A Theology of Grace in Six Controversies

A Theology of Grace in Six Controversies PDF

Author: Edward T. Oakes

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2016-05-11

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1467445363

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Few topics in theology are as complex and multifaceted as grace: over the course of centuries, many seemingly arbitrary distinctions and arcane debates have arisen around it. Edward Oakes, however, argues that all of these distinctions and debates are ultimately motivated by one central question: What are God’sintentions for the world? In A Theology of Grace in Six Controversies Oakes examines issues relating to grace and points them back to that central question, illuminating and explaining what is really at stake in these debates. Maintaining that controversies clarify issues, especially those as convoluted as that of grace, Oakes works through six central debates on the topic, including sin and justification, evolution and original sin, and free will and predestination.

Grace and the Great Controversy

Grace and the Great Controversy PDF

Author: Gordon Kainer

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2010-07-07

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 0557550483

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The author reveals how grace is the heart of the gospel'a liberating, life-giving and comforting melody throughout the Bible. Grace is our certainty of eternal life and God's all-encompassing acceptance. Without grace, our religious beliefs are bad news, thus this book's advice, Grace: never leave home without it! Learn how God's grace is absolute and all inclusive; something we never deserve or earn! Grace offers the most refreshing peace we will ever know. Grace is the solution to every problem and menacing crisis threatening our planet. Rightly understood, grace points exclusively and continuously to Jesus. Then why is God's gift of grace so controversial or even difficult for Christians to accept? Could it be because grace is totally unbelievable, unexpected and undeserved? Is this why legalism, the enemy of grace, is so common and hard to recognize in ourselves? Grappling with these questions, the author reveals how, from Eden to our day, cradled at the very heart of the great controversy is grace.

“Grace Abounds More”: Balthasar’s Eschatological Universalism in Dialogue

“Grace Abounds More”: Balthasar’s Eschatological Universalism in Dialogue PDF

Author: Joshua R. Brotherton

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-12-04

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9004681671

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The problem of eternal damnation is one that should trouble all believers and impels many to seek answers to fundamental questions outside of the Church. For this reason, theologians with a missionary heart of the last century or more from across the ecclesial spectrum have sought to refashion the gospel in our own estranged image. In dialogue with one of the leading figures of this movement, Joshua Brotherton tackles the question of the plausibility that all will be saved. Sympathetic to their cause, this volume seeks to revise the way in which they envision the reconciliation of divine love and moral evil.

Aquinas on Beatific Charity and the Problem of Love

Aquinas on Beatific Charity and the Problem of Love PDF

Author: Christopher J. Malloy

Publisher: Emmaus Academic

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1949013227

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Christopher J. Malloy’s Aquinas on Beatific Charity and the Problem of Love examines the relationship between the desire for happiness and the love of another, chiefly, the love of God for His own sake. Great thinkers judge the matters connected with this problem differently. Aristotle and others contend that the desire for happiness grounds ethical activity. Others contend that a pure love of God (or of the “other”) is not founded on desire for happiness. The former charge the latter with leaving love groundless, and the latter charge the former with reducing love to egoism. Aquinas’s appreciation of the Aristotelian tradition is forefront in his classic treatment of human action, which begins with the desire for happiness. Accordingly, many readers, proponents and critics, read Aquinas as simply “eudaimonistic.” There are, however, other principles at work in his thought; these suggest a simple but profound difficulty in his thought, one reflective of the subtlety of real life. Are the two sets of principles contradictory? Juxtaposed? Considering beatific charity as the ultimate lens for this problem, Malloy proposes that Aquinas’s texts and principles are hierarchically harmonious while developmentally complex. They indicate that love of happiness has a foundational role in human action and that love of God for His own sake has priority in the order of finality. This ordered balance depends upon a conception of the common good in accord with a metaphysics of participation: as having existence and formal perfection from and in likeness to the One Who Is, created persons incline to love God more than and more intensely than themselves. Thus, love of the Divine Other, while indeed the supreme love, especially as deified through charity, does not demand “disinterested” love. God truly is man’s good: His true lover longs to be with Him.

T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology

T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology PDF

Author: Mary Ann Hinsdale

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 0567678334

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Including classical, modern, and postmodern approaches to theological anthropology, this volume covers the entire spectrum of thought on the doctrines of creation, the human person as imago Dei, sin, and grace. The editors have gathered an exceptionally diverse range of voices, ensuring ecumenical balance (Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox) and the inclusion of previously neglected perspectives (women, African American, Asian, Latinx, and LGBTQ). The contributors revisit authors from the “Great Tradition” (early church, medieval, and modern), and discuss them alongside critical and liberationist approaches (ranging from feminist, decolonial, and intersectional theory to critical race theory and queer performance theory). This is a much-needed overview of a rapidly evolving field.

Catholicity and Emerging Personhood

Catholicity and Emerging Personhood PDF

Author: Horan OFM, Daniel P.

