The fifth section of The Doors of the Sea contains Hart's central concerns with inadequate Christian theodicies (as he considers them), and is the section where he showcases Ivan Karamazov's rebellion against God. "This is the splendid perversity and genius of Ivan's (or … [Read more...]
Narratival Calvinism and Storyless Readers
In his fourth section, Hart begins to interact with certain expressions of Calvinism. The Calvinists Hart was responding to are represented but not named, and since there are no footnotes to follow, I am puzzled over how to respond to this. Unvarnished Calvinism is hard for some … [Read more...]
A Different Kind of Telling
In his next section of The Doors of the Sea, Hart starts with a discussion of Voltaire's "exquisite savagery" in his famous poem that made fun of certain popular theodicies in the wake of the devastating Lisbon earthquake. "If indeed the theodicist would have us believe that … [Read more...]
Real Sacrifice
Let me take, as a fixed point of evangelical orthodoxy, the penal, substitutionary atonement of Christ. Let me also take, as a point of personal privilege, the knowledge that Rene Girard has offered some stunning and cogent observations about human nature, the process of … [Read more...]
John Wesley’s Hatband
In the second section of his first chapter, Hart takes "emotional and rhetorical opportunism" to task, and does so ably. He is not fond of the "triumphalistic atheist" who declares immediately that the "materialist creed has been vindicated" (p. 7) by natural disasters such as … [Read more...]
Denying the Cat
The Doors of the Sea is a small book, divided into two chapters -- "Universal Harmony" and "Divine Victory." Each chapter is divided into sections, and I want to interact with the book section by section. In this book, David Bentley Hart grapples with the Asian tsunami and the … [Read more...]
A Corker from Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens has written a corker about the Archbishop of C, a corker which I would commend to you here. I am constantly astounding by those who think that fruit can mysteriously continue to show up in crates every autumn after we have chopped down the tree in June. As in C.S. … [Read more...]
All Three of the Flying Bambino Brothers
This is archived under "Book Review" but it is not really a book review proper. It is more of a statement. Last April I finished reading a short book by David Bentley Hart called The Doors of the Sea, a theological reaction to the Asian tsunami. In my short book log review, I … [Read more...]
Adversarial Fathers
When a son is out of control, this is because the parents have often made the mistake of slipping into an adversarial role, instead of what they ought to be occupying, which is a watchful and parental role. The first unfortunate step in becoming an adversary to your child is … [Read more...]
Ananias and Sapphira Must Have Been Liberals
One of the constant refrains that provide the background noise to our contemporary political debates is the idea, oft repeated, that liberals are open-hearted, generous, ready to share, while conservatives are pinched souls, close-fisted, and skinflinty. The problem is that we … [Read more...]
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