Minnesota to a career in higher education in which he was instrumental in leading a movement of Christians in philosophy.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, along with Alvin Plantinga, is a leader of a movement of Christians who have thoughtfully engaged the academic discipline of philosophy, including forming the Society of Christian Philosophers. His teaching career included permanent academic positions at Calvin College and Yale University as well as visiting professorships at a number of universities including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Notre Dame, the Free University of Amsterdam, and the University of Virginia. His academic works have included publications on aesthetics, Reformed epistemology, justice and political philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of education.
His memoir is composed of "vignettes," from the different periods of his life. He begins with his roots in rural Minnesota, the loss of his mother, the family dinner table that anticipated philosophical discussions, and the opening vistas provided by his education in a Christian high school. He traces his educational journey through Calvin College, and the influence of Harry Jellema and Henry Stob, his marriage to Claire Kingma, and his graduate education in philosophy at Harvard. He chronicles his early teaching experiences at Yale, including an embarrassing class he offered at a nearby prison. Much of his career was spent at Calvin College, and he recounts his friendship with Alvin Plantinga, and the turbulent times of the sixties and the seventies. He also recounts a fascinating consulting assignment with Herman Miller, manufacturer of the famous Eames chair, and the questions about aesthetics Max DePree and others asked, rooted both in Christian conviction and a concerned for excellent craft.
He recounts his "awakenings," including his rejection of foundationalism for a Reformed epistemology that contends that there are certain beliefs, for example concerning the existence of God, that are properly basic. In Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, Wolterstorff elaborated these ideas. He traces his exploration of aesthetics, a growing concern for justice in his encounters with South Africans, Palestinians, and Hondurans, and his developing ideas of a philosophy of education, all subjects on which he wrote.
The most poignant part of the book is his narrative of the loss of his eldest son, Eric, in a mountain-climbing accident. He describes the writing of Lament for a Son, and admits both that he cannot make sense of what God was up to in such a loss, and yet that he cannot give up on a God who he believes performs the cosmos. Personally, I found this one of the most compelling discussions of the nature of grief and the profound questions it raises in anything I have read.
His narrative of Amsterdam brings out his love of architecture and well made objects, including chairs. It was clear throughout that Wolterstorff not merely writes about aesthetics--he loves beauty in both the creations of God including flowering gardens and in the creations of good craft on the part of human beings.
The final parts of the book include his later years at Yale, his retirement and visiting appointments, his life in Grand Rapids, and his family. A thread here that comes up throughout is that he is a lifelong churchman of the Christian Reformed denomination. Not only has the legacy of Calvin and Kuyper shaped his philosophy, but also the liturgy of the church shaped and formed his life, another subject on which he later wrote in a book on liturgical theology, in which he explored the understanding of God implicit in our liturgy.
This memoir is a wonderful example someone who has lived the life of a scholar Christian, one whose faith serves to draw together all the threads of his life, including a rich marriage and family life, enabling him to see and rejoice in worlds of wonder, and whose faith shapes his engagement with his chosen discipline of study, philosophy. Anyone who has read the resulting scholarship, and particularly his books, will find this memoir a fascinating journey describing how he came to write these works. Most of all, he captures so much of what is best in scholarly work, endangered by the corporatization of higher education. He writes:
"What do I love about thinking philosophically? I love both the understanding that results from it and the process of achieving the understanding. Sometimes the understanding comes easily, as when I read some philosophical text that I find convincing and illuminating. But often it comes after struggle and frustration. My attention has been drawn to something I do not understand, which makes me baffled and perplexed. Questions come to mind that I cannot answer. I love both the struggle to understand and the understanding itself--if it comes. The love of understanding and the love of achieving that understanding are what motivate and energize my practice of philosophy. For me, practicing philosophy is love in action" (p. 105).
I think this describes what motivates many scholars. This is a great book to read for anyone who aspires to such a life, or for anyone who wants to understand those who engage in scholarly work.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, along with Alvin Plantinga, is a leader of a movement of Christians who have thoughtfully engaged the academic discipline of philosophy, including forming the Society of Christian Philosophers. His teaching career included permanent academic positions at Calvin College and Yale University as well as visiting professorships at a number of universities including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Notre Dame, the Free University of Amsterdam, and the University of Virginia. His academic works have included publications on aesthetics, Reformed epistemology, justice and political philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of education.
His memoir is composed of "vignettes," from the different periods of his life. He begins with his roots in rural Minnesota, the loss of his mother, the family dinner table that anticipated philosophical discussions, and the opening vistas provided by his education in a Christian high school. He traces his educational journey through Calvin College, and the influence of Harry Jellema and Henry Stob, his marriage to Claire Kingma, and his graduate education in philosophy at Harvard. He chronicles his early teaching experiences at Yale, including an embarrassing class he offered at a nearby prison. Much of his career was spent at Calvin College, and he recounts his friendship with Alvin Plantinga, and the turbulent times of the sixties and the seventies. He also recounts a fascinating consulting assignment with Herman Miller, manufacturer of the famous Eames chair, and the questions about aesthetics Max DePree and others asked, rooted both in Christian conviction and a concerned for excellent craft.
He recounts his "awakenings," including his rejection of foundationalism for a Reformed epistemology that contends that there are certain beliefs, for example concerning the existence of God, that are properly basic. In Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, Wolterstorff elaborated these ideas. He traces his exploration of aesthetics, a growing concern for justice in his encounters with South Africans, Palestinians, and Hondurans, and his developing ideas of a philosophy of education, all subjects on which he wrote.
The most poignant part of the book is his narrative of the loss of his eldest son, Eric, in a mountain-climbing accident. He describes the writing of Lament for a Son, and admits both that he cannot make sense of what God was up to in such a loss, and yet that he cannot give up on a God who he believes performs the cosmos. Personally, I found this one of the most compelling discussions of the nature of grief and the profound questions it raises in anything I have read.
His narrative of Amsterdam brings out his love of architecture and well made objects, including chairs. It was clear throughout that Wolterstorff not merely writes about aesthetics--he loves beauty in both the creations of God including flowering gardens and in the creations of good craft on the part of human beings.
The final parts of the book include his later years at Yale, his retirement and visiting appointments, his life in Grand Rapids, and his family. A thread here that comes up throughout is that he is a lifelong churchman of the Christian Reformed denomination. Not only has the legacy of Calvin and Kuyper shaped his philosophy, but also the liturgy of the church shaped and formed his life, another subject on which he later wrote in a book on liturgical theology, in which he explored the understanding of God implicit in our liturgy.
This memoir is a wonderful example someone who has lived the life of a scholar Christian, one whose faith serves to draw together all the threads of his life, including a rich marriage and family life, enabling him to see and rejoice in worlds of wonder, and whose faith shapes his engagement with his chosen discipline of study, philosophy. Anyone who has read the resulting scholarship, and particularly his books, will find this memoir a fascinating journey describing how he came to write these works. Most of all, he captures so much of what is best in scholarly work, endangered by the corporatization of higher education. He writes:
"What do I love about thinking philosophically? I love both the understanding that results from it and the process of achieving the understanding. Sometimes the understanding comes easily, as when I read some philosophical text that I find convincing and illuminating. But often it comes after struggle and frustration. My attention has been drawn to something I do not understand, which makes me baffled and perplexed. Questions come to mind that I cannot answer. I love both the struggle to understand and the understanding itself--if it comes. The love of understanding and the love of achieving that understanding are what motivate and energize my practice of philosophy. For me, practicing philosophy is love in action" (p. 105).
