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FORMATION, GRACE, AND PNEUMATOLOGY: Or, Where's the Spirit in Gregory's Augustine?
Author(s) -
Smith James K. A.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of religious ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.306
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1467-9795
pISSN - 0384-9694
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2011.00492.x
Subject(s) - saint , perfectionism (psychology) , philosophy , liberalism , articulation (sociology) , argument (complex analysis) , virtue , order (exchange) , theme (computing) , pneumatology , politics , epistemology , theology , sociology , law , art history , art , psychology , political science , social psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , computer science , economics , operating system
Eric Gregory's Politics and the Order of Love takes up an audacious project: enlisting Saint Augustine in order to “help imagine a better liberalism.” This article first provides a summary of Gregory's argument, focusing on his emphasis on love as a “motivation” for neighborly care, and hence democratic participation. This involves tracing the theme of motivation in the book, which is tied to his articulation of liberal perfectionism and an emphasis on civic virtue. In conclusion I raise the question of whether his project has ignored a key aspect of Augustine's account of love, namely, the role of the Holy Spirit, thereby demarcating the limits of Gregory's “rational reconstruction” of Augustine.