Publisher: Orbis Books

Published: 2019-09-26

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1608338002

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An exploration of the meaning and identity of the human person in light of a renewed theology of creation, the ongoing discoveries of evolution and natural sciences, and newly appropriated resources in the theological tradition.

The World and God Are Not-Two

The World and God Are Not-Two PDF

Author: Daniel Soars

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2023-04-25

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1531502067

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The World and God Are Not-Two is a book about how the God in whom Christians believe ought to be understood. The key conceptual argument that runs throughout is that the distinctive relation between the world and God in Christian theology is best understood as a non-dualistic one. The “two”—“God” and “World” cannot be added up as separate, enumerable realities or contrasted with each other against some common background because God does not belong in any category and creatures are ontologically constituted by their relation to the Creator. In exploring the unique character of this distinctive relation, Soars turns to Sara Grant’s work on the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedānta and the metaphysics of creation found in Thomas Aquinas. He develops Grant’s work and that of the earlier Calcutta School by drawing explicit attention to the Neoplatonic themes in Aquinas that provide some of the most fruitful areas for comparative engagement with Vedānta. To the Christian, the fact that the world exists only as dependent on God means that “world” and “God” must be ontologically distinct because God’s existence does not depend on the world. To the Advaitin, this simultaneously means that “World” and “God” cannot be ontologically separate either. The language of non-duality allows us to see that both positions can be held coherently together without entailing any contradiction or disagreement at the level of fundamental ontology. What it means to be “world” does not and cannot exclude what it means to be “God.”

ReSourcing Theological Anthropology

ReSourcing Theological Anthropology PDF

Author: Marc Cortez

Publisher: Zondervan Academic

Published: 2018-01-09

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0310516447

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Theologians working in theological anthropology often claim that Jesus reveals what it means to be "truly human," but this often has little impact in their actual account of anthropology. ReSourcing Theological Anthropology addresses that lack by offering an account of why theological anthropology must begin with Christology. Building off his earlier study on how key theologians in church history have understood the relationship between Christology and theological anthropology, Cortez now develops a new proposal for theological anthropology and applies it to the theological situation today. ReSourcing Theological Anthropology is divided into four sections. The first section explores the relevant Christological/anthropological biblical passages and unpacks how they inform our understanding of theological anthropology. The second section discusses the theological issues raised in the course of surveying the biblical texts. The third section lays out a methodological framework for how to construct a uniquely Christological anthropology. The final section builds on the first three sections and demonstrates the significance of Christology for understanding theological anthropology by applying the methodological framework to several pressing anthropological issues: gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and death and suffering X

The Grammar of Grace

The Grammar of Grace PDF

Author: Rev. Kent Eilers

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 638

ISBN-13: 1532670893

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This anthology is a collection of readings on the Christian life. They were carefully selected from every era of history and from across the spectrum of Christian traditions. They include letters, sermons, treatises and disputations, poems, songs and hymns, confessions, biblical commentary, and even part of a novel. In each case, the subject is life with God, life in God, life for God--life infused and enlivened by God's grace. The editors introduce each selection, highlighting relevant aspects of the author's biography, spirituality, and historical context. Introductions are also provided for the major eras of the church which present theological, historical, and cultural perspectives to help the reader best engage the selections. For individuals and groups, classrooms and seminars, this collection will generate dialogue between past and present, and between traditions familiar and unfamiliar. It is not merely a book on the Christian life but for the Christian life, making yesterday's witness to life with God a resource for the Church today.

Oliver O'Donovan's Moral Theology

Oliver O'Donovan's Moral Theology PDF

Author: Samuel Tranter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0567694623

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This book offers the first sustained, full-length treatment of the wide-ranging work of major Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan. Analyzing such key texts as Resurrection and Moral Order, The Desire of the Nations and Ethics as Theology, Samuel Tranter shows that the relationship between eschatology and ethics is an area of significant tension in O'Donovan's evolving vision of moral theology. Tranter traces this tension as it relates to O'Donovan's writing and contemporary discussion around natural law, divine command and human flourishing, as well as to particular topics such as poverty, marriage and singleness and biotechnology. He also connects it with the broader doctrinal features of O'Donovan's project, such as his accounts of creation, sin and redemption, and his understanding of the relationships between the cross and the resurrection, on one hand, and Christology and pneumatology, on the other. Throughout, Tranter indicates the implications of these themes for our understanding of the Christian life. This volume establishes and evaluates O'Donovan's influence on contemporary Christian ethicists and political theologians (such as Luke Bretherton, Gilbert Meilaender, Jean Porter and Brent Waters), and engages with critical readings of O'Donovan (such as those by Stanley Hauerwas and Gerald McKenny). In conversation with these and other voices from a range of perspectives, Tranter shows how O'Donovan's proposals may be appropriated and amended as a resource for theology and ethics going forward.