Abundantly More: The Theological Promise of the Arts in a Reductionist World - Paperback

by Jeremy S. Begbie (Author)

The Gospel Coalition 2023 Award of Distinction (Arts & Culture)

Southwestern Journal of Theology 2023 Book Award (Honorable Mention, Church Music/Worship/Christianity and the Arts)

Late-modern culture has been marred by reductionism, which shrinks and flattens our vision of ourselves and the world. Renowned theologian Jeremy Begbie believes that the arts by their nature push against reductionism, helping us understand and experience more deeply the infinite richness of God's love and of the world God has made.

In Abundantly More, Begbie analyzes and critiques reductionism and its effects. He shows how the arts can resist reductive impulses by opening us up to an unlimited abundance of meaning. And he demonstrates how the engagement of the arts in light of a trinitarian imagination (which itself cuts against reductionism) generates a unique way of witnessing to and sharing in the life and purposes of God.

Theologians, artists, and any who are interested in how the fields of art and theology intersect will find rich resources here and discover the crucial role the arts can play in keeping our culture open to the possibility of God.

Back Jacket

"A remarkable achievement that breaks new ground"

In a culture that so often seems to shrink and flatten our vision, reducing the world to mere atoms and us to mere things, the arts can break our imaginations open. In conversation with multiple art forms, theologian Jeremy Begbie helps us see this world and ourselves as infinitely richer than we could ever imagine: as created and redeemed by the inexhaustible love of God.

"As only Jeremy Begbie can do, this book weaves theology and music, philosophy and poetry, science and Scripture to explore and celebrate the uncontainability of the triune God and the irreducible complexity of creation. Beginning with an astute analysis of our modern tendency to reduce, flatten, and de-complexify the beautiful, swirling kaleidoscope of divine and created reality, Begbie articulates a creative, constructive pneumatology that deepens our understanding of the resonance between theology and the arts. A remarkable achievement that breaks new ground."
--James K. A. Smith, Calvin University; editor in chief, Image

"Abundantly More is not simply a justification of the literary, visual, and musical arts. Begbie insists that the arts do far more than give us delight. They also undermine the idea that human reason alone is capable of understanding our universe and invite us to encounter and engage the inexhaustible beauty and incomprehensible mystery of what cannot be defined."
--Robin Jensen, University of Notre Dame

"Over against modernity's reductionistic impulses--to view human life as 'nothing more than, ' human work as 'nothing but, ' and human relations as mere power struggles and 'nothing besides'--Jeremy Begbie shows how Christ's resurrection, as the uncontainable 'moreness' of God's love-in-action par excellence, serves to rupture this pathologically miserly vision of life and how the arts can function as graced partners in the ongoing 'opening up and out' work of the triune God. This book is a must-read for theologians and church leaders."
--W. David O. Taylor, Fuller Theological Seminary

"In this book, Jeremy Begbie achieves a remarkable double feat: a quietly devastating critique of the engrained reductionist tendencies in Western modernity and, in dialogue with his profoundly humane theological insight, an inspiring manifesto for the fundamental value of the arts as part of what makes us human."
--Bettina Varwig, University of Cambridge

Author Biography

Jeremy S. Begbie (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and McDonald Agape Director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He served as Honorary Professor of theology at the University of St. Andrews; Associate Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge; and as an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. A professionally trained musician, Begbie has lectured widely and is the author of numerous articles and books.