A Most Excellent Way: An Essay on Faith, Hope, and Love, an English translation of Une voie infiniment supérieure: Essai sur la foi, l’espérance et l’amour by Christophe Chalamet

by Christophe Chalamet

Publisher:

Fortress Academic

, 2019

Overview

Faith, hope, and love are the three core realities of Christian existence. Far from being self-grounded, they are rooted in God’s action and being in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Reflecting on the meaning these three realities have for us today, Christophe Chalamet argues that we gain a deeper understanding of them as we consider them in their interrelation, rather than separately. The first disciples sometimes described their burgeoning tradition as “the Way.” The apostle Paul, who reflected on faith, hope, and love in his epistles, praised love as “a most excellent way.” This book in constructive theology, drawing from a wealth of thinkers from the Christian tradition broadly conceived, presents faith, hope, and love as the abiding response to God’s faithfulness, God’s justice, and God’s love, for the sake of this world.

Contents

1. “A Most Excellent Way”

2. Faith

3. Hope: Its Ground and Horizon

4. “The Greatest of These”

Praise for A Most Excellent Way

The aim of this book is not historical doctrinal retrieval for its own sake, but rather theological recovery to meet the needs of the present age. Chalamet’s argument is notable for its economy, its clarity and its insight: the book traverses considerable ground in a short span of pages. A book on faith, hope and love is much needed indeed.

Any Christian, of whatever branch, can learn from and find meaning in this tome. . . This monograph is a miniature ‘Dogmatics of the Christian Faith’. It is as excellent as Emil Brunner’s ‘Our Faith’, and, like that little volume, says a lot in a little space. Indeed, Chalamet is able to say in brief what most theologians cannot say in 14 volumes. . . Christophe Chalamet is the most important Christian theologian working today. His works, including this one, are at the top of the pile in terms of readability and helpfulness. No one explains the elements of Christianty as well as he is able to. If you aren’t familiar with his efforts, allow the present work to be the one which introduces you to him. You will be hooked.

Virtues have lived to see a major a comeback in theological and ethical reflection over the past decades. Christophe Chalamet seeks out the way in which the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love are grounded in the Trinitarian relations of God‘s faithfulness, justice, and love. Drawing ecumenically on a multiplicity of voices – from Paul‘s letters and the Song of Songs, from Origen and Irenaeus, Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Schleiermacher and Barth, Hauerwas and Coakley, Chalamet invites us to consider our own reality from the reality of the divine relations and to embrace faith, hope and love as triadic—differentiated yet intertwined—human response to divine virtue. He leads us on a journey that travels in proximity and contrast to secular virtues, but is provoked and sustained by the gospel and the sacraments. An excellent meditation that is both spiritually edifying and intellectually nourishing.

Christophe Chalamet’s book shows his talent as he both carefully and fruitfully uses the tradition for a theology for our time. In searching for the meaning of faith, hope, and love as human responses to God, it presents a “realistic” reading of biblical texts and a creative conversation with different branches of Christian thinking. Chalamet does this with a great sensibility for the current crisis of the Christian tradition, convinced as he is that this tradition, rightly understood, can still be meaningful for us today.

In this delightful meditation, Christophe Chalamet guides us to think through the traditional theological virtues in a way that is meaningful in and responsible to the present day. Rooted in the Scriptures, shaped by the tradition, and attentive to the world, his measured reflections offer the attentive reader a careful balance of insight, comfort, and challenge as resource for the Christian life.

Product Details

• Title: A Most Excellent Way: An Essay on Faith, Hope, and Love, an English translation of Une voie infiniment supérieure
• Author: Christophe Chalamet
• Publisher: Fortress Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2019
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Pages: 196
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781978707818, 9781978707801, 1978707800, 1978707819
• Resource ID: LLS:9781978707818
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T21:46:04Z

About Christophe Chalamet

Christophe Chalamet is professor of systematic theology at the University of Geneva. He was previously professor of historical theology at Fordham University and is the author of Dialectical Theologians: Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, Revivalism and Social Christianity: The Prophetic Faith of Henri Nick and André Trocmé, as well as numerous published articles and essays.