The Fr. McGuckin/Dr. Hart exchange

by Newnameelizabeth

I’m trying to decide whether to pay the $15 for David B. Hart’s response to Fr. McGuckin’s critique in the Scottish Journal of Theology of the former’s The Beauty of the Infinite, which enjoys this review from the latter,

“The same issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology has a symposium on David Hart‘s remarkable book The Beauty of the Infinite. John McGuckin of Columbia University writes, “It is undoubtedly one of the most important and timely works of theology written for many decades past, and will prove itself to be so, I suspect, despite many eccentricities and idiosyncratic judgments.” “Many decades” may be pushing it, but certainly the most interesting and provocative book of theology in the …”

I’m leaning towards reading the book first, but Dr. Hart offers such a tantalizing rhetorical carrot in this little teaser,

“I should first of all thank John McGuckin and Francesca Murphy for their remarks; both are scholars I very much respect, and it is flattering that they think my work worthy of their scrutiny and of – occasionally – their animadversions. I much prefer praise to censure, of course, but only the latter affords any scope for a meaningful reply. One dare not respond to a compliment by agreeing with it, or amplifying upon it; but to demur from it is to squander a gift that may not come again. So it is probably for the best that, even if I have apparently succeeded on the whole in pleasing both readers, I have nevertheless failed to please either of them in every particular. And I hope I may be excused for confining my replies almost entirely to their more critical remarks.”