J.S. Porter in conversation with Eugene Combs,
professor emeritus, Religious Studies, McMaster University
The conversation took place around my wife’s water garden at 4 Emming Court in the afternoon of June 23, 1999 with the sounds of a jackhammer on the street. Professor Combs said that the noises were what Grant would have called “the sounds of modernity.” The taped conversation was the culmination of a number of informal chats on Grant.
JSP: You once told me that Grant knew what to say yes to and what to say no to. How so?
EC: In the context of my working with Paul Clifford and Dr. Grant in the founding of the Department of Religion, going back as early as ‘62 when I arrived—he having arrived in ‘61— Dr. Grant understood that there were two frameworks we have to live in. One is the framework of thought and philosophy, the search for meaning and the understanding of reality and the self. Then there’s the practical world which at a university is a political world, a politically inflamed world with many egos and passions in conflict. Dr. Grant believed that he had to say no to the political world and yes to the world of thought. And then he left it up to some of us to say yes to the political world, to the extent it was necessary, in order to give support to the world of thought.
JSP: I understand that Dr. Grant taught mostly graduate students for the department. Was there some resentment from colleagues that they would have to pick up the undergraduate slack or was this simply not a point of grievance?
EC: No, it was. But to be historically accurate Grant did teach a large undergraduate class. He, Paul Clifford and I taught a course called “The Philosophy of Religion” which examined, as the name implies, religions philosophically. Grant gave lectures in that course, although the organization of the course fell to me. Grant focused on philosophy, Clifford on theology and I on the history of religions. You see we didn’t really have a graduate programme until Paul Younger came in ‘66. Grant, Younger and I got the graduate programme underway. So, in that time, Grant would have had to teach some undergraduates until we got it underway … I don’t think there was resentment, maybe relief, because Grant obviously didn’t like teaching undergraduates. To put it bluntly, I don’t think he communicated with them, so it was kind of a mixed blessing. And we were pleased to have Grant do more and more at the graduate end. We were in the heyday then. We had up to 90 graduate students, which was the largest graduate department in the world. Temple University was second to us. But in sheer size we had 90, half in eastern studies and half in western studies, including the biblical field. So Grant had large graduate classes; he probably carried his weight there.