The Vision of God
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Based on the 1928 Bampton Lectures, The Vision of God was the first of Kenneth E. Kirk's three major books on moral theology. Drawing inspiration from the ascetic tradition of Christianity, Kirk advocates the priority of worship in ethical thought. Beginning with the sixth beatitude, he places the visio Dei front and centre throughout, placing himself in a eudaimonistic tradition that ranges from Irenaeus to Aquinas and the Shorter Catechism. Worship, he shows, offers the opportunity to discover and acknowledge something more valuable than the self, and thus contains the key to moral instruction.
Although Kirk published an expanded 'complete edition' of The Vision of God in 1931, he notes in the preface to the shorter text presented here that 'what remains approximates to, though it is not quite identical with, the actual lectures as originally delivered.' The reader therefore has in their hands the essence of Kirk's thesis, which continues to prompt debate today.
Kenneth E. Kirk was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Sheffield, and St. John's College, Oxford. After serving as a chaplain in France and Flanders during World War I, he returned to Oxford to become Tutor at Keble College, Fellow of Magdalen College, Fellow and Chaplain of Trinity, and in 1933 Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christchurch. He was Bishop of Oxford from 1937 until his death in 1954.