This book examines the speculative core of Karl Barth's theology, reconsidering the relationship between theory and practice in Barth's thinking. A consequence of this reconsideration is the recognition that Barth's own account of his theological development is largely correct. Sigurd Baark draws heavily on the philosophical tradition of German Idealism, arguing that an important part of what makes Barth a speculative theologian is the way his thinking is informed by the nexus of self-consciousness, reason and, freedom, which was most fully developed by Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. The book provides a new interpretation of Barth's theology, and shows how a speculative understanding of theology is useful in today's intellectual climate.

This book offers 27 interviews with distinguished intellectuals from different fields of expertise, presenting their viewpoints about the existence and nonexistence of God, the roles of religion and science, and other related-and controversial-topics. Subjects such as spirituality, the existence of God, atheism, and the concept of one true religion are profound, incendiary topics. This collection of interviews about faith and religion will fascinate anyone-believer or nonbeliever-who is interested in the interaction of science, religion, and belief in contemporary culture. Open Questions: Diverse Thinkers Discuss God, Religion, and Faith is a compelling invitation to each of us to examine our positions on these highly charged subjects. It will both answer questions and inspire new inquiries. In the process of creating this book, author and interviewer Luis F. Rodrigues was driven by his natural and intense curiosity rather than by dogmatic or institutional bias; he had no agenda other than to fairly present multiple points of view on the widely debated topics at hand. This compilation of easy-to-read interviews with individuals like John Dominic Crossan, Dinesh D'Souza, A.C. Grayling, and James Randi will appeal to general readers as well as theologians and academics. Contributors include distinguished scholars and investigators with both religious and nonreligious worldviews New interviews, never published before, provide unique and accessible insight into the current thinking of prominent scholars Provides various viewpoints on controversial topics in a civil, respectful manner

This is an upper-level introduction to the doctrine and understanding of sin in modern theology. Christianity concerns itself with salvation. But salvation implies something from which one must be saved, as reconciliation implies an estrangement and redemption a loss. The classical theological symbol naming the problem to which salvation is the solution is sin. Interpreting the meaning of sin, however, has become difficult for two reasons: sin has become a taboo subject in popular discourse, and has acquired an extremely broad meaning in recent theology. "Sin: A Guide for the Perplexed" is intended as a mid-level, comprehensive introduction to the notion of sin and its significance for Christian theology. Nelson situates and interprets biblical material on sin, and then offers a lucid history of the doctrine. He elucidates Augustine's conception of original sin and defends it against its many caricatures. Special attention is paid to sin as an ordinary, yet highly interruptive, phenomenon in the lives of individuals. This is supplemented by a careful look at the non-individualistic dimensions of sin, and an appreciation of how sin relates to other key theological commitments. "Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

Why believe? What kinds of things do people believe in? How have they come to believe them? And how does what they believe - or disbelieve - shape their lives and the meaning the world has for them? For Graham Ward, who is one of the mostinnovative writers on contemporary religion, these questions are more than just academic. They go to the heart not only of who but of what we are as human beings. Over the last thirty years, our understandings of mind and consciousness have changed in important ways through exciting new developments in neuroscience. The author addresses this quantum shift by exploring the biology of believing. He offers sustained reflection on perception, cognition, time, emotional intelligence, knowledge and sensation. Though the 'truth' of belief remains under increasing attack, in a thoroughly secularised context, Ward boldly argues that secularity is itself a form of believing. Pointing to the places where prayer and dreams intersect, this book offers a remarkable journey through philosophy, theology and culture, thereby revealing the true nature of the human condition.

Two weeks before Christmas in 1992, author Barbara Jean Judd had a frightening, yet deeply amazing experience. While praying for guidance to make it through a particularly difficult time in her life, she fell asleep and had a near-death experience. She traveled in a dark tunnel and saw a light ahead. When she woke, her life was changed forever.

"Find the Diamond Light in You" shares Barbara Jean's dramatic story and reveals how prophetic revelations and out-of-body experiences indicate there is a God and a good Spirit in us all. After her experience, Barbara Jean began to make the connections between how certain symbols, people, and events in her life were all spiritual in nature.

In addition, she shares how she developed her gift of spiritual writing and began to explore premonitions, insights, and dreams. More and more, she realized that God was showing her important revelations as well as pointing her to the path she needed to take in her life. From her great-grandmother's passing to her vision of the Antichrist, Barbara Jean knew the Lord had blessed her with a remarkable ability to "see" His will.

"Find the Diamond Light in You" encourages a deeper connection with your inner thoughts and feelings, and shows how one woman discovered God's plan for her life.

This book presents the building blocks of Islamic economics as meso-science, offering an in-depth study of the Qur'anic worldview of the monotheistic unity of knowledge, which is the universal and unique message of Tawhid in the Qur'an. This primal ontological premise is formalised in an analytical approach that introduces and unpacks the philosophical concepts of ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology in relation to the Tawhidi methodological worldview. The analysis of Qur'anic logical consistency is then cast in a phenomenological perspective by applying the complete model of the unity of knowledge of the Qur'an in a specific study of the Tawhidi methodological approach to Islamic financial-economic theory. In doing so, it tackles the problems of meso-economics given its socio-scientific holism in world affairs. It hones in on the results of the symbiotic modulation of evolutionary learning processes in the world system of the unity of knowledge and its material embedding across knowledge, and knowledge-induced space and time dimensions. The author poses that Shari'ah is only partial in its scope, and excludes an analytical methodological worldview. Shari'ah is thus cast in the midst of a meso-socio-scientific absence of any appertaining methodology. The book is a landmark work in the conceptual and applied understanding of Tawhid as the methodological worldview of the monotheistic unity of knowledge in the meso-socio-scientific realm of 'everything', particularised to Islamic economics. Adopting an inter-disciplinary view integrating various fields, it challenges pervasive Western academic and institutional thinking in terms of economics. It will be of interest to students and researchers in Islamic economics, religious theory, Islamic philosophy, development studies, and finance.

