Entering into Rest: Ethics as Theology

by Oliver O'Donovan

Overview

Oliver O'Donovan's Ethics as Theology project began with Self, World, and Time, an "induction" into Christian ethics as ordered reflection on moral thinking within the life of faith. Volume 2, Finding and Seeking, shifted the focus to the movement of moral thought from a first consciousness of agency to the time that determines the moment of decision.

In this third and final volume of his magnum opus, O'Donovan turns his attention to the forward horizon with which moral thinking must engage. Moral experience, he argues, is necessarily two-directional, looking both back at responsibility and forward at aims. The Pauline triad of theological virtues (faith, love, and hope) describes a form of responsibility, and its climax in the sovereignty of love opens the way to a definitive teleology.

Entering into Rest offers O'Donovan's mature reflections on questions that have engaged him throughout his career and provides a synoptic view of many of his main themes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802873590
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/28/2017
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Oliver O'Donovan is a fellow of the British Academy and professor emeritus of Christian ethics and practical theology at the University of Edinburgh. His other books include The Desire of the Nations, The Ways of Judgment, andResurrection and Moral Order.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 The Sovereignty of Love 1

The Inverted Triad 1

The Foundationalizing of Love 9

The Future of Love 14

Cooperation 19

2 Ends of Action 24

Definibus 24

Further and Latter Ends 31

Judgment 40

3 Communication 45

Ends and Community 45

The Common Good 53

Two Cities 59

The Sin against Community 65

4 Sanctification 72

A Dogmatic Preamble 72

Thanksgiving 79

Perfection 85

Social Transformation 93

5 The Communication of Work 102

Body, Soul, and Spirit 102

Work and Existence 107

Labor, Society, and Self-Realization 111

The Wrongs of Work 121

The Sanctification of Work 127

6 The Communication of Friendship 135

Coexistence 135

The Commitment of Friendship 138

The Wrongs of Hostility 147

The Sanctification of Friendship 153

7 The Communication of Meaning 163

Meaning and Reality 163

Narrative and Description 170

Theology, Ethics, and Narrative 174

The Wrongs of Falsehood 183

The Sanctification of Meaning 192

8 The Endurance of Love 200

The Bewilderment of Love 200

Suffering 202

Death 207

The Sanctification of Temporality 214

The Eternity of Love 225

Index of Names and Subjects

Index of Scripture References

Editorial Reviews

Sarah Coakley
-- University of Cambridge
"Oliver O'Donovan here completes his magisterial trilogy on theological ethics with an invitation to consider what it would be to 'fall away in God's glory, ' to 'learn love anew' at the end of time. Intense, complex, and closely argued, this deceptively short volume on love recapitulates many of the neo-Augustinian themes of O'Donovan's earlier writing, but with a directness and brilliance that are utterly compelling."

Eric Gregory
-- Princeton University
"Learned, stylish, and wise, this climactic volume of O'Donovan's trilogy on ethics as theology is the work of a master craftsman. Entering into Rest makes Christian ethics exciting and surprising again; and, more importantly, by stretching categories of religious and secular thought with eschatological horizons, it has something constructive to say to our spiritual and intellectual lives and the communities that sustain them."

Luke Bretherton
-- Duke Divinity School
"A profound meditation on the nature and form of moral action with and for others in which theology is no mere adornment; rather, it is the bone and sinew of the position developed. This book forms the capstone of O'Donovan's theological ethics and concludes what is a remarkable testimony not just to his erudition and insight but also to his desire that the church be sanctified so that it might inhabit and bear witness to a faithful, hopeful, and loving way of being alive."

Hans Boersma
-- Regent College
"Entering into Rest blows the dust off the word 'devotion.' Devotion, explains O'Donovan, is about uniting knowledge and energy in the supremacy of love. To explore what this means for the duties and ends of ethics, O'Donovan takes us back, yet again, to the Christian Scriptures--always in profound dialogue with the wisdom of the centuries, drawn from philosophers and theologians, from novelists and poets. Itself the mature fruit of devotion, this book is a profound encouragement on our pilgrimage to the God of love."

-- Expository Times
"Entering into Rest continues in the spirit of the previous two volumes, offering wide-ranging and spiritually-infused insights. O'Donovan masterfully blends academic rigor with a pastoral tone, a quality frequently missing in much contemporary ethical writing."

-- Times Literary Supplement
"With Entering into Rest, O'Donovan brings to completion Ethics as Theology, a masterly trilogy that cements his position as one of the world's finest living theologians."

From the Publisher