Download or read book Divine Providence and Human Agency written by Alexander S. Jensen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divine Providence and Human Agency develops an understanding of God and God's relation to creation that perceives God as sovereign over creation while, at the same time, allowing for a meaningful notion of human freedom. This book provides a bridge between contemporary approaches that emphasise human freedom, such as process theology and those influenced by it, and traditional theologies that stress divine omnipotence.This book argues that it is essential for Christian theology to maintain that God is ultimately in charge of history: otherwise there would be no solid grounds for Christian hope. Yet, the modern human self-understanding as free agent within certain limitations must be taken seriously. Jensen approaches this apparent contradiction from within a consistently trinitarian framework. Jensen argues that a Christian understanding of God must be based on the experience of the saving presence of Christ in the Church, leading to an apophatic and consistently trinitarian theology. This serves as the framework for the discussion of divine omnipotence and human freedom. On the basis of the theological foundation established in this book, it is possible to frame the problem in a way that makes it possible to live within this tension. Building on this foundation, Jensen develops an understanding of history as the unfolding of the divine purpose and as an expression of God's very being, which is self-giving love and desire for communion. This book offers an important contribution to the debate of the doctrine of God in the context of an evolutionary universe.
Download or read book Human Agency and Divine Will written by Charlotte Katzoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the conjuncture of human agency and divine volition in the biblical narrative - sometimes referred to as "double causality." A commonly held view has it that the biblical narrative shows human action to be determined by divine will. Yet, when reading the biblical narrative we are inclined to hold the actors accountable for their deeds. The book, then, challenges the common assumptions about the sweeping nature of divine causality in the biblical narrative and seeks to do justice to the roles played by the human actors in the drama. God's causing a person to act in a particular way, as He does when He hardens Pharaoh's heart, is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole, the biblical heroes act on their own; their personal initiatives and strivings are what move the story forward. How does it happen, then, that events, remarkably, conspire to realize God's plan? The study enlists concepts and theories developed within the framework of contemporary analytic philosophy, featured against the background of classical and contemporary bible commentary. In addressing the biblical narrative through these perspectives, this book holds appeal for scholars of a variety of disciplines - bible studies, philosophy, religion and philosophical theology - as well as for those who simply delight in reading the Bible.
Download or read book Theology and Agency in Early Modern Literature written by Timothy Rosendale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can I do? To what degree do we control our own desires, actions, and fate - or not? These questions haunt us, and have done so, in various forms, for thousands of years. Timothy Rosendale explores the problem of human will and action relative to the Divine - which Luther himself identified as the central issue of the Reformation - and its manifestations in English literary texts from 1580–1670. After an introduction which outlines the broader issues from Sophocles and the Stoics to twentieth-century philosophy, the opening chapter traces the theological history of the agency problem from the New Testament to the seventeenth century. The following chapters address particular aspects of volition and salvation (will, action, struggle, and blame) in the writings of Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, Ford, Herbert, Donne, and Milton, who tackle these problems with an urgency and depth that resonate with parallel concerns today.
Download or read book Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment written by John M.G. Barclay and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-examines Paul within contemporary Jewish debate, attuned to the significant theological issues he raises without imposing upon him the frameworks developed in later Christian thought
Download or read book Stricken by Sin Cured by Christ written by Jesse Couenhoven and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-07 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Augustine's doctrine of original sin, Adam's progeny share a collective guilt which, like an infection, spreads through wayward sexual desires, passing from parent to child. But is it fair to blame sinners if they inherit evil like a disease? In Stricken by Sin, Cured by Christ Jesse Couenhoven clarifies the logic and illogic of Augustine's controversial views about human agency. The first half of the book examines why Augustine believed we are trapped by evil, and why only Christ can save us. Couenhoven examines overlooked texts Augustine wrote at the culmination of his career and offers a novel reading of his views about whether we control our personal identities, what we should be held culpable for, and whether freedom is compatible with necessity. The second half of the book develops a philosophically and scientifically astute theory of responsibility that makes it possible to retrieve some of Augustine's most divisive claims. Couenhoven makes a case for the surprising thesis that a carefully formulated doctrine of original sin is profoundly humane. The claim that sin is original takes seriously our dependence on one another for essential aspects of character and personality, our ownership of cognitive and volitional states that are not simply products of voluntary choices, and our status as personal agents of evil. Attending to these aspects of our lives challenges the idea that each individual's moral and spiritual standing is up to her or him, and drives us to ponder not only the nature of our responsibility and the shape of the freedom we seek, but also the need for grace we all share.
Download or read book Divine Grace and Human Agency written by Rebecca Harden Weaver and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism written by Bruce Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Calvin was a leader of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century and the influence of his thought remains crucial in our world. This collection explores the origins of Calvin's thought and the theological, historical, and cultural circumstances in which they have evolved from Geneva to our times.
Download or read book Paul and Judaism Revisited written by Preston M. Sprinkle and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How far did Paul stray from the view of salvation handed down to him in the Jewish tradition? Following a hunch from E.P. Sanders's seminal book Paul and Palestinian Judaism,Preston Sprinkle finds buried in the Old Testament's Deuteronomic and prophetic perspectives a key that starts to turn the rusted lock on Paul's critique of Judaism.
