Grace and Necessity

This is Rowan Williams' first major work of theology since "Lost Icons" and since his enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a work of quite exceptional originality and profundity. This most original new book by Rowan Williams sketches out a new theological aesthetic or, put more simply, a new understanding of how human beings open themselves to transcendence. In describing an aesthetic of transcendence, Dr Williams draws on three key influences: the French Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, the Welsh poet and painter, David Jones, and the American novelist and short story writer, Mary Flannery O'Connor. The influence is as broad as Dr Williams' perception is deep. Through the poetic and creative imagination of these three influences, we read of a new doctrine of God that puts gift and dispossession at the foundation of everything. The result is a book which combines innovation with clarity, and certainly breathes fresh air into a theological enterprise, which often seems turgid, or which may seem to amount at times to little more than intellectual pirouetting. In a real sense, Rowan Williams fulfils his stated ambition for Christianity to engage with contemporary culture, at least in its more imaginative aspects. That a man who holds highest office in the Church has the time and intellectual energy to write such original theology is encouraging for all of us.