Emeritus professor of religious history and literature at New York University, best known for writing the books Finite and Infinite Games (1986) and The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple (1997). He also wrote a book of autobiographical reflections called Breakfast at the Victory.

In Finite and Infinite Games, his most famous book, Carse argued that activities like war, religion, and human relationships are actually games. The problem, as he sees it, is that too many people play these games without bringing any kind of flexibility or creativity to the rules; in their single-minded desire to win and to earn titles, players have lost sight of the joys to be found in the game itself. This approach to play is what Carse calls "finite"; he believes that it is unhealthily apocalyptic and death-obsessed, because in order to win a game one must end it.

Carse vastly prefers "infinite games", in which the players change the rules as they go, welcome rather than reject surprises, and forever defer the moment when they must end the game and declare a winner. Carse does not provide many examples of infinite games, but I imagine that he would think of Calvinball as a good one.

Near the end of his academic career, Carse became very interested in the history of early Christian gospels. The existence of numerous apocryphal gospels from the first few centuries C.E. inspired him to try writing his own (and to encourage his students to do the same). Carse's gospel is written from the point of view of a woman, bringing to mind the second-century Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered in the nineteenth century and recently popularized by Professor Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School.