The lure of divine love : human experience and Christian faith in a process perspective

by W. Norman Pittenger

Paper Book, 1979

Status

Available

Call number

BT83.6.P57

Publication

New York : Pilgrim Press, c1979.

Description

Preface. This preface details the lectures and writings of Norman Pittenger which make up the background of this book. Chapter 1: A New Perspective. Process thought makes sense of the kind of world that modern scientific inquiry has disclosed, while at the same time taking seriously the depths of human experience with which the humanities, the religious outlook and the aesthetic enterprise. Chapter 2: The Humanities and the Arts. Despite lending itself to material, scientific and human understanding, process studies has room for the rich resources humanity finds in literature, music and art. Chapter 3: The Scientific Enterprise. Process thought has filled the gap that mechanistic determinism could not fill. A unitary interpretation of existence, human and natural, can make sense of and give sense to all the fields of human inquiry and human enjoyment. Chapter 4: Educational Principles. Dr. Pittenger addresses education from a process perspective and gives nine implications concerning its importance He concludes that education is to be considered as a matter of imaginative and aesthetic response to the human situation and to whatever is supremely worshipful in the cosmos -- that is, to what religion calls "God." Chapter 5: Moral Implications. Dr. Pittenger believes that if there is an absolute, "that absolute is nothing other than love itself, with its corollary in the imperative that we should live in, grow in, express, and share love." Chapter 6: Human Sexuality. There is a mysterious side to human sexuality and the author makes some suggestions about this from the side of Christian faith and Christian morality in terms of process thought. Chapter 7: The Religious Understanding. Since countless masses of humankind have enjoyed some kind of contact with reality greater than humankind or nature, and since process generalizations about how things go in the world have developed, new ways of thinking about God are needed. Chapter 8: Christian Faith in God. Christianity is a faith, not simply an ordered system of ideas, or a behavior that imitates the earthly life and teach of a historical figure, but a commitment of men and women to the supremely worshipful reality called God. Chapter 9: The Self-Expressive Activity of God and the Meaning of Jesus Christ. What is revealed is not compulsion but persuasion, love not force, is at the heart of the creative process of the universe. This is what gives Jesus his central place and role, his continuing impact on successive generations of men and women. Chapter 10: The Spirit and the Divine Triunity. Somehow in God the basic truth of personality is combined with the equally basic truth of sociality -- and this has implications for our view of human nature. The triunity of God can serve as a symbol, offering a hint or intimation into the mystery of God as God is active in the world; and our process conceptuality has made it clear that God is the divine activity. Chapter 11: The Person in Society. Dr. Pittenger gives eight affirmations about human nature from a process perspective. Humans: 1. Are dependent upon God; 2. Have potentialities; 3. Are social; 4. Are compound organisms; 5. Are sexual; 6. Are unable to fulfill proper achievement; 7. Know their possibilities; 8. Find total fulfillment only in God. Chapter 12: The Christian Church and the Sacramental Action of the Church. New Testament Christians were not Christians apart from the fellowship, the church. Dr. Pittenger's "process" approach to the church is more aesthetic than ethical. He defends its sacraments and its rituals. Chapter 13: Destiny and Resurrection. God is the divine creative love epitomized in Jesus, and adding to this God's reception of the good accomplished by the free decisions of humankind, we have a portrayal of human destiny and the understanding of the true significance of resurrection. Chapter 14: Conclusion. Dr. Pittenger concludes with a plea that our new situation requires us to think again, to work through once more, the things that are both human and Christian.… (more)

LCC

BT83.6.P57

Physical description

viii, 193 p.; 21 cm

ISBN

082980370X / 9780829803709

Barcode

31342000016732
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