Dr. James P. Carse

The world has lost a giant. Dr. James P. Carse, historian, author and religious scholar, passed away peacefully in his home in Rowe, Massachusetts, on September 25th. He was 87. The cause was congestive heart failure.

Carse was a thinker, doer, contributor and innovator. His unquenchable curiosity, creativity, superior intellect, and undimmable spirit has inspired thousands of students and hundreds of colleagues, as well as the family and friends whom he held most dear. He is perhaps best known as the author of Finite and Infinite Games (Simon and Schuster), a book which has been translated into over a dozen languages and outlines two very different approaches to the game of life. One, through the finite lens, is oriented around winning, achieving success and completion, and thus ultimately, the player is bound by past accomplishments. The other, with an infinite view of life, looks towards possibility, renewal and daily enrichment. To play for the sake of keeping the game going, rather than playing to win.

There might have been no more qualified person to write on the infinite approach than Carse. Though his body slowed as he neared 88 years of age, his wit, creativity, intellect and drive never did. As recently as June, he posited there was no better time for looking to the future than at this very moment, amid a global pandemic. He believed it was time to "return to civility." He called for an "intellectual revolution."

Carse had joked that he went to school at age five and never left. There was an almost-detour after undergrad at Ohio Wesleyan when he was drafted by the Baltimore Colts to play NFL football. When a knee injury took him out of the game, he was pleased, since he had just gained admittance to Yale where he earned his Master's in Divinity. He completed his Ph.D. at Drew University. Carse joined the faculty of New York University in 1963, becoming the Director of Religious Studies, where he focused in particular on the intersection of religious thought and secular fields such as science, literature and politics. He was also a member of the Department of Middle Eastern studies. "Have you taken Carse yet? You have to take Carse," was frequent advice among students as the waitlist for his classes grew. He earned NYU's Distinguished Teacher Award for the 1988/89 year, retired in 1995 as Professor Emeritus, and left behind a Graduate Student Research Fund, bequeathed in his honor by Cherie Acierno to support future scholars.

An avid author, Carse penned eight works of non-fiction that paint a picture of the nuanced way he saw and examined the world. His books include Jonathan Edwards (Scribner's), The Silence of God (Macmillan), Finite and Infinite Games (Simon and Schuster), Breakfast at the Victory (Harper), The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple (Harper), and The Religious Case against Belief (Penguin). In 2016, at the age of 84, he published his first novel, PhDeath: The Puzzler Murders, a mystery thriller that examined the deterioration of The University, an institution Carse viewed as "Western civilization's noblest creation." If he was awake, he was creating. Upon waking in the hospital after suffering a minor heart attack earlier this month, he pulled out his laptop, perched himself on the side of the bed, and let the words flow.

Though the NYTimes crossword was his daily companion, words were not Carse's only medium. He was a visual artist. His homes in Massachusetts and New York City are filled with sculptural hangings and assemblages. He was a morning talk show host at CBS's The Way To Go for eight years. He was a green thumb. He often prepared foods straight from the garden for guests of his curated salons and canned his seasonal bounty. As he's written, "Gardening is not outcome-oriented. A successful harvest is not the end of a gardener's existence, but only a phase of it. As any gardener knows, the vitality of a garden does not end with a harvest. It simply takes another form. Gardens do not die in the winter but quietly prepare for another season." In all his endeavors, it was the process that he loved, not the outcome or the accolades.

Nevertheless, the walls of both his homes are heavy with recognition. In addition to the New York University Distinguished Teaching Award, Carse was the winner of numerous awards including New York University's Great Teacher Award, New York University College of Arts and Science's Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching, and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Georgetown University, among others. He was a visiting professor at Drew, Sweetbriar and Yale Universities. Despite Carse's well-deserved renown, he remained humble, invested in his students and generous with his time and spirit. He had a way of making each person feel included and of listening intently to what someone said. He had rare gifts, and he used them to reach so many others. To be in a room with Carse was to learn something new, something about the world, and something about yourself.

Carse was born in Mansfield, Ohio on December 24th, 1932, to parents James Bradley Carse and Constance Keene Carse. He is preceded in death by his brother David, his first wife Alice Carse, and his grandson Will Blattner. He is survived by his sister Eleanor Beatty; his daughter Alisa Carse (Bill Blattner), his sons, Keene and Jamie Carse (Jodi Sweetbaum); his wife of 25 years, Donna Marder; his stepchildren Danielle Walker (Clay Walker), Jordan and Ariane Marder; six beloved grandchildren and three cherished step-grandchildren.

He leaves behind a tremendous legacy. Carse did more in his lifetime than many of us can imagine, by multitudes. Despite living with cancer and chemotherapy for the past several years, his home is full of sculptural works in progress, his inbox full of invitations to speak and lecture, his computer filled with drafts of written works, including the follow up to Finite & Infinite Games. Why stop? He seems to ask us. Why be satisfied with what one had already contributed? Why not continue to play the game? Especially when "the finite play for life is serious; the infinite play of life joyous."

LINKS

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