• Ph.D., Yale University: Philosophy and Religious Studies
• M.A., Yale University: Philosophy
• B.A., Washington University, St. Louis: English Literature and Philosophy

HON 160  Western Civilization 1: Greece and Rome (3 credits)
This course is the first in a four-course series in which we will read and discuss some of the books which made us who we are, so that we may understand ourselves and our world better. This first course investigates how the Bible was joined by the traditions of Greek and Roman thought and literature to lay a foundation for Western thought and culture. Assuming a knowledge of the Bible, we begin by reading great writers of ancient Greece and Rome, then examine how Augustine used, modified and criticized these writers in forming the tradition of Western Christian thought. (GE indicator addressed: Knowledgeable about the Western Tradition)

Great Conversations I: The True

Along with goodness, beauty, and justice, the nature and pursuit of truth is central to Western culture and civilization. This course engages questions about truth, knowledge, belief, and intellectual virtue as these ideas have been developed within the classical, Christian, modern, and contemporary traditions. Students will dialogue with each other and with representative philosophers and theologians like Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, and Reid, among others. Understanding the nature of knowledge and the intellectual virtues needed to pursue truth in common with others is essential for flourishing in religiously and philosophically plural societies and institutions. Therefore, this class will also address the practical implications of these ideas and their impact on the role of the citizen, student, and teacher.

History of Ancient and Medieval Education

This first course in the history of education explores antiquity to the Medieval Era, emphasizing ancient Greek, ancient Roman, early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance influences on education.

Hear about the course from Dr. Cary - watch the video.

Books

• The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (2023)
• The Meaning of Protestant Theology:  Luther, Augustine, and the Gospel That Gives Us Christ (2019)
• Does God Have a Strategy? (2015) co-authored with Jean-Francois Phelizon
• Augustine and Philosophy (2012), co-edited with John Doody and Kim Paffenroth 
• Good News for Anxious Christians: Ten Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do (2010)
• Inner Grace: Augustine in the Traditions of Plato and Paul (2008)
• Jonah (2008)
• Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought (2008)
• Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (2000)

Book Chapters

• “Augustine & Luther” – The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology
• “Augustinian Compatibilism and the Doctrine of Election” – Augustine and Philosophy
• “Study as Love: Augustinian Vision and Catholic Education” – Augustine and Liberal Education
• “The Weight of Love: Augustinian Metaphors of Movement in Dante’s Souls” – Augustine and Literature
• “Love and Tears: Augustine’s Project of Loving without Losing” – Confessions of Love: Ambiguities of Greek Eros and Latin Caritas

Articles & Essays

• "Barth Wars" – First Things (April 2015)
• "Sabbath Time” – Mockingbird (Winter 2015)
• “Augustine on Evil” – Dialogue
• “Gentiles in the Hands of a Genocidal God” – Christianity Today
• “The Lutheran Codicil: From Augustine’s Grace to Luther’s Gospel” – Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology
• “Inner Word Prior to Language: Augustine as Platonist Alternative to Gadamerian Hermeneutics” – Philosophy Today
• “Philosophical and Religious Origins of the Private Inner Self” – Zygon
• “The New Evangelical Subordinationism: Reading Inequality Into the Trinity” – Priscilla Papers
• “Why Luther is not quite Protestant" – Pro Ecclesia
• “Believing the Word: A Proposal about Knowing Other Persons” – Faith and Philosophy
• “Historical Perspectives on Trinitarian Doctrine” – Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship Bulletin
• “Logic of Trinitarian Doctrine” – Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship Bulletin
• “Is This God’s Voice or Mine?” – Relevant
• “Sola Fide: Luther and Calvin” – Concordia Theological Quarterly
• “The Incomprehensibility of God and the Origin of the Thomistic Concept of the Supernatural” – Pro Ecclesia
• “In God’s Name” – First Things

Presentations & Notes

• “Catholic and Protestant: Diverse Anxieties”
• “Reading the Canaanite Genocide”
• “Buried Talent”
• “Consumerism: The Ethics of Unfaithfulness”
• “Why Evangelicals Find it Hard to Talk to Muslims”
• “How Faith is not a Work”
• “A Post-Christian Future for Evangelicalism?”

Audio/Video Lectures

• The History of Christian Theology – The Great Courses
• Martin Luther: Gospel, Law, and Reformation – The Great Courses
• Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 3rd Ed. – The Great Courses
• Philosophy and Religion in the West – The Great Courses
• Augustine: Philosopher and Saint – The Great Courses

Interviews

• Modern Pulpit – Interview with Dr. Phillip Cary
• Television Interview: Good News for Anxious Christians

• Good News For Anxious Christians
• The History of Christian Theology (The Teaching Company)
• Dr. Cary - Good News for the Anxious Christians
• On Education
• Windows on the World (September 28, 2012)
• History of Christian Theology (The Great Courses)
• Phillip Cary on Homebrewed Christianity (The Teaching Company Legend)