Lumen Christi Institute

This event was co-sponsored by the Undergraduate Program in Religious Studies at the University of Chicago. 

Augustine famous referred to the classical virtues as "splendid vices". Although he stood in the tradition that valued virtue, he was concerned that the pursuit of greatness through the life of virtue - a theme dating back to Aristotle's ideal of the Great-Souled Man - could actually breed a sense of self-righteousness. Yet there is much to the Aristotelian ideal. The pursuit of greatness in the service of God seems preferable to complacent mediocrity that sadly characterizes so much of our life. This lecture, focusing on Dostoyevsky and Austen, seeks to discover the danger of the pursuit of greatness while examining how the category of "greatness" might be reconceived in Christian terms.