The Vision of God

Book excerpt: Based on the 1928 Bampton Lectures, The Vision of God was the first of Kenneth E. Kirk’s three major books on moral theology. Drawing inspiration from the ascetic tradition of Christianity, Kirk advocates the priority of worship in ethical thought. Beginning with the sixth beatitude, he places the visio Dei front and centre throughout, placing himself in a eudaimonistic tradition that ranges from Irenaeus to Aquinas and the Shorter Catechism. Worship, he shows, offers the opportunity to discover and acknowledge something more valuable than the self, and thus contains the key to moral instruction. Although Kirk published an expanded ‘complete edition’ of The Vision of God in 1931, he notes in the preface to the shorter text presented here that ‘what remains approximates to, though it is not quite identical with, the actual lectures as originally delivered.’ The reader therefore has in their hands the essence of Kirk’s thesis, which continues to prompt debate today.