Reason & the Contours of Faith


Book Description

Can reason and religion get together? Should believers think? Can thinking people believe? Does religion have to make sense? Does careful thinking help or hinder religious experience? People have wrestled with such questions for hundreds of years, and they are just as perplexing today as ever. Reason & the Contours of Faith explores the wide-ranging issues these questions raise, from biblical interpretation and proofs for God's existence to the nature of religious conversion. Its central purpose is to find an alternative to both fideism, the idea that reason has nothing to do with faith, and rationalism, the conviction that reason has everything to do with it. Part One, "Reason and the Contents of Faith," argues that reason contributes in important but limited ways to our understanding of religion. Part Two, "Reason and the Experience of Faith," shows that reason can support religious commitment, but never produces it.




Creation, Catastrophe & Calvary


Book Description

"In this scientific age, what difference does it make whether I believe the world was created in six literal days and that the world was destroyed by a global flood?" In answering these questions, Creation, Catastrophe, and Calvary shows how these beliefs are related to key issues such as the forgiveness of our sins and Sabbath observance. - Foreword; Introduction; Meet the Authors; An Angel's Worldview; The "Days" of Creation in Genesis 1; A Second Creation Account?; Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood?; The Grand Canyon and the Genesis Flood; The Geologic Column and Calvary: The Rainbow Connection--Implications for an Evangelical Understanding of the Atonement; Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; The Role of Creation in Seventh-day Adventist Theology; Science and Theology: Focusing the Complementary Lights of Jesus, Scripture, and Nature




Reason & the Contours of Faith


Book Description

Can reason and religion get together? Should believers think? Can thinking people believe? Does religion have to make sense? Does careful thinking help or hinder religious experience? People have wrestled with such questions for hundreds of years, and they are just as perplexing today as ever. Reason & the Contours of Faith explores the wide-ranging issues these questions raise, from biblical interpretation and proofs for God's existence to the nature of religious conversion. Its central purpose is to find an alternative to both fideism, the idea that reason has nothing to do with faith, and rationalism, the conviction that reason has everything to do with it. Part One, "Reason and the Contents of Faith," argues that reason contributes in important but limited ways to our understanding of religion. Part Two, "Reason and the Experience of Faith," shows that reason can support religious commitment, but never produces it.




Philosophy of Religion


Book Description

C. Stephen Evans examines the central themes of philosophy of religion, including the arguments for God's existence, the meaning of revelation and miracles, and the problem of religious language.




Assured


Book Description

Despite our professions of belief, our baptisms, and our membership in the church, many of us secretly wonder, Am I truly saved? We worry that our love for Jesus isn't fervent enough (or isn't as fervent as someone else's). We worry that our faith isn't strong enough. We struggle through the continuing presence of sin in our lives. All this steals the joy of our salvation and can lead us into a life characterized by legalism, perfectionism, and works righteousness--the very life Jesus freed us from at the cross! But Greg Gilbert has a message for the anxious believer--be assured. Assured that your salvation experience was real. Assured that your sins--past, present, and future--are forgiven. Assured that everyone stumbles. Assured that Jesus is not your judge but your advocate. With deep compassion, Gilbert comforts readers, encouraging them to release their guilt, shame, and anxiety to rejoice in and follow hard after the One who set them free.




Tracing the Contours of Faith


Book Description

This book is addressed to Christian believers who are feeling the ambiguities and challenges of a life of faith. Many of them may be uncertain about the meaning of the faith which they profess. The familiar words that they hear in sermons and prayers seem, at times, to belong to a reality far removed from the actual world they live in. They need to discover a meaning of their faith that they can relate to their own life experience and their general knowledge of the world. This book is a collection of brief essays written in response to specific questions about the Christian faith's vision of reality. The questions addressed here have arisen out of the experience of ordinary Christians trying to make sense of their faith. Some are asking about particular "Church words." Some are expressing difficulties in believing. Some are probing the paradoxes of Christian existence. The author responds as a professional theologian and priest, writing in a non-technical way for fellow believers. His purpose is to make the best insights of sound theology available to them, to minister to their faith life. Although many of the essays are limited in scope, there is a coherent understanding of the Christian faith that underlies all of them. Each essay is simply articulating part of that understanding in response to a specific question.




Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed


Book Description

Does it really matter? Does it matter if we have free will? Does it matter if Calvinism is true? And does what you think about it matter? No and yes. No, it doesn't matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, just as the solar system keeps spinning around the sun even if we're convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God, but they can change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about free will and Calvinism confront us with perhaps the only question that really matters: who is God? This is a book about that question--a book about the Bible, black holes, love, sovereignty, hell, Romans 9, Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and a little girl in a red coat. You've heard arguments, but here's a story--Austin Fischer's story, and his journey in and out of Calvinism on a trip to the center of the universe.




The Future of Open Theism


Book Description

Evangelical theology has grappled with open theism and its alternative doctrine of God for decades. Richard Rice recounts the history of open theism from its antecedents and early developments to its more recent expressions, considering how it might continue to develop in relation to several primary doctrines of the Christian faith.




God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs


Book Description

Wisely structured and clearly written, God, Reason and Theistic Proofs will make an excellent resource for those looking for an introduction to the debate surrounding the existence of God, or for those seeking intellectual validation for their faith.