Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible

Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible PDF Author: Brayton Polka
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 073919318X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible analyzes the ideas that are central to the philosophy of Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard in order to show that they are biblical in origin, both ontologically and historically. Brayton Polka argues that Schopenhauer has an altogether false conception of the fundamental ideas of the Bible—creation, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and covenantal love—and of Christianity, which leaves his philosophy irredeemably contradictory, as he himself acknowledges. The aim, then, is to show that our modern values, the values that constitute modernity, are biblical in origin. It is only when we come to understand that modernity is biblical from the beginning and that the Bible is modern unto the end that we are able to overcome the opposition, so evident today, between philosophy and theology, between reason and faith, and between the secular and the religious. Polka makes central the distinction that Kierkegaard draws between Christianity and Christendom: Christianity represents the coming into historical existence of the single individual; Christendom represents Christian values that are rationalized in pagan terms. As Kierkegaard shows us, if God has always existed eternally, then he has never existed eternally, then he has never come into historical existence for the single individual. The distinction between Christianity and Christendom is the distinction not between faith and reason, but between truth and idolatry. While theology and philosophy each represent the truth of Christianity, Schopenhauer’s idolatrous concepts of faith, no less than of reason, represent Christendom.

Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible

Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible PDF Author: Brayton Polka
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 073919318X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Get Book Here

Book Description
Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible analyzes the ideas that are central to the philosophy of Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard in order to show that they are biblical in origin, both ontologically and historically. Brayton Polka argues that Schopenhauer has an altogether false conception of the fundamental ideas of the Bible—creation, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and covenantal love—and of Christianity, which leaves his philosophy irredeemably contradictory, as he himself acknowledges. The aim, then, is to show that our modern values, the values that constitute modernity, are biblical in origin. It is only when we come to understand that modernity is biblical from the beginning and that the Bible is modern unto the end that we are able to overcome the opposition, so evident today, between philosophy and theology, between reason and faith, and between the secular and the religious. Polka makes central the distinction that Kierkegaard draws between Christianity and Christendom: Christianity represents the coming into historical existence of the single individual; Christendom represents Christian values that are rationalized in pagan terms. As Kierkegaard shows us, if God has always existed eternally, then he has never existed eternally, then he has never come into historical existence for the single individual. The distinction between Christianity and Christendom is the distinction not between faith and reason, but between truth and idolatry. While theology and philosophy each represent the truth of Christianity, Schopenhauer’s idolatrous concepts of faith, no less than of reason, represent Christendom.

Rethinking Hell

Rethinking Hell PDF Author: Christopher M. Date
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630871605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.

Modernity between Wagner and Nietzsche

Modernity between Wagner and Nietzsche PDF Author: Brayton Polka
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739193163
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Modernity between Wagner and Nietzsche analyzes the operas and writings of Wagner in order to prove that the ideas on which they are based contradict and falsify the values that are fundamental to modernity. This book also analyzes the ideas that are central to the philosophy of Nietzsche, demonstrating that the values on the basis of which he breaks with Wagner and repudiates their common mentor, Schopenhauer, are those fundamental to modernity. Brayton Polka makes use of the critical distinction that Kierkegaard draws between Christianity and Christendom. Christianity represents what Nietzsche calls the faith that is presupposed in unconditionally willing the truth in saying yes to life. Christendom, in contrast, represents the bad faith of nihilism in saying no to life. Polka then shows that Wagner, in following Schopenhauer, represents Christendom with the demonstration in his operas that life is nothing but death and death is nothing but life. In other words, the purpose of the will for Wagner is to annihilate the will, since it is only in and through death that human beings are liberated from life as willfully sinful. Nietzsche, in contrast, is consistent with the biblical concept that existence is created from nothing, from nothing that is not made in the image of God, that any claim that the will can will not to will is contradictory and hence false. For not to will is, in truth, still to will nothing. There is then, Nietzsche shows, no escape from the will. Either human beings will the truth in saying yes to life as created from nothing, or in truly willing nothing, they say no to life in worshiping the God of Christendom who is dead.

