The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse
Miroslav Volf
May 2025 · Christian Audio · Narrated by Tom Parks
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6 hr 57 min
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Many people believe that ambition, understood as striving to be better than others, improves us as individuals and advances society. But what if the opposite is true?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority actually makes us worse.
Working his way backward in time, Volf explores what three influential thinkers—Søren Kierkegaard, John Milton, and the apostle Paul—say about the cost of ambition. He also explores what the teachings of Jesus and the stories in Genesis say on the matter. Volf explains that striving to be better than others, though widely accepted as part of modern life, devalues our achievements, things that surround us, and relationships because it makes them into mere means to an empty goal. He reveals ambition's negative consequences in all domains of life, showing that it is at odds with the key convictions of Christian faith.
After unpacking the toxicity of ambition, Volf uses contemporary examples to guide listeners to a better goal: striving for excellence.
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority actually makes us worse.
Working his way backward in time, Volf explores what three influential thinkers—Søren Kierkegaard, John Milton, and the apostle Paul—say about the cost of ambition. He also explores what the teachings of Jesus and the stories in Genesis say on the matter. Volf explains that striving to be better than others, though widely accepted as part of modern life, devalues our achievements, things that surround us, and relationships because it makes them into mere means to an empty goal. He reveals ambition's negative consequences in all domains of life, showing that it is at odds with the key convictions of Christian faith.
After unpacking the toxicity of ambition, Volf uses contemporary examples to guide listeners to a better goal: striving for excellence.
Many people believe that ambition, understood as striving to be better than others, improves us as individuals and advances society. But what if the opposite is true?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority ...
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About the author
Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He has published and edited nine books and over 60 scholarly articles, including his book Exclusion and Embrace, which won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Professor Volf is the founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. His books include Allah: A Christian Response (2011); Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (2006), which was the Archbishop of Canterbury Lenten book for 2006; Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996), a winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award; and After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (1998), winner of the Christianity Today book award. A member of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. and the Evangelical Church in Croatia, Professor Volf has been involved in international ecumenical dialogues (for instance, with the Vatican¿s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) and interfaith dialogues (on the executive board of C-1 World Dialogue), and is active participant in the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum. A native of Croatia, he regularly teaches and lectures in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and across North America. Professor Volf is a fellow of Berkeley College.
Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He has published and edited nine books and over 60 scholarly articles, including his book Exclusion and Embrace, which won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in Religion....
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