This study presents Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of the Eucharist and shows its significance for contemporary sacramental theology. Anyone who seeks to offer a systematic account of Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of the Eucharist and the liturgy is confronted with at least two obstacles. First, his reflections on the Eucharist are scattered throughout an immense and complex corpus of writings. Second, the most distinctive feature of his theology of the Eucharist is the inseparability of his sacramental theology from his speculative account of the central mysteries of the Christian faith. In The Eucharistic Form of God, the first book-length study to explore Balthasar's eucharistic theology in English, Jonathan Martin Ciraulo brings together the fields of liturgical studies, sacramental theology, and systematic theology to examine both how the Eucharist functions in Balthasar's theology in general and how it is in fact generative of his most unique and consequential theological positions. He demonstrates that Balthasar is a eucharistic theologian of the highest caliber, and that his contributions to sacramental theology, although little acknowledged today, have enormous potential to reshape many discussions in the field. The chapters cover a range of themes not often included in sacramental theology, including the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and soteriology. In addition to treating Balthasar's own sources-Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Pascal, Catherine of Siena, and Bernanos-Ciraulo brings Balthasar into conversation with contemporary Catholic sacramental theology, including the work of Louis-Marie Chauvet and Jean-Yves Lacoste. The overall result is a demanding but satisfying presentation of Balthasar's contribution to sacramental theology. The audience for this volume is students and scholars who are interested in Balthasar's thought as well as theologians who are working in the area of sacramental and liturgical theology.

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 This volume presents the important correspondence-conducted in French and as yet unpublished, let alone translated into English-between Girard and his major theological interlocutor Raymund Schwager SJ (1935-2004).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.

A collection of essays by experts in the field, exploring how nature works at every level to produce more complex and highly organized objects, systems, and organisms from much simpler components, and how our increasing understanding of this universal phenomenon of emergence can lead us to a deeper and richer appreciation of who we are as human beings and of our relationship to God. Several chapters introduce the key philosophical ideas about reductionism and emergence, while others explore the fascinating world of emergent phenomena in physics, biology, and the neurosciences. Finally there are contributions probing the meaning and significance of these findings for our general description of the world and ourselves in relation to God, from philosophy and theology. The collection as a whole will extend the mutual creative interaction among the sciences, philosophy, and theology.

The first publication of Beverley Clack and Brian R. Clack's exciting and innovative introduction to the philosophy of religion has been of enormous value to students, as well as providing a bold and refreshing alternative to the standard analytic approaches to the subject. This second edition retains the accessibility which made it popular for both teachers and students, while furthering its distinctive argument that emphasises the human dimension of religion.
The text has been fully revised and updated. The traditional emphasis on the arguments for the existence of God is reflected in a newly extended and reworked investigation into natural theology. Recent developments in the subject are also reflected in updated chapters, and, in a move that highlights the originality of the authors' approach, they offer a critical engagement with current world events. An entirely new concluding chapter interrogates the connection between religion and terror, and demonstrates how philosophy of religion might be conducted under the terrible shadow of 9/11.
This new edition of The Philosophy of Religion will continue to be essential reading for all students and practitioners of the subject.

In The Phenomenology of Religious Belief, the renowned philosopher Michael J. Shapiro investigates how art - and in particular literature and film - can impact upon both traditional interpretations and critical studies of religious beliefs and experiences. In doing so, he examines the work of prolific and award-winning writers such as Toni Morrison, Philip K. Dick and Robert Coover. By placing their work in conjunction with critical analyses of media by the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Pier Paolo Pasolini and combining it with the work of groundbreaking thinkers such as George Canguilhem, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek, Shapiro takes a truly interdisciplinary approach to the question of how life should be lived. His assessment of phenomenological subjectivity also leads him to question the nature of political theology and extend the criticism of Pauline theology.

His name is David Riley, a man challenged by his dream, his ambition and even his faith. In his efforts to provide a service to his clients, he finds himself in a place where being different means being suspect. His colleagues call him a fool. His family and friends say he has too much compassion for a nation of people who don't give his practice much respect and the woman he loves supports him the least when he needs her the most. Something terrible is about to happen to him. He finds himself in dire circumstances as his world starts coming apart at the seams. Circumstances that threaten to ruin everything he's worked for and stands for. Can a man have compassion or is the price too high? Can a man live by faith alone? The gripping yet inspiring story author Norton Helton tells in All Things Are Possible asks these questions and explores the dim side of the legal practice. Norton Helton's first novel signals the emergence of an exciting new writer. All Things Are Possible is among the first contemporary novels that go inside the legal practice- where having compassion and faith means being different.

