Amor Dei in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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Amor Dei , "love of God" raises three questions: How do we know God is love? How do we experience love of God? How free are we to love God? This book presents three kinds of love, worldly, spiritual, and divine to understand God's love. The work begins with Augustine's Confessions highlighting his Manichean and Neoplatonic periods before his conversion to Christianity. Augustine's confrontation with Pelagius anticipates the unresolved disputes concerning God's love and free will. In the sixteenth-century the Italian humanist, Gasparo Contarini introduces the notion of "divine amplitude" to demonstrate how God's goodness is manifested in the human agent. Pierre de Bérulle, Guillaume Gibieuf, and Nicolas Malebranche show connections with Contarini in the seventeenth-century controversies relating free will and divine love. In response to the free will dispute, the Scottish philosopher, William Chalmers, offers his solution. Cornelius Jansen relentlessly asserts his anti-Pelagian interpretation of Augustine stirring up more controversy. John Norris, Malebranche's English disciple, exchanges his views with Mary Astell and Damaris Masham. In the tradition of Cambridge Platonism, Ralph Cudworth conveys a God who "sweetly governs." The organization of sections represents the love of God in ascending-descending movements demonstrating that, "human love is inseparable from divine love."
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1 online resource (175 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401209458 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The divine father : religious and philosophical concepts of divine parenthood in antiquity /
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The present volume is devoted to the theme of \'Divine Father\' in Second Temple Jewish and early Christian tradition and in its ancient pagan contexts. It brings together proceedings of a conference under the same title, held in Göttingen in September 2011. Selected articles by well-known scholars focus on religious and philosophical concepts of divine parenthood in antiquity, from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism (the Dead Sea Scrolls, Targums, Philo and Josephus) to the field of the New Testament. In addition, the volume deals with the designation of deity as \'father\' or \'mother\' from the broad spectrum of ancient Egypt and classical antiquity (Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and its reception) to late antiquity (Plotinus and Porphyry).
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1 online resource. :
9789004264779
The law of God : exploring God and civilization /
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In today's society, a positive relation between 'God' and 'civilization' is by no means self-evident. Religious believers who want to live their lives in accordance with 'the law of God' are often considered a threat to civilization. To many, monotheistic religion is inherently repressive and violent. The central aim of this volume is to think of both God and civilization in a more open, space-giving way. God is seen as the One who prevents man from making an absolute claim for a relative reality, including one's religion and culture. The multifaceted relations between God and civilization are explored from systematic-theological, missiological, philosophical and ethical perspectives.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (vi, 330 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281844 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reflections on the Silence of God : a Discussion with Marjo Korpel and Johannes de Moor.
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In their recent book The Silent God , Marjo Korpel and Johannes de Moor presented a provocative view on the concept of divine silence in ancient Israel. In their view, divine silence can be explained as an answer to a variety of circumstances. Additionally, they opt for the view that divine silence needs to be answered by appropriate human conduct. The essays in this volume applaud and challenge their views from different perspectives: exegetical, ancient Near Eastern, semantic, philosophical et cetera Some authors hint at the view that divine silence should be construed as an indication of divine absence. Korpel and De Moor give a learned response to their critics. Contributors include: Bob Becking, Joel Burnett, Meindert Dijkstra, Walter Dietrich, Matthijs de Jong, Paul Sanders, Marcel Sarot, Anne-Mareike Wetter, Marjo Korpel and Johannes C. de Moor.
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1 online resource (196 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004259133 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The silent god /
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The silence of God is a recurring theme in modern reflection. It is not only addressed in theology, religious studies and philosophy, but also in literary fiction, film and theatre. The authors show that the concept of a silent deity emerged in the ancient Near East (including Greece). What did the Ancients mean when they assumed that under circumstances their deities remained silent? What reasons are discernable for silence between human beings and their gods? For the first time the close interrelation between the divine and the human in the revelatory process is demonstrated here on the basis of a wealth of translated ancient texts. In an intriguing epilogue, the authors explore the theological consequences of what they have found.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004206564 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Naming and thinking God in Europe today : theology in global dialogue /
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Is there a new need and place for God-talk in Europe? The present volume both confirms this and opens up new questions for discussion. It shows how different traditions of naming and thinking God in Europe draw on various theoretical and philosophical foundations that are in competition with one another in many ways. Due to socio-cultural, historical and political divides between Eastern and Western Europe, these theological traditions often suffer from isolation and mutual misunderstanding. Can the inherent tensions and conflicts be understood more adequately? While exploring a variety of approaches in Europe on the topic, several authors also ask: How can God be named and thought in Europe, which finds itself in the midst of complex crosscultural and interreligious processes - particularly as immigration increases and peoples of non-Christian faith traditions name and think God in ways that differ from and sometimes conflict with Europe's dominant religion(s) and secular culture? What function and impact will traditional God-talk have in a globalizing Europe as religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism move into the foreground? This volume not only reveals the broad spectrum of its topic but also documents the vivid seeking undertaken by a new generation of European theologians and scholars of religion who openly engage the question of how to live and believe in Europe today, facing complex global challenges.
