A Conversation Between Tariq Goddard and David Bentley Hart
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- On God, art, the novel, consciousness, the experience of the world, prayer, evil, heaven... (more or less what you might expect)...
Tariq Goddard is not only an esteemed novelist and publisher; he is also an extremely amiable man and a delightful interlocutor. The occasion of our conversation was the appearance of his latest book-High John the Conqueror-which is an ingenious amalgam of police procedural, supernatural thriller, metaphysical meditation, and morality tale. The conversation took its own course and the time passed very quickly.
Please, whoever is making these vids, please don't stop. It is like finding a sudden garden in a desert. Thank you.
I found Doors of the Sea to be the non-fiction work of yours I found most moving. It is one of the few volumes of non-fiction that has ever brought me to tears.
It’s kind of you to say so.
I relate to Tariq’s experience of embarrassment at not being able to buy into materialism. I was raised in a secular home (in England) and was only able to use the word “God” relatively unselfconsciously after reading The Experience of God.
I hadn’t heard of Tariq before this interview, but I now find myself intrigued and plan on buying his latest book.
I think it’s a common British story.
The facial hair in this one on the both of you is quite impressive it’s like a conversation between a monk and Hemingway
A monk? Not Tolstoy or some other Victorian era writer?
@@leavesinthewind7441 Wilkie Collins vibes
@@Goldeye145 That works.
@@leavesinthewind7441 well Tolstoy even had some monastic qualities but yes that too definitely
George MacDonald
It makes me happy knowing DBH appreciates The Wicker Man
Long cut, of course.
@@leavesinthewind7441 What about the abominable Nicholas Cage remake? ;)
@@carsonwall2400 Never seen it. Never will.
@@leavesinthewind7441 A wise decision
I would love to see a conversation between Todd McGowan and DBH. Even though their work and academic interests are so different I see some overlap. And most importantly they are both so charitable. It would be so fascinating. To hear them go back and forth on Hegel, Lacan etc would be awesome.
Just read Enjoyment Left and Right and I couldn’t stop thinking this!
Interesting!
Indeed.
Fantastic conversation, David!
Good to see you doing what you loved Tariq, hope there is still a lot of the revolutionary suede lover in there too!
You're right, acents in the UK do change from street to street. Up in the North East England our region has multiple ids.
I'm North Yorkshire, while many of my neighbours are Smoggies, yet we're both from the same region and from the same Town.
We NY say "Aye" where Smoggies says "Yeaah!"
My fathers birth certificate says North Yorkshire, mine says Teesside and my younger brothers Cleveland. My kids Tees Valley yet we are all born in Middlesbrough.
As long as you can all sing “On Ilkley Moor Bar T’At” in the same key.
@@leavesinthewind7441 We'll have to try it close to the note tree in fairy dell, after either my Smoggy counterpart or I have a few glasses of wine 🍷 😆
I'm not really well versed when it comes to modern authors, so thank you for your implicit endorsements on this channel. I'm notoriously low on money and can't afford buying many books, so knowing which ones are worth the money is a precious gift.
On another note, can anyone help me? I want to subscribe to Davids SubStack, but the only option for payment seems to be with a credit-card. Is there any possibility to pay another way, since i don't have one ...
Write to me at davidbentleyhart@substack.com. I’ll fix you up with a gift subscription. It’s Christmas, after all.
Superb and shared
From Christian perspectives (which nonetheless draw from Buddhist tradition) the best I have found is Martin Laird’s Little trilogy on contemplation/meditation: Into the Silent Land, A Sunlit Absence, and An Ocean of Light. Addison’s book book The Oxherder and the Good Shepherd has been immensely helpful as well.
What does David Bentley Hart think about Study Bibles? Will he prefer a more scholarly-critical Bible like Oxford & HarperCollins Bibles or ESV & NKJV Study Bibles?
Great interview as usual! I've been wanting to ask you, Do you think satan or the devil is a literal entity of sorts or figurative or symbolic of man's sin?
I suppose there isn't a short answer to this question but if there were anyone I'd prefer to ask it to, it'd be you. My opinion is that he's figurative, at least it makes the most sense according to what I've studied.
Well, I don’t believe the standard biography. But that’s a long conversation. I’ll be writing something on the matter over at the Substack page at some point.
I'm not DBH, but I was thinking about just this question recently, so I'll take a crack at it.
I think the reason why people tend to see Satan as figurative is that the idea of a separate being, a mere creation, causing all these problems for us just seems silly. However, I think that it's possible for Satan to exist in a real ontological way, but with our individual selves as correlating points in the same way that the brain correlates (but does not necessarily cause, of course) our thoughts.
In other words, Satan isn't just a character from a myth about how an angel fell from God due to arrogance. He is the name we give to that spiritual presence or principle or tendency (perhaps with something like a unified subjectivity to it, worthy of a name) which IS or STEMS FROM creation's collective rebellion against God's will. In a sense, Satan, or The Father of Lies, is the "consciousness" of creation in and of its fallen state. And perhaps, almost in rebellion to God's own transcendent oneness, Satan is creation's own expressive of rebellious oneness--in spite of its own intrinsically composite nature--made manifest in its unified Fall.
This is why Satan is associated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and why we link that idea to the myth of the fall of this angel called Lucifer. The biblical stories get at this common root, this underlying truth. Of course, the mistake is to treat these as separate things, or to treat Satan (or whatever we want to call him/it) in the same class as us, just a creature of a higher magnitude but a similar order.
All of this also makes the classic formulation that Jesus died to save us from death AND THE DEVIL seem less comical and arbitrary. After all, it is his death which both frees us from death AND wipes away creation's principle of fallenness / it's real conscious intentionality towards fallenness / defeats the devil.
I don't necessarily think that this is the case (that creation's tendency to Fall has necessarily manifested its own psychological subjectivity). But if someone wants to believe in Satan as something more than a metaphor (and also more than just a mere creature) I think this might be one of the more coherent pictures.
That's more or less how
I was framing it in my mind.
Your writing skills are nearly as astounding as my own. Thanks for offering up your thoughts! :)
I share the same sentiment.
Where can I access your substack publications? Thanks :)
@Oskar Thanks a lot, will check it out!
You mentioned a fondness for Christian thinkers from the first 4 centuries - might you (or anyone else on this comment thread) have a handful of book recommendations written by or about your favorites from this period? (English translations and include favorite publication/edition if applicable)
Merry Christmas all!
Did you just say you love cats?
Um, don’t masquerade as Roland. He doesn’t like that.
@@leavesinthewind7441 Tell him I'm sorry. I'm just a fan of his.
@@jonn_esternon Well, he’s understanding.