The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies, and biblical interpretation. Introduced by Mark Wallace, the twenty-one papers collected in this volume-some familiar, many translated here for the first time-constitute the most comprehensive anthology of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. The writings are thematically divided into five parts: the study of religion philosophers of religion the Bible and genre theological overtures practical theology Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his deep sensitivity to the mystery and power of religious language offer fresh insight into the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.

This title offers a critique of rationalism in contemporary American thought by recovering a lost tradition of intimacy in the writings of Thoreau, Bugbee, James, Arendt, Dickinson, Fuller, Wilshire and Cavell. "The Loss of Intimacy in American Thought" focuses on a number of American philosophers whose work overlaps the religious and the literary. Henry David Thoreau, Henry Bugbee, Hannah Arendt, Bruce Wilshire and Stanley Cavell are included, as well as Henry James, whose novels are treated as presenting an implicit moral philosophy. The chapters are linked by a concern for lost intimacy with the natural world and others. The early Marx would see this as the alienations in industrial societies of persons from nature, from the processes of work, from each other, and from themselves. Weber might call it the disenchantment of the world. In any case, it is a condition that forms a focus of concern for Thoreau, Bugbee, Arendt, Cavell and Wilshire as well as writers such Henry James, Dickinson and Margaret Fuller. These writers hold out a hope for closing the gaps that sustain alienations of multiple sorts and Mooney brings them into critical discourse with the secularised and constricted rationalism of contemporary analytic philosophy. The latter exalts 'objectivity' and encourages the approach that one should adopt a third person view on everything, dividing the world into rigid binary oppositions: self/other; mind/matter; human/animal; religious/secular; fact/value; rational/irrational; and, enlightened/indigenous. By contrast, each of the thinkers that Mooney discusses see writing as a way of saving the object of attention from neglect or misplaced appropriation, outright attack, or occlusion. His aim is to recognise the importance of non-argumentative forms of address in these American thinkers. The method he employs is analysis of particular texts and passages that exhibit a generous, often poetic or lyrical discernment of worth in the world. It is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of any one thinker or theme, but a set of case studies, as it were, or a set of particular explorations, each self-sufficient yet resonating with its companion pieces. Mooney's objective is to spark interest in those who are ready to recover Thoreau and Emerson and Bugbee for the sort of American tradition that Cavell has sought to discover and rejuvenate; the tradition, as Mooney puts it, of 'American Intimates'.

The endeavour to prove God's existence through rational argumentation was an integral part of classical Islamic theology (kalam) and philosophy (falsafa), thus the frequently articulated assumption in the academic literature. The Islamic discourse in question is then often compared to the discourse on arguments for God's existence in the western tradition, not only in terms of its objectives but also in terms of the arguments used: Islamic thinkers, too, put forward arguments that have been labelled as cosmological, teleological, and ontological. This book, however, argues that arguments for God's existence are absent from the theological and philosophical works of the classical Islamic era. This is not to say that the arguments encountered there are flawed arguments for God's existence. Rather, it means that the arguments under consideration serve a different purpose than to prove that God exists. Through a close reading of the works of several mutakallimun and falasifa from the 3rd-7th/9th-13th century, such as al-Baqillani and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi as well as Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, this book proffers a re-evaluation of the discourse in question, and it suggests what its participants sought to prove if it is not that God exists.

If you're a Dan Brown fan, you'll want to read, The Secret Behind the Cross and Crucifix. Author Nwaocha Ogechukwu has written an easy to read, enlightening and academically sound book regarding the symbolism and meaning of the cross in relation to religion. Ogechukwu gives historical accounts of Christianity's cover up of what the cross truly is: a satanic symbol. "For centuries after Christ, the church and other religions that use cruciform symbols have misrepresented the physical nature of Christ's death with a satanic symbol (cross), and a pagan idol (corpus). This secret has been concealed by the church for centuries after Christ." Ogechukwu's research leads to a stunning conclusion as it explores to understand the real nature of Christ's death, religion's role in the symbolism, and to release humankind from the "painful knowledge bondage" of cruciform propaganda. Nwaocha Ogechukwu is a graduate of medical science, member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and a researcher in philosophy, religion, history, and psychology. Nominated as "One of the Great Minds of the 21st Century," by the American Biographical Institute, Mr. Ogechukwu lives in Nigeria. The Secret Behind the Cross and Crucifix is his second novel. He is currently working on his third book and fourth books.

