Why God Makes Sense In A World That Doesnt

Author : Gavin Ortlund
Publisher : Baker Academic
ISBN 13 : 1493432451
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't written by Gavin Ortlund and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has never been more important to articulate the wonder and enchantment of the Christian message. Yet the traditional approaches of apologetics are often outmoded in an age of profound disenchantment and distraction, unable to meet this pressing need. This winsome apologetics book for a new generation makes the case that Christianity offers a compelling explanatory framework for making sense of our world. Pastor and writer Gavin Ortlund believes it is essential to appeal not only to the mind but also to the heart and the imagination as we articulate the beauty of the gospel. Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't reimagines four classical theistic arguments--cosmological, teleological, moral, and Christological--making a cumulative case for God as the best framework for understanding the storied nature of reality. The book suggests that Christian theism can explain such things as the elegance of math, the beauty of music, and the value of love. It is suitable for use in classes yet accessibly written, making it a perfect resource for churches and small groups.

Author : Timothy Keller
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525954155
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Making Sense of God written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Author : T.M. Luhrmann
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691234442
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How God Becomes Real written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Author : Paul Copan
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467458252
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Loving Wisdom written by Paul Copan and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to Christian philosophy that engages with the biblical story As human beings, we all qualify as philosophers, and Paul Copan contends that we take a position of trust (faith) shaped by philosophical stances but also personal heart commitments (worldviews). In this thoroughly revised and expanded second edition of Loving Wisdom, Copan explores philosophy of religion from a distinctively evangelical Christian perspective—biblically grounded, informed by apologetics, and engaging with questions about universal human longings. Copan presents a distinctively and deliberately biblical philosophy of religion in Loving Wisdom,addressing a wide range of topics and questions as they arise in the metanarrative of scripture. He acknowledges the difficulties, mystery, and disagreements in “religion,” while attempting to show how the Christian faith does a much more adequate job of responding to a wide range of challenges as well as addressing our deepest human yearnings. With discussion questions for each chapter and an accessible approach, Loving Wisdom is ideal for the classroom or small groups.

Author : John Piper
Publisher : Crossway
ISBN 13 : 1433520575
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What Jesus Demands from the World written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2011 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the Gospels and examines what Christ requires of his followers in a redemptive-historical context. New and seasoned believers will see God's loving plan for their ultimate satisfaction. Now in paperback.

Author : Patrick Brashers
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781544121659
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God Makes Sense the Bible Doesn't written by Patrick Brashers and published by . This book was released on 2017-02-26 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are millions of religions on Earth, because of this you may find yourself wondering which one is right; what is the so-called "right" path to take and how do you even begin to find it if there is one? We live in a vast universe of possibilities with never ending choices, is it possible that there could be only one right way to enlightenment in this world? Even with the understanding of one God and one humanity how is it that there are so many different ideas of what the eternal plan for us all is that so many people believe was predestined since the beginning of time? Does God actually speak to anyone, or is the person who believes he or she hears God's voice special in some indescribable and unique way that allows some otherworldly divine voice to come through to those people alone as the rest of humanity sits in an unending clueless silence? Would a God that has an unchanging, unconditional and steadfast love for his creations truly order their annihilation and destruction, essentially sentencing his creations to an eternal torment simply because they refused to trust another man's word on the existence of God to begin with? Does God intervene in the lives of people simply because they pray to him, but then turn a deaf ear towards the countless starving children who silently die every single day? Does this all-powerful creator of the universe really need your money; or is this just man's corrupted way to prosper at the hands of hard working believers? Finally, does God love all of creation or just the select few who somehow found the only one true path leading to him in the midst of all the wrong ones? If so, then why would he create anyone who would not eventually find the one true path in the first place? What is the point? Is this life nothing more than a test? These are just a few of the questions I want to address, but before we get into all of that I would like to share a little about my life so you get to know who I am and allow you to gain some insight into how this all began.

Author : Gregory E. Ganssle
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
ISBN 13 : 9780830815517
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God and Time written by Gregory E. Ganssle and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2001-09-28 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Editor Gregory Ganssle calls on four Christian philosophers to present and defend their views on the place of God in a time-bound universe. The positions taken up here include divine timeless eternity, eternity as relative timelessness, timelessness and omnitemporality, and unqualified divine temporality.

