Download or read book Never Doubt Thomas written by Francis Beckwith and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theologian, philosopher, teacher. There are few religious figures more Catholic than Saint Thomas Aquinas, a man credited with helping to shape Catholicism of the second millennium. In Never Doubt Thomas, Francis J. Beckwith employs his own spiritual journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism and then back to Catholicism to reveal the signal importance of Aquinas not only for Catholics but also for Protestants. Beckwith begins by outlining Aquinas' history and philosophy, noting misconceptions and inaccurate caricatures of Thomist traditions. He explores the legitimacy of a "Protestant" Aquinas by examining Aquinas' views on natural law and natural theology in light of several Protestant critiques. Not only did Aquinas' presentation of natural law assume some of the very inadequacies Protestant critics have leveled against it, Aquinas did not, as is often supposed, believe that one must first prove God's existence through human reasoning before having faith in God. Rather, Aquinas held that one may know God through reason and employ it to understand more fully the truths of faith. Beckwith also uses Aquinas' preambles of faith--what a person can know about God before fully believing in Him--to argue for a pluralist Aquinas, explaining how followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can all worship the same God, yet adhere to different faiths. Beckwith turns to Aquinas' doctrine of creation to question theories of Intelligent Design, before, finally, coming to the heart of the matter: in what sense can Aquinas be considered an Evangelical? Aquinas' views on justification are often depicted by some Evangelicals as discontinuous with those articulated in the Council of Trent. Beckwith counters this assessment, revealing not only that Aquinas' doctrine fully aligns with the tenets laid out by the Council, but also that this doctrine is more Evangelical than critics care to admit. Beckwith's careful reading makes it hard to doubt that Thomas Aquinas is a theologian, philosopher, and teacher for the universal church--Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical.
Download or read book I Never Learned to Doubt written by Jesse Duplantis and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Doubt is a habit. You aren't born a doubter. You learn to doubt over time, after being hit with the injustices and instability of this world. In this book, I'm going to try to help you go back in time?and regain what you lost. The wonder of faith is a pure thing-a childlike thing-and it's the only thing that works to access God and draw in what you really want. He doesn't respond to need. He doesn't respond to begging or pleading or wishing. God responds to faith. Doubt has roots. From the beginning of my walk with God in 1974, I decided that if I was going to be a "believer," then I was going to believe. I had a lifetime of doubting people behind me-but I learned in the Bible that God is not a man that He should lie. I also learned that the roots of doubt must be pulled up in order to make way to receive from God. I began a new way of thinking all those years ago that I am still using today. It's brought me joy. It's brought me success over the many challenges I've had. And it's brought me great favor and full peace in a world filled with trouble. Doubt isn't what you think. It's not a passing thought. It's not pondering the Word of God or reasoning with God, or even with others. Doubt is an inner-lifestyle choice-a bad habit of taking your own word over God's, your thoughts over God's, and putting more stock in the words of others over God's, too. That's not what living a successful life as a believer is all about! In this book, I hope to help you shut doubt down and develop a mindset that sees God's truth as bigger than the doubts of the mind?or anything else. Develop a habit of never learning to doubt!
Download or read book Doubting Thomas A Novel written by Matthew Clark Davison and published by Bywater Books. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas McGurrin is a fourth-grade teacher and openly gay man at a private primary school serving Portland, Oregon's wealthy progressive elite when he is falsely accused of inappropriately touching a male student. The accusation comes just as Thomas is thrust back into the center of his unusual family by his younger brother's battle with cancer. Although cleared of the accusation, Thomas is forced to resign from a job he loves during a potentially life-changing family drama. Davison's novel explores the discrepancy between the progressive ideals and persistent negative stereotypes among the privileged regarding social status, race, and sexual orientation and the impact of that discrepancy on friendships and family relations.
Download or read book The Fate of the Apostles written by Sean McDowell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe written in the 16th century has long been the go-to source for studying the lives and martyrdom of the apostles. Whilst other scholars have written individual treatments on the more prominent apostles such as Peter, Paul, John, and James, there is little published information on the other apostles. In The Fate of the Apostles, Sean McDowell offers a comprehensive, reasoned, historical analysis of the fate of the twelve disciples of Jesus along with the apostles Paul, and James. McDowell assesses the evidence for each apostle’s martyrdom as well as determining its significance to the reliability of their testimony. The question of the fate of the apostles also gets to the heart of the reliability of the kerygma: did the apostles really believe Jesus appeared to them after his death, or did they fabricate the entire story? How reliable are the resurrection accounts? The willingness of the apostles to die for their faith is a popular argument in resurrection studies and McDowell offers insightful scholarly analysis of this argument to break new ground within the spheres of New Testament studies, Church History, and apologetics.
