Paul J. Griffiths

Paul J. Griffiths (born 1955) is an American theologian. He was the Warren Professor of Catholic Thought at Duke Divinity School.

Life and career Griffiths was born in London, England, on 12 November 1955. Griffiths has held appointments at the University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago. A scholar of Augustine of Hippo, Griffiths' main interests and pursuits are philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion – particularly Christianity and Buddhism. He received a doctorate in Buddhist studies in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his early works established him as one of the most incisive interpreters of Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy. His works on Buddhism include On Being Mindless (Lasalle, IL: Open Court, 1991) and On Being Buddha (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). After converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and accepting the Schmitt Chair of Catholic Studies at UIC, he has largely given up his work in Buddhist studies. His recent books include: Problems of Religious Diversity (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001); Philosophy of Religion: A Reader (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro) (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); and, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004). His latest book deals with curiositas and the nature of intellectual appetite; its title is: Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar (Catholic University of America Press). According to the faculty pages at Duke Divinity School, Griffiths has published ten books as sole author and seven more as co-author or editor. The reprimand stemmed from his response to a faculty-wide mass-email urging members to participate in voluntary Racial Equity training. Griffiths had replied with his own mass-email that called such training "anti-intellectual", that it had "illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies", and that such "(Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history." When disciplinary proceedings began over the professionalism of his conduct, Griffiths sent out another email saying that the proceedings were an effort "not to engage and rebut the views I hold and have expressed about the matters mentioned, but rather to discipline me for having expressed them. …In doing so they act illiberally and anti-intellectually; their action shows totalitarian affinities in its preferred method, which is the veiled use of institutional power." He held that élite universities no longer have "tolerance for argument." This effort often involves the creation of entirely new English phrases for Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese, or Japanese phrases, the use of English words in uncharacteristic ways, and heavy reliance on calques.

An example Buddhist Hybrid English phrase is "own-being" to translate Sanskrit svabhāva in contexts where it is used as a technical philosophical term, equivalent to English essence. ———————