On Creation, Science, Disenchantment, & the Contours of Being & Knowing (Reading Augustine)

For Augustine the world is replete with meaning; it represents not merely a collection of facts to be catalogued but a repository of truths to be discovered and discerned, a view which contrasts with the one we have inherited as a result of the thought of figures such as Descartes, Newton, and Kant. What difference would it make to see the world as created? Matthew W. Knotts explores this question in close conversation with Augustine, according to whom our nature as God’s creatures determines fundamental aspects of our identity and our knowledge. In a postmodern context informed by a renewed appreciation of the limitations of human nature and reason, Augustine once again emerges as an insightful and compelling source for further reflection.

Matthew W. Knotts received his PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2017 as a fellow of the Flanders Research Foundation (FWO). His first monograph appeared in 2020 from Bloomsbury in the Reading Augustine series. He has presented his research at conferences and meetings across the US, Europe, and Australia and has performed research stays at the University of Chicago and the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry of the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. His scholarship has appeared in Philosophy & Theology, Studia Patristica, and the Augustinus-Lexikon, among others. He resides in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Miles Hollingworth is Research Fellow in the History of Ideas at St. John's College, Durham. His writing on Augustine has won awards from the Society of Authors (2009 Elizabeth Longford Grant for Historical Biography) and the Royal Society of Literature (2009 Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction). He is the author of The Pilgrim City: St. Augustine of Hippo and his Innovation in Political Thought (also published by Bloomsbury), which was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone History Book Prize.