Download or read book Making Sense of God written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.
Download or read book The Rise of the Nones written by James Emery White and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The single fastest growing religious group of our time is those who check the box next to the word none on national surveys. In America, this is 20 percent of the population. Exactly who are the unaffiliated? What caused this seismic shift in our culture? Are our churches poised to reach these people? James Emery White lends his prophetic voice to one of the most important conversations the church needs to be having today. He calls churches to examine their current methods of evangelism, which often result only in transfer growth--Christians moving from one church to another--rather than in reaching the "nones." The pastor of a megachurch that is currently experiencing 70 percent of its growth from the unchurched, White knows how to reach this growing demographic, and here he shares his ministry strategies with concerned pastors and church leaders.
Download or read book Doubting Toward Faith written by Bobby Conway and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to popular belief, doubt is not the opposite of faith. Rather, doubts call for an important decision—will you give in to unbelief, or will you continue the journey toward faith? Doubt can lead to confusion, hopelessness, and despair. But as this eye-opening book demonstrates, doubts can also deepen your dependence on God, develop your sense of empathy for others, and motivate you to find satisfying answers to life's biggest questions. Here you'll find practical ways to use your doubts to build your faith, such as... letting your doubts drive you to Jesus finding a safe community where you can doubt out loud and find support using a journal to clarify your doubts and the answers you find No one can eliminate all doubt this side of heaven. So for now, discover how to use your doubts to keep you headed in the right direction—toward faith.
Download or read book The Failure of Natural Theology written by Jeffrey D Johnson and published by New Studies in Theology Series. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle's cosmological argument is the foundation of Aquinas's doctrine of God. For Thomas, the cosmological argument not only speaks of God's existence but also of God's nature. By learning that the unmoved mover is behind all moving objects, we learn something true about the essence of God-principally, that God is immobile. But therein lies the problem for Thomas. The Catholic Church had already condemned Aristotle's unmoved mover because, according to Aristotle, the unmoved mover is unable to be the moving cause (i.e., Creator) and governor of the universe-or else he would cease to be immobile. By seeking to baptize Aristotle into the Catholic Church, however, Thomas gave his life to seeking to explain how God can be both immobile and the moving cause of the universe. Thomas even looked to the pantheistic philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius for help. But even with Dionysius's aid, Thomas failed to reconcile the god of Aristotle with the Trinitarian God of the Bible. If Thomas would have rejected the natural theology of Aristotle by placing the doctrine of the Trinity, which is known only by divine revelation, at the foundation of his knowledge of God, he would have rid himself of the irresolvable tension that permeates his philosophical theology. Thomas could have realized that the Trinity alone allows for God to be the only self-moving being-because the Trinity is the only being not moved by anything outside himself but freely capable of creating and controlling contingent things in motion.
Download or read book American Pope written by Sean Swain Martin and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As arguably the most influential voice in American Catholicism, the vision that Scott Hahn offers in his works, read by millions of Catholics throughout the world, is one of the most formative in American Catholicism. His numerous books and public speaking engagements are shaping the American Catholic Church in a uniquely powerful manner. This work demonstrates that the Catholic vision that Hahn claims to be providing his audience is, in fact, always quite different from the one he actually presents. What he coins as Catholic faithfulness is instead a straightforward and damning Catholic fundamentalism. As this vision is delivered to millions of the faithful who look to Hahn as a trustworthy guide to an authentic life of Catholic faith, American Pope acts as a critical analysis of his work.
Download or read book The Urantia Book written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book No Man is an Island written by Thomas Merton and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to find the meaning of human existence and to live the richest, fullest and noblest life. --Chicago Tribune
Download or read book Slaying the Giants in Your Life written by Dr. David Jeremiah and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2009-06-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fight fear, destroy discouragement, win against worry, and disarm your doubts. The Bible warns us of "giants in the land," and whether they're literal like Goliath or figurative like fear, loneliness, and temptation, their goal is the same: to crush God's people. Beloved Bible teacher and pastor Dr. David Jeremiah shows you how to stand up to these bullies and win—with God's help! Whichever giant is intimidating you, the message of Slaying the Giants in Your Life is that God has the strength to bring you victory. You never walk alone and never have to live defeated. Learn to: Fight your fear Destroy your discouragement Liberate yourself from loneliness Win against worry Guard against guilt Resist your resentment These are daunting giants, but thankfully you have access to God’s Word, which is a wealth of knowledge, encouragement, and power. With God on your side, you never walk alone or in weakness. Stand against the giants that seek to discourage you!
