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God the Almighty
paperback
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- Length: 329 pages
- Dimensions: 6 × 9 in
- Published: December 02, 2005
- Imprint: IVP Academic
- Item Code: 2753
- ISBN: 9780830827534
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The doctrine of God is receiving renewed and vigorous attention in theology. Even a cursory examination of recent scholarship reveals what leading evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch describes as "a mounting controversy over the concept of God."
God is variously portrayed as vulnerable (Jürgen Moltmann, Clark Pinnock), as lover (Norman Pittenger, Ronald Goetz), as friend (Alfred North Whitehead, Sallie McFague) and as empowerer (Rosemary Radford Ruether). Bloesch agrees that many of these proposals have some biblical merit. But what is lacking, he argues, "is a strong affirmation of the holiness and almightiness of God."
So in this volume, while Bloesch offers cogent criticisms of the classical view of God, he skillfully seeks to hold in faithful tension "the polarities that are reflected in God's nature and activity--his majesty as well as his vulnerability, his sovereignty as well as his grace, his wholly otherness as well as his unsurpassable closeness, his holiness as well as his love."
"This work will be read by all who are interested in the renewal of systematic theology in our time. It is an inspiring, balanced, instructive, rigorous inquiry."
"I haven't read any theological work as biblically and historically rich, as intellectually satisfying, or as spiritually exhilarating as Bloesch's [early volumes of Christian Foundations] since Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics."
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Preface
1. Introduction
Questionable Alternatives
The Gender Issue
The Theological Task
2. Theology's Attempt to Define God
Act and Being
Essence and Existence
Essence and Attributes
God and Necessity
Rationalism and Mysticism
Supernaturalism and Naturalism
God's Almightiness in Question
3. The Self-Revealing God
Natural Knowledge of God
God as Elector and Persuader
The Authority of Holy Scripture
4. Transcendence Immanence
Infinity and Spirituality
Immutability and Impassibility
Reinterpretations of Transcendence
Dynamic Transcendence
5. Power Wisdom
Creator and Redeemer
Lord and Ruler
Wisdom
Glory
The Problem of Evil
6. Holiness Love
Two Sides of God
Divine and Human Love
Holiness and Justice
The Call to Holiness
7. The Mystery of the Trinity
The Biblical Basis
Historical Development
Contemporary Reassessments
Restating the Trinity
Trinitarian Spirituality
Appendix A: Modern Forms of Unitarianism
Appendix B: Subordination and Equality
8. The Biblical-Classical Synthesis
The Living God and the Eternal Now
Providence and Fate
Truth as Event and Idea
Revelation and Reason
Agape and Eros
Blessedness and Happiness
Grace and Merit
Sin and Ignorance
Prayer and Contemplation
Justification and Deification
Reconciliation and Reunion
Resurrection and Immortality
9. The Biblical-Modern Synthesis
Authority and Truth
God, Humanity and the World
The New Spirituality
Worldviews in Conflict
God and Futurity
Appendix C: Open-View Theism
Epilogue
Notes
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
Index of Scripture
