|
Books > Religion & Spirituality > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Theology
The Re-enchantment of the World is a philosophical exploration of
the role of art and religion as sources of meaning in an
increasingly material world dominated by science. Gordon Graham
takes as his starting point Max Weber's idea that contemporary
Western culture is marked by a "disenchantment of the world"--the
loss of spiritual value in the wake of religion's decline and the
triumph of the physical and biological sciences. Relating themes in
Hegel, Nietzsche, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, and Gadamer to
topics in contemporary philosophy of the arts, Graham explores the
idea that art, now freed from its previous service to religion, has
the potential to re-enchant the world. In so doing, he develops an
argument that draws on the strengths of both "analytical" and
"continental" traditions of philosophical reflection.
The opening chapter examines ways in which human lives can be made
meaningful as a background to the debates surrounding
secularization and secularism. Subsequent chapters are devoted to
painting, literature, music, architecture, and festival with
special attention given to Surrealism, 19th-century fiction, James
Joyce, the music of J. S. Bach and the operas of Wagner. Graham
concludes that that only religion properly so called can "enchant
the world," and that modern art's ambition to do so fails.
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).
Christians agree that they are saved through the death and
resurrection of Christ. But how is the atonement achieved in these
events? This book offers an introduction to the doctrine of the
atonement focused on the unity and diversity of the work of Christ.
Johnson reorients current patterns of thought concerning Christ's
work by giving the reader a unifying vision of the immensely rich
and diverse doctrine of the atonement, offering a sampling of its
treasures, and cultivating the desire to further understand and
apply these riches to everyday life. Where introductions to the
atonement typically favor one aspect of the work of Christ, or work
with a set number of themes, aspects or theories, this book takes
the opposite approach, developing the foundation for the
multi-faceted nature of Christ's work within the being of God
himself. It offers a grand unifying vision of Christ's manifold
work. Specific elaborations of different theories of the atonement,
biblical themes, and the work of different theologians find their
place within this larger rubric.
This book looks to the rich and varied Islamic tradition for
insights into what it means to be human and, by implication, what
this can tell us about the future human. The transhumanist
movement, in its more radical expression, sees Homo sapiens as the
cousin, perhaps the poorer cousin, of a new Humanity 2.0: 'Man' is
replaced by 'Superman'. The contribution that Islam can make to
this movement concerns the central question of what this 'Superman'
- or 'Supermuslim' - would actually entail. To look at what Islam
can contribute we need not restrict ourselves to the Qur'an and the
legal tradition, but also reach out to its philosophical and
literary corpus. Roy Jackson focuses on such contributions from
Muslim philosophy, science, and literature to see how Islam can
confront and respond to the challenges raised by the growing
movement of transhumanism.
|
|