Naturalistic ethics is the reigning paradigm among contemporary ethicists; in God and Cosmos, Baggett and Walls argue that this approach is seriously flawed. This book canvasses a broad array of secular and naturalistic ethical theories in an effort to test their adequacy in accounting for moral duties, intrinsic human value, prospects for radical moral transformation, and the rationality of morality. In each case, the authors argue, although various secular accounts provide real insights and indeed share common ground with theistic ethics, the resources of classical theism and orthodox Christianity provide the better explanation of the moral realities under consideration. Among such realities is the fundamental insight behind the problem of evil, namely, that the world is not as it should be. Baggett and Walls argue that God and the world, taken together, exhibit superior explanatory scope and power for morality classically construed, without the need to water down the categories of morality, the import of human value, the prescriptive strength of moral obligations, or the deliverances of the logic, language, and phenomenology of moral experience. This book thus provides a cogent moral argument for God's existence, one that is abductive, teleological, and cumulative.

This book raises in a new way a central question of Christology: what is the divine motive for the incarnation? Throughout Christian history a majority of Western theologians have agreed that God's decision to become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was made necessary by "the Fall": if humans had not sinned, the incarnation would not have happened. This position is known as "infralapsarian." A minority of theologians however, including some major 19th- and 20th-century theological figures, championed a "supralapsarian" Christology, arguing that God has always intended the incarnation, independent of "the Fall."
Edwin Chr. van Driel offers the first scholarly monograph to map and analyze the full range of supralapsarian arguments. He gives a thick description of each argument and its theological consequences, and evaluates the theological gains and losses inherent in each approach. Van Driel shows that each of the three ways in which God is thought to relate to all that is not God -- in creation, in redemption, and in eschatological consummation -- can serve as the basis for a supralapsarian argument. He illustrates this thesis with detailed case studies of the Christologies of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth. He concludes that the most fruitful supralapsarian strategy is rooted in the notion of eschatological consummation, taking interpersonal interaction with God to be the goal of the incarnation. He goes on to develop his own argument along these lines, concluding in an eschatological vision in which God is visually, audibly, and tangibly present in the midst of God's people.

Panentheism has gained popularity among contemporary thinkers. This belief system explains that "all is in God"; as a soul is related to a body, so God is related to the world. In "Panentheism--The Other God of the Philosophers," philosopher and theologian John Cooper traces the growth and evolution of this intricate theology from Plotinus to Alfred North Whitehead to the present.
This landmark book--the first complete history of panentheism written in English--explores the subject through the lens of various thinkers, such as Plato, Jurgen Moltmann, Paul Tillich, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Charles Hartshorne, and discusses how panentheism has influenced liberation, feminist, and ecological theologies. Cooper not only sketches the evolution of panentheism but also critiques it; ultimately, he offers a defense of classical theism. This book is for readers who care deeply about theology and think seriously about their faith.

"My desire is that this book may help readers to know more fully the God of biblical revelation and, as a result, to proclaim God as the God of life". Who is God? Where is God? How are we to speak of God? Gutierrez looks at these classic questions through a review of the Bible, and his answers challenge all Christians to a deepening of faith.

Theology is the discipline that mainly explores what it means to know God. This book therefore explores the topic Knowing God, from an interdisciplinary theological perspective, against the backdrop of celebrating 500 years of Reformation which was celebrated in 2017. Approaching the issue from the perspectives of their respective theological disciplines, scholars ask what it means to know God, how people of faith have sought to know God in the past, and indeed whether, or to what extent, such knowledge is even possible. The project team approached scholars from different disciplines in theology, affiliated with the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven in Belgium, to reflect on the topic. This provided the faculty with the opportunity for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration and reflection as we attempted to look at the same topic from the vantage point of our own subject and expertise. Although we all come from the same institution, and are bounded by our common motto Fides Quaerens Intellectum, we have allowed ourselves to roam freely within the flats of the castle of theological inquiry and have enjoyed meeting each other in the courtyard and beautiful gardens on the occasion of our interdisciplinary seminars each year. The authors do not promise to provide in this book a coherently designed interdisciplinary approach. The authors promise to show you the beauty of each of our disciplinary rooms within the castle. The authors also show you their own dialogicality, and even paradox, but also their own dialogical harmony. This book will be of utmost value to anyone seeking to explore the question of 'Knowing God', or even the 'Knowability of God', from the perspective of all the main classical subdisciplines in theology (e.g. Old and New Testament Studies; Church History; Systematic Theology; Practical Theology and Missiology).

In The Life and Work of Ernesto de Martino: Italian Perspectives on Apocalypse and Rebirth in the Modern Study of Religion, Flavio A. Geisshuesler offers a comprehensive study of one of Italy's most colorful historians of religions. The book inserts de Martino's dramatic life trajectory within the intellectual climate and the socio-political context of his age in order to offer a fresh perspective on the evolution of the discipline of religious studies during the 20th century. Demonstrating that scholarship on religion was animated by moments of fear of the apocalypse, it brings de Martino's perspective into conversation with Mircea Eliade, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Clifford Geertz in order to recover an Italian approach that promises to redeem religious studies as a relevant and revitalizing field of research in the contemporary climate of crisis.

Biblical scholarship today is divided between two mutually exclusive concepts of the emergence of monotheism: an early-monotheistic Yahwism paradigm and a native-pantheon paradigm. This study identifies five main stages on Israel's journey towards monotheism. Rather than deciding whether Yahweh was originally a god of the Baal-type or of the El-type, this work shuns origins and focuses instead on the first period for which there are abundant sources, the Omride era. Non-biblical sources depict a significantly different situation from the Baalism the Elijah cycle ascribes to King Achab. The novelty of the present study is to take this paradox seriously and identify the Omride dynasty as the first stage in the rise of Yahweh as the main god of Israel. Why Jerusalem later painted the Omrides as anti-Yahweh idolaters is then explained as the need to distance itself from the near-by sanctuary of Bethel by assuming the Omride heritage without admitting its northern Israelite origins. The contribution of the Priestly document and of Deutero-Isaiah during the Persian era comprise the next phase, before the strict Yahwism achieved in Daniel 7 completes the emergence of biblical Yahwism as a truly monotheistic religion.

For centuries, philosophers have addressed the ontological question of whether God exists. Most recently, philosophers have begun to explore the axiological question of what value impact, if any, God's existence has (or would have) on our world. This book brings together four prestigious philosophers, Michael Almeida, Travis Dumsday, Perry Hendricks and Graham Oppy, to present different views on the axiological question about God. Each contributor expresses a position on axiology, which is then met with responses from the remaining contributors. This structure makes for genuine discussion and developed exploration of the key issues at stake, and shows that the axiological question is more complicated than it first appears. Chapters explore a range of relevant issues, including the relationship between Judeo-Christian theism and non-naturalist alternatives such as pantheism, polytheism, and animism/panpsychism. Further chapters consider the attitudes and emotions of atheists within the theism conversation, and develop and evaluate the best arguments for doxastic pro-theism and doxastic anti-theism. Of interest to those working on philosophy of religion, theism and ethics, this book presents lively accounts of an important topic in an exciting and collaborative way, offered by renowned experts in this area.

The ancient religious thinker Tertullian asked: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?", implying that faith and philosophy have nothing to say to each other. The history of this dialogue has shaped the intellectual dialogue from the very beginning right up to the present. In this book, Jerry H. Gill has traced the dynamics of this dialogue and in the conclusion he has offered his own answer to the questions it raises.

This book offers a welcome solution to the growing need for a common language in interfaith dialogue; particularly between the three Abrahamic faiths in our modern pluralistic society. The book suggests that the names given to God in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran, could be the very foundations and building blocks for a common language between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths. On both a formal interfaith level, as well as between everyday followers of each doctrine, this book facilitates a more fruitful and universal understanding and respect of each sacred text; exploring both the commonalities and differences between the each theology and their individual receptions. In a practical application of the methodologies of comparative theology, Maire Byrne shows that the titles, names and epithets given to God in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam contribute towards similar images of God in each case, and elucidates the importance of this for providing a viable starting point for interfaith dialogue.

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology is the first collection to consider the full breadth of natural theology from both historical and contemporary perspectives and to bring together leading scholars to offer accessible high-level accounts of the major themes. The volume embodies and develops the recent revival of interest in natural theology as a topic of serious critical engagement. Frequently misunderstood or polemicized, natural theology is an under-studied yet persistent and pervasive presence throughout the history of thought about ultimate reality - from the classical Greek theology of the philosophers to twenty-first century debates in science and religion. Of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this authoritative handbook draws on the very best of contemporary scholarship to present a critical overview of the subject area. Thirty eight new essays trace the transformations of natural theology in different historical and religious contexts, the place of natural theology in different philosophical traditions and diverse scientific disciplines, and the various cultural and aesthetic approaches to natural theology to reveal a rich seam of multi-faceted theological reflection rooted in human nature and the environments within which we find ourselves.

In this book Jaco Gericke is concerned with different ways of approaching the question of what, according to the Hebrew Bible, a god was assumed to be. As a supplement to the tradition of predominantly linguistic, historical, literary, comparative, social-scientific and related ways of looking at the research problem, Gericke offers a variety of experimental philosophical perspectives that aim to take a step back from the scholarly discussion as it has unfolded hitherto in order to provide a new type of worry when looking at the riddle of what the biblical texts assumed made a god divine. Consisting of a brief history of philosophical interpretations of the concepts of whatness and essence from Socrates to Derrida, the relevant ideas are adapted and reapplied to look at some interesting metaphysical oddities arising from generic uses of elohim/el/eloah as common noun in the Hebrew Bible. As such the study seeks to be a prolegomenon to all future research in that, instead of answering the question regarding a supposed nature of divinity, it aims to complicate it beyond expectation. In this way a case is made for a more nuanced and indeterminate manner of constructing the problem of what it meant to call something a god.

