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Glenn F. Chesnut
The author did his undergraduate degree and half of a doctoral degree in physical chemistry and nuclear physics, as well as holding a job as a laboratory scientist at a plant that made rocket fuel,...view moreThe author did his undergraduate degree and half of a doctoral degree in physical chemistry and nuclear physics, as well as holding a job as a laboratory scientist at a plant that made rocket fuel, and employment doing experimental work with a subatomic particle accelerator at a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission laboratory.
He then changed fields, and earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree in theology from Southern Methodist University. He subsequently won a Fulbright Fellowship to Oxford University in England, where he did his doctorate in theology. He taught ancient history, medieval history, and religious studies (including lectures on the philosophical issues of those periods and areas of thought) at the University of Virginia and Indiana University. In 1978-9, he won a Rome Prize (Prix de Rome) in Classics and spent a year as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He was later Visiting Professor of History and Theology at Boston University in 1984-5.
His earliest book, The First Christian Histories — a major study in ancient Platonic philosophy and the philosophy of history — went through two editions (1977 and 1986), became a classic in its field, and is still in print today. In it he described how the Christian historians of the Late Roman Empire dealt with the pagan historical theories of their time, which saw a universe under the control of implacable Fate and blind Fortune. These new Christian historians revised the western understanding of history to include human free will and creativity, and portrayed human history as the continual struggle between true reverence for a higher power (what Plato had called the Good and the Beautiful Itself), and the mindset of those men and women who had been snared by the hatred of everything that was good, and an actual love of evil and doing harm to other people.
After his retirement from Indiana University, he became director and senior editor of a small publishing house, the Hindsfoot Foundation, which prints works by some of the finest scholars in their fields. He divides his time today between Indiana and the San Francisco Bay area.view less
Books by Glenn F. Chesnut
The Higher Power of the Twelve-Step Program: For Believers & Non-Believers Father Ed Dowling: Bill Wilson’S Sponsor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFather Ralph Pfau and the Golden Books: The Path to Recovery from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInfinity and the Proofs for the Existence of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod and Spirituality: Philosophical Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings