Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love

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In this original book Rowan Williams sketches out a new understanding of how human beings open themselves to transcendence. Drawing on the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Welsh poet and painter David Jones, and the American novelist Mary Flannery O`Connor, Rowan Williams fulfils his ambition for Christianity to engage with contemporary culture, and that a man who holds highest office in the Church has the time and intellectual energy to write such original theology is encouraging for us all.

Unabashedly erudite in tone, this book may appeal to scholars and readers interested in grappling with a debate that has probably been engaged as long as there have been artists and theologians.' Publishers Weekly

'Discusses important issues in a profound and original way.' Church of England Newspaper

Reviews

'Unabashedly erudite in tone, this book may appeal to scholars and readers interested in grappling with a debate that has probably been engaged as long as there have been artists and theologians.' Publishers Weekly
'Discusses important issues in a profound and original way.' Church of England Newspaper
"Grace and Necessity is not easy reading, but it is a very valuable contribution to the task of enunciating aesthetic grounded in Christian theology, a project which began with the creation of those classic works of art, the Gospels. It has proceeded fitfully since...Rowan Williams has stuck a sharp needle into the balloon of contemporary theories which emphasize that the only intelligible thing about a work of art, of any kind, is the individual's experience of it. For believers and unbelievers alike, this is very precious indeed. One can only hope that its insights will be popularized." -- Anglicans Online, August 2005
"Grace and Necessity, an expanded version of Rowan Williams' Clark Lectures, delivered earlier this year, reflects on the relationship between Christian thought and the practice of the arts' ...The work challenges appearances', and challenges pre-existing assumptions about knowledge itself. It makes claims about being but also about how being is adequately known'."- titusonenine, July 16, 2005 -- Titusonenine
"Archbishop of Canterbury Williams continues and adds to the renaissance in Christian reflection on theological aesthetics with rigorous essays on Flannery O'Connor, the French theologian Jacques Maritain and the English artist David Jones. For Williams, art is like God's making of the world in creation: it reflects and embodies the artist without collapsing the maker into what is made." Reviewed in Christian Century, December 2006
Grace and Necessity has about itself no little artistry -- Charles Miller * Art and Christianity *
"The book preserves the engaging character of talk, while giving references and notes that are valuable for scholars. Professors and students of theological aesthetics will find this an enjoyable and insightful study of a particular period in the development of the field."- Worship Magazine, March 2006 * Worship *

Author Bio

Rowan Williams is a former Archbishop of Canterbury and was until 2020 Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of many books, including Looking East in Winter, Holy Living, and The Edge of Words, published by Bloomsbury Continuum. He lives in Cardiff and continues to broadcast, preach and lecture internationally. In 2022, he gave the second of the BBCs centenary Reith Lectures.