The world is so wonderfully designed. Only by blatant dishonesty can anyone doubt there must be a designer:- God. There is nothing manufactured without purpose. God claims responsibility for all creation, and has a purpose and predetermined plan for all. Nothing happens on Earth without the permissive will of God. None of us chose to be born. God decided who should be born, where and how long one can live, at the end of which is judgment. The mysteries of life are resolved through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the only prescribed way. Avoid religion, a man-made deception agent.
"We trust in the linear, forever the same shape of the past, until eternity. But the diffrences between the past, presence and future are nothing but an illusion."
Predestination has been the subject of perennial controversy among Christians, although in recent years theologians have shied away from it as a divisive and unedifying topic. In this book Matthew Levering argues that Christian theological reflection needs to continue to return to the topic of predestination, for two reasons: Firstly, predestinarian doctrine is taught in the New Testament. Reflecting the importance of the topic in many strands of Second Temple Judaism, the New Testament authors teach predestination in a manner that explains why Christian theologians continually recur to this topic. Secondly, the doctrine of predestination provides a way for Christian theologians to reflect upon two fundamental affirmations of biblical revelation. The first is God's love, without any deficiency or crimp, for each and every rational creature; the second is that God from eternity brings about the purpose for which he created us, and that he permits some rational creatures freely and permanently to rebel against his love. When theologians reflect on these two key biblical affirmations, they generally try to unite them in a logical synthesis. Instead, Levering argues, it is necessary to allow for the truth of each side of the mystery, without trying to blend the two affirmations into one. Levering pairs his discussion of Scripture with ecumenically oriented discussion of the doctrine of predestination in through the ages through the figures of Origen, Augustine, Boethius, John of Damascus, Eriugena, Aquinas, Ockham, Catherine of Siena, Calvin, Molina, Francis de Sales, Leibniz, Bulgakov, Barth, Maritain, and Balthasar. He concludes with a constructive chapter regarding the future of the doctrine.
The world is so wonderfully designed. Only by blatant dishonesty can anyone doubt there must be a designer:- God. There is nothing manufactured without purpose. God claims responsibility for all creation, and has a purpose and predetermined plan for all. Nothing happens on Earth without the permissive will of God. None of us chose to be born. God decided who should be born, where and how long one can live, at the end of which is judgment. The mysteries of life are resolved through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the only prescribed way. Avoid religion, a man-made deception agent.
Winner of the Christianity Today 2010 Book Award for History/Biography, and praised in Christian Century as "witty...erudite...masterful," this groundbreaking history, the first of its kind, shows that far from being only about the age-old riddle of divine sovereignty versus human free will, the debate over predestination is inseparable from other central Christian beliefs and practices--the efficacy of the sacraments, the existence of purgatory and hell, the extent of God's providential involvement in human affairs--and has fueled theological conflicts across denominations for centuries. Peter Thuesen reexamines not only familiar predestinarians such as the New England Puritans and many later Baptists and Presbyterians, but also non-Calvinists such as Catholics and Lutherans, and shows how even contemporary megachurches preach a "purpose-driven" outlook that owes much to the doctrine of predestination. For anyone wanting a fuller understanding of religion in America, Predestination offers both historical context on a doctrine that reaches back 1,600 years and a fresh perspective on today's denominational landscape.
Nearly 200,000 copies sold! Chosen by God by Dr. R. C. Sproul is a contemporary classic on predestination, a doctrine that isn’t just for Calvinists. It is a doctrine for all biblical Christians. In this updated and expanded edition of Chosen by God, Sproul shows that the doctrine of predestination doesn’t create a whimsical or spiteful picture of God, but rather paints a portrait of a loving God who provides redemption for radically corrupt humans. We choose God because he has opened our eyes to see his beauty; we love him because he first loved us. There is mystery in God’s ways, but not contradiction.
Celebrate Back to the Future with this illustrated adaptation of the cult classic script, retold in Shakespearean verse by the best-selling author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars. In the iconic film by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, teenaged Marty McFly travels back in time from the 1980s to the 1950s, changing the path of his parents’ destiny . . . as well as his own. Now fans of the movie can journey back even further—to the 16th century, when the Bard of Avon unveils his latest masterpiece: William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future! Every scene and line of dialogue from the hit movie is re-created with authentic Shakespearean rhyme, meter, and stage directions. This reimagining also includes jokes and Easter eggs for movie fans, from Huey Lewis call-outs to the inner thoughts of Einstein (the dog). By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll be convinced that Shakespeare had a time-traveling DeLorean of his own, speeding to our era so he could pen this time-tossed tale.
Many of us have big questions about God that the Christian faith seems to leave unanswered. But what if that tension is exactly where faith comes alive? Paradoxology boldly claims that the paradoxes that seem to undermine belief are actually the heart of our vibrant faith, and it is only by continually wrestling with them that God is most clearly revealed.
This book seeks to explain this paradox in Augustine's theology by tracing how these different emphases arose in his thought, and speculating as to why he endorsed, in the end, his theology of predestination. T
