Freedom, God, and Worlds

Freedom, God, and Worlds
Author: Michael J. Almeida
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2012-08-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199640025

Michael J. Almeida presents a bold new defence of the existence of God. He argues that entrenched principles in philosophical theology which have served as basic assumptions in apriori, atheological arguments are in fact philosophical dogmas. Almeida argues that not only are such principles false: they are necessarily false.

Encountering God - Bible Study Book

Encountering God - Bible Study Book
Author: Kelly Minter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781087730417

In Encountering God, Kelly Minter explores how essential spiritual disciplines are to our faith experience and everyday lives. She'll unpack the biblical foundation for these sacred habits along with approachable ways to practice disciplines like prayer, study, worship, rest, simplicity, hospitality, and celebration. Over 8 sessions, you'll discover that spiritual disciplines aren't just one more thing to add to your to-do list, but they can actually create more margin in your life, resulting in deeper peace, communion, and rest. And perhaps most importantly, cultivating habits of faith help you know God more, as you release control to Him, express your need for Him, and walk in glad submission and worship of Him. Features: Personal study segments with homework to complete between 8 weeks of group sessions Leader helps to guide questions and discussions within small groups Teaching videos, approximately 30 minutes per session, available for purchase or rent Explanations of the history and progression of spiritual disciplines from origins to present day along with their biblical roots Practical guidance and activities to live out the various spiritual disciplines at home Benefits: Demystify spiritual disciplines and be empowered to practice them as you draw closer to God. Understand how spiritual disciplines strengthen the Body of Christ, both in communities and individual lives. Reframe your perspective on rest and renewal.

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth
Author: Paul T. Nimmo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 735
Release: 2019-12-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191004022

Karl Barth (1886-1968) is generally acknowledged to be the most important European Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, a figure whose importance for Christian thought compares with that of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Author of the Epistle to the Romans, the multi-volume Church Dogmatics, and a wide range of other works - theological, exegetical, historical, political, pastoral, and homiletic - Barth has had significant and perduring influence on the contemporary study of theology and on the life of contemporary churches. In the last few decades, his work has been at the centre of some of the most important interpretative, critical, and constructive developments in in the fields of Christian theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth is the most expansive guide to Barth's work published to date. Comprising over forty original chapters, each of which is written by an expert in the field, the Handbook provides rich analysis of Barth's life and context, advances penetrating interpretations of the key elements of his thought, and opens and charts new paths for critical and constructive reflection. In the process, it seeks to illuminate the complex and challenging world of Barth's theology, to engage with it from multiple perspectives, and to communicate something of the joyful nature of theology as Barth conceived it. It will serve as an indispensable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics, and general readers for years to come.

The Ascension in Karl Barth

The Ascension in Karl Barth
Author: Andrew Burgess
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351894382

This book explores the doctrine of ascension, and Barth's ascension thought in particular. First, it examines the doctrine of Jesus Christ's ascension into heaven, presenting a sustained discussion of Karl Barth's approach to this doctrine and the significance of the doctrine within his theology as a whole. Secondly, through examining Barth's ascension thought and dialoguing with three other theologians (Torrance, Farrow and Jenson), a clearer understanding of Barth and his theology is achieved. The treatment of issues related to Christ's ascension across a broader (protestant) perspective increases the relevance and usefulness of this unique study. Andrew Burgess presents the doctrine of the ascension as an important and undervalued doctrine and encourages Christians to see how, like Barth, they might benefit in their ability to think coherently about the present age and about Jesus in relation to this age, enabling further thought about the work of the Holy Spirit, the church, and Christian ethics.

Fully Alive

Fully Alive
Author: Jason A. Fout
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2015-03-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567659445

Numerous contemporary theologians depict divine glory as overwhelming to or competitive with human agency. In effect, this makes humanity a threat to God's glory, and causes God's glory to remain opaque to human enquiry and foreign to human life. Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar have avoided this tendency, instead depicting God's glory as enabling people to participate in glorifying God. Nevertheless both accounts fall short of their initial promise by giving one-dimensional accounts of human obedience to God within largely conventional divine command accounts of ethics. The form of human obedience they present as compatible with divine glory does not actively overwhelm the human, but rather brackets out her agency as inappropriate in the face of divine revelation or command. And so, ironically, on these accounts God's glory remains opaque to human enquiry and foreign to human life. This study builds a case for seeing divine glory as intrinsically relational, creating a sociality which allows for a human agency transfigured by God's glory. Moving beyond Barth and von Balthasar, this work turns to theological exegesis of Scripture to construct an alternative account of divine glory. This glory is worked out in the act of glorifying: first in God, then in divine glorifying of humans, creating a responsive human glorifying of God; and finally in processes of honouring or glorifying among humans. Divine glory is shown to be consistent with a responsive and creative human obedience to God, and shown to constitute human agency which is creaturely and dependent yet not overwhelmed.

Freedom's Distant Shores

Freedom's Distant Shores
Author: R. Drew Smith
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 1932792376

This volume examines relations between U.S. Protestants and Africa since the end of colonial rule. It draws attention to shifting ecclesiastical and socio-political priorities, especially the decreased momentum of social justice advocacy and the growing missionary influence of churches emphasizing spiritual revival and personal prosperity. The book provides a thought-provoking assessment of U.S. Protestant involvements with Africa, and it proposes forms of engagement that build upon ecclesiastical dynamism within American and African contexts.

The God Who Is with Us

The God Who Is with Us
Author: Benjamin H. Kim
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2022-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978715315

Contemporary theologies of mission rely on the central concept of the missio Dei, which states that mission properly belongs to the triune God over the church. However, present accounts fail to establish any corresponding link between God’s trinitarian economy and ontology. In other words, the problem of the missio Dei is the problem of the break between the act and being of God. Benjamin H. Kim argues that a repair is needed for missio Dei theology, and this repair is found in reexamining Barth’s doctrine of revelation. In doing so, the locus of mission moves from God’s trinitarian sending to his trinitarian revealing. The repair is further advanced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer through his concept of person, which functions as the unity of act and being. This account returns mission to its original definition, which was intended to describe the inner-trinitarian being of God in relation to humanity. The concept of person recovers this meaning of mission by locating it first in the person of Christ and second, in the collective person of the church existing as the Christ community. Thus, Bonhoeffer’s description of revelation in terms of personhood provides and account that is more faithful to the missio Dei’s core insights.

Vicegerency in Islamic Thought and Scripture

Vicegerency in Islamic Thought and Scripture
Author: Chauki Lazhar
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000862593

This book explores the reasons for the creation of humanity on Earth from the perspective of ancient and contemporary Muslim thinkers, aiming to lay the outlines of a Qurʾanic theory of human existential function. The author proceeds from the assumption that, until now, contemporary Islamic scholarship has suffered from the absence of theorisation about a Qurʾanic conception of human existential function (vicegerency), lacking a unified philosophical and epistemological frame of reference. Challenging common perceptions among contemporary Muslim reformists regarding the human existential function, the author examines both classical and contemporary thought as well as conducting a thorough and comprehensive analysis of Qurʾanic passages that ground the theory of vicegerency within a cosmic scheme. Ultimately, a new approach for understanding the human existential function from within the Qurʾanic worldview is proposed. For the first time then, this book offers an integral induction and categorisation of Qurʾanic teleological concepts, combining them within a coherent framework that reveals the outlines of a vicegerency theory and a Qurʾanic worldview. Suitable for both scholars and laypersons, the book serves as a landmark textbook in the fields of Islamic Philosophy, Theological Anthropology and Qurʾanic Studies.