I think this describes what motivates many scholars. This is a great book to read for anyone who aspires to such a life, or for anyone who wants to understand those who engage in scholarly work.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
July 4, 2022
This was one of those serendipitous reads, given to me by a friend's mom when I stayed at their house for a few weeks. I have no idea why she was reading it but she thought I would like it, and she was right.
I love reading about the lives of academics, how their flesh-and-blood lives inform their thought lives, how their experiences guide their studies, how they balance relationships and career and intellectual pursuits. This had all of these things, and it hit all the right buttons for me: theology, philosophy, art, justice. (He even loves the Netherlands!)
I always wonder how to rate memoirs because, first, it's someone's life and it feels kind of wrong to assign some rating to that and, second, it's someone talking about their own life which always makes me a little suspicious of whether I can trust how they portray themselves. No one can avoid painting himself in a certain way. I think Wolterstorff was honest about himself and his failings, although maybe more could have been said about his relationship to his children. Or maybe not—not everything needs to be told the whole world, contrary to what the age of social media will tell you.
Two themes in his life that deeply resonated with me were, first, how he thought about reconciling faith and academia, how to be a Christian in a secular institution and a secular field. It's something I may end up facing myself, and it's always encouraging to read about people who have wrestled with it and lived it out before me. He has a graciousness to him that's really compelling—a firm belief in Christianity and in the particular branch that he worships in, but also a desire to engage with the outside world and make Christianity compelling to it, a willingness to speak other people's language instead of scaring them off with Christianese. His attitude is one I think more people today need to emulate.
Second, I loved the theme of gratitude, of looking at a life that is objectively very privileged with few sorrows (although there are still sorrows, and his thoughts on those were deeply moving), acknowledging that many people don't get such a life, and responding with humble thanks. It reminded me of a scene at the end of Cry, the beloved country that has shaped how I view my own life, as I wrestle with how to understand why I have been so blessed and others have not. I told a professor once how guilty I feel that I get to spend all these years on myself, on my own education and enrichment. He said, "Don't feel guilty. Be grateful." I think Wolterstorff would have said the same.
I also loved his commitment to justice, how he fought apartheid and supported the civil rights and early feminist movements. It wasn't something I expected from a Reformed Christian or philosopher and was a refreshing (and convicting) reminder that none of those things are inherently opposed to each other. Of course a philosopher wants to see justice actualized; of course a committed Christian cares about the rights of the vulnerable.
One last thing: for anyone who feels intimidated by philosophy, this book is admirably light on philosophy, given that it's written by a man who made his whole living from the subject. He explained some of his philosophical projects simply and wove of them into other themes and events in his life. (I did totally nerd out when he talked about his connection of speech-act theory to God's revelation, which we'd talked about in my biblical interpretation class. I had forgotten his name but the idea hasn't left me alone, so it was cool to make that connection. Oh, the joys of reading.)
The disinterested love of understanding that keeps philosophy alive is to be found throughout the arts and sciences. The pervasiveness of that love says something important about what it is to be human: we are creatures who bear the unique dignity of longing and loving to understand—and of being capable of understanding—God, the world, and ourselves. Today, that love of understanding is under threat, both in Europe and in the United States. Colleges and universities are being asked to justify what they teach by reference to its benefit to the economy. Are we to be reduced to cogs in the economic machine? Reality is mysterious—deeply and endlessly mysterious. Are we to renounce our longing to penetrate some of the mystery?
~
My grief spoke the truth. It was an existential shout of “no” to the evil of Eric‘s death and then existential shout of “yes” to the good of my love for him.
~
Why have I continued to embrace the tradition in which I was reared while others who were reared in the same tradition have rejected it—sometimes bitterly? I think it's because the tradition, as I received it, was life-affirming rather than life-negating. It was less about theology and about getting to heaven than it was about living gratefully, joyfully, and responsibly in this world.
I love reading about the lives of academics, how their flesh-and-blood lives inform their thought lives, how their experiences guide their studies, how they balance relationships and career and intellectual pursuits. This had all of these things, and it hit all the right buttons for me: theology, philosophy, art, justice. (He even loves the Netherlands!)
I always wonder how to rate memoirs because, first, it's someone's life and it feels kind of wrong to assign some rating to that and, second, it's someone talking about their own life which always makes me a little suspicious of whether I can trust how they portray themselves. No one can avoid painting himself in a certain way. I think Wolterstorff was honest about himself and his failings, although maybe more could have been said about his relationship to his children. Or maybe not—not everything needs to be told the whole world, contrary to what the age of social media will tell you.
Two themes in his life that deeply resonated with me were, first, how he thought about reconciling faith and academia, how to be a Christian in a secular institution and a secular field. It's something I may end up facing myself, and it's always encouraging to read about people who have wrestled with it and lived it out before me. He has a graciousness to him that's really compelling—a firm belief in Christianity and in the particular branch that he worships in, but also a desire to engage with the outside world and make Christianity compelling to it, a willingness to speak other people's language instead of scaring them off with Christianese. His attitude is one I think more people today need to emulate.
Second, I loved the theme of gratitude, of looking at a life that is objectively very privileged with few sorrows (although there are still sorrows, and his thoughts on those were deeply moving), acknowledging that many people don't get such a life, and responding with humble thanks. It reminded me of a scene at the end of Cry, the beloved country that has shaped how I view my own life, as I wrestle with how to understand why I have been so blessed and others have not. I told a professor once how guilty I feel that I get to spend all these years on myself, on my own education and enrichment. He said, "Don't feel guilty. Be grateful." I think Wolterstorff would have said the same.
I also loved his commitment to justice, how he fought apartheid and supported the civil rights and early feminist movements. It wasn't something I expected from a Reformed Christian or philosopher and was a refreshing (and convicting) reminder that none of those things are inherently opposed to each other. Of course a philosopher wants to see justice actualized; of course a committed Christian cares about the rights of the vulnerable.
One last thing: for anyone who feels intimidated by philosophy, this book is admirably light on philosophy, given that it's written by a man who made his whole living from the subject. He explained some of his philosophical projects simply and wove of them into other themes and events in his life. (I did totally nerd out when he talked about his connection of speech-act theory to God's revelation, which we'd talked about in my biblical interpretation class. I had forgotten his name but the idea hasn't left me alone, so it was cool to make that connection. Oh, the joys of reading.)
The disinterested love of understanding that keeps philosophy alive is to be found throughout the arts and sciences. The pervasiveness of that love says something important about what it is to be human: we are creatures who bear the unique dignity of longing and loving to understand—and of being capable of understanding—God, the world, and ourselves. Today, that love of understanding is under threat, both in Europe and in the United States. Colleges and universities are being asked to justify what they teach by reference to its benefit to the economy. Are we to be reduced to cogs in the economic machine? Reality is mysterious—deeply and endlessly mysterious. Are we to renounce our longing to penetrate some of the mystery?
