John Behr: What is Life?

One of the highlights of Regent Summer Programs is our free Evening Public Lectures. This series always features a wide range of professors and topics, and this year is no exception. All lectures will be streamed online, so invite a friend and join us!

In one of his most beautiful lines, Irenaeus of Lyons (a second century theologian) said that ’the glory of God is the living human being’, but then adds, ‘and the life of the human being is to see God’. But, as no one can see God and live, the living human being that is the glory of God is the martyr, the one who takes up the cross to follow Christ. How might the witness of the martyrs challenge our own presuppositions about life, and especially the relationship between life and death, and, indeed, what it is to be human? By reflecting on these questions, John Behr will explore what it is that Christ offers when he says ‘I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly’ and what it is that he ‘finishes’, or brings to perfection, upon the Cross.

Fr. John Behr is the Regius Chair in Humanity at the University of Aberdeen. His extensive publications include critical editions of a number of patristic writings, including the fragments of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopuestia, Origen’s On First Principles, and the works of Irenaeus of Lyons.

Fr. Behr will be teaching the course Pre-Nicene Christianity: The Formation of the Theological Tradition from July 5-9 as part of Regent’s 2021 Summer Programs.