Download or read book Providence and the Problem of Evil written by Richard Swinburne and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1998-08-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? This is one of the most difficult problems of religious belief. Richard Swinburne gives a careful, clear examination of this problem, and offers an answer: it is because God wants more for us than just pleasure or freedom from suffering. Swinburne argues that God wants humans to learn and to love, to make the choices which make great differences for good and evil to each other, to form our characters in the way we choose; above all to be of great use to each other. If we are to have all this, there will inevitably be suffering for the short period of our lives on Earth. But because of the good that God gives to humans in this life, and because he makes it possible for us, through our choice, to share the life of Heaven, he does not wrong us if he allows suffering. Providence and the Problem of Evil is the final volume of Richard Swinburne's acclaimed tetralogy on Christian doctrine. It may be read on its own as a self-standing treatment of this eternal philosophical issue. Readers who are interested in a unified study of the philosophical foundations of Christian belief will find it now in the tetralogy and in his trilogy on the philosophy of theism.
Download or read book Providence and Evil written by Peter Geach and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1977 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the question: if the world is planned in all its detail by a mind, can that mind be called good, given the world's actual nature?
Download or read book On Evil Providence and Freedom written by Mark Wiebe and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original study is concerned with the reconciliation of divine providence, grace, and free will. Mark Wiebe explores, develops, and defends Luis de Molina's work in these areas, and bridges the main sixteenth-century conversations surrounding Molina's writings with relevant sets of arguments in contemporary philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. The result fills a gap between theologians and philosophers working in related areas of study and is a unique contribution to the field of analytic theology. Wiebe begins by sketching the historical and theological context from which Molina's work emerged in the late sixteenth century. He then lays out Thomas Aquinas's understanding of God's nature and activity, as well as his understanding of the relationship between God's action and creaturely activity. In the face of challenges like the Problem of Evil, Wiebe argues, Molina's work is a helpful supplement to Aquinas's thought. Turning to direct consideration of Molina's work, Wiebe responds to several of the most well-known objections to Molinism. In support of Molina's understanding of creaturely freedom, he then develops some twentieth-century work in free will philosophy, focusing on the work of thinkers like Austin Farrer, Timothy O'Connor, and Robert Kane. He argues that there are good reasons to defend a restrained version of libertarian or noncompatibilist free will, and also good reasons to believe this sort of freedom obtains among human agents. Wiebe concludes that a Molinistic revision of Eleonore Stump's work on the relationship between providence and free will provides a well-rounded, coherent theological option for reconciling divine providence, grace, and free will. This thoughtful study will appeal to theologians and philosophers, as well as educated readers with a basic knowledge of Christian theology.
Download or read book Providence Evil and the Openness of God written by William Hasker and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a timely exploration of the philosophical implications of the rapidly growing theological movement known as open theism, or the 'openness of God'. William Hasker, one of the philosophers prominently associated with the movement,
Download or read book Providence written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New from Best-Selling Author John Piper From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive history. Providence is "God's purposeful sovereignty." Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of galaxies, and into the heart of man. Its nature is wise and just and good. And its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world. Drawing on a lifetime of theological reflection, biblical study, and practical ministry, pastor and author John Piper leads us on a stunning tour of the sightings of God's providence—from Genesis to Revelation—to discover the allencompassing reality of God's purposeful sovereignty over all of creation and all of history. Piper invites us to experience the profound effects of knowing the God of all-pervasive providence: the intensifying of true worship, the solidifying of wavering conviction, the strengthening of embattled faith, the toughening of joyful courage, and the advance of God's mission in this world.
Download or read book Who Rules the World written by Hans Schwarz and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a career spanning more than fifty years, Hans Schwarz has grappled with nearly all of Christianity's major theological questions. In this latest volume, Schwarz tackles the perennial problem of evil. How is it possible to reconcile the manifest evil and pain in the world with the biblical promise of hope and redemption? Are we, in fact, "lonely wanderers in the immensity of the universe about whom nobody cares," or is there something above and beyond us in which we can trust? To this perennial question Schwarz brings his signature blend of pastoral sensitivity and scholarly acumen. Informed by decades in the classroom, Schwarz offers a sweeping survey of views of the problem of evil, beginning with the world's major religious traditions before focusing on the major views across the broad span of Christian history. The book aims to help readers interested in the problem of evil understand the broad sweep of human thought about the problem, and make informed assessments of the issue for themselves.
Download or read book The Virtues written by Peter Geach and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1977-04-21 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage, and the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Claims moral precepts are absolute, utilitarianism is to be shunned, and sex apart from marriage is poison.