F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854) stands alongside J.G. Fichte and G.W.F. Hegel as one of the great philosophers of the German idealist tradition. The Schelling Reader introduces students to Schelling's philosophy by guiding them through the first ever English-language anthology of his key texts-an anthology which showcases the vast array of his interests and concerns (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of nature, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion and mythology, and political philosophy). The reader includes the most important passages from all of Schelling's major works as well as lesser-known yet illuminating lectures and essays, revealing a philosopher rigorously and boldly grappling with some of the most difficult philosophical problems for over six decades, and constantly modifying and correcting his earlier thought in light of new insights. Schelling's evolving philosophies have often presented formidable challenges to the teaching of his thought. For the first time, The Schelling Reader arranges readings from his work thematically, so as to bring to the fore the basic continuity in his trajectory, as well as the varied ways he tackles perennial problems. Each of the twelve chapters includes sustained readings that span the whole of Schelling's career, along with explanatory notes and an editorial introduction that introduces the main themes, arguments, and questions at stake in the text. The Editors' Introduction to the volume as a whole also provides important details on the context of Schelling's life and work to help students effectively engage with the material.

Can human beings be free and responsible if there is a God? Anselm of Canterbury, the first Christian philosopher to propose that human beings have a really robust free will, offers viable answers to questions which have plagued religious people for at least two thousand years: If divine grace cannot be merited and is necessary to save fallen humanity, how can there be any decisive role for individual free choice to play? If God knows today what you are going to choose tomorrow, then when tomorrow comes you have to choose what God foreknew, so how can your choice be free? If human beings must have the option to choose between good and evil in order to be morally responsible, must God be able to choose evil? Anselm answers these questions with a sophisticated theory of free will which defends both human freedom and the sovereignty and goodness of God.

This anthology brings together over a dozen articles published by David Nimmer over the past decade regarding copyright, together with updated commentary weaving together the various threads running through them. The Unifying theme running through the work is the need to reconcile standards in order to protect that most ethereal creation of mankind: the written word. From that unique vantage pointy the discussion delves into the religious roots and sacred character of the act of creation. Religion and copyright are brought into resonance as issues from one field are deployed to illuminate those in the other. Given its culminating focus on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act this work of necessity drills deeply into current advances in technology, notably the dissemination of works over the internet. The religious perspective shines an unexpected light onto those issues as well.

Every version of the argument from evil requires a premise concerning God's motivation - about the actions that God is motivated to perform or the states of affairs that God is motivated to bring about. The typical source of this premise is a conviction that God is, obviously, morally perfect, where God's moral perfection consists in God's being motivated to act in accordance with the norms of morality by which both we and God are governed. The aim of God's Own Ethics is to challenge this understanding by giving arguments against this view of God as morally perfect and by offering an alternative account of what God's own ethics is like. According to this alternative account, God is in no way required to promote the well-being of sentient creatures, though God may rationally do so. Any norms of conduct that favor the promotion of creaturely well-being that govern God's conduct are norms that are contingently self-imposed by God. This revised understanding of divine ethics should lead us to revise sharply downward our assessment of the force of the argument from evil while leaving intact our conception of God as an absolutely perfect being, supremely worthy of worship.

Lowell Streiker, a longtime expert on free church movements and cults, examines a vital and growing free church movement--an impressive movement that is yet largely unknown. Founded in Norway more than 90 years ago, it is a church without membership rolls, clergy, central administration, tithing, or even a name. Outsiders call them Smith's Friends after their founder, Johan Oscar Smith. On a worldwide basis, some 30,000 people participate in more than 200 churches in 50 countries.

As a phenomenologist of religion, Streiker attempts to be descriptive, analytic, and constructively critical. In order to set Smith's Friends in historical, social, and religious perspectives, he first examines their similarities to and differences from earlier Norwegian revival movements. He then provides a detailed phenomenological report on Smith's Friends, based on field study in America and Europe. He examines their worship, hymnody, theology, and their everyday way of life. As a friendly critic, Streiker entertains the hope that Smith's Friends will come out of their small-church shell and actively engage Christendom and the world. If they do, Streiker believes we would all be better impressed by the influence of this extremely positive force for spiritual renewal. Streiker's examination presents an important study for scholars of religion, sociologists, psychologists, historians, and the general public concerned with modern religious life.