Download or read book Desire Faith and the Darkness of God written by Eric Bugyis and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of religious and cultural diversity, some doubt whether Christian faith remains possible today. Critics claim that religion is irrational and violent, and the loudest defenders of Christianity are equally strident. In response, Desire, Faith, and the Darkness of God: Essays in Honor of Denys Turner explores the uncertainty essential to Christian commitment; it suggests that faith is moved by a desire for that which cannot be known. This approach is inspired by the tradition of Christian apophatic theology, which argues that language cannot capture divine transcendence. From this perspective, contemporary debates over God’s existence represent a dead end: if God is not simply another object in the world, then faith begins not in abstract certainty but in a love that exceeds the limits of knowledge. The essays engage classic Christian thought alongside literary and philosophical sources ranging from Pseudo-Dionysius and Dante to Karl Marx and Jacques Derrida. Building on the work of Denys Turner, they indicate that the boundary between atheism and Christian thought is productively blurry. Instead of settling the stale dispute over whether religion is rationally justified, their work suggests instead that Christian life is an ethical and political practice impassioned by a God who transcends understanding.
Download or read book God in the Dark written by Susan R. Pitchford and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Christianity is afflicted with two problems: First, our spiritual life is often bland and lukewarm. Distracted and fragmented by our lives, and malnourished on conventional piety, we feel out of touch with the God described in the Bible as a consuming fire." Second, we don't know how to make sense of suffering, especially the pain of spiritual darkness and aridity. The answer to both of these problems is passion. In God in the Dark, Susan Pitchford explores the two faces of passion:desire, the mutual attraction between the soul and God; and suffering, especially our confusion and grief when we find ourselves in dark places. We often misinterpret times of darkness, assuming we've fabled and God has abandoned us. Pitchford suggests that darkness is not a place of abandonment but a place of intimacy and a special call to a deeper relationship with the God who desires us. Once we understand this, we will not have to fear the dark, and when the night closes in around us, we can experience it as an embrace.
Download or read book The Darkness of God written by Denys Turner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A closely argued book about what the negative tradition in Western theology involves.
Download or read book When I Don t Desire God written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2004 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining how to become a Christian hedonist, a bestselling author offers guidance on how to find spiritual joy to readers who are unsure of where to seek it.
Download or read book Desire Darkness and Hope written by Laurie Cassidy and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2021-05-15 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some decades, the work of Carmelite theologian Constance FitzGerald, OCD, has been a well-known secret, not only among students and practitioners of Carmelite spirituality, but also among spiritual directors, spiritual writers, retreatants, vowed religious women and men, and Christian theologians. This collection sets out to introduce the work of Sister Constance to a wider and more diverse audience––women and men who seek to strengthen themselves on the spiritual journey, who yearn to deepen personal or scholarly theological and religious reflection, and who want to make sense of the times in which we live. To this end, this volume curates seven of Sister Constance’s articles with probing and responsive essays written by ten theologians. Contributors include: Susie Paulik Babka Colette Ackerman, OCD Roberto S. Goizueta Margaret R. Pfeil Alex Milkulich Andrew Prevot Laurie Cassidy Maria Teresa Morgan Bryan N. Massingale M. Catherine Hilkert, OP
Download or read book The Desire of Ages written by Ellen G. White and published by Bytes 4 the Heart. This book was released on 1898 with total page 886 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Light Shines on in the Darkness written by Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2017-04-10 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why would an all-loving God allow suffering? Aren't suffering and love opposed to one another? Does suffering have any benefit for this life? Does it have any benefit for eternal life? Is there any objective evidence for God – for a soul that will survive bodily death – for the resurrection of Jesus? If there is testable, objective evidence for a resurrection, what is this resurrection like? Who is God anyway – benevolent and loving or angry and retributive? Father Spitzer gives a comprehensive explanation of contemporary evidence for God, the soul, and the resurrection, and helps us understand how God uses suffering to lead us to the resurrection, and to compassion for others. He also shows how the Holy Spirit guides us through times of suffering toward our salvation – and other's salvation, explaining the signs and interior movements that reveal the Spirit's actions. But even armed with this eternal perspective, serious questions remain. If God has power over nature, why doesn't He just perform a lot more miracles when we pray for them so that we won't have to suffer? Why did God make the natural world imperfect in the first place? Wouldn't it have been better to create us in a world without suffering – without challenge, need, and self-sacrifice? Father Spitzer not only addresses the perplexing questions associated with suffering but he teaches us how to suffer well. He points out some of the most common errors we make in interpreting God's motives for and alleviation of suffering. He explains why suffering – in combination with love – is one of the most powerful motivating agents for personal, cultural, and societal development. Suffering and love are inextricably bound up with one another on the highest levels of human meaning.
Download or read book Sex and the City of God written by Carolyn Weber and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After studying at Oxford University and finding God, Carolyn Weber grappled with a new invitation: to think bigger about love. Through Weber's personal story of courtship, marriage, and parenthood, as well as spiritual, theological, and literary reflection, this memoir explores what life looks like when we choose to love God first.
Download or read book When the Darkness Will Not Lift written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2006 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Piper examines depression from a spiritual perspective, guiding and encouraging those for whom joy seems to stay out of reach.
Download or read book The Faith of Jesus Christ written by Richard B. Hays and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important study Hays argues against the mainstream that any attempt to account for the nature and method of Paul's theological language must first reckon with the centrality of narrative elements in his thought. Through an in-depth investigation of Galatians 3:1-4:11, Hays shows that the framework of Paul's thought is neither a system of doctrines nor his personal religious experience but the "sacred story" of Jesus Christ.
Download or read book Creation and the Cross written by Johnson, Elizabeth A. and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book I Love Jesus But I Want to Die written by Sarah J. Robinson and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Download or read book God s Passionate Desire written by William A. Barry and published by Loyola Press. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God is waiting. Our hearts are wanting. What must we do? F?r. William Barry, SJ, believes that God wants an intimate relationship with each one of us—and that the deepest desire of our own hearts is to have an intimate relationship with God. Yet while we pursue this desire and long for its satisfaction, we also resist it—which can lead to a painful stagnancy. How can we move forward? In God’s Passionate Desire, Fr. Barry serves as our spiritual director, leading us on a series of brief “retreats” to help us understand the foundations of our relationship with God, what threatens it, and how we can continuously move forward into a closer and more meaningful relationship with God. In his warm, conversational style, Barry offers meditations, poses questions, and gently encourages us to respond to God’s immeasurable love by following what is truly in each of our hearts—a longing to love him in return.
Download or read book Wandering in Darkness written by Eleonore Stump and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.
Download or read book Called Out of Darkness written by Anne Rice and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first memoir from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Interview with a Vampire—a "very affecting story of a well-known prodigal’s return ... [a] vivid, engaging tale of the journey of a soul into light” (Chicago Sun-Times). Anne Rice was raised in New Orleans as the devout child in a deeply religious Irish Catholic family. Here, she describes how, as she grew up, she lost her belief in God, but not her desire for a meaningful life. She used her novels—beginning with Interview with a Vampire—to wrestle with otherworldly themes while in her own life, she experienced both loss (the death of her daughter and, later, her beloved husband, Stan Rice) and joys (the birth of her son, Christopher). And she writes about how, finally, after years of questioning, she experienced the intense conversion and re-embracing of her faith that lie behind her most recent novels about the life of Christ.
Download or read book The Desire of the Soul in Spiritual Darkness written by Charles Haddon Spurgeon and published by . This book was released on with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sin of Certainty written by Peter Enns and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy. With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of “once for all delivered to the saints.” Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide. Combining Enns’ reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.