Author : Gavin Ortlund
Publisher : Crossway
ISBN 13 : 1433565293
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals written by Gavin Ortlund and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Restless for rootedness, many Christians are abandoning Protestantism altogether. Many evangelicals today are aching for theological rootedness often found in other Christian traditions. Modern evangelicalism is not known for drawing from church history to inform views on the Christian life, which can lead to a "me and my Bible" approach to theology. But this book aims to show how Protestantism offers the theological depth so many desire without the need for abandoning a distinctly evangelical identity. By focusing on particular doctrines and neglected theologians, this book shows how evangelicals can draw from the past to meet the challenges of the present.

Author : John Mark Comer
Publisher : Thomas Nelson
ISBN 13 : 0310344247
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God Has a Name written by John Mark Comer and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way. In God Has a Name, John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including: Why do we feel this gap between us and God? Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him? What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires? What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, the act of learning who God is just might surprise you--and change everything.

Author : Thomas Jay Oord
Publisher : SacraSage Press
ISBN 13 : 1948609134
Total Pages : 139 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God Can't written by Thomas Jay Oord and published by SacraSage Press. This book was released on 2019-01-05 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurting people ask heart-felt questions about God and suffering. Some "answers" they receive appeal to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways”. Some answers say God allows evil for a greater purpose. Some say evil is God's punishment. The usual answers fail. They don't support the truth that God loves everyone all the time. God Can't gives a believable answer to why a good and powerful God doesn't prevent evil. Author Thomas Jay Oord says God’s love is inherently uncontrolling. God loves everyone and everything, so God can't control anyone or anything. This means God cannot prevent evil singlehandedly. God can’t stop evildoers, whether human, animal, organism, or inanimate objects and forces. In God Can't, Oord gives a plausible reason why some are healed, but many others are not. God always works to heal everyone, but sometimes our bodies, organisms, or other creatures do not cooperate with God's healing work. Or the conditions of creation are not right for the healing God wants to do. Some people think God causes or allows suffering to teach us lessons or build our character. God Can't disagrees. Oord says God squeezes good from the evil God didn’t want in the first place. God uses pain and suffering without willing or even allowing it. Most people think God can overcome evil singlehandedly. In God Can't, Oord says God needs cooperation for love to reign now and later. This leads to a better view of the afterlife called “relentless love.” It rejects traditional ideas of heaven, hell, and annihilation. Relentless love holds to the possibility all creatures and all creation will respond to God’s love. God Can't is written in understandable language. As a world-renown theologian, Thomas Jay Oord brings credibility to the book’s radical ideas. He explains these ideas through true stories, illustrations, and scripture. God Can't is for those who want answers to tragedy, abuse, and other evils that make sense! What They're Saying... “If conventional notions of God make less and less sense to you, you’ll find Thomas Jay Oord’s new book a breath of fresh air. Simply put, “God Can’t” presents an understanding of God that thoughtful, ethical people can believe in.” -- Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration "I did not want this book to end. I wish Dr. Oord had written it 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago... To find your understanding of life and your love for God renewed, read this book." -- Dr. Karen Strand Winslow, Ph.D., Biblical and Jewish Studies Professor of Bible, Azusa Pacific University "As a clinical psychologist working with people in trauma, I owe Thomas Jay Oord an enormous debt of gratitude for recasting the so-called problem of evil in terms that are conceptually satisfying, theologically consistent, and pastorally liberating.” -- Dr Roger Bretherton- Principal Lecturer at the University of Lincoln (UK), Chair of the British Association of Christians in Psychology “Victims of trauma sometimes hear theological responses that imply their suffering is somehow “God’s will." A more careful theological reflection on the nature of the power of a God who is love can help. Oord gives us a clear and compelling alternative in this profoundly insightful and admirably concrete and accessible book.” -- Dr. Anna Case-Winters, Professor of Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary “I know of no book that speaks to suffering with the depth of theological sophistication and psychological sensitivity as God Can’t. This book is a rare combination of depth and accessibility, truly written for the wounded. I recommend it to my students, parishioners, and therapy clients.” -- Dr. Brad D. Strawn, Professor of the Integration of Psychology and Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary