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Miroslav Volf Biography, Family, Books, Theology, and Quotes

Miroslav Volf Biography

Miroslav Volf is a Croatian theologian and public intellectual who has been described as ‘one of the most celebrated theologians of our day’.

Miroslav Volf Educational Background

He was educated at the Fuller Theological Seminary and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.

Miroslav Volf Theology

Since Volf sees religion as an articulation of a manner of life, his theological work is characterized by a sense of continuity between systematic philosophy and biblical analysis, between dogma and morality, and between what is called “theology of the Church” and “political/public theology”

For the most part, his contributions to theology were topical; he wrote about human work, the nature of the Christian community, the problem of otherness, violence, and reconciliation, the question of memory, and the public role of faith, to name a few issues. But he tried to put the integrated whole of Christian beliefs to bear on the subjects at hand in all his texts.

Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf

The most obvious of the linear contours of Volf’s theology is Free of Charge. The book was commissioned as his 2006 Lent Book by a former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Its instant topics are offering and forgiving as two main methods of grace, but the novel is an affordable guide to the Christian faith and welcomes it.

In the central themes of Volf’s work, which receives more in-depth treatment in other texts — God as unconditional love, the Trinitarian nature of God, creation as a gift, the death of Christ on the cross for the ungodly, justification by faith and the communal nature of Christian life, love for the enemy and care for the downtrodden, reconciliation and forgiveness, and hope for a world of love.

Miroslav Volf Quotes

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of
humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one
can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without
overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the
sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from
the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When
one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally
triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and
imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates]
that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of
God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”

“Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God- a “foursome,” as it were– for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.”

“To live with integrity, it is important to know what’s right and what’s wrong, to be educated morally. However, merely KNOWING is not enough. Virtuous character matters more than moral knowledge. The reason is simple: like the self-confessing apostle Paul in Romans 7, most of those who do wrong know what’s right but find themselves irresistibly attracted to its opposite. Faith idles when the character shrivels”

“We know it is good to receive, and we have been blessed by receiving not only as children but also as adults. Yet Jesus taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), and part of growing up is learning the art of giving. If we fail to learn this art, we will live unfulfilled lives, and in the end, chains of bondage will replace the bonds that keep our communities together. If we just keep taking or even trading, we will squander ourselves. If we give, we will regain ourselves as fulfilled individuals and flourishing communities.”

“Here is what we do as worshipers of a Santa Claus God: We embrace the conviction that God is an infinitely generous source of all good, but conveniently forget that we were created in God’s image to be in some significant sense like God – not like God in God’s divinity, for we are human and not divine, but like God “in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), like God in loving enemies (Matthew 5:44). To live well as a human being is to live in sync with who God is and how God acts.”

Miroslav Volf Books

  • Allah: A Christian Response. New York: HarperOne, 2011.
  • A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2011.
  • Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
  • Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009.
  • The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.
  • Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005
  • After Our Likeness: The Church as an image of the Triune God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
  • Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.
  • Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991 (reprinted by Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001).

Miroslav Volf Age

Volf was born on September 25, 1956, in Osijek, Croatia.

Miroslav Volf Family

No information on his parents or siblings is revealed to the public.

Miroslav Volf Wife

Volf had earlier been married to Judith Gundry, a scholar of the New Testament; the wedding resulted in divorce. He resides with his second spouse, Jessica, in Guilford, Connecticut, who he legally married in January 2012.

Miroslav Volf Children

Volf has two sons, Nathanael and Aaron, and a daughter, Mira.

Miroslav Volf Height

Information about his height will be updated as soon as possible.

Miroslav Volf Net Worth

He has an estimated net worth of between $1 million and $5 million.

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