Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor by : Paul M. Blowers

Download or read book Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor written by Paul M. Blowers and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a study of his second largest work, explores the role of Maximus (580-662) as an important philosopher-theologian in the Byzantine monastic tradition, and how that is related to his role as teacher and spiritual advisor. Excerpts of the Thalassius Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts"

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Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501755358
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts" by : Saint Maximus the Confessor

Download or read book St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts" written by Saint Maximus the Confessor and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despina D. Prassas's translation of the Quaestiones et Dubia presents for the first time in English one of the Confessor's most significant contributions to early Christian biblical interpretation. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was a monk whose writings focused on ascetical interpretations of biblical and patristic works. For his refusal to accept the Monothelite position supported by Emperor Constans II, he was tried as a heretic, his right hand was cut off, and his tongue was cut out. In his work, Maximus the Confessor brings together the patristic exegetical aporiai tradition and the spiritual-pedagogical tradition of monastic questions and responses. The overarching theme is the importance of the ascetical life. For Maximus, askesis is a lifelong endeavor that consists of the struggle and discipline to maintain control over the passions. One engages in the ascetical life by taking part in both theoria (contemplation) and praxis (action). To convey this teaching, Maximus uses a number of pedagogical tools including allegory, etymology, number symbolism, and military terminology. Prassas provides a rich historical and contextual background in her introduction to help ground and familiarize the reader with this work.

The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191655252
Total Pages : 641 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor by : Pauline Allen

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor written by Pauline Allen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662) has become one of the most discussed figures in contemporary patristic studies. This is partly due to the relatively recent discovery and critical edition of his works in various genres, including On the Ascetic Life, Four Centuries on Charity, Two Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, On the 'Our Father', two separate Books of Difficulties, addressed to John and to Thomas, Questions and Doubts, Questions to Thalassius, Mystagogy and the Short Theological and Polemical Works. The impact of these works reached far beyond the Greek East, with his involvement in the western resistance to imperial heresy, notably at the Lateran Synod in 649. Together with Pope Martin I (649-53 CE), Maximus the Confessor and his circle were the most vocal opponents of Constantinople's introduction of the doctrine of monothelitism. This dispute over the number of wills in Christ became a contest between the imperial government and church of Constantinople on the one hand, and the bishop of Rome in concert with eastern monks such as Maximus, John Moschus, and Sophronius, on the other, over the right to define orthodoxy. An understanding of the difficult relations between church and state in this troubled period at the close of Late Antiquity is necessary for a full appreciation of Maximus' contribution to this controversy. The editors of this volume aim to provide the political and historical background to Maximus' activities, as well as a summary of his achievements in the spheres of theology and philosophy, especially neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism.

Maximus the Confessor

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191068810
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Maximus the Confessor by : Paul M. Blowers

Download or read book Maximus the Confessor written by Paul M. Blowers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium's turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580-662). Building on newer biographical research and a growing international body of scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of his diverse literary corpus, Paul Blowers develops a profile integrating the two principal initiatives of Maximus's career: first, his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and second, his intensifying public involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East-West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Jesus Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. Blowers identifies what he terms Maximus's "cosmo-politeian" worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ's "new theandric energy". Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ's own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, Blowers additionally sets forth a "theo-dramatic" reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric "plot" or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. Blowers also amplifies how Maximus's cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh century—the repercussions of which cost him his life-and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.

The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor

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Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191608068
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor by : Torstein Tollefsen

Download or read book The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor written by Torstein Tollefsen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-08-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662), was a major Byzantine thinker, a theologian and philosopher. He developed a philosophical theology in which the doctrine of God, creation, the cosmic order, and salvation is integrated in a unified conception of reality. Christ, the divine Logos, is the centre of the principles (the logoi ) according to which the cosmos is created, and in accordance with which it shall convert to its divine source. Torstein Tollefsen treats Maximus' thought from a philosophical point of view, and discusses similar thought patterns in pagan Neoplatonism. The study focuses on Maximus' doctrine of creation, in which he denies the possibility of eternal coexistence of uncreated divinity and created and limited being. Tollefsen shows that by the logoi God institutes an ordered cosmos in which separate entities of different species are ontologically interrelated, with man as the centre of the created world. The book also investigates Maximus' teaching of God's activities or energies, and shows how participation in these energies is conceived according to the divine principles of the logoi. An extensive discussion of the complex topic of participation is provided.