~
My grief spoke the truth. It was an existential shout of “no” to the evil of Eric‘s death and then existential shout of “yes” to the good of my love for him.
~
Why have I continued to embrace the tradition in which I was reared while others who were reared in the same tradition have rejected it—sometimes bitterly? I think it's because the tradition, as I received it, was life-affirming rather than life-negating. It was less about theology and about getting to heaven than it was about living gratefully, joyfully, and responsibly in this world.
October 8, 2020
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life of Learning. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019.
When someone who has mastered a discipline over fifty years speaks of his experiences in that discipline, and if said discipline also overlaps with your interests, you listen when he speaks--even when he is sometimes wrong. Wolterstorff is the model of how one should do rigorous philosophy. He is clear and thorough and never pretentious.
His “life on the farm” growing up (son of Dutch immigrants in rural Minnesota) has that familiar ring of many in the Depression era. He grew up poor but never really thought about it.
During his time at Calvin he tells of studying philosophy under the famous Harry Jellema. From Calvin he pursued philosophy at Harvard and wrote his dissertation on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, to which he never returned. That’s probably a good thing. After Harvard he pursued various fellowships in England and the Netherlands. His description of Jellema is just too good.
He mentions a prank some students played at Calvin. They got a local cow and led it up the stairs of a building. Well, they could get the cow up the stairs, but they couldn’t get it down. The janitors had to kill and dismember the cow.
The heart of his teaching career was at Calvin where he teamed up with Plantinga and others, culminating in the Reformed Epistemology project. After Calvin he taught at Yale.
He initially didn’t want to go back to Yale, but Hans Frei really pushed for him. Frei warned the faculty that if they didn’t get someone like Wolterstorff, then some “d*mn process theologian would fill the position!” Wolterstorff tells of how he had to teach a class on theological aesthetics. Not knowing anything about it, he just used the previous professor’s syllabus and book readings. There was a section on Hans urs von Balthasar and Wolterstorff’s first impression was “This is boring.” Then he got to the part where Balthasar praised the “passive receptivity of the Virgin Mary.” Wolterstorff cringed. This won’t go over well with the feminists in the class. It didn’t. The next day the feminists started screaming at each other over Balthasar’s words!
His section concerning the death of his adult son Eric was quite powerful, as was the episode where he taught at a men’s prison.
It might seem bad form to analyze someone’s memoirs, yet Wolterstorff’s thought is so rich one can’t do otherwise. And while Wolterstorff is never as flighty as the current worldview Kuyperians--in many respects he is their polar opposite--one can see the seeds of dissolution early on. He described himself as a feminist from at least the 1970s, bemoaning “sexist language” in his earlier works. His wife was ordained in the Episcopal Church. He also participated in liturgical reform in the CRC. Oddly enough, he doesn’t mention his most recent support for same-sex unions.
He ends with a discussion of his recent books on justice and rights. Here is where he differs from most Social Justice Warriors. Wolterstorff can actually define the word justice without setting a trash can on fire. Further, most Christian social justice activists are disciples of O'Donovan and Hauerwas. Wolterstorff is not. He clearly rejects them. I don’t think he is being fair to Oliver O’Donovan’s work, since O’Donovan is on the opposite end of Hauerwas.
Aristotle said justice is the equitable distribution of rights and benefits. That doesn’t make much sense if we take a horrific case like abuse. On that gloss abuse would be wrong because benefits weren’t distributed equally! That just doesn’t seem right. A better take is from the Roman jurist Ulpian-we render to each person what is his natural ius, or right. Therefore, according to Wolterstorff,
Despite all of that, the book has much value. Indeed, it is a literary masterpiece (something for which analytic philosophers aren’t always known). You can’t help but be drawn into the narrative. It is that well-written.
When someone who has mastered a discipline over fifty years speaks of his experiences in that discipline, and if said discipline also overlaps with your interests, you listen when he speaks--even when he is sometimes wrong. Wolterstorff is the model of how one should do rigorous philosophy. He is clear and thorough and never pretentious.
His “life on the farm” growing up (son of Dutch immigrants in rural Minnesota) has that familiar ring of many in the Depression era. He grew up poor but never really thought about it.
During his time at Calvin he tells of studying philosophy under the famous Harry Jellema. From Calvin he pursued philosophy at Harvard and wrote his dissertation on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, to which he never returned. That’s probably a good thing. After Harvard he pursued various fellowships in England and the Netherlands. His description of Jellema is just too good.
He mentions a prank some students played at Calvin. They got a local cow and led it up the stairs of a building. Well, they could get the cow up the stairs, but they couldn’t get it down. The janitors had to kill and dismember the cow.
The heart of his teaching career was at Calvin where he teamed up with Plantinga and others, culminating in the Reformed Epistemology project. After Calvin he taught at Yale.
He initially didn’t want to go back to Yale, but Hans Frei really pushed for him. Frei warned the faculty that if they didn’t get someone like Wolterstorff, then some “d*mn process theologian would fill the position!” Wolterstorff tells of how he had to teach a class on theological aesthetics. Not knowing anything about it, he just used the previous professor’s syllabus and book readings. There was a section on Hans urs von Balthasar and Wolterstorff’s first impression was “This is boring.” Then he got to the part where Balthasar praised the “passive receptivity of the Virgin Mary.” Wolterstorff cringed. This won’t go over well with the feminists in the class. It didn’t. The next day the feminists started screaming at each other over Balthasar’s words!
His section concerning the death of his adult son Eric was quite powerful, as was the episode where he taught at a men’s prison.
It might seem bad form to analyze someone’s memoirs, yet Wolterstorff’s thought is so rich one can’t do otherwise. And while Wolterstorff is never as flighty as the current worldview Kuyperians--in many respects he is their polar opposite--one can see the seeds of dissolution early on. He described himself as a feminist from at least the 1970s, bemoaning “sexist language” in his earlier works. His wife was ordained in the Episcopal Church. He also participated in liturgical reform in the CRC. Oddly enough, he doesn’t mention his most recent support for same-sex unions.
He ends with a discussion of his recent books on justice and rights. Here is where he differs from most Social Justice Warriors. Wolterstorff can actually define the word justice without setting a trash can on fire. Further, most Christian social justice activists are disciples of O'Donovan and Hauerwas. Wolterstorff is not. He clearly rejects them. I don’t think he is being fair to Oliver O’Donovan’s work, since O’Donovan is on the opposite end of Hauerwas.
Aristotle said justice is the equitable distribution of rights and benefits. That doesn’t make much sense if we take a horrific case like abuse. On that gloss abuse would be wrong because benefits weren’t distributed equally! That just doesn’t seem right. A better take is from the Roman jurist Ulpian-we render to each person what is his natural ius, or right. Therefore, according to Wolterstorff,
Despite all of that, the book has much value. Indeed, it is a literary masterpiece (something for which analytic philosophers aren’t always known). You can’t help but be drawn into the narrative. It is that well-written.
July 14, 2021
Summary: A wonderful memoir of a philosopher that has attempted to live his Christian life well.
My reading often goes in trends; I have gone back to reading biographies and memoirs right now. I have often complained about the distortions of hagiography, the old saint stories that were often stripped of the real humanity of the subjects to create an exemplar that we can follow. Of course, there is value in seeing the stories of our elders and the saints who have come before us. But I also think there is real value in seeing the person's full humanity because the life of the Christian is not perfection. Memoirs are notorious for only presenting part of the story in ways that serve the author. That will always be a danger, but memoirs also can reveal internal realities that are difficult for biographies to handle. That is why I want to read Eugene Peterson's memoir, the Pastor, and his biography, A Burning in My Bones, because of the distance of the biography and the intimateness of the memoir complement one another. But most people will not have biographers.
Nicholas Wolterstorff is not a household name. He is a philosopher who taught for 30 years at Calvin before moving to Yale and various other part-time positions before retiring. He is well enough known and important enough in the philosophy world to justify a Wikipedia page, but as a non-philosopher, I probably would not know of him except through his book on grief, Lament for a Son. Lament for a Son is a classic book on grief, written in the wake of the death of his son Eric in a climbing accident when he was 25. Eric lived in Europe and near the end of his Ph.D. work, with his younger brother on his way to stay with him for the summer when he passed away. The section of In This World of Wonders about Eric's death and the book Lament for a Son was such a good example of the memoir's strength. Wolterstorff admits errors and shortcomings and his blindness, because of grief, to the needs of those around him. But he also reflects well from a distance on how that time has impacted him and his work from that time.
Much of the value of In This World of Wonders is the story of how Wolterstorff's academic work was related to his life story. The repeated discussion of the interaction of art and craft is related to his father's art (pen drawing) and the craft of his woodworking. The role of justice and love is related to his work's real-world experience of Apartheid, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and other areas of injustice. Wolterstorff's work on the liturgy was related to his work in the local church. His work on the philosophy of education is related to his own work at the college level in understanding the curriculum of the liberal arts and his work in private Christian schooling for younger students. Throughout the book,
Wolterstorff's explanations of his work and the why behind the books, articles, and lectures have made me want to read a significant amount of his writing. It is unlikely that I will ever really read most of it, but memoirists that make me want to read their work are doing their job. I have started his Justice and Love, and it is a bit slow going. I do not have a very good background in philosophy. It is one of the areas of weakness I have tried to work on, but it is also an area where I have some real blocks in understanding. I alternated between the audiobook and kindle book for In This World of Wonders. Both were well done. This is a book that I may read again in a few years because I really do love the integration of Christian faith and broader life, and I think that the modeling of that here was very encouraging.
December 13, 2024
I did enjoy reading this. Wolterstorff is a key contributor in the field I’d like to enter, and the context from this book will help me read his other books, like Art in Action, which I hope to pursue over break.
I wish, however, that the author had been more familiar with narrative. He is not a natural storyteller, and so most of his book is not story but description of events, people, and cause/effect sequences. I couldn’t help wishing he wrote like Windell Berry. But then, if he were Windell Berry, he wouldn’t be Nicolas Wolterstorff.
In the end, though, it did give me a fuzzy idea of what it could look like to be a professor of aesthetic philosophy, either in America or overseas, and I’m grateful for the glimpse into what will hopefully be the world of my future.
I wish, however, that the author had been more familiar with narrative. He is not a natural storyteller, and so most of his book is not story but description of events, people, and cause/effect sequences. I couldn’t help wishing he wrote like Windell Berry. But then, if he were Windell Berry, he wouldn’t be Nicolas Wolterstorff.
In the end, though, it did give me a fuzzy idea of what it could look like to be a professor of aesthetic philosophy, either in America or overseas, and I’m grateful for the glimpse into what will hopefully be the world of my future.
March 30, 2019
Many, many years ago I had a class at Calvin College with Professor Wolterstorff. I remember his sitting cross-legged on the desk in front of us and holding forth on the ancient Greeks.
I bought this book for our church library--and claimed it first for myself to read. I am so glad I did. There is so much good I could say about it. The account of his early life in southwestern Minnesota was one of hardship and loss but also of warmth and appreciation. I was especially struck with the fact that he was a hired hand on his uncle's farm already at age 13--not the usual beginning for a renowned philosopher!
I have read Lament for a Son at least twice and found it so honest and realistic as a reaction to a very great loss. Many of the places and some of the people Wolterstorff writes about have been a part of my life as I have spent parts of it in the Christian Reformed Church. I can relate to his love of his church--even as I also relate to the difficulties of a building program! I appreciate his accounts of buying original art, of living abroad, of being a part of various academic communities.
Maybe one caveat--I hope Wolterstorff cleared his vignettes of his children and grandchildren before putting them into print. I assume he did. He certainly loves each one dearly.
I am motivated to write a bit about my own childhood for my children. Can they imagine a life with party lines for telephones, rabbit ears on the TV, two church services a Sunday plus Sunday School and catechism?
I am also inspired to read a bit more of Wolterstorff's work particularly on aesthetics. I found his summaries of various philosophical schools of thought difficult but it may be worth a try.
I bought this book for our church library--and claimed it first for myself to read. I am so glad I did. There is so much good I could say about it. The account of his early life in southwestern Minnesota was one of hardship and loss but also of warmth and appreciation. I was especially struck with the fact that he was a hired hand on his uncle's farm already at age 13--not the usual beginning for a renowned philosopher!
I have read Lament for a Son at least twice and found it so honest and realistic as a reaction to a very great loss. Many of the places and some of the people Wolterstorff writes about have been a part of my life as I have spent parts of it in the Christian Reformed Church. I can relate to his love of his church--even as I also relate to the difficulties of a building program! I appreciate his accounts of buying original art, of living abroad, of being a part of various academic communities.
Maybe one caveat--I hope Wolterstorff cleared his vignettes of his children and grandchildren before putting them into print. I assume he did. He certainly loves each one dearly.
I am motivated to write a bit about my own childhood for my children. Can they imagine a life with party lines for telephones, rabbit ears on the TV, two church services a Sunday plus Sunday School and catechism?
I am also inspired to read a bit more of Wolterstorff's work particularly on aesthetics. I found his summaries of various philosophical schools of thought difficult but it may be worth a try.
April 18, 2020
Wolterstorff dismissed the idea of writing a memoir because he said his life was boring. His life has been lived writing and teaching. "Most of my days as an adult have consisted of reading philosophical books and articles, taking notes on my reading, thinking hard, writing philosophical books and articles, preparing notes for classes and public lectures, listening to talks and lectures, leading discussions, participating in discussions, talking with students and colleagues, reading student papers, and so on--year after year ... Boring!"
Of course, there are those of us, weirdos like me, who in some ways pine for exactly this kind of life. Ha! And of course, this is is a reduction of his actual life and its richness. It also misses the content of this reading and thinking hard. He also manages to hold on to his tradition while truly reaching out to people of other traditions. He says "my life-in-community has been an expansive opening-out from the community of the small village in which I was reared." And "The challenge I faced in describing this dimension of my life was to do so in such a way that those who are not religious, and those whose religion is quite different from one, would not be put off: that is, the challenge of being particular without being parochial. The reader will discover that my way of being religious is very different from the aggressive, aggrieved, and adversarial way that is presently so dominant on the American scene." (xv)
He grew up in Minnesota in the Christian reformed tradition. His mother died in childbirth when he was three. He and his twin sister were raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles. His father remarried when he was seven and was somewhat a distant figure. They were poor, his father working at a Grocery, but his passion was woodworking. That was what he did after hours until the last 25 years of his life when he was able to do it full time. Wolterstorff credits his relationship with craft through his father as affecting the kind of philosophy he did and his critique of higher arts as neglecting craft and handiwork.
Early on, while telling stories of his studies at Calvin College, he explains his tradition. I think its helpful especially because most people miss the first part of his explanation. Referencing Abraham Kuyper, he says "At the heart of that tradition ... is a distinctive understanding of the interlocking significance of creation, fall and redemption. When Reformed people survey the cosmos--along with human beings and their works within the cosmos--they see goodness, which they interpret as a reflection of God's goodness, God's excellence." (54) It is this goodness that people neglect to mention or realize, too quick to hear the word about evil and original sin.
"But when Reformed persons survey the natural world, they see not only goodness and gift, but also evil ... when they survey what human beings have done and made, they see not only goodness and gift, but also sin ... Always the goodness remains; but ... the ravages of sin" also. Thus "a dialectic of Yes and No ... both Yes and No to the deeds and works of human beings." What is more, Kuyper's strand is not for individual souls saved for heaven, not "go off by themselves somewhere to set up their own economy...polity...art world...world of scholarship. They are to participate, along with others, in the economy of their own country, its polity, its art world, its scholarship." (55)
Ok, back to philosophy, he does his doctorate at Yale and there describes briefly how logical positivism was big and since has imploded. Positivists purport that sentences about God are in fact meaningless. At its heart, "modern natural science is the only mode of inquiry that holds genuine promise for human progress ... To have meaning, they said, a sentence must be either empirically verifiable or analytically true or false."(67) Of course this is too narrow, ethics makes no sense with this constriction - "Murder is wrong,' for example--[is] neither empirically verifiable nor analytically true or false." Unfortunately for logical positivism, using this criteria for truth ruled out, not only religion, but also much of theoretical physics. (68)
He briefly taught at Yale after getting his PhD, but then took an offer to teach at Calvin. He had friendships with Richard Mouw and Alvin Plantiga. One of his students was Paul Schrader (Last Temptation, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver)! He headed a committee to reform the curriculum. He embraced feminism and was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War.
Outside of school, he loved art and collected etchings (unique prints they could afford), bought land that eventually became the Wolterstorff Land Preserve in the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, planted a delight garden with multiple varieties of hostas. He was on the board for the Reformed Journal, which among other things "offer a coherent, yet supply expressed version of critical Reformed thinking in the Niebuhrian as well as Kuyperian tradition over against claims by such organizations as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition to speak for biblical Christianity." (137)
In 1975 he attended a conference in South Africa that changed his life. Apartheid was in full force. The black South Africans spoke up against the injustice. But the Afrikaners (Dutch colonists who settled in the region in 17th century) insisted that justice was not the issue. They were "a generous people; the goal of apartheid was the greater good of all South Africans ... that each nationality would flourish in its own unique way ... Some of the Afrikaner speakers went on to describe acts of personal kindness on their part to "blacks" and "coloreds" of their acquaintance: Christmas trinkets they gave to the children of their "black" workers, clothing their own children had outgrown, and so forth." Then the went on offense, addressing the black reformed speakers - "Why do you never express gratitude for what we have done for you? ... With tears in their eyes, one of them pleaded, 'Why can't we just love each other?' I saw, as never before, benevolence--more precisely, self-perceived benevolence--being used as an instrument of oppression." (168)
Now Wolterstorff began reading about justice and tackling that topic (I will be writing in multiple posts about his book Until Justice & Peace Embrace). He became friends with Allan Boesak and even was called to Cape Town to testify in behalf of his friend in 1985 who was being held on the charge of sedition. Separate from this, in 1978, he attended a conference on Palestinian rights where he was exposed to their mistreatment and proponent of the two-state solution in Israel. "When Palestinian resistance turns violent, Israel declares it will never negotiate under threat. When resistance is quiescent, it sees no need to negotiate. If the choice is between land and peace, Israel will choose land." (172)
In 1996 he published a book on John Locke which he wanted to title "When Tradition Fractures." Religious factions were at war with one another in Locke's day and "the possibility of peace depended on each party appealing to something that united them. That something was reason, properly employed." (182) and then he gives the conclusion of the book:
"Locke's proposal will not do. Our problems with traditions remain, however. Traditions are still a source of benightedness, chicanery, hostility, and oppression. And our moral, religious, and even theoretical traditions are even more fractured today than they were in Locke's day. [Locke and the thinkers of the Enlightenment who followed him] hoped to bring about a rational consensus in place of a fractured tradition. That hope failed. In my judgement it was bound to fail; it could not succeed.
Yet we must live together. It is to politics and not epistemology that we shall have to look for an answer as to how to do that. 'Liberal' politics has fallen on bad days recently. But to its animated vision of a society in which persons of diverse traditions live together in justice and friendship, conversing with each other and slowly altering their traditions in response to their conversation--to that, there is no viable alternative. (183)
In 1980 his wife joined the Episcopal Church and in 1986 was ordained a priest. He has a chapter on the loss of his son, Eric who died in a climbing accident. His little book Lament for a Son is profound in its poetic incite into suffering. It "is not a book about Grief--it's a cry of grief." (199) He defines grief here - it "is wanting the death or destruction of the loved one to be undone, while at the same time knowing it cannot be undone." (204)
He was interested in the role of religion in political discussions and public life. "I was disturbed by the critical attitude of John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and their many followers, toward government in general and toward American liberal democracy in particular. I regard liberal democracy as a pearl of great price."
There is so much more in this memoir, he worked directly with an organization in Honduras on justice issues there and the lack of trust in police and government figures. He wrote and thought a lot about art theory and how it needs expanding to include memorial art and work songs. One of the most moving moments is when he is invited to lead a discussion of his book Lament for a Son with inmates at Handlon State Prison. Calvin set up a sister campus in the prison and offer accredited degrees. "I had never before discussed Lament in a class ... the men in the class were themselves in grief ... they were reading the book not so much as my expression of my grief but as an expression of their grief ... Their comments were articulate, emotionally intense, suffused by life experience, eloquent. They offered interpretations of my words that had never occurred to me. I was the student that day--they were my teachers." (312)
Of course, there are those of us, weirdos like me, who in some ways pine for exactly this kind of life. Ha! And of course, this is is a reduction of his actual life and its richness. It also misses the content of this reading and thinking hard. He also manages to hold on to his tradition while truly reaching out to people of other traditions. He says "my life-in-community has been an expansive opening-out from the community of the small village in which I was reared." And "The challenge I faced in describing this dimension of my life was to do so in such a way that those who are not religious, and those whose religion is quite different from one, would not be put off: that is, the challenge of being particular without being parochial. The reader will discover that my way of being religious is very different from the aggressive, aggrieved, and adversarial way that is presently so dominant on the American scene." (xv)
He grew up in Minnesota in the Christian reformed tradition. His mother died in childbirth when he was three. He and his twin sister were raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles. His father remarried when he was seven and was somewhat a distant figure. They were poor, his father working at a Grocery, but his passion was woodworking. That was what he did after hours until the last 25 years of his life when he was able to do it full time. Wolterstorff credits his relationship with craft through his father as affecting the kind of philosophy he did and his critique of higher arts as neglecting craft and handiwork.
Early on, while telling stories of his studies at Calvin College, he explains his tradition. I think its helpful especially because most people miss the first part of his explanation. Referencing Abraham Kuyper, he says "At the heart of that tradition ... is a distinctive understanding of the interlocking significance of creation, fall and redemption. When Reformed people survey the cosmos--along with human beings and their works within the cosmos--they see goodness, which they interpret as a reflection of God's goodness, God's excellence." (54) It is this goodness that people neglect to mention or realize, too quick to hear the word about evil and original sin.
"But when Reformed persons survey the natural world, they see not only goodness and gift, but also evil ... when they survey what human beings have done and made, they see not only goodness and gift, but also sin ... Always the goodness remains; but ... the ravages of sin" also. Thus "a dialectic of Yes and No ... both Yes and No to the deeds and works of human beings." What is more, Kuyper's strand is not for individual souls saved for heaven, not "go off by themselves somewhere to set up their own economy...polity...art world...world of scholarship. They are to participate, along with others, in the economy of their own country, its polity, its art world, its scholarship." (55)
Ok, back to philosophy, he does his doctorate at Yale and there describes briefly how logical positivism was big and since has imploded. Positivists purport that sentences about God are in fact meaningless. At its heart, "modern natural science is the only mode of inquiry that holds genuine promise for human progress ... To have meaning, they said, a sentence must be either empirically verifiable or analytically true or false."(67) Of course this is too narrow, ethics makes no sense with this constriction - "Murder is wrong,' for example--[is] neither empirically verifiable nor analytically true or false." Unfortunately for logical positivism, using this criteria for truth ruled out, not only religion, but also much of theoretical physics. (68)
He briefly taught at Yale after getting his PhD, but then took an offer to teach at Calvin. He had friendships with Richard Mouw and Alvin Plantiga. One of his students was Paul Schrader (Last Temptation, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver)! He headed a committee to reform the curriculum. He embraced feminism and was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War.
Outside of school, he loved art and collected etchings (unique prints they could afford), bought land that eventually became the Wolterstorff Land Preserve in the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, planted a delight garden with multiple varieties of hostas. He was on the board for the Reformed Journal, which among other things "offer a coherent, yet supply expressed version of critical Reformed thinking in the Niebuhrian as well as Kuyperian tradition over against claims by such organizations as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition to speak for biblical Christianity." (137)
In 1975 he attended a conference in South Africa that changed his life. Apartheid was in full force. The black South Africans spoke up against the injustice. But the Afrikaners (Dutch colonists who settled in the region in 17th century) insisted that justice was not the issue. They were "a generous people; the goal of apartheid was the greater good of all South Africans ... that each nationality would flourish in its own unique way ... Some of the Afrikaner speakers went on to describe acts of personal kindness on their part to "blacks" and "coloreds" of their acquaintance: Christmas trinkets they gave to the children of their "black" workers, clothing their own children had outgrown, and so forth." Then the went on offense, addressing the black reformed speakers - "Why do you never express gratitude for what we have done for you? ... With tears in their eyes, one of them pleaded, 'Why can't we just love each other?' I saw, as never before, benevolence--more precisely, self-perceived benevolence--being used as an instrument of oppression." (168)
Now Wolterstorff began reading about justice and tackling that topic (I will be writing in multiple posts about his book Until Justice & Peace Embrace). He became friends with Allan Boesak and even was called to Cape Town to testify in behalf of his friend in 1985 who was being held on the charge of sedition. Separate from this, in 1978, he attended a conference on Palestinian rights where he was exposed to their mistreatment and proponent of the two-state solution in Israel. "When Palestinian resistance turns violent, Israel declares it will never negotiate under threat. When resistance is quiescent, it sees no need to negotiate. If the choice is between land and peace, Israel will choose land." (172)
In 1996 he published a book on John Locke which he wanted to title "When Tradition Fractures." Religious factions were at war with one another in Locke's day and "the possibility of peace depended on each party appealing to something that united them. That something was reason, properly employed." (182) and then he gives the conclusion of the book:
"Locke's proposal will not do. Our problems with traditions remain, however. Traditions are still a source of benightedness, chicanery, hostility, and oppression. And our moral, religious, and even theoretical traditions are even more fractured today than they were in Locke's day. [Locke and the thinkers of the Enlightenment who followed him] hoped to bring about a rational consensus in place of a fractured tradition. That hope failed. In my judgement it was bound to fail; it could not succeed.
Yet we must live together. It is to politics and not epistemology that we shall have to look for an answer as to how to do that. 'Liberal' politics has fallen on bad days recently. But to its animated vision of a society in which persons of diverse traditions live together in justice and friendship, conversing with each other and slowly altering their traditions in response to their conversation--to that, there is no viable alternative. (183)
In 1980 his wife joined the Episcopal Church and in 1986 was ordained a priest. He has a chapter on the loss of his son, Eric who died in a climbing accident. His little book Lament for a Son is profound in its poetic incite into suffering. It "is not a book about Grief--it's a cry of grief." (199) He defines grief here - it "is wanting the death or destruction of the loved one to be undone, while at the same time knowing it cannot be undone." (204)
He was interested in the role of religion in political discussions and public life. "I was disturbed by the critical attitude of John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and their many followers, toward government in general and toward American liberal democracy in particular. I regard liberal democracy as a pearl of great price."
There is so much more in this memoir, he worked directly with an organization in Honduras on justice issues there and the lack of trust in police and government figures. He wrote and thought a lot about art theory and how it needs expanding to include memorial art and work songs. One of the most moving moments is when he is invited to lead a discussion of his book Lament for a Son with inmates at Handlon State Prison. Calvin set up a sister campus in the prison and offer accredited degrees. "I had never before discussed Lament in a class ... the men in the class were themselves in grief ... they were reading the book not so much as my expression of my grief but as an expression of their grief ... Their comments were articulate, emotionally intense, suffused by life experience, eloquent. They offered interpretations of my words that had never occurred to me. I was the student that day--they were my teachers." (312)
January 28, 2019
Memoirs by philosophers typically don’t garner wide readership, but Nicholas Wolterstorff’s In This World of Wonders should. It records vignettes from the life of a leading Christian philosopher who has made scholarly contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, among others. His Lament for a Son, written after the death of his son in a climbing accident, has helped many Christians journey through grief and is a spiritual classic.
I became aware of Wolterstorff in college when, as a philosophy student, I was introduced to the “Reformed epistemology” that he, Alvin Plantinga, and William P. Alston pioneered. Wolterstorff recounts the origins of that epistemology here, and provides a short introduction to its basic thesis, but he also shines a light on the development of his thinking in aesthetics and ethics. Given his interest in the former, it’s a good thing that Eerdman’s layout of this book was so well done. It’s always a pleasure to read a book where the beauty of the writing is matched by the beauty of the presentation.
For many years, Wolterstorff worried that his interests in different fields of philosophy had no unifying core. But he came to realize that the biblical concept of shalom, which he translates as “flourishing,” in fact integrated his interests. God created this world so that its creatures would flourish. This world-affirming theology, an outgrowth of a Reformed worldview, has guided Wolterstorff’s thinking over the course of a long, productive career at Calvin College, Yale University, and the University of Virginia.
Philosophically minded folk who have read Wolterstorff will be interested in this memoir, but I also think it presents a model of Christian scholarship—both implicitly and explicitly—that will commend the book to professors in other disciplines too.
Book Reviewed
Nicholas Wolterstorff, In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in Learning (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019).
P.S. If you like my review, please click "Helpful" on my Amazon review page.
I became aware of Wolterstorff in college when, as a philosophy student, I was introduced to the “Reformed epistemology” that he, Alvin Plantinga, and William P. Alston pioneered. Wolterstorff recounts the origins of that epistemology here, and provides a short introduction to its basic thesis, but he also shines a light on the development of his thinking in aesthetics and ethics. Given his interest in the former, it’s a good thing that Eerdman’s layout of this book was so well done. It’s always a pleasure to read a book where the beauty of the writing is matched by the beauty of the presentation.
For many years, Wolterstorff worried that his interests in different fields of philosophy had no unifying core. But he came to realize that the biblical concept of shalom, which he translates as “flourishing,” in fact integrated his interests. God created this world so that its creatures would flourish. This world-affirming theology, an outgrowth of a Reformed worldview, has guided Wolterstorff’s thinking over the course of a long, productive career at Calvin College, Yale University, and the University of Virginia.
Philosophically minded folk who have read Wolterstorff will be interested in this memoir, but I also think it presents a model of Christian scholarship—both implicitly and explicitly—that will commend the book to professors in other disciplines too.
Book Reviewed
Nicholas Wolterstorff, In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in Learning (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019).
P.S. If you like my review, please click "Helpful" on my Amazon review page.
June 18, 2019
It’s not that this book was terrible; it wasn’t. But Wolterstorff has obviously not read the canon of memoirs. His book behaves more like a glorified autobiography. I won’t lie; I wanted to read it. I’m from this culture and I wanted to hear what he had to say. It was exactly what I expected and nothing more. That’s why it’s a 3 star book to me. No surprises. One might have an interesting conversation with him if you had a glass of wine and his full attention. His memoir? Meh.
June 16, 2019
Full disclosure first. Nick Wolterstorff was one of my undergrad professors at Calvin College, and today I work for Eerdmans, the publisher of this book. But I did not edit this book or work on it in any other way. And I got a good grade in my class with him, so I'm not writing this review to try to improve my grade--as if it matters, all these years later.
That said, I found Nick's memoir of his life in higher education fascinating. From growing up in small-town Minnesota, he has gone on to be one of the world's most recognized philosophers. I was concerned that this book, like many of his philosophical works, would be over my head, but I need not have been. An excellent writer who knows his audience, he explains the intricacies of the philosophical fields he works in and the schools of philosophy he interacts with so that even I can understand them.
In addition, he tells of the many, many people he has come to know in Grand Rapids, New Haven, Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere during his career as a scholar. I especially enjoyed reading his memories of his years as a professor at Calvin, which coincided with my years there as a student. Those were great years when we (faculty and students) knew we could change the world. Many of us have gone on to do just that. He also writes of the late, great "Reformed Journal," which I read religiously from my college days on. I still miss it and the unique voices it published.
Nick writes lovingly of his family, including of the tragic death of his son Eric (about which he also wrote so poignantly in "Lament for a Son"). No matter where he was in the world, his children and grandchildren were not far from his thoughts. Family, and church, are very important to him. He concludes by saying that God has graced him with gratitude--all that he has accomplished, all that he has experienced, even his thankfulness for these things--he acknowledges all as coming from God's grace.
Even if you don't know Nick or haven't read any of his scholarly works, you will enjoy meeting him through this satisfying memoir.
That said, I found Nick's memoir of his life in higher education fascinating. From growing up in small-town Minnesota, he has gone on to be one of the world's most recognized philosophers. I was concerned that this book, like many of his philosophical works, would be over my head, but I need not have been. An excellent writer who knows his audience, he explains the intricacies of the philosophical fields he works in and the schools of philosophy he interacts with so that even I can understand them.
In addition, he tells of the many, many people he has come to know in Grand Rapids, New Haven, Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere during his career as a scholar. I especially enjoyed reading his memories of his years as a professor at Calvin, which coincided with my years there as a student. Those were great years when we (faculty and students) knew we could change the world. Many of us have gone on to do just that. He also writes of the late, great "Reformed Journal," which I read religiously from my college days on. I still miss it and the unique voices it published.
Nick writes lovingly of his family, including of the tragic death of his son Eric (about which he also wrote so poignantly in "Lament for a Son"). No matter where he was in the world, his children and grandchildren were not far from his thoughts. Family, and church, are very important to him. He concludes by saying that God has graced him with gratitude--all that he has accomplished, all that he has experienced, even his thankfulness for these things--he acknowledges all as coming from God's grace.
Even if you don't know Nick or haven't read any of his scholarly works, you will enjoy meeting him through this satisfying memoir.
June 2, 2021
This memoiror autobiography is so different than what I expected it to be, both in a positive as in a negative sense. In the preface Wolterstorf already warns the reader that this is "a series of vignettes and not the story of my life". A consequence is not just "that there is no dropping of names", but also that it is sometimes a bit harder to follow the line of the story. The reader gets snippets, where you might expect more information on events (like experiences on all his travels). Sometimes I really missed that and wished to get more information there and less, for example, on how wonderful his house was designed...by himself.
The great thing about it, however, is that you don't just get a sequence of events, but he takes time to explain the projects he was involved in, the lectures he gave (and about what) and the books he's written.
There was another thing that bothered me somewhat. Even though he mentions in the preface that wrote his memoir "reluctantly" because of the way he was brought up, still there were moments where he came across as arrogant, when he mentions that if Berkouwer was the best theology had to offer, he'd rather stay in philosophy, and some negative statements about C.S. Lewis, without much explanation.
Still, enough to be enjoyed. His philosophical and theological contributions are incredible and the reader learns about his way of working and gets short introductions in those contributions.
Not my favourite book, but I still liked reading it!
The great thing about it, however, is that you don't just get a sequence of events, but he takes time to explain the projects he was involved in, the lectures he gave (and about what) and the books he's written.
There was another thing that bothered me somewhat. Even though he mentions in the preface that wrote his memoir "reluctantly" because of the way he was brought up, still there were moments where he came across as arrogant, when he mentions that if Berkouwer was the best theology had to offer, he'd rather stay in philosophy, and some negative statements about C.S. Lewis, without much explanation.
Still, enough to be enjoyed. His philosophical and theological contributions are incredible and the reader learns about his way of working and gets short introductions in those contributions.
Not my favourite book, but I still liked reading it!
June 7, 2019
The word that comes to mind after reading this memoir of a life in learning is generous. It is a loving and generous book about the author's upbringing in rural Minnesota, to Grand Rapids, Michigan to his academic and art-loving exploits around the world. His quest to look ever deeper into ideas has not divorced him from the world; his philosophical work and his life experiences have increased his compassion, it sounds like. Yet he was also clear-eyed. If a hero of his was also a jerk, he said it. He calls himself out on his slowness to use gender-inclusive language. Reading this book makes me celebrate my life of curiosity--I'm not a world-class philosopher, so I'm hesitant to say "learning." But I can be lead by curiosity the way he is, always ready to delve into something that sparks an interest, always ready to be interested and looking for a spark. (Full disclosure, while I was never able to take a class with him at Calvin, I worshipped with him and his family and was friends with one of his children, and one of my uncles is mentioned in the book.) I rather loved this narrative of his life.
July 17, 2021
A fascinating look at the life of Nicholas Wolterstorff written as a series of vignettes of his life. Brutally honest. His love of art and beauty was captivating, as someone who would never consider collecting anything, his discussions on his collecting of art and furniture and plants left me vacillating between 'is this a waste' to 'is this beautiful'. It was encouraging to read about how Christian philosophers have exploded since he started out in this academic field. I confess to have never read any of his work, but having read this book would love to engage in his works on religion in the public square and also on justice. Also his love and closeness to his family was a challenge. I would have loved him to open up more about his beliefs in certain areas. e.g. I was gardening when Bush came to speak at Calvin College rather than being in the front row!! Small hints but more would have been great!!
May 1, 2022
Especially helpful was the chapter on the death of his son and how grief played out and continues to play out in his life. I love the title which is the focus of this book. He is not necessarily saying he had a wonderful life - though he does admit that in the end. What Wolterstorff is saying it seems to me is that this world is full of wonders - wonders which bring grief and wonders which bring joy. He doesn't shy away from talking about either.
I was looking forward to reading this when I first saw it come out and I was not disappointed.
Note: I disagree with him on some areas, but it did not take away from the impact of his work, nor the impact of this book. Some books are read and resonate, because they are read at just the right time. This is one of those books. This is what I needed and wanted to read at this time in life.
I was looking forward to reading this when I first saw it come out and I was not disappointed.
Note: I disagree with him on some areas, but it did not take away from the impact of his work, nor the impact of this book. Some books are read and resonate, because they are read at just the right time. This is one of those books. This is what I needed and wanted to read at this time in life.
March 10, 2020
I am really fascinated by Wolterstorff, and enjoyed reading parts of this book. However, as a memoir, it didn't capture my imagination or invite me into either his inner world, or outer experiences as much as others in this genre. I am connected to the CRC world, but not enough to know many of the names he mentioned- some of the chapters included a series of name-dropping that fell flat for me as someone who doesn't know, and frankly isn't deeply interested in the names of white men in leadership in Christian academia, especially without further explanation or stories to tell me more about who these people are. Key takeaway- I would like to one day read a book written by his wife, Claire. She sounds like an interesting woman!
September 14, 2024
A Good Read Because A Good Life
Though I sometimes wished Wolterstorff had spent a bit more time explaining or elaborating a point he was making, this was never meant to be a philosophical treatise on any given topic. The point was to convey how his upbringing fashioned his inscape, as he calls it, his interior life, and how that inscape evolved from one interest to others. It was fascinating to see how one idea led to others.
This is a book for those who are curious what a philosophical attitude toward daily living looks like. What emerges is a lifetime of learning and curiosity. An admirable life because a thoughtful life.
Though I sometimes wished Wolterstorff had spent a bit more time explaining or elaborating a point he was making, this was never meant to be a philosophical treatise on any given topic. The point was to convey how his upbringing fashioned his inscape, as he calls it, his interior life, and how that inscape evolved from one interest to others. It was fascinating to see how one idea led to others.
This is a book for those who are curious what a philosophical attitude toward daily living looks like. What emerges is a lifetime of learning and curiosity. An admirable life because a thoughtful life.
March 14, 2019
Anyone who thinks all religious people are fools or flakes has not met philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff. His life in academia has mixed deep religious faith with intellectual rigor with very pleasing results. My only complaint with this book is that it at times felt a bit like an advertisement for his other books. On the bright side, most of the other books he mentioned sound fascinating and I’m glad he brought them to my attention.
August 22, 2019
Enjoyed this book very much!
November 25, 2019
This simply told memoir was for me an occasion to be thankful for Wolterstorff's influence on the discipline and to reflect on my own vocation in philosophy.
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June 7, 2020An enjoyable romp with Wolterstorff through his life. It was a life well-lived ...
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May 11, 2023Ако мога да я определя с една дума тази книга е "топла" - в изцяло положителен смисъл. Рядко имам подобно усещано за книга, но тук то е много силно.
April 2, 2021
What a delightful memoir! Wolterstorff is a practising philosopher, theologian, country fellow, eminent activist, early worker on 'shalom' as 'flourishing'. I have a very special place for this book, having begun it a short while ago. Many modern biographies and autobiographies are heavy works; dense with detail.
Not here. In a series of some ten vignettes. Wolterstorff shows us snapshots of his childhood, calling into academia, arrests in social justice issues, in art - a pioneer abolishing the (unhelpful) distinction between 'high' and 'low' culture in the philosophy of aesthetics. He takes us through his grief experiences and the faithful response to it. His prose is warm, reflective, generous to others, gently humourous here and there, pithy in his accounts of his philosophical engagements. The main setting of the story is the United States.
I highly recommend it - if you have an interest in a genuine human story, in modern philosophy, in progressive Reformed theology, in arts and crafts, in Christian humanism - in any or all of these; or even just good biographical writing, you most likely will enjoy this.
And on a personal note, I have this library copy to read because I took time to recommend the title to the Tasmanian state library and they were good enough to act on my recommendation. Thus, access in Tasmania, at least, is assured.
Not here. In a series of some ten vignettes. Wolterstorff shows us snapshots of his childhood, calling into academia, arrests in social justice issues, in art - a pioneer abolishing the (unhelpful) distinction between 'high' and 'low' culture in the philosophy of aesthetics. He takes us through his grief experiences and the faithful response to it. His prose is warm, reflective, generous to others, gently humourous here and there, pithy in his accounts of his philosophical engagements. The main setting of the story is the United States.
I highly recommend it - if you have an interest in a genuine human story, in modern philosophy, in progressive Reformed theology, in arts and crafts, in Christian humanism - in any or all of these; or even just good biographical writing, you most likely will enjoy this.
And on a personal note, I have this library copy to read because I took time to recommend the title to the Tasmanian state library and they were good enough to act on my recommendation. Thus, access in Tasmania, at least, is assured.
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