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"This volume is the first publication of a three-year-long European Socrates Intensive program entitled "The concept of God in Europe's global religious dialogue," compare pages [11]. The program comprised three conference seminars that met in 2003, 2004, and 2005. The papers in this volume were presented at the meeting held in May, 2003, in Vienna. :
1 online resource (536 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004358225 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ontological aspects of early Jewish anthropology : the malleable self and the presence of God /
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In Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology , Tyson L. Putthoff explores early Jewish beliefs about how the human self reacts ontologically in God's presence. Combining contemporary theory with sound exegesis, Putthoff demonstrates that early Jews widely considered the self to be intrinsically malleable, such that it mimics the ontological state of the space it inhabits. In divine space, they believed, the self therefore shares in the ontological state of God himself. The book is critical for students and scholars alike. In putting forth a new framework for conceptualising early Jewish anthropology, it challenges scholars to rethink not only what early Jews believed about the self but how we approach the subject in the first place.
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"This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis, completed at Durham University"--Acknowledgements. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004336414 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Thinking the divine in interreligious encounter.
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Thinking the Divine in Interreligious Encounter seeks to take seriously our questions of cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue on God or the Divine: How can the Divine be named and thought as Europe finds itself in midst of cross-cultural processes of a global nature and as religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism come into the foreground in the West? What are some of the major shifts in Christian theology, as it recognizes that peoples of non-Christian faith traditions name and think the Divine in ways that differ from and sometimes conflict with Europe's dominant religion(s) and secular culture? Together with "Naming and Thinking God in Europe Today" and "Post-colonial Europe in the Crucible of Cultures" (Rodopi 2007), this volume allows us to discover opportunities for a multivalenced reflection on God or the Divine that achieves mutual intelligibility without surrendering to a dogmatic untranslatability or a crude relativism.
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1 online resource (321 pages : illustrations) :
9789401207577 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Necessity and Truthful Fictions : Panenmentalist Observations.
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This book discovers areas and themes, especially in philosophical psychology, for novel observations and investigations, the diversity of which is systematically unified within the frame of the author's original metaphysics, panenmentalism. The book demonstrates how by means of truthful fictions we may detect meaningful possibilities as well as their necessary relationships that otherwise could not be discovered.
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1 online resource (345 pages) :
9789042029200 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
YHWH is king : the development of divine kingship in ancient Israel /
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Amidst various methodologies for the comparative study of the Hebrew Bible, at times the opportunity arises to improve on a method recently introduced into the field. In YHWH is King , Flynn uses the anthropological method of cultural translation to study diachronic change in YHWH's kingship. Here, such change is compared to a similar Babylonian development to Marduk's kingship. Based on that comparison and informed by cultural translation, Flynn discovers that Judahite scribes suppressed the earlier YHWH warrior king and promoted a creator/universal king in order to combat the increasing threat of Neo-Assyrian imperialism. Flynn thus opens the possibility, that Judahite scribes engaged in a cultural translation of Marduk to YHWH, in order to respond to the mounting Neo-Assyrian presence.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004263048 :
0083-5889 ;
Trinity and man : Gregory of Nyssa's Ad Ablabium /
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Why is it that when we speak of three human subjects, we speak of a unique nature, but we say that they are "three men", while when we speak of the Trinity, we speak again of a unique nature, but we say that they are "one God"? Gregory of Nyssa gives the answer in his Ad Ablabium , work that lately is the focus of a discussion about the interpretation of Gregory's thought and the social analogy of the Trinity. Trinity and Man is the first monograph devoted entirely to this tract and contributes to the debate, offering a commentary to the text, which follows the development of the Nyssian arguments and frames them in the context of Gregory's theological grammar.
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1 online resource (xxxii, 216 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-210) and indexes. :
9789047420798 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
God, beyond me : from the I's absolute ground in Hölderlin and Schelling to a contemporary model of a personal God /
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German idealism has attempted to think an absolute ground to self-conscious I-hood. As a result it has been theologically disqualified as pantheistic or even atheistic since many maintain that such a ground cannot be reconciled with a personal God. In the early writings of Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), it is clear that he and his contemporaries were aware of this difficulty. His Tübinger fellow student, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), was convinced of the ultimate inadequacy of any philosophical system to grasp the unitary ground of all that is and turned to poetry. The metaphysical insights expressed in his poetry have been largely neglected in both philosophical and theological scholarship. Drawing on the 20th century metaphysics of Dieter Henrich and Karl Rahner, this book elaborates on Hölderlin's poetry. This results in a novel concept of God as both unitary and personal ground of I-hood.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004182172 :
1878-9986 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Revisiting Aquinas' proofs for the existence of God /
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Edited and introduced by Robert Arp, Revisiting Aquinas' Proofs for the Existence of God is a collection of new papers written by scholars focusing on the famous Five Proofs or Ways ( Quinque Viae ) for the existence of God put forward by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) near the beginning of his unfinished tome, Summa Theologica . It is not an exaggeration to say that not only is Aquinas' Summa a landmark text in the history of Western philosophy and Christianity, but also that the Five Proofs discussed therein-namely, the arguments that conclude to the Unmoved Mover, Uncaused Cause, Necessary Being, Superlative Being, and Intelligent Director-are as compelling today as they were in the 13th Century. Written in a debate format with different scholars arguing for and against each Proof, the papers in the book consist of arguments utilizing various combinations of contemporary science and philosophical ideas to bolster the positions. The result is a revisiting of Aquinas' Proofs that is relevant, stimulating, enlightening, and refreshing.