On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture

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Publisher : CUA Press
ISBN 13 : 0813230314
Total Pages : 607 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture by : Saint Maximus (Confessor)

Download or read book On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture written by Saint Maximus (Confessor) and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximos the Confessor (ca. 580-662) is now widely recognized as one of the greatest theological thinkers, not simply in the entire canon of Greek patristic literature, but in the Christian tradition as a whole. A peripatetic monk and prolific writer, his penetrating theological vision found expression in an unparalleled synthesis of biblical exegesis, ascetic spirituality, patristic theology, and Greek philosophy, which is as remarkable for its conceptual sophistication as for its labyrinthine style of composition. On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture, presented here for the first time in a complete English translation (including the 465 scholia), contains Maximos’s virtuosic theological interpretations of sixty-five difficult passages from the Old and New Testaments. Because of its great length, along with its linguistic and conceptual difficulty, the work as a whole has been largely neglected. Yet alongside the Ambigua to John, On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios deserves to be ranked as the Confessor’s greatest work and one of the most important patristic treatises on the interpretation of Scripture, combining the interconnected traditions of monastic devotion to the Bible, the biblical exegesis of Origen, the sophisticated symbolic theology of Dionysius the Areopagite, and the rich spiritual anthropology of Greek Christian asceticism inspired by the Cappadocian Fathers.

Maximus the Confessor

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199673942
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (996 download)

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Book Synopsis Maximus the Confessor by : Paul M. Blowers

Download or read book Maximus the Confessor written by Paul M. Blowers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium's turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580-662). Building on newer biographical research and a growing international body of scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of his diverse literary corpus, Paul Blowers develops a profile integrating the two principal initiatives of Maximus's career: first, his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and second, his intensifying public involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East-West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Jesus Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. Blowers identifies what he terms Maximus's "cosmo-politeian" worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ's "new theandric energy". Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ's own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, Blowers additionally sets forth a "theo-dramatic" reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric "plot" or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. Blowers also amplifies how Maximus's cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh century--the repercussions of which cost him his life-and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.

The Whole Mystery of Christ

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Author :
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN 13 : 0268203466
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (682 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whole Mystery of Christ by : Jordan Daniel Wood

Download or read book The Whole Mystery of Christ written by Jordan Daniel Wood and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2022-10-15 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thoroughgoing examination of Maximus Confessor’s singular theological vision through the prism of Christ’s cosmic and historical Incarnation. Jordan Daniel Wood changes the trajectory of patristic scholarship with this comprehensive historical and systematic study of one of the most creative and profound thinkers of the patristic era: Maximus Confessor (560–662 CE). Wood's panoramic vantage on Maximus’s thought emulates the theological depth of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Cosmic Liturgy while also serving as a corrective to that classic text. Maximus's theological vision may be summed up in his enigmatic assertion that “the Word of God, very God, wills always and in all things to actualize the mystery of his Incarnation.” The Whole Mystery of Christ sets out to explicate this claim. Attentive to the various contexts in which Maximus thought and wrote—including the wisdom of earlier church fathers, conciliar developments in Christological and Trinitarian doctrine, monastic and ascetic ways of life, and prominent contemporary philosophical traditions—the book explores the relations between God’s act of creation and the Word’s historical Incarnation, between the analogy of being and Christology, and between history and the Fall, in addition to treating such topics as grace, deification, theological predication, and the ontology of nature versus personhood. Perhaps uniquely among Christian thinkers, Wood argues, Maximus envisions creatio ex nihilo as creatio ex Deo in the event of the Word’s kenosis: the mystery of Christ is the revealed identity of the Word’s historical and cosmic Incarnation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of patristics, historical theology, systematic theology, and Byzantine studies.

Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher

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Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1498295584
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (982 download)

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Book Synopsis Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher by : Sotiris Mitralexis

Download or read book Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Maximus the Confessor’s thought has flourished in recent years: international conferences, publications and articles, new critical editions and translations mark a torrent of interest in the work and influence of perhaps the most sublime of the Byzantine Church Fathers. It has been repeatedly stated that the Confessor’s thought is of eminently philosophical interest. However, no dedicated collective scholarly engagement with Maximus the Confessor as a philosopher has taken place—and this volume attempts to start such a discussion. Apart from Maximus’ relevance and importance for philosophy in general, a second question arises: should towering figures of Byzantine philosophy like Maximus the Confessor be included in an overview of the European history of philosophy, or rather excluded from it—as is the case today with most histories of European philosophy? Maximus’ philosophy challenges our understanding of what European philosophy is. In this volume, we begin to address these issues and examine numerous aspects of Maximus’ philosophy—thereby also stressing the interdisciplinary character of Maximian studies. Contributors include: Fr. Maximos Constas, Justin Shaun Coyle, Vladimir Cvetković, Natalie Depraz, Demetrios Harper, Michael Harrington, Georgi Kapriev, Karolina Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Nicholas Loudovikos, Andrew Louth, John Panteleimon Manoussakis, Michail Mantzanas, Smilen Markov, Sotiris Mitralexis, Marcin Podbielski, Dionysios Skliris, Georgios Steiris, Stoyan Tanev, Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, Jordan Daniel Wood

St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts"

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Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 150175534X
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts" by : Saint Maximus the Confessor

Download or read book St. Maximus the Confessor's "Questions and Doubts" written by Saint Maximus the Confessor and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despina D. Prassas's translation of the Quaestiones et Dubia presents for the first time in English one of the Confessor's most significant contributions to early Christian biblical interpretation. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was a monk whose writings focused on ascetical interpretations of biblical and patristic works. For his refusal to accept the Monothelite position supported by Emperor Constans II, he was tried as a heretic, his right hand was cut off, and his tongue was cut out. In his work, Maximus the Confessor brings together the patristic exegetical aporiai tradition and the spiritual-pedagogical tradition of monastic questions and responses. The overarching theme is the importance of the ascetical life. For Maximus, askesis is a lifelong endeavor that consists of the struggle and discipline to maintain control over the passions. One engages in the ascetical life by taking part in both theoria (contemplation) and praxis (action). To convey this teaching, Maximus uses a number of pedagogical tools including allegory, etymology, number symbolism, and military terminology. Prassas provides a rich historical and contextual background in her introduction to help ground and familiarize the reader with this work.

Handbook of Patristic Exegesis

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 900453153X
Total Pages : 840 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis Handbook of Patristic Exegesis by : Charles Kannengiesser

Download or read book Handbook of Patristic Exegesis written by Charles Kannengiesser and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-28 with total page 840 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through this comprehensive Handbook, the reader will obtain a balanced and cohesive picture of the Early Church. It gives an overall view of the reception, transmission, and interpretation of the Bible in the life and thought of the Church during the first five centuries of Christianity. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004098152).

The Philokalia

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199911835
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philokalia by : Brock Bingaman

Download or read book The Philokalia written by Brock Bingaman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Philokalia (literally "love of the beautiful or good") is, after the Bible, the most influential source of spiritual tradition within the Orthodox Church. First published in Greek in 1782 by St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Macarios of Corinth, the Philokalia includes works by thirty-six influential Orthodox authors from the fourth to fifteenth-centuries such as Maximus the Confessor, Peter of Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas. Surprisingly, this important collection of theological and spiritual writings has received little scholarly attention. With the growing interest in Orthodox theology, the need for a substantive resource for philokalic studies has become increasingly evident. The purpose of the present volume is to remedy that lack by providing an ecumenical collection of scholarly essays on the Philokalia that will introduce readers to its background, motifs, authors, and relevance for contemporary life and thought.

