skip to content

Von Hügel Institute

for Critical Catholic Inquiry
 

The Price of Truth: Herbert McCabe on Love, Politics and Death

Perhaps the greatest theologian of the English-speaking world in the late twentieth century, the Dominican Herbert McCabe never thought of himself as a political theologian. At any rate, he always thought that there was more to politics than politicians generally knew of. But he also thought that any theology done as if from a politically neutral standpoint would be committed to a bad politics willy-nilly. For McCabe, the Dominican motto, Truth, was a tough call, for the truth will set you free only if you refuse to settle for what the world believes to be its own truth, a 'truth' that has the habit of demanding the death of those who refuse to comply. The Incarnation, the Eucharist, history, Thomas Aquinas, Marx, Wittgenstein, John's Gospel all weave in and out of McCabe’s thought in ways that are at once uniquely his and the distinctively Dominican mix of riotous individualism and intellectual responsibility.

Denys Turner is Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale University. He was previously Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, and is the author of numerous books on Marxism, political philosophy, and mystical theologies, most recently Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God; Faith Seeking; The Darkness of God; and Eros and Allegory.

When: 30th October, 4pm

Where: St Edmund's College, Garden Room

This lecture is part of a Public Lecture Tour by Professor Turner (the other lectures being at St Mary's University, Twickenham and Las Casas Institute, Blackfriars Oxford). All welcome; the lecture will be followed by refreshments.

 

 

A unique institute of advanced studies inspired by Catholic thought and culture, focussed on contemporary global realities, and dedicated to encounter, dialogue, and transformation