Download or read book Memory Grief and Agency written by Sunder John Boopalan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that an active memory of and grief over structural wrongs yields positive agency. Such agency generates rites of moral responsibility that serve as antidotes to violent identities and catalyze hospitable social practices. By comparing Indian and U.S. contexts of caste and race, Sunder John Boopalan proposes that wrongs today are better understood as rituals of humiliation which are socially conditioned practices of domination affected by discriminatory logics of the past. Grief can be redressive by transforming violent identities and hostile in-group/out-group differences when guided by a liberative political theological imagination. This volume facilitates interdisciplinary conversations between theorists and theologians of caste and race, and those interested in understanding the relation between religion and power.
Download or read book The Work of Faith written by Justin Nickel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many scholars assume that Luther advocates for a Christian life in which human beings are always passive recipients of God’s grace as it is delivered in preaching, and mere instruments through which God works to serve their neighbors. The Work of Faith: Divine Grace and Human Agency in Martin Luther's Preaching offers a different reading of Luther’s views on human agency by drawing on a fresh source: Luther’s preaching. Using Luther’s sermons in the Church Postil as a primary source, Justin Nickel argues that Martin Luther preached as though Christians have real, if secondary, agency in the lives they lead before God and neighbor. As a result, Nickel presents a Luther substantively concerned with how Christians lead their lives.
Download or read book The theory of the kingdom A unified model of human agency written by Andrew Root and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2024-01-02 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original monograph presents a comprehensive theory regarding the economy of the kingdom of God. The theory and associated model will help individuals make better choices. The research integrates fundamentals of the temporal real economy, and the permanent economy of the kingdom of God, to present a unified model of human agency. According to the model, effective agents are salt and light in the real economy, arresting corruption and revealing the truth. Effective agency produces life, peace, and growth. Individual and organizational practices that arrest corruption and reveal truth can resolve longstanding economic grievances. The list of spiritual credence goods is extensive and includes commonly known virtues such as humility, patience, and hope. Spiritual goods are allocated based on the owner-agent relationship. The quantity of goods the owner supplies is in proportion to an individual’s sacrificial offering of time and money. Spiritual goods are stored as heart capital. In a process analogous to the real economy, heart labor applied to heart capital produces desirable outputs. The owner relates to his agents through a heart-inscribed behavioral contract. The owner generally intervenes in the real economy by communicating with agents rather than by restricting choice. Prior studies across economics, finance, and sociology prove the efficiency of behavioral contracts and communication over restricted choice. Herein researchers will find new testable propositions, and practitioners will find new ideas and practices to live better, more consequential lives. Examples of practical applications include methods of resolving group-level bias and understanding the purpose of life’s difficulties.
Download or read book Theology Psychology and the Plural Self written by Léon Turner and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the human self singular and unified or essentially plural? This book explores the seemingly disparate ways that Christian theology and the secular human sciences have approached this complex question. Through an original analysis of recent theological and secular accounts of self and personhood, this book examines the extent of the intertheoretical disparity and its broader implications for theology's dialogue with the human sciences in general, and psychology in particular. It explains why theologians ought to take questions about the plurality of self very seriously, and how they overlap with many of the central concerns of contemporary theological anthropology, including the notions of relationality, particularity and human sinfulness. Introducing a novel psychological framework to distinguish various understandings of self-disunity, the author argues that contemporary theology's blanket condemnation of self-multiplicity is misconceived, and identifies a possible means of reconciling theological and human scientific accounts.
Download or read book The Word of God for the People of God written by J. Todd Billings and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills a real need for pastors and students. Though there is currently a large body of material on the theological interpretation of Scripture, most of it is highly specific and extremely technical. J. Todd Billings here provides a straightforward entryway for students and pastors to understand why theological interpretation matters and how it can be done. / A solid, constructive theological work, The Word of God for the People of God presents a distinctive Trinitarian, participatory approach toward reading Scripture as the church. Billings's accessible yet substantial argument for a theological hermeneutic is rooted in a historic vision of the practice of scriptural interpretation even as it engages a wide range of contemporary issues and includes several exegetical examples that apply to concrete Christian ministry situations.
Download or read book Perfect Will Theology written by J. Martin Bac and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book revisits four early-modern debates of Reformed theology concerning the will of God. Reformed scholasticism advocated a particular relationship between divine knowledge, will, and power, which was altered by Jesuits, Remonstrants, Descartes, and Spinoza. In all these debates modal categories like contingency and necessity play a prominent part. Therefore, these positions are evaluated with the help of modern modal logic including possible world semantics. The final part of this study presents a systematic defense of the Reformed position, which has been charged of theological determinism and of making God the author of sin. In modern terms, therefore, the relation of divine and human freedom and the problem of evil are discussed.
Download or read book Theology and Agency in Early Modern Literature written by Timothy Rosendale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores fundamental questions of human will and action in early modern theology and literature.
Download or read book The Providence of God written by David Fergusson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the theology of divine providence that is both critical and constructive in its outcomes.
Download or read book Everyday Theology Cultural Exegesis written by Kevin J. Vanhoozer and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyday theology is the reflective and practical task of living each day as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. In other words, theology is not just for Sundays, and it's not just for professional theologians. Everyday Theology teaches all Christians how to get the theological lay of the land. It enables them to become more conscious of the culture they inhabit every day so that they can understand how it affects them and how they can affect it. If theology is the ministry of the Word to the world, everyday theologians need to know something about that world, and Everyday Theology shows them how to understand their culture make an impact on it. Engaging and full of fresh young voices, this book is the first in the new Cultural Exegesis series.
