In his new book Abundantly More: The Theological Promise of the Arts in a Reductionist World, Professor Jeremy S. Begbie shows 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.
Late-modern culture has been marred by reductionism, which shrinks and flattens our vision of ourselves and the world. In this book, Begbie analyzes and critiques reductionism and its effects, showing how the arts can resist reductive impulses by opening us up to an unlimited abundance of meaning. Engaging 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 these fields 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.
Jeremy Begbie is the inaugural Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Professor of Theology and director of the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, both at Duke Divinity School. Begbie is the author of several books, including Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts: Bearing Witness to the Triune God, which discusses how the arts can witness to the transcendence of the Christian God. He is also a senior member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer in the faculty of music at the University of Cambridge.