Religion and Violence

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3658183020
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (581 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and Violence by : Ednan Aslan

Download or read book Religion and Violence written by Ednan Aslan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, the authors attempt to speak freely about the potential in religions both for violence and peace. I am confident that many impulses from this work will also impact the direction of churches and other religious communities, such that religions, all together, will try to mobilize the members of their communities to actively contribute to world peace. In this way, religions will be perceived as part of the solution for world peace, enabling them to move beyond the stigma of their damaged reputations.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation

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Publisher : Oxford Handbooks
ISBN 13 : 019871839X
Total Pages : 785 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation by : Paul M. Blowers

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation written by Paul M. Blowers and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2019 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bible was the lifeblood of virtually every aspect of the life of the early churches. This Handbook explores a wide array of themes related to the reception, canonization, interpretation, uses, and legacies of the Bible in early Christianity.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119283507
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (192 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism by : Julia A. Lamm

Download or read book The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism written by Julia A. Lamm and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism brings together a team of leading international scholars to explore the origins, evolution, and contemporary debates relating to Christian mystics, texts, and the movements they inspired. Provides a comprehensive and engaging account of Christian mysticism, from its origins right up to the present day Draws on the best of current scholarship by bringing together a collection of newly-commissioned readings by leading scholars Considers examples of mysticism in both Eastern and Western Christianity Offers a brilliant synthesis of the key figures and historical periods of mysticism; its core themes, such as heresy, gender, or aesthetics; and its theoretical considerations, including theological, literary, social scientific, and philosophical approaches Features chapters on current debates such as neuroscience and mystical experience, and inter-religious dialogue

Ever-Moving Repose

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Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN 13 : 0227176847
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (271 download)

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Book Synopsis Ever-Moving Repose by : Sotiris Mitralexis

Download or read book Ever-Moving Repose written by Sotiris Mitralexis and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sotiris Mitralexis offers a contemporary look at Maximus the Confessor’s (580–662 CE) understanding of temporality, logoi, and deification, through the perspective of contemporary philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras, as well as John Zizioulas and Nicholas Loudovikos. Mitralexis argues that Maximus possesses both a unique theological ontology and a unique threefold theory of temporality: time, the Aeon, and the radical transformation of temporality and motion in an ever-moving repose. With these three distinct modes of temporality, a Maximian theory of time can be reconstructed, which can be approached via his teaching on the logoi and deification. In this theory, time is not merely measuring ontological motion, but is more particularly measuring a relationship, the consummation of which effects the transformation of time into a dimensionless present devoid of temporal, spatial, and generally ontological distance — thereby manifesting a perfect communion-in-otherness. In examining Maximian temporality, the book is not focussing on only one aspect of Maximus’ comprehensive Weltanschauung, but looks at the Maximian vision as a whole through the lens of temporality and motion.

The Divine Image

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Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 9781451409864
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis The Divine Image by : Ian Alexander McFarland

Download or read book The Divine Image written by Ian Alexander McFarland and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theologian Ian McFarland claims that Christians have mainly misappropriated the "image of God" language for 2000 years and thereby missed a rich resource for our knowledge of God. What, then, does it mean to say that we are made in God's image, or that Christ is the very image or prototype of God? Rather than referring to some germinal divine element in humans, such as reason, McFarland claims that the image of God in us tells us something about God and how we know God. It tells us that God, though not identical with us, communicates Godself to us in creative love, in a way that offers precious clues about God's transcendence, immanence, triune life, self-disclosure, incarnation, and intentions for human life. Too, we "learn from Jesus something new about God." Gathered as Christ's body, the church too images God and sets us on a quest to discern the image of God in Christ's incarnate body. McFarland's careful and exacting work builds from this kernel a powerful Christian vision of God's life and our own destiny in Christ.