Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung


Rebecca DeYoung

Education

  • PhD, Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 2000
  • MA, Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 1995
  • B.A., Philosophy and Communication Arts & Sciences, Calvin College, 1993

Biography

Rebecca DeYoung (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame) has enjoyed teaching ethics and the history of ancient and medieval philosophy at Calvin College for over 20 years.  Her research focuses on the seven deadly sins, and virtue ethics, as well as Thomas Aquinas’s work on the virtues.  Her books include Glittering Vices (Brazos, 2nd edition 2020), Vainglory (Eerdmans), and a co-authored volume entitled Aquinas’s Ethics (University of Notre Dame Press).  Recent essays about various vices and virtues—hope, despair, sloth, courage, magnanimity, wrath, and vainglory—appear in Virtues and Their Vices (Oxford), Being Good (Eerdmans), and Cambridge Critical Guide to Aquinas’s De Malo (Cambridge), and the journals Res Philosophica, ACPQ, the Thomist, and Faith and Philosophy. Awards for her work include the Book and Essay Prize from the Character Project and the C.S. Lewis prize for Glittering Vices. She speaks widely, including opportunities to teach in prison. She and her husband Scot live in Grand Rapids, near the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline. They have four children ages 18-25.

Watch Professor DeYoung's panel "A Long Obedience: Cultivating Christian Virtue in Long-term Illness" for the Faith and Illness Initiative at Western Theological Seminary, September 18-20, 2023. 

Listen to Professor DeYoung's interview with Ken Myers for Mars Hill Audio as they discuss the second edition of Glittering Vices.

Discover Professor DeYoung's recommendations for the best Christian books on spiritual formation and Christian virtues.

Professor DeYoung collaborated with the Martin Institute's Conversatio Divina on a class on the vice of wrath. You can access the interviews and articles here.

Listen to a conversation with Ken Myers and Professor DeYoung on her book Vainglory. 

Listen to Professor DeYoung's podcast "Deadly Sins and Their Remedies" with Renovaré.

Read  Professor DeYoung's essays from "The Table,"  a publication of Biola University's Center for Christian Thought.

Watch Professor DeYoung's workshop "Shiny, Happy People: The Vice of Vainglory" for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at the Vital Worship Grant Colloquium on June 22, 2016.  

Watch Professor DeYoung's chapel talks at Wheaton College.  

Watch an interview with Professor DeYoung about her book Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice.

Listen to podcasts of Prof. DeYoung's C.S. Lewis Institute talks, Nov 7-9, 2013.

Apply monastic wisdom to your life. Read Prof. DeYoung's article "New Life in the Desert: Monastic Wisdom for Public Life"

Read Prof. DeYoung's interview on The Brazos Blog.

Watch Prof. DeYoung on InnerCompass.

Read about Prof. DeYoung's honor as a Character Project Character Essay winner for her chapter "Courage" in Being Good:Christian Virtues for Everyday Life.

Read about Prof. DeYoung's honor as second place winner of the C.S. Lewis Book Prize at the University of St. Thomas for her book Glittering Vices: a New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and their Remedies.

Listen to a series of interviews with Prof. DeYoung about her book Glittering Vices from Open House radio in Australia. There are interviews on anger, envy, sloth, vainglory, and wrath.

Read an interview with Prof. DeYoung from Christianity Today.

Watch Prof. DeYoung's Stob Lectures on the Vice of Vainglory.

Academic interests

Seven Deadly Sins, Thomas Aquinas, Ethics, History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Research and scholarship

PhilPapers Profile:
https://philpapers.org/profile/79460

Publications

Books

Glittering Vices. 2020. (Brazos Press). Revised and updated 2nd edition.

"In this new and expanded edition of Glittering Vices, Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung offers wise and compassionate soul care that is historically rooted, biblically sound, and surgically precise. A skilled philosopher and gifted teacher, DeYoung makes the wisdom of the desert accessible for contemporary audiences through relevant cultural references and honest personal examples, inviting us to see where we're captive and deceived so that we're better able to cooperate with the Holy Spirit's work of conforming us to the likeness of Christ. I have long been a fan of DeYoung's work, and this revised edition--with its even deeper emphasis on the grace that frames the process of self-examination and the spiritual practices that help us counteract the gravitational pull of the vices--is a liberating and joyful read."  Sharon Garlough Brown, author of the Sensible Shoes series, Shades of Light, and Remember Me

"This revised edition of Glittering Vices helpfully builds on the insights of the first edition and deeply probes the nature of the disease that has infected all God's precious image-bearers. DeYoung skillfully analyzes the sickness that plagues us in its various manifestations and wonderfully provides healing antidotes in her presentation of the classical spiritual disciplines. This is surely one of the best books written on the vices and their cure in the past one hundred years, if not longer."  Chris Hall, president, Renovaré

"The first edition of this fine book has been widely praised for its marvelous integration of intellectual clarity and spiritual depth. This new edition is even better with additional profound guidance for our spiritual journeys. DeYoung is without doubt one of our most gifted writers on the cultivation of Christian character."  Richard Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of All That God Cares About

"Glittering Vices is one of the best treatments of vice, character, and spiritual growth published in the past one hundred years. With this second edition, a classic text has gotten even better. I cannot recommend it highly enough!"  Christian B. Miller, A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy, Wake Forest University

Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice. 2014. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Aquinas’s Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Theological Context, and Moral Theory (University of Notre Dame, 2009). Co-authored with Colleen McCluskey and Christina Van Dyke.

Overcoming Sin (FaithAlive Christian Resources, 2008).
The Seven Deadly Sins: A Survival Guide (FaithAlive Christian Resources, 2007).
 
Recent Publications

Glittering Vices. 2020. (Brazos Press). Revised and updated 2nd edition.

 “Moral Education in the Classroom: A Lived Experiment.” 2020. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities: Ethics In Focus (vol. 14) on Alasdair MacIntyre’s “The Irrelevance of Ethics,” ed. Bernard Prusak.

“Sloth” from Glittering Vices. 2018.  Chapter reprint in All Things Hold Together in Christ: A conversation on Faith, Science, and Virtue.  Eds. James K.A. Smith and Michael Gulker. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

“Virtue.” 2017. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 3rd ed. Eds. Daniel J. Treir and Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

“The Promise and Pitfalls of Glory: Aquinas on the Vice of Vainglory.” 2015. Aquinas’s De Malo: A Critical Guide. Ed. Michael Dougherty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

“The Roots of Despair.” 2015. Res Philosophica. 92:4.

 Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice. 2014. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

 “Practicing Hope.” 2014. Res Philosophica. 91:3.

 The Little Logic Book. 2013. L. Hardy, D. Ratzsch, R. DeYoung, G. Mellema. Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Press.

 “Holy Fear.” 2012. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86:1.

 “Sloth: Some Historical Reflections on Laziness, Effort, and Resistance to the Demands of Love.” 2012. Virtues and Their Vices. Eds. Craig Boyd and Kevin Timpe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 “Courage.” 2012. Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, Eds. Mike Austin and Doug Geivett. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

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