Anna Williams profile

Teaching Officers | University Lecturer

Profile

I have been teaching theology in Cambridge since 2000. Although I specialise in patristic and medieval theology (that is, theology written before 1500), both my teaching and research bring this theology into dialogue with later authors, so I work broadly across the entire spectrum of the Christian tradition. I also teach in the field of religion and literature. My first two degrees were in Comparative Literature and the way I approach theological texts owes a lot to the formative years I spent analysing lyric poems: I look at the structures of texts, their forms and patterns of imagery as means by which theological ideas can be conveyed. Part of the reason I love the work of the patristic and medieval theologians so much is that in texts written by such towering minds as Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, I find not only intellectual rigour, but also haunting beauty.

I’m currently completing a book on structures of reasoning in theological texts. The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System and Ratio. I’m looking at theological warrants (theology’s authoritative sources, often identified as scripture, tradition, reason and sometimes, experience); philosophical argumentss over the structure of reasoning (debates between foundationalists and coherentists, for example) and the import of these for theology; the role of reason in theological reflection, given the Christian assertion of intellect as a key attribute of God and the chief respect in which human beings are said to be made in the image of God. I also examine the relation between reason and beauty: the way in which elegant structures of reasoning could be considered beautiful and the ways in which that beauty could be taken as counting either in favour of their being true, or as evidence of a power to seduce away from the truth.

One thread that runs through most of my work is Aquinas, whom I have loved since my first months studying theology. He is the author who figures most prominently in my research and to whom I appeal the most when teaching. The patristic and medieval periods offer such a wealth of extraordinary thought, rich and vibrant in the textures of its prose, but also stunning in its intellectual power. Even so, for me Aquinas stands out even in this distinguished company: the clarity, range and acuity of his thought seems to me unparalleled. Although his prose is pared down to the bone, its structure is so elegant it still sometimes takes my breath away. I smile inwardly as, year in and year out, I see students make the journey from complaining at the beginning of term‘This is too hard!’ or ‘This is dry!’ to, by the end of term, exclaiming ‘Wow! This is amazing!’

It’s that kind of experience that draws people to study theology, I think: the chance to watch some of the greatest minds there have ever been wrestling with the most fundamental questions human beings can ask: questions about truth, goodness, our purpose in being here, and the role of beauty and joy in surprising us in the midst of a world that sometimes seems filled with sorrow. I agree with my students that it’s sometimes hard, but I’m even more convinced that it’s amazing.

Anna Williams

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System and Ratio. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

The Divine Sense: The Intellect in Patristic Theology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 (paperback 2009).

The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas . New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.