Steven J. Duby examines the doctrine of divine simplicity. This discussion is centered around the three distinguishing features: grounding in biblical exegesis, use of Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed Orthodox; and the writings of modern systematic and philosophical theologians. Duby outlines the general history of the Christian doctrine of divine simplicity and discusses the methodological traits and essential contents of the dogmatic account. He substantiates the claims of the doctrine of divine simplicity by demonstrating that they are implied and required by the scriptural account of God. Duby considers how simplicity is inferred from God's singularity and aseity, as well as how it is inferred from God's immutability and infinity, and the Christian doctrine of creation. The discussion ends with the response to major objections to simplicity, namely that the doctrine does not pay heed to the plurality of the divine attributes, that it eradicates God's freedom in creating the world and acting toward us; and that it does not cohere with the personal distinctions to be made in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Using a thorough, integrated biblical theology to make sense of the 'master story' of Scripture, Allan J. McNicol explores the nature and importance of the Bible's abiding narrative of the persistence of God's promises to his people, and their hope of final triumph. Special attention is given to the often contentious claim that these early followers of Jesus presumed that they stood in full continuity with Israel, the historic people of God, and were claiming that many of God's promises were coming to fulfilment among them. McNicol presents a closer analysis of the texts as he shows how the theme of the people of God fits into the wider literary productions of these major New Testament writers.

‘In the beginning was the Word,’ says the Gospel of John. This sentence – and the words of all four gospels – is central to the teachings of the Christian church and has shaped Western art, literature and language, and the Western mind. Yet in the years after the death of Christ there was not merely one word, nor any consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. There were many different Jesuses, among them the aggressive Jesus who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead. Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviours, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable – even heretical – and they faded from view. Now, in Heretic, Catherine Nixey tells their extraordinary story, one of contingency, chance and plurality. It is a story about what might have been.

The late Bishop John A T Robinson wrote this book early on in his life but it was never published. This book is considered to be of such scholarly importance and so key to an understanding of Robinson's theology that it is now published in full. In 1960, Eric Mascall the Oxford Theologian published a book called "He Who Is", a neo-Thomist approach to the existence of God. This ran against all that Robinson believed most deeply about belief in God - influenced as he was by the new wave of German theologians. Bultmann, Buber but above all Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This book was his response to Mascall and hence the title. This book is about the notion of personality and it's relation to Christian theology, with particular reference to the contemporary "I-Thou Philosophy" of Martin Buber and it's relation to the doctrine of "The Trinity" and "The Person of Christ." This book was unquestionably the foundation of John A T Robinson theological work. Barth, Brunner, Berdayev, Kierkegaard, Heim and Mc Murray all had an influence on this book (as the reader will quickly observe). But at the heart of Robinson's thinking was Buber's small but seminal volume "I and Thou". More than anyone else, Robinson integrated the insights of Buber philosophy with the biblical doctrines of God and man. It was in this way that Robinson in this book explored both the history and implications of this tradition of thought of how one could speak of personality in God rather than God as a person. In this book Robinson began to work as a theologian as he meant to go on: questioning accepted doctrine, stripping away, getting to the heart, re-interpreting. He was in Karl Barth's great phrase taking rational trouble over the mystery.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's dramatic biography, a son of privilege who suffered imprisonment and execution after involving himself in a conspiracy to kill Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich, has helped make him one of the most influential Christian figures of the twentieth century. But before he was known as a martyr or a hero, he was a student and teacher of theology. This book examines the academic formation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, arguing that the young Bonhoeffer reinterpreted for a modern intellectual context the Lutheran understanding of the 'person' of Jesus Christ. In the process, Bonhoeffer not only distinguished himself from both Karl Barth and Karl Holl, whose dialectical theology and Luther interpretation respectively were two of the most important post-World War I theological movements, but also established the basic character of his own 'person-theology.' Barth convinces Bonhoeffer that theology must understand revelation as originating outside the human self in God's freedom. But whereas Barth understands revelation as the act of an eternal divine subject, Bonhoeffer treats revelation as the act and being of the historical person of Jesus Christ. On the basis of this person-concept of revelation, Bonhoeffer rejects Barth's dialectical thought, designed to respect the distinction between God and world, for a hermeneutical way of thinking that begins with the reconciliation of God and world in the person of Christ. Here Bonhoeffer mines a Lutheran understanding of the incarnation as God's unreserved entry into history, and the person of Christ as the resulting historical reconciliation of opposites. This also distinguishes Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism from that of Karl Holl, one of Bonhoeffer's teachers in Berlin, whose location of justification in the conscience renders the presence of Christ superfluous. Against this, Bonhoeffer emphasizes the present person of Christ as the precondition of justification. Through these critical conversations, Bonhoeffer develops the features of his person-theology -- a person-concept of revelation and a hermeneutical way of thinking -- which remain constant despite the sometimes radical changes in his thought.