Abstract
Leithart’s Gratitude is a conceptual history of its title limited to European intellectual life from ancient Greece to the present. Tracing the variable concept from thinkers like Plato to Derrida, Leithart tells a tale of circles and lines. In the former, one conceives of gift and gratitude in circular terms—a return is always expected. For the latter, one conceives a linear pattern to gifts and gratitude—a debtor to no one, the ethic of Jesus.
Leithart’s project is to recover this linear progression in the secular age with an added circularity. We must add a wider ‘field of operation’: that gratitude is infused into every sphere of life through dependence on God. This grander circularity replaces indebtedness to fellow creatures with ingratitude, we owe thanks to God alone. In recovering this type of circularity, the modern age can retain all of its liberal merits without succumbing to the horrors of a non-theistic circularity.
Leithart’s work has a number of exemplary qualities. This book is the first of its kind and will, perhaps, spawn a body of literature. Its breadth exhibits an impressive learnedness and its prose beckons the reader. Nevertheless, it never really provides a single narrative. The final chapter, ‘A Theistic Modernity’, is the most profitable of the work. Yet, it remains underdeveloped and leaves the reader longing for an expansion of theistic circularity. Leithart argues, ‘I owe the creation nothing but love’ and ‘Christians…must learn to [give] thanks only to God’. Without supporting these arguments in any detail, the reader is left with a plethora of questions. For example, ‘What is the place for concepts like stewardship or more mundane cultural practices like thank-you notes?’
Nonetheless, this book remains a ‘gift’ to intellectual historians, theologians, and the interested reader for breaking the silence and introducing the world to the ingrate.