This volume aims to inspire a return to the energetics of Nietzsche's prose and the critical intensity of his approach to nihilism and to give back to the future its rightful futurity. The book states that for too long contemporary thought has been dominated by a depressed what is to be done?. All is regarded to be in vain, nothing is deemed real, there is nothing new seen under the sun. Such a postmodern lament is easily confounded with an apathetic reluctance to think engagedly. Hence the contributors draw on the variety of topical issues - the future of life, the nature of life forms, the techno sciences, the body, religion - as a way of tackling the question of nihilism's pertinence to us now.

This book is dedicated to an analysis of the writings of modern religious Jewish thinkers who adopted a neo-fundamentalist, illusionary, apologetic approach, opposing the notion that there may sometimes be a contradiction between reason and revelation. The book deals with the thought of Eliezer Goldman, Norman Lamm, David Hartman, Aharon Lichtenstein, Jonathan Sacks, and Michael Abraham. According to these thinkers, it is possible to resolve all of the difficulties that arise from the encounter between religion and science, between reason and revelation, between the morality of halakhah and Western morality, between academic scholarship and tradition, and between scientific discoveries and statements found in the Torah. This position runs counter to the stance of other Jewish thinkers who espouse a different, more daring approach. According to the latter view, irresolvable contradictions between reason and faith sometimes face the modern Jewish believer, who must reconcile himself to these two conflicting truths and learn to live with them. This dialectic position was discussed in Between Religion and Reason, Part I (Academic Studies Press, 2020). The present volume, Part II, completes the discussion of this topic. This book concludes a trilogy of works by the author dealing with modern Jewish thought that attempts to integrate tradition and modernity. The first in the series was The Middle Way (Academic Studies Press, 2014), followed by The Dual Truth (Academic Studies Press, 2018).

Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era, however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws, norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary heritage and its cultural context. This volume of collected essays seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings. Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser, Serge Ruzer, Cana Werman, and Carsten Wilke.

Why is the philosopher Hegel returning as a potent force in contemporary thinking? Why, after a long period when Hegel and his dialectics of history have seemed less compelling than they were for previous generations of philosophers, is study of Hegel again becoming important? Fashionable contemporary theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Slavoj Zizek, as well as radical theologians like Thomas Altizer, have all recently been influenced by Hegel, the philosopher whose philosophy now seems somehow perennial- or, to borrow an idea from Nietzsche-eternally returning. Exploring this revival via the notion of 'negation' in Hegelian thought, and relating such negativity to sophisticated ideas about art and artistic creation, Andrew W. Hass argues that the notion of Hegelian negation moves us into an expansive territory where art, religion and philosophy may all be radically conceived and broken open into new forms of philosophical expression. The implications of such a revived Hegelian philosophy are, the author argues, vast and current. Hegel thereby becomes the philosopher par excellence who can address vital issues in politics, economics, war and violence, leading to a new form of globalised ethics. Hass makes a bold and original contribution to religion, philosophy, art and the history of ideas.

This book challenges the widespread assumption that the ethical life and society must be moral in any objective sense. In his previous works, Marks has rejected both the existence of such a morality and the need to maintain verbal, attitudinal, practical, and institutional remnants of belief in it. This book develops these ideas further, with emphasis on constructing a positive alternative. Calling it "desirism", Marks illustrates what life and the world would be like if we lived in accordance with our rational desires rather than the dictates of any actual or pretend morality, neither overlaying our desires with moral sanction nor attempting to override them with moral strictures. Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire also argues that atheism thereby becomes more plausible than the so-called New Atheism that attempts to give up God and yet retain morality.

The brilliant and ground-breaking mimetic theory of the French-American theorist Rene Girard (1923-2015)has gained wide-ranging recognition, yet its development has received less attention. This volume presents the important correspondence-conducted in French and as yet unpublished, let alone translated into English-between Girard and his major theological interlocutor Raymund Schwager SJ (1935-2004). It presents the personal relationship between two great thinkers that led to the development of a significant break-through in the humanities. In particular it reveals the theological development of Girard's thought in dialogue with Schwager, who was concerned to assist Girard in areas where he had little expertise and had encountered major criticism, such as the theological application of sacrifice. These issues in particular had placed major barriers to Girard's acceptance in theological circles. These letters reveal how Girard, with Schwager's help, entered the mainstream of theological debate.

Provides an overview of the complex history of the interaction of science and religion. Can science and religious belief co-exist? Many people - including many practicing scientists - insist that one can simultaneously follow the principles of the scientific method and believe in a particular spiritual tradition. But throughout history there have been people for whom science challenges the very validity of religious belief. Whether called atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or infidels, these individuals use the naturalism of modern science to deny the existence of any supernatural power. This book chronicles, in a balanced and accessible way, the long history of the battle between adherents of religious doctrines and the nonbelievers who adhere to the naturalism of modern science. Science and Nonbelief provides a nontechnical introduction to the leading questions that concern science and religion today: what place does evolution hold in the arguments of nonbelievers?; what does modern physics tell us about the place of humanity in the natural world?; how do modern neurosciences challenge traditional beliefs about mind and matter?; what can scientific research about religion tell us and psychics? The volume also addresses the political context of debates over science and nonbelief, and questions about the nature of morality. It includes a selection of provocative primary source documents that illustrate the complexity and varieties of nonbelief. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion series, this book includes a discussion of scientific attitudes to pseudo-science and the paranormal. A primary source section illustrates views on the relationship between science and belief. It adopts a balanced approach to the questions raised.