‘Augustine’s Theology of Creation: Nature, Knowledge, Stewardship’ [Virtual only]

Matthew Knotts

https://newmancentre.org/events/augustines-theology-of-creation-nature-knowledge-stewardship-virtual-only-dr-matthew-knotts-loyola-academy-and-dr-sean-hannan-macewan-university

ummary: This presentation demonstrates the importance of Augustine’s theology of creation for contemporary theological approaches to the natural world. Augustine’s understanding of creation, grounded in his exegesis of Genesis and John, provides a distinctive picture of what nature is. Augustine understands creation as accomplished by God the Father through the Son, or in sapientia. This implies that the divine life is infused into the natural order. In virtue of being created in the image of God, the human person is capable of perceiving the divine signa latent in nature. Augustine believes that one can speak with God through the medium of the natural world. To accomplish this one’s heart must be converted to be able to listen to God. The dialogue with nature reveals our finitude, a fact which, interpreted positively, means we stand in a particular relationship to the rest of creation. In the final part, I show how Augustine’s theology provides a basis for understanding key insights of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’, in particular the importance of the stewardship model for our relationship to the natural world.

About: Matthew W. Knotts teaches Theology at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. He holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and a Master’s in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews (UK). While completing his doctoral studies, he performed research stays at the University of Chicago Divinity School and in Melbourne at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry of the Australian Catholic University. His first book, On Creation, Science, Disenchantment and the Contours of Being and Knowing, was published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Academic in the Reading Augustine series. On the basis of an historical analysis of Augustine and a hermeneutical engagement with sources in contemporary philosophy and theology, it argues for an understanding of the world as not merely a collection of facts to be catalogued but a repository of truths to be discovered and discerned. He is currently working on his second book for the same series, which considers the abyssal nature and dialectical constitution of the human person according to Augustine. His scholarship has also appeared in the Augustinus-Lexikon, Philosophy & Theology, and Studia Patristica, among others.

Dr. Sean Hannan is an Associate Professor in the Humanities Department at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the author of On Time, Change, History, and Conversion (Bloomsbury, 2020) and (with W. Ezekiel Goggin) Mysticism & Materialism in the Wake of German Idealism (forthcoming with Routledge). He has also written articles published in Augustinian Studies, Political Theology, and the Journal of Early Christian Studies. Most recently, he has overseen the publication of an edited volume simply called Augustine & Time (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).