Trinity Forum Conversations Practical Wisdom for Chaotic Times, with Alan Noble
Sep 15, 2026
Alan Noble, an English professor and author exploring faith, technology, culture, and literature, discusses how to live meaningfully amid cultural confusion. He examines seven virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and love. The conversation explores belonging, courage, community, disillusionment, rooted identity, discipleship, and pursuing the common good through ordinary local practices.
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Virtues Give Shape To Belonging To God
- Alan Noble wrote To Live Well after seeing students lack orientation about justice, love, prudence, and courage.
- The book applies his earlier claim that humans belong to God by showing how virtues embody that belonging.
Self-Absorption Replaces A Shared Telos
- Modern culture cuts people off from an external telos and tells them to find ultimate answers within themselves.
- Self-examination can help, but self-absorption produces dependence on influencers, gurus, and increasingly empty advice.
Seven Virtues Form A Christian Framework
- Noble uses four cardinal and three theological virtues because Christian traditions and Scripture treat them as a comprehensive framework.
- Other virtues, such as humility, can often be understood as expressions of justice or the other seven.
