Download or read book A Human Shaped God written by Charles Halton and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Human-Shaped God approaches the humanlike accounts of God in the Old Testament as the starting places for theology and uses them to build a picture of the divine. This understanding of God is then brought into conversation with traditional conceptions that depict God as a being who knows everything that happens, is at every place at the same time, is constant and unchanging, and does not ultimately have material form. But instead of pitting the Old Testament's humanlike view of God against traditional theology and assuming that only one of these understandings is correct, A Human-Shaped God posits that theologians should embrace both of these constructions simultaneously. This is a new way of theological inquiry that embraces both the humanlike characteristics of God and the transcendence of God in traditional theology. By seeing and understanding the humanlike depictions of God in the Old Testament and by using the rich language of traditional theology together in tandem, the reader acquires a much deeper and meaningful understanding of God.

Download or read book God written by Reza Aslan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives. Praise for God “Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost “Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times “A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Download or read book God Human Animal Machine written by Meghan O'Gieblyn and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.

Download or read book God Becoming Human written by Reinhard Feldmeier and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incarnation--the act of God assuming mortal flesh through Jesus Christ--reveals God's radical love for a world marked by the rebellion of the created against their creator. God becomes human to create life and restore the disrupted divine-human relationship. This doctrine is thus the theme of the Christian faith par excellence. However, the incarnation does not begin with its ultimate realization in Jesus Christ; that single event is preceded by a long history of a God who continually reunites with his people to lead them from death to life, from bondage to freedom. God Becoming Human pursues the astonishing arc of the incarnation, chronicling the varying ways Scripture recounts the divide between God and the creatures of his likeness as well as the diverse expressions the text gives regarding the desire for reconciliation. As the expectations of an existing intermediary that can somehow bridge this gap between God and humans dwindle throughout the Old Testament, hope is increasingly placed on new forms of closeness to God. The closeness made possible by Jesus Christ receives a wide range of interpretations by New Testament witnesses and is continued by a rich chorus that culminates in the early church with the theology of the incarnation. Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann invite readers to see that the doctrine of the incarnation, the pinnacle of the scriptural saga of redemption, reveals that God's ultimate purpose in dealing with creation was to become human. As narrated in the story of the fall, if paradise was lost because humanity wanted to emulate God, the one reconciled with God through Christ is now given the opportunity--and challenge--to become a child of God. In accordance with the One who descended from the heavenly throne, one must precisely lower oneself and thus fully embrace one's created humanness. It is through the flesh that the created and their creator are joined; there is no other path to unity.

Download or read book God and Human Freedom written by Leigh C. Vicens and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element considers the relationship between the traditional view of God as all-powerful, all-knowing and wholly good on the one hand, and the idea of human free will on the other. It focuses on the potential threats to human free will arising from two divine attributes: God's exhaustive foreknowledge and God's providential control of creation.

Download or read book God and Human Suffering written by Douglas John Hall and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Hall has written a major work on an agonizing subject, at once brilliant, comprehensive, and thought provoking.In contrast to many writers who gloss over one or the other, Dr. Hall is true both to the reality of suffering and to the affirmation that God creates, sustains, and redeems.Creative is his view that certain aspects of what we call suffering -- loneliness, experience of limits, temptation, anxiety -- are necessary parts of God's good creation. These he distinguishes from suffering after the fall, the tragic dimension of life.Unique is his structure: creation-suffering as becomingthe fall--suffering as a burdenredemption--conquest from within.Professor Hall succeeds in moving the reader beyond the customary way of stating the problem: "How can undeserved suffering coexist with a just and almighty God?" He also evaluates five popular, leading thinkers on suffering: Harold Kushner, C.S. Lewis, Diogenes Allen, George Buttrick, and Leslie Weatherhead.

Download or read book How Human is God written by Mark S. Smith and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Cardinal Kasper has written, “It is time, it is the right time, to speak of God.” This book invites readers to use their God-given ability to work through important questions that many people have about God today: Why is God so angry in the Bible? Is the biblical God male or female (or what)? Who is Satan? Why do people suffer? By exploring the Bible’s answers to these and other biblical questions, people can come to understand better their living and loving God.

Download or read book Is God Just a Human Invention written by Sean McDowell and published by Kregel Publications. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow have penned an accessible yet rigorous look at the arguments of the New Atheists. Writing from a distinctively Christian perspective, McDowell and Morrow lay out the facts so that the emerging generation can make up their own mind after considering all the evidence.

Download or read book Human Experience of God written by Denis Edwards and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1983 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Departing from human experience the book deals with the theological underpinnings of religious experience, then draws practical conclusions or implications for the spiritual life.

Download or read book The Humanity of God written by Karl Barth and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1960-01-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These three essays show how Karl Barth's later work moved beyond his revolt against the theology dominant in the first decades of this century.

Download or read book God Is Watching You written by Dominic Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." The biblical story of the flood crystalizes--in its terrifying, dramatic simplicity--the universally recognized concept of divine punishment. For millennia human civilizations have relied on such beliefs to create moral order. People who commit crimes or other bad deeds, we are told, will suffer retribution, while rewards--abstract or material--await those who do good. This simple but powerful idea has long served to deter self-interest and achieve remarkable levels of cooperation. Indeed, as all societies seem to have found, these beliefs are so good at promoting cooperation that they may have been favored by natural selection. Today, while secularism and unbelief are at an all-time high, the willingness to believe in some kind of payback or karma remains nearly universal. Even atheists often feel they are being monitored and judged. We find ourselves imagining what our parents, spouse, or boss would think of our thoughts and actions, even if they are miles away and will never find out. We talk of eyes burning into the backs of our heads, the walls listening, a sense that someone or something is out there, observing our every move, aware of our thoughts and intentions. God Is Watching You is an exploration of this belief as it has developed over time and how it has shaped the course of human evolution. Dominic Johnson explores such questions as: Was a belief in supernatural consequences instrumental in the origins of human societies? How has it affected the way human society has changed, how we live today, and how we will live in the future? Does it expand or limit the potential for local, regional and global cooperation? How will the current decline in religious belief (at least in many western countries) affect our ability to live together? And what, if anything, will temper self-interest and promote cooperation if religion declines? In short, do we still need God? Drawing on new research from anthropology, evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, and neuroscience, Johnson presents a new theory of supernatural punishment that offers fresh insight into the origins and evolution of not only religion, but also human cooperation and society. He shows that belief in supernatural reward and punishment is no quirk of western or Christian culture, but a ubiquitous part of human nature that spans geographical regions, cultures, and human history.

Download or read book Where God Lives in the Human Brain written by Carol Rausch Albright and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walking the fine line between religious belief and recent scientific discoveries, "Where God Lives in the Human Brain" explores the way humans have sought meaning in the world, to humanize their environment and connection with the divine. This book shows how readers can understand this impulse toward divinity by understanding the intricacies of the brain and its capacity to grapple with the complexity of the universe.

Download or read book And Man Created God written by Selina O'Grady and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the time of Jesus' birth , the world was full of gods. Thousands of them jostled, competed and merged with one another. In Syria ecstatic devotees castrated themselves in the streets to become priests of Atargatis In Galilee, holy men turned oil into wine, healed the sick, drove out devils, and claimed to be the Messiah. Every day thousands of people were leaving their family and tribes behind them and flocking into brand new multi-ethnic cities. The ancient world was in ferment as it underwent the first phase of globalisation, and in this ferment rulers and ruled turned to religion as a source of order and stability. Augustus, the first emperor of Rome (though he never dared officially to call himself so) was maneuvering his way to becoming worshipped as a god – it was one of the most brilliant makeovers ever undertaken by a ruler and his spin doctors. In North Africa, Amanirenas the warrior queen exploited her god-like status to inspire her armies to face and defeat Rome. In China the usurper Wang Mang won and lost his throne because of his obsession with Confucianism. To explore the power that religious belief has had over societies through the ages, Selina O'Grady takes the reader on a dazzling journey across the empires of the ancient world and introduces us to rulers, merchants, messiahs, priests and holy men. Throughout, she seeks to answer why, amongst the countless religious options available, the empires at the time of Jesus ‘chose' the religions they did? Why did China's rulers hitch their fate to Confucianism, a philosophy more than a religion? And why was a tiny Jewish cult led by Jesus eventually adopted by Rome's emperors rather than the cult of Isis which was far more popular and widespread? The Jesus cult , followed by no more than 100 people at the time of his death, should, by rights, have disappeared in a few generations. Instead it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Why did Christianity grow so quickly to become the predominant world religion? What was it about its teachings that so appealed to people? And Man Created God looks at why and how religions have had such an immense impact on human history and in doing so uncovers the ineradicable connection between politics and religion - a connection which still defines us in our own age. This is an important, thrilling and necessary new work of history.

Download or read book God and Human Dignity written by Rufus Burrow Jr. and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 1992-01-31 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although countless books have been devoted to the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., few, if any, have focused on King's appropriation of, and contribution to, the intellectual tradition of personalism. Emerging as a philosophical movement in the early 1900s, personalism is a type of philosophical idealism that has a number of affinities with Christianity, such as a focus on a personal God and the sanctity of persons. Burrow points to similarities and dissimilarities between personalism and the social gospel movement with its call to churchgoers to involve themselves in the welfare of both individuals and society. He argues that King's adoption of personalism represented the fusion of his black Christian faith and his commitment not only to the social gospel of Rauschenbusch, but most especially to the social gospelism practiced by his grandfather, father, and black preacher-scholars at Morehouse College. Burrow devotes much-needed attention both to King's conviction that the universe is value-infused and to the implications of this ideology for King's views on human dignity and his concept of the "Beloved Community." Burrow also sheds light on King’s doctrine of God. He contends that King's view of God has been uncritically and erroneously relegated by black liberation theologians to the general category of "theistic absolutism" and he offers corrections to what he believes are misinterpretations of this and other aspects of King’s thought. He concludes with an application of King’s personalism to present-day social problems, particularly as they pertain to violence in the black community. This book is a useful and fresh contribution to our understanding of the life and thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. It will be read with interest by ethicists, theologians, philosophers, and social historians.

Download or read book Being Human in God s World written by J. Gordon McConville and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Biblical Perspective on What It Means to Be Human This major work by a widely respected Old Testament scholar and theologian unpacks a biblical perspective on fundamental questions of what it means to be human. J. Gordon McConville explores how a biblical view of humanity provides a foundation for Christian reflection on ethics, economics, politics, and church life and practice. The book shows that the Old Testament's view of humanity as "earthed" and "embodied" plays an essential part in a well-rounded Christian theology and spirituality, and applies the theological concept of the "image of God" to all areas of human existence.

Download or read book The Human Being the World and God written by Anne L.C. Runehov and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a philosophical analysis of what it is to be a human being in all her aspects. It analyses what is meant by the self and the I and how this feeling of a self or an I is connected to the brain. It studies specific cases of brain disorders, based on the idea that in order to understand the common, one has to study the specific. The book shows how the self is thought of as a three-fold emergent self, comprising a relationship between an objective neural segment, a subjective neural segment and a subjective transcendent segment. It explains that the self in the world tackles philosophical problems such as the problem of free will, the problem of evil, the problem of human uniqueness and empathy. It demonstrates how the problem of time also has its place here. For many people, the world includes ultimate reality; hence the book provides an analysis and evaluation of different relationships between human beings and Ultimate Reality (God). The book presents an answer to the philosophical problem of how one could understand divine action in the world.

Download or read book God and Humans written by Rhett Otis and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-18 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can SOUND SCIENCE AND BIBLICAL CREATION BE RECONCILED? THIS BOOK PROPOSES ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS: The Meaning of Life Did God make five distinct Eras before our sixth Era? How should recent and astounding genetic discoveries impact our creation views? Were the humans created on the sixth day before Adam and Eve? Do widely-accepted sound scientific findings support or contradict the Bible? Was Noah's flood planet-wide or gigantic? ALSO INCLUDED - THE BOOK GOD'S MASTER PLAN God's Master Plan for Humanity The conflict in Heaven between God and Satan Why some humans are blotted out from the Book of Life Details how the human heart, soul and spirit interacts, and where we go How Paradise, Hades, Heaven and the Lake of Fire functions Reliable Biblical Precepts that, if implemented: Encourage a revitalized abundant Christian life. Form a foundation for a solid healthy marriage Strengthen the family in our time of modern-day assault