Download or read book Four Views on Divine Providence written by Paul Kjoss Helseth and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2011 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions about divine providence have preoccupied Christians for generations: Are people elected to salvation? For whom did Jesus die? This book introduces readers to four prevailing views on divine providence, with particular attention to the question of who Jesus died to save (the extent of the atonement) and if or how God determines who will be saved (predestination). But this book does not merely answer readers' questions. Four Views on Divine Providence helps readers think theologically about all the issues involved in exploring this doctrine. The point-counterpoint format reveals the assumptions and considerations that drive equally learned and sincere theologians to sharp disagreement. It unearths the genuinely decisive issues beneath an often superficial debate. Volume contributors are Paul Helseth (God causes every creaturely event that occurs); William Lane Craig (through his 'middle knowledge, ' God controls the course of worldly affairs without predetermining any creatures' free decisions); Ron Highfield (God controls creatures by liberating their decision-making); and Gregory Boyd (human decisions can be free only if God neither determines nor knows what they will be). Introductory and closing essays by Dennis Jowers give relevant background and guide readers toward their own informed beliefs about divine providence.
Download or read book Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil written by St. Augustine and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1942 edition.
Download or read book The Openness of God written by Clark H. Pinnock and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voted one of Christianity Today's 1995 Books of the Year! The Openness of God presents a careful and full-orbed argument that the God known through Christ desires "responsive relationship" with his creatures. While it rejects process theology, the book asserts that such classical doctrines as God's immutability, impassibility and foreknowledge demand reconsideration. The authors insist that our understanding of God will be more consistently biblical and more true to the actual devotional lives of Christians if we profess that "God, in grace, grants humans significant freedom" and enters into relationship with a genuine "give-and-take dynamic." The Openness of God is remarkable in its comprehensiveness, drawing from the disciplines of biblical, historical, systematic and philosophical theology. Evangelical and other orthodox Christian philosophers have promoted the "relational" or "personalist" perspective on God in recent decades. Now here is the first major attempt to bring the discussion into the evangelical theological arena.
Download or read book The Divine Providence written by Emanuel Swedenborg and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Doxological Theology written by Christopher C. Green and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of Barth's understanding of God's providence and the Reformed theology of Prayer, based on CD III/3.
Download or read book The Uncontrolling Love of God written by Thomas Jay Oord and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rarely does a new theological position emerge to account well for life in the world, including not only goodness and beauty but also tragedy and randomness. Drawing from Scripture, science, philosophy and various theological traditions, Thomas Jay Oord offers a novel theology of providence—essential kenosis—that emphasizes God's inherently noncoercive love in relation to creation.
Download or read book Providence Evil and the Openness of God written by William Hasker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providence, Evil and the Openness of God is a timely exploration of the philosophical implications of the rapidly-growing theological movement known as open theism, or the 'openness of God'. William Hasker, one of the philosophers prominently associated with this movement, presents the strengths of this position in comparison with its main competitors: Calvinism, process theism, and the theory of divine middle knowledge, or Molinism. The author develops alternative approaches to the problem of evil and to the problem of divine action in the world. In particular, he argues that believers should not maintain the view that each and every evil that occurs is permitted by God as a means to a 'greater good'. He contends that open theism makes possible an emphasis on the personalism of divine-human interaction in a way that traditional views, with their heavy emphasis on divine control, cannot easily match. The book concludes with a section of replies to critics, in which many of the objections levelled against open theism are addressed.
Download or read book God and the Ethics of Belief written by Andrew Dole and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-06 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy of religion in the Anglo-American tradition experienced a 'rebirth' following the 1955 publication of New Essays in Philosophical Theology (eds. Antony Flew and Alisdair MacIntyre). Fifty years later, this volume of essays offers a sampling of the best work in what is now a very active field, written by some of its most prominent members. A substantial introduction sketches the developments of the last half-century, while also describing the 'ethics of belief' debate in epistemology and showing how it connects to explicitly religious concerns and to the topics of the individual contributions. These topics include: the relationship between God and the natural laws; the metaphysics of bodily resurrection; the role of appeal to 'mystery' in the religious life; the justification of both theistic belief generally and more specific doctrinal beliefs; and the social-political aspects of religious faith and practice.
Download or read book Divine Providence written by Bruce R. Reichenbach and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We ask God to involve himself providentially in our lives, yet we cherish our freedom to choose and act. Employing both theological reflection and philosophical analysis, the author explores how to resolve the interesting and provocative puzzles arising from these seemingly conflicting desires. He inquires what sovereignty means and how sovereigns balance their power and prerogatives with the free responses of their subjects. Since we are physically embodied in a physical world, we also need to ask how this is compatible with our being free agents. Providence raises questions about God's fundamental attributes. The author considers what it means to affirm God's goodness as logically contingent, how being almighty interfaces with God's self-limitation, and the persistent problems that arise from claiming that God foreknows the future. Discussion of these divine properties spills over into the related issues of why God allows, or even causes, pain and suffering; why, if God is all-knowing, we need to petition God repeatedly and encounter so many unanswered prayers; and how miracles, as ways God acts in the world, are possible and knowable. Throughout, the author looks at Scripture and attends to how providence deepens our understanding of God and enriches our lives.
Download or read book The Providence of God written by Paul Helm and published by IVP Academic. This book was released on 1994-02-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Helm introduces the doctrine of divine providence--focusing on metaphysical and moral aspects and especially noting divine control, providence and evil, and the role of prayer. In the Contours of Christian Theology.