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1 online resource (x, 273 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-264) and index. :
9789004311589 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Early Christian-Muslim debate on the unity of God : three Christian scholars and their engagement with Islamic thought (9th century c.e.) /
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Early Christian-Muslim Debate on the Unity of God examines the writings of three of the earliest known Christian theologians to write comprehensive theological works in Arabic. Theodore Abū Qurra, Abū Rā'iṭa and 'Ammār al-Baṣrī provide valuable insight into early Christian-Muslim debate shortly after the rise of the Islamic empire. Through close examination of their writings on the doctrine of the Trinity, Sara Husseini demonstrates the creativity of these theologians, who make use of language, style and argumentation characteristic of Islamic theological thought (kalām), in order to help articulate their long-established religious truths. Husseini offers close analysis of the authors individually and comparatively, exploring their engagement with Islamic theology and their role in this fascinating period.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004279698 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Talking about God and Talking about Creation : Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' positions /
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Comparing Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' positions regarding human knowledge, this volumes talks about God and the nature of the creative action and the beginning of the universe. The overall argument of the book is that their conception of theological language plays an important role in shaping their positions concerning the creation of the universe. In the first part, their conception of the theological language and divine formal features are explored and how their positions regarding theological language differ from each other is discussed. The second part includes a comparison of their conceptions of the nature of the divine creative action-which provides a good example showing how their conceptions of theological language affect the way they talk about creation-and their arguments concerning the beginning of the universe.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047415923
9789004144774
The Question of God's Perfection : Jewish and Christian Essays on the God of the Bible and Talmud /
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Philosophers have often described theism as the belief in the existence of a "perfect being"-a being that is said to possess all possible perfections, so that it is all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, perfectly good, perfectly simple, and necessarily existent, among other qualities. But such a theology is difficult to reconcile with the God we find in the Bible and Talmud. The Question of God's Perfection brings together leading scholars from the Jewish and Christian traditions to critically examine the theology of perfect being in light of the Hebrew Bible and classical rabbinic sources. Contributors are James A. Diamond, Lenn E. Goodman, Edward C. Halper, Yoram Hazony, Dru Johnson, Brian Leftow, Berel Dov Lerner, Alan L. Mittleman, Heather C. Ohaneson, Randy Ramal, Eleonore Stump, Alex Sztuden, and Joshua I. Weinstein.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004387980 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Revelation of the Name YHWH to Moses : Perspectives from Judaism, the Pagan Graeco-Roman World, and Early Christianity /
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The revelation of YHWH's name to Moses is a momentous event according to the Old Testament. The name 'Yahweh' is of central importance in Judaism, and 'Yahwism' became tantamount to Jewish monotheism. As such, this designation of God also attracted the attention of pagan writers in the Graeco-Roman period. And early Christians had to deal with this divine name as well. These three perspectives on YHWH constitute the framework for this volume. It appears that the Name of God and its revelation to Moses constitute a major theme which runs from the book of Exodus through the Old Testament, early Judaism, and early Christianity. It also attracted pagan philosophical interest, both positive and negative. The Name of God was not only perceived from an insider's perspective, but also provoked a reaction from outsiders. The combined perspectives show the fundamental importance of the divine Name for the formation of Jewish and Christian identities.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047411031
9789004153981
Roman gods : a conceptual approach /
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The book is concerned with the question of how the concept of \'god\' in urban Rome can be analyzed along the lines of six constituent concepts, id est space, time, personnel, function, iconography and ritual. While older publications tended to focus on the conceptual nature of Roman gods only in those (comparatively rare) instances in which different concepts patently overlapped (as in the case of the deified emperor or hero-worship), this book develops general criteria for an analysis of pagan, Jewish and Christian concepts of gods in ancient Rome (and by extension elsewhere). While the argument of the book is exclusively based on the evidence from the capital up to the age of Constantine, in the concluding section the results are compared to other religious belief systems, thus demonstrating the general applicability of this conceptual approach.
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1 online resource (219 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-209) and index. :
9789047428480 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.