Jesse Couenhoven is a Professor of Theology at Villanova University. He earned his Bachelor’s in psychology at Oberlin College, a Master’s degree in historical theology from Yale Divinity School, and a PhD from Yale’s Religion Department.

Couenhoven has published articles on Barthian, Augustinian, and feminist theologies of sin and grace, freedom, natural law, virtue ethics, forgiveness, and retributive justice. He recently edited a focus issue on forgiveness for the Journal of Religious Ethics and published a book on responsibility and inherited sins, titled Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ. He has another book entitled Predestination: A Guide for the Perplexed which focuses on how sharing authorial responsibility for crucial features of one’s personal narratives is often a blessing, and undermines neither one’s freedom nor one’s praiseworthiness.

Couenhoven also spends a fair amount of time arguing about the implications of his work on “lack of control” for the concept of patient autonomy with members of the medical community.