Paradoxes Parables

Father John “Jack” Lombardi is a Roman Catholic Priest of thirty-four years and has pastored parishes in Western Maryland and Baltimore city. He enjoys outdoor recreational activities, spiritual adventure, travel, mystical theology, and God’s world, all summarized by St. Thomas Aquinas saying, “God is the artist, and the universe is His work of art”. Father Jack enjoys hikes and walks with his dog and faithful companion, Bella, a Labrador Retriever, and appreciates the Christian spiritual community and working for The Lord!

This book focuses on the question of theological paradox, exploring what it means and its place in theological method from a Christian perspective. Just as paradoxes are unavoidable in logic and mathematics, paradoxes are inevitable in religious and theological discourses. The chapters in this volume examine a number of cases, including the ‘Red Heifer paradox’, the ‘liar paradox’, and the ‘paradox of omnipotence’, and attention is given to Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Arguing for a renewed understanding and appreciation of the role of paradox, this study will be of interest to scholars of theology and the philosophy of religion.

When John Dominic Crossan's book, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, was published in 1973, it was heralded as a major development in research both on the parables and on the historical Jesus. This was due not only to its sophisticated use of historical, literary, and philosophical disciplines but also to the sensitive way in which they were combined and to the novel insights that resulted when this combination was focused on individual parables. The present book continues most directly and explicitly the study initiated by In Parables and may be regarded as bringing that earlier volume up to date on three major issues. Conceptually, the emphasis on metaphor from In Parables has led to the discussion of polyvalence, or semantic pluralism, in Jesus's parables. Pluralistic meaning is an intensely paradoxical concept and it raises issues that touch the very roots of our consciousness and our reality. Metaphor is now no longer a clearing within the forest of language but is rather the very ground of that language itself. Any given metaphor illumines and reveals the radical metaphoricity of all reality. Philosophically, the question is raised whether the polyvalence inherent in metaphor, along with the critically iterated claims for its untranslatability, may be better explained as a surplus of meaning, or as an absence of the meaning, a refusal of canonical meaning which is then the necessary but negative basis for the plurality of meanings and the abiding fecundity of interpretations. Exegetically, as specific example and deliberate narratival metaphor of the entire book, Jesus's serenely pastoral parable of the Sower, with its specified triad of gains, its plurality or polyvalence both of failure and success, is centrally discussed as textual focus for the volume.

Scholarship on the Gospel of Mark has long been convinced of the paradoxical description of two of its primary themes, christology and discipleship. This book argues that paradoxical language pervades the entire narrative, and that it serves a theological purpose in describing God's activity. Part One focuses on divine action present in Mark 4:10-12. In the first paradox, Mark portrays God's revelatory acts as consistently accompanied by concealment. The second paradox is shown in the various ways in which divine action confirms, yet counters, scripture. Finally, Mark describes God's actions in ways that indicate both wastefulness and goodness; deeds that are further illuminated by the ongoing, yet defeated, presence of evil. Part Two demonstrates that this paradoxical language is widely attested across Mark's passion narrative, as he continues to depict God's activity with the use of the three paradoxes observed in Mark 4. Through paradoxical narrative, Mark emphasizes God's transcendence and presence, showing that even though Jesus has brought revelation, a complete understanding of God remains tantalizingly out of their grasp until the eschaton (4:22).

Post-Metaphysics and the Paradoxical Teachings of Jesus: The Structure of the Real uncovers the authentic voice-print of Jesus' teachings on the Kingdom of God and thereby outlines a new approach to theological language after the 'end of metaphysics'. By showing that the paradoxical 'deep structure' of Jesus' most radical teachings survives the Death of God and the deconstruction of metaphysics in twentieth-century continental philosophy, this book aims to reconstruct the original teachings of Jesus in a way that can begin a new conversation on what it means to be a Christian in a post-Christian world, while drawing on a remarkable range of supporting material, including John D. Caputo's award-winning theological appropriation of Derrida's deconstruction, the pioneering work of John Dominic Crossan on the parables of Jesus, and the novel insights of Jesus Seminar scholars Robert Funk and Branden Scott. Beginning with questions surrounding the 'end of metaphysics' in Martin Heidegger's existentialist philosophy and moving on to the ethico-political dimensions of Derrida's work, this volume examines Nicholas of Cusa's notion of God as the coincidence of opposites, Buddhist genius Nagarjuna's dialectic of Emptiness, and the Hindu concept of non-duality in raising the possibility of a post-metaphysical theology. Following an original unpacking of the parables of Jesus, the central thesis is woven together with reference to Moltmann's important work on the crucified God, as well as Kierkegaard and the Absolute Paradox, negative/mystical theology in the Christian tradition, twentieth-century Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro, and aspects of Nietzsche, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, Meister Eckhart, G. K. Chesterton, Slavoj Zizek, and Ken Wilber.

This follow-up to Sounding the Seasons offers a sequence of 50 sonnets that focus on many passages in the Gospels: the Beatitudes, parables and miracles, teachings on the Kingdom, and the hard sayings- Jesus' challenging demands with which we wrestle

This text is the first to systematically look at the type and style of parables as a genre across literary and religious lines to help readers understand and use the unique transformational process themselves.

God’s Mysteries and Paradoxes: Looking through the Glass Darkly is a book about paradoxes and how they were actually created by God to bring unique enlightenment but also to confound the so-called earthly wisdom. Paradoxes also keep believers humble by showing them that God’s ways are not always man’s ways. “For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy; I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57: 15).” This book introduces the reader to the ancient idea of “The Divine Paradox” written by Hermes Tristmegistus (thrice great) in The Divine Pylander. An additional book, Corpus Hermeticum, was translated by Marsilo Ficino during the early Renaissance and helps frame the philosophical paradox of nature versus faith. This book, along with other fragments written by Hermes Trismegistus, was translated in the early 1400s and caused a rebirth of its teachings during the Renaissance. Modern secret societies and the occult are using much of the same knowledge to deceive people in the world today. Evidence shows Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and the Knights Templar possessed ancient knowledge and from it gave rise to secret organizations and societies operating today, including the Illuminati, Freemasons, and modern occultists.