David Errington brings the Book of Proverbs into discussion with two significant accounts of the nature and foundation of practical reason in Christian ethics: Thomas Aquinas and Oliver O'Donovan. Aiming to set out a coherent account of the structure of Christian moral reasoning, this book provides the first scholarly engagement with Oliver O'Donovan's moral theology. Errington argues that the way the Book of Proverbs conceives of wisdom presents an important challenge to the way practical reason has been understood in the (...) Western theological and philosophical tradition, and that instead a perfection of speculative knowledge, wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is a practical knowledge of how to act well, grounded in the reality of the world God has made. (shrink)

Running throughout the work of Oliver O’Donovan is a discussion of the nature of authority, and its relation to reality, and to freedom. While holding fast to the maxim that authority is the correlate of freedom, O’Donovan’s understanding of authority moves, as a result of his engagement with the nature of political authority, to emphasise the idea of social mediation. This leads, in the most recent works, to a description of authority as an event in which reality is disclosed. Arguably, (...) this formal account does not adequately distinguish the element of practical direction within authority, meaning that it may struggle to explain some ways in which we speak about authority’s presence, and its misuse. However, there may be resources for making this distinction within O’Donovan’s understanding of judgment as an act of moral discrimination with a twofold form. O’Donovan’s is an elegant and economical account of authority, promising to provide a simple analysis that encompasses the peculiarities of authority and illuminates a wide range of phenomena. (shrink)

This article brings the theological political theory of Oliver O’Donovan to bear on the issue of multiculturalism. O’Donovan’s work provides resources for understanding the dynamics involved in debates over multiculturalism more deeply, and this discussion in turn highlights the central features of O’Donovan’s political theory. O’Donovan’s understanding of government as involving a necessary tension between the requirements of justice and the possibilities afforded by a community’s tradition allows us to properly appreciate the challenge raised by the demand to recognise minority (...) cultures, without abandoning the obligation to do so. This further highlights that the challenge of multiculturalism is first and foremost a social challenge, which can only meaningfully be met through communication. (shrink)