With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology: Being Gifford Lectures Delivered at the University of St. Andrews in 2001

"In this stunning book, the great Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas offers the comprehensive theological argument we have long requested. Of course, if we were worthier students, we would have known this could not come in the form of a conceptual system. Like Barth, whom he makes the hero of this book, Hauerwas teaches that Christian theological argument begins not with our own rational constructs, but by bearing witness to God's life among us. The argument proceeds not by speculating on what God's life might mean, but by narrating how it is in fact imitated by sanctified lives here in this created world. The argument ends not by framing doctrines, but by warning us of the error, violence, suffering, and death that remain in this world-and it calls us, in imitation of God's life, to help heal this world and to work for its final redemption. For those whose habit it is to call this world 'nature,' Hauerwas's theological argument may be dubbed 'natural theology,' and the consequence will be a radical change in what we take natural theology to be. Natural theology will be the story of God's life as it is lived, visibly, in this world; as its meaning is disclosed to the community of those who inquire after it, and as its truth is displayed through its visible effects in transforming this world into the one it would be and will be." -Peter Ochs, University of Virginia