Metaphors In The Study Of Christian Science

This book uncovers Mary Baker Eddys skill in seizing upon images of comparison to clarify her religious perspectives. Metaphors reveal her knowledge of nature and the arts, war and courtrooms, cities and towns, the home and farm environment, and the modern inventions of her day, nineteenth century America. What did Jesus, among others, and Mary Baker Eddy, see in teaching by parable, allegory, and metaphor? This book is not a biography, but sheds light on Eddy as a person you will want to get to know. Seeing her through her metaphors will complement the insights that the biographies supply. This book will renew your appreciation of metaphors which use objects, persons, and places to convey spiritual ideas, moving us from known specifics to unknown abstractions. Jesus chose language specifically targeting his audience, the likes of farmers, shepherds, and fishermen. Eddy in turn targeted her audience of consumers and merchants. All her symbols were well known in the nineteenth century. The excerpts are drawn from the Bible, Eddys writings, and the Christian Science Hymnal. As author and compiler, I am sure you will gain much from the read. What a treat!

The aim of the present bibliography is to provide the student of metaphor with an up-to-date and comprehensive (albeit not exhaustive) overview of recent publications dealing with various aspects of metaphor in a variety of disciplines. Where the emphasis is primarily on specific works “about” metaphor, mainly in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, the list has been supplemented with references to studies where metaphor is explicitly recognized as an instrument of research or analysis (e.g., in literature, or in the elaboration of scientific and religious models) or where its use is illustrated.

Most of the effort in this work is fully devoted to establishing the thesis that science and religion use language in a similar manner; both employ metaphors to suggest new hypotheses, both seem to confirm their hypotheses in human experience, and both often create myths by forgetting the hypothetical character of their metaphors.

The great religions often claim that their books or creeds contain truths revealed by God. How could we know that they do? In the second edition of Revelation, renowned philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne addresses this central question. But since the books of great religions often contain much poetry and parable, Swinburne begins by investigating how eternal truth can be conveyed in unfamiliar genres, by analogy and metaphor, within false presuppositions about science and history. In the final part of the book, Swinburne then applies the results of Parts I and II to assessing the evidence that the teaching of the Christian Church constitutes a revelation from God. In the course of his philosophical exploration, Swinburne considers how the church which Jesus founded is to be identified today and presents a sustained discussion of which passages in the Bible should be understood literally and which should be understood metaphorically. This is a fuller and entirely rewritten second edition of Revelation, the most notable new feature of which is a long chapter examining whether traditional Christian claims about personal morality (divorce, homosexuality, abortion, etc.) can be regarded as revealed truths. A formal appendix shows how the structure of evidence supporting the Christian revelation can be articulated in terms of the probability calculus (and shows that Plantinga's well-known argument from 'dwindling probabilities' against probabilistic arguments of this kind is not cogent).

"Metaphors for God's Time in Science and Religion asks how metaphors like the Big Bang work in astrophysical cosmology and how they differ from religious stories about the origins of the universe. Metaphors energize and develop the politics of evolutionary biology. Happel explores how the 'networks,' the 'theaters' of brain activity, compare with the religious language of the soul, and everything in between. How does God interact with rocks, plants, trees, and flowers? Is it different from the way that God works with human beings? Is it 'survival of the fittest' or altruism that marks human history? Does God guide the universe? What difference does it make to God that time and space exist?"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved