New piece published in LARB: an essay review of N. T. Wright's Gifford lectures
This morning I'm in the Los Angeles Review of Books with a long essay review of History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology, which are the book form of N. T. Wright's Gifford lectures. Here's the opening paragraph:
DOES GOD EXIST? An affirmative answer is presupposed by the world’s major religions traditions, particularly those that claim Abraham as forebear. Contemporary atheists, however, are far from the first to wonder about the question. Ancient philosophers and Abrahamic believers of every stripe have grappled with it in one form or another. For Christians who reflect on the matter, the catchall term is “natural theology.” But there is no one habit of thought or mode of analysis captured by that title. Rather, it gathers together a complex heritage marked as much by internal disagreement as by shared inquiry. That heritage is in part a genealogy. In order to come to terms with natural theology today, therefore, one must have some sense, as it were, of the family history in view.