Rethinking Fundamental Theology

Rethinking Fundamental Theology PDF Author: Gerald O'Collins
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191620602
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 927

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Book Description
This book identifies the distinguishing features of fundamental theology, as distinct from philosophical theology, natural theology, apologetics, and other similar disciplines. Addressing the potential for confusion about basic Christian claims and beliefs, Gerald O'Collins sets out to relaunch fundamental theology as a discipline by presenting a coherent vision of basic theological questions and positions that lay the ground for work in specific areas of systematic theology. Rethinking Fundamental Theology examines central theological questions: about God, human experience and, specifically, religious experience; the divine revelation coming through the history of Israel and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; human faith that responds to revelation; the nature of tradition that transmits the record and reality of revelation; the structure of biblical inspiration and truth, as well as basic issues concerned with the formation of the canon; the founding of the Church with some leadership structures; the relationship between Christ's revelation and the faith of those who follow other religions. O'Collins concludes with some reflections on theological method. Written with the scholarship and accessibility for which O'Collins is known and valued, this book will relaunch fundamental theology as a distinct and necessary discipline in faculties and departments of theology and religious studies around the world.

Walk Away

Walk Away PDF Author: Lee Trepanier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498595200
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connections among these thinkers and schools and discovers the general trajectory of twentieth-century political thinking in the West.

Thinking about the Prophets

Thinking about the Prophets PDF Author: Kenneth Seeskin
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827615051
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Rethinking the great literary prophets whose ministry ran from the eighth to the sixth centuries BCE—Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Second Isaiah, and Job—Thinking about the Prophets examines their often-shocking teachings in light of their times, their influence on later Western and Jewish thinkers, and their enduring lessons for all of us. As a noted scholar of Jewish philosophy, Kenneth Seeskin teases out philosophical, ethical, and theological questions in the writings, such as the nature of moral reasoning, the divine persona, divine providence, the suffering of the innocent, the power of repentance, and what it means to believe in a monotheistic conception of God. Seeskin demonstrates that great ideas are not limited by time or place, but rather once put forth, take on a life of their own. Thus he interweaves the medieval and modern philosophers Maimonides, Kant, Cohen, Buber, Levinas, Heschel, and Soloveitchik, all of whom read the prophets and had important things to say as a result. We come to see the prophets perhaps in equal measure as divinely authorized whistle-blowers and profound thinkers of the human condition. Readers of all levels will find this volume an accessible and provoking introduction to the enduring significance of biblical prophecy.

Play Among Books

Play Among Books PDF Author: Miro Roman
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3035624054
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.

Irreconcilable Differences?

Irreconcilable Differences? PDF Author: Jason C. Robinson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498200052
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
What if philosophy, theology, and science spent a little more time together? These fields often seem at odds, butting metaphysical heads. Instead of talking at, how about talking with one another? This book engages three academic disciplines--distinct yet sharing much in common--in a slice of conversation and community in which participants have aimed at validating the other and the way the other sees the world. The result is a collection of essays united by a thread that can be hard to find in academia. In bringing together a wide range of contributors on a project that at first seemed unlikely, Irreconcilable Differences? is also a testament to the spirit of cooperation and hard work--evidence that small acts and events can make a big difference, and that sometimes all you need in order to make something good happen is an idea with a little support along the way. The editors of this collection are hopeful that its contributors and readers will keep looking for ways to bridge academic, social, and political gaps. We need to forge relationships based on personal knowledge and proper confidence seeking to make meaningful claims in an increasingly complex world.

Understanding Death as Life’s Paradox

Understanding Death as Life’s Paradox PDF Author: Brayton Polka
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527533921
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book focuses on death as life’s paradox in order to test, to put on trial, what it means for us human beings to exist. No one of us chooses to be born. Yet, having been born, we must choose to have been born, to live, to exist. To exist is to choose to exist. To choose to exist is to live with our choices. This text argues that death is the limit of life, that we can live freely and lovingly, at once justly and compassionately, solely within the limit of death. It shows that we can develop a comprehensive conception of life, and also of death, solely insofar as we learn to overcome the dualistic opposition between philosophy and theology that continues today to falsify our understanding of not only the secular, but also the sacred.

Hebrews

Hebrews PDF Author: N. T. Wright
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830821953
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 81

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Book Description
With a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart, N. T. Wright guides us through the New Testament book of Hebrews, moving us from the world in which it was lived into the world in which we must live it again. Includes twenty sessions for group or personal study.