Chapter 5 Divine Power and the Necessity of the World: Spinoza and Schleiermacher on the Perfection of Nature

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Divine Power ◽  
The World

What is God's Power?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Renz
Keyword(s):  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The World

Theists claim that God can make a causal difference in the world. That is, theists believe that God is causally efficacious, has power. Discussion of divine power has centered on understanding better the metaphysics of creation and sustenance, special intervention, governance, and providing an account of omnipotence consistent with other divine attributes, such as omnibenevolence. But little discussion has centered on what, deep down ontologically, God’s power is. I show that a number of prominent accounts of power fail to model what divine power could be, and then develop an account based on teleological and primitivist accounts of power.

scholarly journals Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
VERN S. POYTHRESS
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
2 Corinthians ◽  
Multiple Cultures ◽  
The World ◽  
Multiple Languages

Abstract: By focusing on Paul’s own descriptions of his preaching, and especially on 2 Corinthians 4:1–6, we can see several ways in which Paul’s own views provide answers to postmodern skepticism. Paul presupposes that God exists, the same God who is set forth in the Old Testament as the creator and sustainer of the world. In 2 Corinthians 4:1–6, Paul affirms that his message has divine authority, divine truthfulness, divine power to overcome resistance to its claims, and divine presence through the glory of Christ. Paul’s message also shows how, in the midst of the Roman Empire’s situation of multiple cultures and multiple languages, he preaches a gospel with universal claims, in “the open statement of the truth” (2 Cor 4:3).

scholarly journals Beeldspraak over oorlog en schepping, geweld en geweldloosheid in de Openbaring van Johannes

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Decock
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Divine Warrior ◽  
The World ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Image Of God

Images of war and creation, violence and non-violence in the Revelation of John Much of the violent imagery of Revelation can be seen as inspired by the image of God as the Divine Warrior who will overcome the chaotic forces threatening creation and who will bring creation to its fulfillment. This violence is reserved for God and the exalted Jesus although the prophetic ministry of churches shares to some extent in this divine power and even in its violence (11:5-6). However, human victory is won through worship of God instead of worship of Satan and the Beast, and through prophetic witness unto death in order to bring the inhabitants of the world to repentance and so to overcome sin that destroys creation. This human victory is made possible by the “blood of Jesus” and requires that his followers persevere in the works of Jesus to the end (2:26) in order to share in the new creation of which Jesus is God’s agent from the beginning (3:14).

Black Theology: Retrospect and Prospect

1979 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-185
Author(s):  
Noel Leo Erskine
Keyword(s):  
Black Power ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Contemporary Context

“Black people have read the Bible in a way which informed them that God's freedom challenged all forms of bondage in the world … If black power can be defined as the search for black humanity and freedom, then black power would be rooted in divine power. As divine power is related to black power, an encounter between the divine content and the contemporary context takes place.”

Living at This Hour: Jonathan Swift, Edward Said, and the Profession of Literature

boundary 2 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-62
Author(s):  
Helen Deutsch
Keyword(s):  
Jonathan Swift ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Devotion ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

This essay examines the living affinity between two complex and charismatic writers, Jonathan Swift and Edward Said, in order to revitalize our understandings of both. Said’s career-long engagement with Swift took the form of a passionate amateurism that has a claim upon us at a moment when the humanities are being asked to justify themselves to opponents within and beyond the university. Reading Said’s humanism through Swift’s inhumane satire, this essay both analyzes and attempts a mode of literary engagement that operates “between the world and the archive,” where Said argued that “Swift lasts.” Beginning with Said’s 1982 polemic against the church of high theory, “Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, Community,” what follows demonstrates how Swift’s libertine wit, in its daring reconciliation of the human imagination with religious devotion and perhaps even divine power itself, inspired Said’s ideal of the secular intellectual.

Is the Notion of a Divine Basic Act a Necessary and Sufficient Way of Talking about God's Actions in the World?

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-192
Author(s):  
Frank G. Kirkpatrick
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Basic Action ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Physical Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

It has seemed to a number of recent scholars that God's acts in the world must have the fundamental character of being ‘basic acts’. Grace Jantzen has argued that ‘a theist wants to say that all of God's actions in the world are direct and basic…he does everything directly, without intervening apparatus…God can perform any physical action, and any such action on God's part is direct, basic’. Robert Ellis has claimed that ‘if we limit “basic” action to action upon/within one's body then God's immediate action upon the physical universe may qualify under such a description whether or not one holds to a view of the world as the body of God [a view endorsed by Jantzen] … All God's actions would [therefore] seem to be “basic”. And William P. Alston has suggested that ‘it is a live possibility that all God's actions are basic’. The question to be addressed is what theological and/or philosophical reasons can be advanced to make the case for regarding all divine action as basic? Would there be any significant diminution in affirming divine power if most or many of God's actions were non-basic?

Ideas, Traditions and Higher Personalities: the Conception of History in Russian Philosophy. Article One: P. Chaadaev, A. Pushkin, A. Herzen, F. Dostoevsky

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-121
Author(s):  
Igor I. Evlampiev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Universal Model ◽  
Religious Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
Spiritual Unity

The article proves that the idea of the historical development of mankind, which is expressed in the Philosophical Letters P.Ya. Chaadaev, became a universal model of understanding of history for all Russian religious philosophy. Accord­ing to Chaadayev, the meaning of history is the gradual refusal of people from selfish freedom, from personal independence, from adherence to material goals and in complete submission to the divine power acting in the world and leading people to connect with each other and with spiritual reality. The result of this process should be the emergence of a perfect humanity. The subjects of history directing its course are the few “higher personalities”; they generate great ideas that turn into traditions and thereby become powerful forces of influence on peo­ple. A.S. Pushkin shared Chaadayev’s view that history is determined by a few “higher personalities” who have a mystical connection with God, with a higher reality. The importance of cultural traditions in history was emphasized by A.I. Herzen, however he believed that Europe had ceased to follow its traditions and this leads to its death. F.M. Dostoevsky after Herzen argued that Europe had renounced its destiny to be the cultural center of mankind, now Russia should become such a center and lead humanity along the path of cultural creativity and spiritual unity. Dostoevsky also saw the historical development of mankind as the result of the activities of individual “higher personalities”, whose instruments are “higher ideas”.

The God of Death

1975 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
George W. Coats
Keyword(s):  
Divine Power ◽  
World Power ◽  
The World

To have dominion over the world is heady power, and the temptation to extend that world power into divine power can be unbearable. What happens then?

scholarly journals Nowotestamentalny paradoks mocnej słabości w egzegezie biblijnej Orygenesa

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 611-621
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Struggle ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
God's Grace

The subject of the article is the extraction and systematization of the basic aspects of Origen’s exegesis of biblical texts on the paradox of strong weakness (Mt 5, 10-11; 2Cor 12, 8-9) and embedding them in the realities of the epoch. According to Origen all human weakness – resulting both from man’s own sins and from the oppression experienced from outside – is a situation that should be used as an opportunity to take up spiritual fight and to accept God’s power, wit­hout which man is unable to overcome any difficulties. This interpretation reflects several circumstances of that era: martyr’s piety, consisting in a desire to become like Christ suffering; the necessity of finding a theological justification for various experiences that make a person in a situation of extreme weakness, such as: per­secution for faith or the practice of slavery; and finally, the conviction that the final victory is close, resulting from literally understood words of Christ about His return and the end of the world, before this generation passes away (cf. Mt 23, 34). The model of spirituality, developed on the basis of the biblical paradox of strong weakness and consisting in enduring suffering in connection with Christ and with the help of His divine power, has become an indispensable component of Christian piety also in later epochs. It could be a kind of medicine for being too attached to the own human capabilities in spiritual struggle with passions, which was the legacy of extremely conceived stoic ethics and could influence the deve­lopment of later movements limiting the power of God’s grace in the fight against own weaknesses, such as Pelagianism.

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