Download or read book Doubt A History written by Jennifer Hecht and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 1681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest ‘intellectual virtuosos,' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin—and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning, This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Elaine Pagels and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy. Spurred on by personal tragedy and new scholarship from an international group of researchers, Pagels returns to her investigation of the “secret” Gospel of Thomas, and breathes new life into writings once thought heretical. As she arrives at an ever-deeper conviction in her own faith, Pagels reveals how faith allows for a diversity of interpretations, and that the “rogue” voices of Christianity encourage and sustain “the recognition of the light within us all.”
Download or read book God and Evil written by Herbert McCabe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herbert McCabe was one of the most original and creative theologians of recent years. Continuum has published numerous volumes of unpublished typescripts left behind by him following his untimely death in 2001. This book is the sixth to appear. McCabe was deeply immersed in the philosophical theology of St Thomas Aquinas and was responsible in part for the notable revival of interest in the thought of Aquinas in our time. Here he tackles the problem of evil by focusing and commenting on what Aquinas said about it. What should we mean by words such as 'good', 'bad', 'being', 'cause', 'creation', and 'God'? These are McCabe's main questions. In seeking to answer them he demonstrates why it cannot be shown that evil disproves God's existence. He also explains how we can rightly think of evil in a world made by God. McCabe's approach to God and evil is refreshingly unconventional given much that has been said about it of late. Yet it is also very traditional. It will interest and inform anyone seriously interested in the topic.
Download or read book THE THOMAS FACTOR written by Gary R. Habermas and published by Christian Publishing House. This book was released on 2023-12-06 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "The Thomas Factor," Gary R. Habermas presents a transformative exploration of religious doubt and its potential as a catalyst for spiritual growth. This insightful book delves into the often misunderstood territory of doubt, revealing how it can be harnessed as a powerful tool for deepening one's faith and drawing closer to God. Habermas, with his extensive experience and empathetic approach, offers a lifeline to believers struggling with uncertainties in their spiritual journey. At the heart of the book is the dissection of three types of doubt: factual, emotional, and volitional. Habermas, through his own experiences and those of the individuals he has counseled, demonstrates that doubts are not a sign of weak faith but rather an opportunity for profound personal growth. He skillfully navigates the reader through the complexities of each doubt type, providing practical strategies for overcoming them. The book is enriched with examples from both the Old and New Testaments, showcasing that doubt has been a constant companion of even the most steadfast believers throughout history. In debunking common myths about doubting, Habermas sets the stage for building a resilient foundation for faith. Practical chapters guide the reader in developing a tailored strategy to address their doubts. This includes disciplines like prayer, Scripture memorization, journaling, and practicing Christian behavior. Habermas emphasizes that working through doubts is not just an intellectual exercise but involves the whole person — emotions, will, and intellect. "The Thomas Factor" does not shy away from the tougher aspects of theological inquiry. It addresses why theological differences exist and how to live with unanswered questions, thus equipping the reader to navigate the diverse landscape of Christian thought. Habermas concludes with a thoughtful discussion on the negative and positive consequences of doubt. He illustrates how doubt, when approached correctly, can lead to a stronger, more authentic faith, likening the process to refining gold. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone grappling with doubts about their faith. It offers not only solace and understanding but also practical tools for turning doubt into a stepping stone towards a more intimate and robust relationship with God. Target Audience: "The Thomas Factor" is ideal for Christians at any stage of their faith journey, particularly those wrestling with doubts or seeking a deeper understanding of their beliefs. It is also a valuable resource for pastors, counselors, and lay leaders who provide spiritual guidance and support.
Download or read book Man of Dialogue written by Gregory K. Hillis and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Catholic was Thomas Merton? Since his death in 1968, Merton’s Catholic identity has been regularly questioned, both by those who doubt the authenticity of his Catholicism given his commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and by those who admire Merton as a thinker but see him as an aberration who rebelled against his Catholicism to articulate ideas that went against the church. In this book, Gregory K. Hillis illustrates that Merton’s thought was intertwined with his identity as a Catholic priest and emerged out of a thorough immersion in the church’s liturgical, theological, and spiritual tradition. In addition to providing a substantive introduction to Merton’s life and thought, this book illustrates that Merton was fundamentally shaped by his identity as a Roman Catholic.
