Theology

Letters of the Divine Word: The Perfections of God in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics

The Christian doctrine of God has traditionally been presented in two parts: an account of the existence and attributes of God on the one hand, and an account of God’s triunity on the other. The present study is an analysis of Karl Barth’s doctrine of the divine attributes (or ‘perfections’), as it appears in his “Church Dogmatics II/1”. Barth’s doctrine of the divine perfections has received comparatively little attention, and what attention it has received is typically very selective. Authors unaware of larger, structural themes in Barth’s account often misconstrue significant details of Barth’s text. Others wrongly discount the implications of Barth’s doctrine of the perfections for his theology as a whole. The aim of this study is primarily to clarify what Barth says about the perfections and secondarily to relate this to broader themes in Barth’s theology.

Love, Freedom, and Evil: Does Authentic Love Require Free Will?

The defining premise of the Relational Free Will Defense is the claim that authentic love requires free will. Many scholars, including Gregory Boyd and Vincent Brümmer, champion this claim. Best-selling books, such as Rob Bell’s Love Wins, echo that love “cannot be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide.” The claim that love requires free will has even found expression in mainstream Hollywood films, including Frailty, Bruce Almighty, and The Adjustment Bureau.

The analysis shows convincingly that the claim that authentic love requires free will, does not meet the criteria of consistency, compatibility with Scriptural sources, and the demands of concrete encounter with problems of moral evil.

Metaethics: A Short Companion (Essentials in Christian Ethics)

In Metaethics: A Short Companion, David A. Horner and J. P. Moreland provide a primer on how to think about questions surrounding the concept of morality—its nature, status, grounding, underlying presuppositions, and philosophical commitments. From a stance rooted in moral realism, Horner and Moreland explore and evaluate the major metaethical positions on offer in the field, including expressivism, error theory, relativism, constructivism, ethical naturalism, and ethical nonnaturalism. They conclude by arguing for the rationality of a Christian worldview as a guiding metaethical position. Metaethics: A Short Companion offers a clear and concise introduction to the key concepts and debates in metaethics, providing readers with a foundation for reflecting on their own ethical beliefs and practices.

Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics

With its unique union of theory and application and its well-organized, easy-to-use design, Moral Choices has earned its place as the standard text for college ethics courses. This fourth edition offers extensive updates, revisions, and three brand new chapters all designed to help students develop a sound and current basis for making ethical decisions in today’s complex postmodern culture.

Mos Christianorum: The Roman Discourse of Exemplarity and the Jewish and Christian Language of Leadership

James Petitfils explores Jewish and Christian participation in this widespread pedagogical practice. After surveying Roman discourse on exemplary leadership, the author consults several texts, written in significantly Romanized environments, celebrating Jewish or Christian ancestral leaders (Josephus’ Antiquities 2-4, Philo’s Mosis 1-2, 1 Clement, and The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons ). He highlights their respective appropriation, adaptation, and redeployment of the Roman moral idiom on exemplary leadership in the promotion of self-consciously non-Roman ancestral exempla and languages of leadership.

Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality: Testing Religious Truth-claims

R. Scott Smith argues in a fresh way that we cannot know reality on the basis of naturalism. Moreover, the “fact-value” split has failed to serve our interests of wanting to know reality. The author provocatively argues that since we can know reality, it must be due to a non-naturalistic ontology, best explained by the fact that human knowers are made and designed by God. The book offers fresh implications for the testing of religious truth-claims, science, ethics, education, and public policy. Consequently, naturalism and the fact-value split are shown to be false, and Christian theism is shown to be true.

Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theology

It is a widely held belief that human beings are both body and soul, that our immaterial soul is distinct from our material body. But that traditional idea has been seriously questioned by much recent research in the brain sciences. In Neuroscience and the Soul fourteen distinguished scholars grapple with current debates about the existence and nature of the soul. Featuring a dialogical format, the book presents state-of-the-art work by leading philosophers and theologians—some arguing for the existence of the soul, others arguing against it—and then puts those scholars into conversation with critics of their views. Bringing philosophy, theology, and science together in this way brings to light new perspectives and advances the ongoing debate over body and soul.

Passionate Conviction: Contemporary Discourses on Christian Apologetics

Passionate Conviction brings together the most popular and heart-stirring presentations in defense of Christianity from the annual fall conference on apologetics held in association with the Evangelical Philosophical Society, the C. S. Lewis Institute, and the Christian Apologetics program at Biola University. Applicable to pastors, serious-minded lay people, and university and high school students, these twenty essays are grouped into six dynamic categories: (1) Why Apologetics? (2) God (3) Jesus (4) Comparative Religions (5) Postmodernism and Relativism (6) Practical Application.

Paul and the Giants of Philosophy: Reading the Apostle in Greco-Roman Context

What forces shaped the intellectual world of the apostle Paul? How familiar was he with the great philosophers of his age, and to what extent was he influenced by them? When he quoted Greco-Roman sources, what was his aim? Pauline scholars wrestle with such questions in journal articles and technical monographs, but now Paul and the Giants of Philosophy brings the conversation into the college classroom and the church. Each essay addresses Paul’s interaction with Greco-Roman philosophical thinking on a particular topic, such as faith, slavery, gift-giving, and the afterlife. And each chapter includes discussion questions and reading lists to help readers engage the material further. Dodson and Briones have gathered contributors with diverse views from various traditions who are united in the desire to make Paul’s engagement with ancient philosophy accessible to many readers.

Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh: New Clues for an Old Problem

Paul’s enigmatic “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians has baffled interpreters for centuries. Many offer suggestions as to the identity of Satan’s messenger; others despair that the puzzle is unsolvable. In Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh: New Clues for an Old Problem, Kenneth Berding reopens the case. He follows a trail of clues that includes ancient beliefs about curses, hints in Paul’s letters, similarities with Jesus’s suffering, and the attempts of the earliest Christian interpreters. Berding offers twenty criteria—some familiar, others neglected—that any proposals must explain.

Philosophical Essays on Divine Causation

This book discusses various aspects of God’s causal activity. Traditional theology has long held that God acts in the world and interrupts the normal course of events by performing special acts. Although the tradition is unified in affirming that God does create, conserve, and act, there is much disagreement about the details of divine activity. The chapters in this book fruitfully explore these disagreements about divine causation.

Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide

This important new volume is a combined anthology and guide intended for use as a textbook in courses on the philosophy of religion. It aims to bring to the student the very best current work on important topics in the field. The anthology is comprised of six sections, each of which opens with a substantive introductory essay followed by a selection of influential writings by prominent philosophers of religion. Philosophy of Religion provides an ideal resource for studying the central questions raised by religious belief.

Questioning the Bible: 11 Major Challenges to the Bible’s Authority

Can a thoughtful person today seriously believe that God wrote a book? There are an unprecedented number of sophisticated attacks on the origin, credibility, and reliability of the Bible. It can be difficult to know what to say when skepticism and secularism take over so many conversations. The purpose of this book is to respond to these challenges, sound bites, and slogans…and give people confidence that the Bible can be trusted and that it matters for our lives because God really has spoken.

Reading Mark in Context: Jesus and Second Temple Judaism

Over the last several decades, the Jewishness of Jesus has been at the forefront of scholarship and students of the New Testament are more than ever aware of the importance of understanding Jesus and the Gospels in their Jewish context. Reading Mark in Context helps students see the contour and texture of Jesus’ engagement with his Jewish environment. It brings together a series of accessible essays that compare and contrast viewpoints, theologies, and hermeneutical practices of Mark and his various Jewish contemporaries.

REFLECT: A Personal and Small Group Guide for Mirroring Jesus

REFLECT: A Personal and Small Group Guide for Mirroring Jesus is the personal and small-group study companion to REFLECT: Becoming Yourself by Mirroring the Greatest Person in History by Thaddeus J. Williams. Drawing on science, literature, art, theology, history, music, philosophy, pop culture, and more, REFLECT paints a fresh and inspiring vision of how we become most truly ourselves by mirroring Jesus Christ.

REFLECT: Becoming Yourself by Mirroring the Greatest Person in History

What’s the most important thing in the universe to you? What, more than anything else, permeates your thought life, pulls your heart strings, and propels your actions? Don’t fool yourself. That supreme something—whatever it may be for you—is shaping the person you are becoming, for better or for worse, turning you into someone radiant and full of life, or making you a dim and weightless ghost of yourself.   But what if we worshiped Jesus? Drawing from science, literature, art, theology, history, music, philosophy, pop culture, and more, Thaddeus J. Williams paints a fresh and inspiring vision of how we become most truly ourselves by mirroring the Greatest Person in History. See full description below.

REFLECT: Becoming Yourself by Mirroring the Greatest Person in History – Audiobook

What’s the most important thing in the universe to you? What, more than anything else, permeates your thought life, pulls your heart strings, and propels your actions? Don’t fool yourself. That supreme something—whatever it may be for you—is shaping the person you are becoming, for better or for worse, turning you into someone radiant and full of life, or making you a dim and weightless ghost of yourself.   But what if we worshiped Jesus? Drawing from science, literature, art, theology, history, music, philosophy, pop culture, and more, Thaddeus J. Williams paints a fresh and inspiring vision of how we become most truly ourselves by mirroring the Greatest Person in History. See full description below.

Reformed Dogmatics in Dialogue: The Theology of Karl Barth and Jonathan Edwards

Two Reformed giants in conversation. Edited by Uche Anizor and Kyle C. Strobel, Reformed Dogmatics in Dialogue engages Edwards and Barth for constructive dogmatics. Each chapter brings these theologians into conversation on classic theological categories, such as the doctrine of God, atonement, and ecclesiology, as well as topics of particular interest to both, such as aesthetics and philosophy.

Regeneration, Revival, and Creation

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is considered one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of evangelicalism, who also served as a pastor, missionary, and revival leader. By underscoring Regeneration, Revival, and Creation in Edwards’s thought, this volume uniquely captures the need to delve into Edwards’s theological and philosophical rationale for the revivals, alongside key questions concerning the historical context and Edwards’s standing in his own tradition.

1 3 4 5 8