Miroslav Volf on how to rightly love a radically ambivalent world.

“The world, our planetary home, certainly needs to be changed, improved. But what it needs even more is to be rightly loved.”

Miroslav Volf begins his 2025 Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen with a provocative theological inquiry: What difference does belief in God make for our relationship to the world? Drawing deeply from Nietzsche’s “death of God,” Schopenhauer’s despair, and Hannah Arendt’s vision of amor mundi, Volf explores the ambivalence of modern life—its beauty and horror, its resonance and alienation. Can we truly love the world, even amidst its chaos and collapse? Can a belief in the God of Jesus Christ provide motivation to love—not as appetite or utility, but as radical, unconditional affirmation? Volf suggests that faith offers not a retreat from reality, but an anchor amid its disorder—a trust that enables us to hope, even when the world’s goodness seems impossible. This first lecture challenges us to consider the character of our relationship to the world, between atheism and theism, critique and love.

Episode Highlights

“The world, our planetary home, certainly needs to be changed, improved. But what it needs even more is to be rightly loved.”
“Resonance seems both indispensable and insufficient. But what should supplement it? What should underpin it?”
“Our love for that lived world is what these lectures are about.”
“We can reject and hate one form of the world because we love the world as such.”
“Though God is fully alive… we often find the same God asleep when our boats are about to capsize.”

Helpful Links and References

Show Notes

Paul Nimmo introduces the Gifford Lectures and Miroslav Volf’s theme
Volf begins with gratitude and scope: belief in God and our world
Introduces Nietzsche's “death of God” as cultural metaphor
Frames plausibility vs. desirability of God's existence
Introduces Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance
Problem: resonance is not enough; what underpins motivation to care?
Introduces amor mundi as thematic direction of the lectures
Contrasts Marx’s atheism and human liberation with Nietzsche’s nihilism
Analyzes Dante and Beatrice in Hägglund’s This Life
Distinguishes between “world” and “form of the world”
Uses cruise ship metaphor to critique modern life’s ambivalence
Discusses Augustine, Hannah Arendt, and The Home of God
Reflections on divine providence and theodicy
Biblical images: flood, exile, and the sleeping God
Ends with preview of next lectures on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche
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Production Notes

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