Personal Identity In Theological Perspective

Chapters: European Short Course Swimming Championships 2001. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 159. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The fifth edition of the European Short Course Championships (25 m) was held in the Wezenberg Swimming Pool in Antwerp, Belgium, from December 13 till December 16, 2001. ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=546135

Who are you? What defines you? What makes you, you? In the past an individual's identity was more predictable than it is today. Life's big questions were basically settled before you were born: where you'd live, what you'd do, the type of person you'd marry, your basic beliefs, and so on. Today personal identity is a do-it-yourself project. Constructing a stable and satisfying sense of self is hard amidst relationship breakdowns, the pace of modern life, the rise of social media, multiple careers, social mobility, and so on. Ours is a day of identity angst. Known by God is built on the observation that humans are inherently social beings; we know who we are in relation to others and by being known by them. If one of the universal desires of the self is to be known by others, being known by God as his children meets our deepest and lifelong need for recognition and gives us a secure identity. Rosner argues that rather than knowing ourselves, being known by God is the key to personal identity. He explores three biblical angles on the question of personal identity: being made in the image of God, being known by God and being in Christ. The notion of sonship is at the center - God gives us our identity as a parent who knows his child. Being known by him as his child gives our fleeting lives significance, provokes in us needed humility, supplies cheering comfort when things go wrong, and offers clear moral direction for living.

Through a fresh investigation of the relationship between faith and identity, this diverse group of international contributors offers an engaging discussion of human identity—and specifically, Christian identity. From a biblical foundation, they address theological discussions of identity and contemporary cultural themes, such as migration, ethnicity, embodiment, attachment, and gender. Straightforward and thought-provoking, The Self Examined is an accessible guide to this wide-ranging and important issue.

In this comprehensive study, a renowned theologian examines the anthropological disciplines-human biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology and history-for their religious implications. The result is a theological anthropology that does not derive from dogma or prejudice, but critically evaluates the findings of the disciplines. Pannenberg begins with a consideration of human beings as part of nature; moves on to focus on the human person; and then considers the social world: its culture, history and institutions. All the elements of this multi-faceted study unite in the final chapter on the relation of human beings to their history.

Is the human self singular and unified or essentially plural? This book explores the seemingly disparate ways that Christian theology and the secular human sciences have approached this complex question. The latter have largely embraced the idea of the plural self as an inescapable, even adaptive feature of psychological life. Contemporary Christian theology, by contrast, has largely neglected recent psychological accounts of the naturalness of self-plurality, and has sought to reaffirm the self's unity in opposition to those postmodern theorists who would dismantle it. Through an original analysis of recent theological and secular accounts of self and personhood, this book examines the extent of the intertheoretical disparity and its broader implications for theology's dialogue with the human sciences in general, and psychology in particular. It explains why theologians ought to take questions about the plurality of self very seriously, and how they overlap with many of the central concerns of contemporary theological anthropology, including the notions of relationality, particularity and human sinfulness. Introducing a novel psychological framework to distinguish various understandings of self-disunity, the author argues that contemporary theology's blanket condemnation of self-multiplicity is misconceived, and identifies a possible means of reconciling theological and human scientific accounts.

One of Desiring God's Top 15 Books "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) Genesis 1:26-27 has served as the locus of most theological anthropologies in the central Christian tradition. However, Richard Lints observes that too rarely have these verses been understood as conceptually interwoven with the whole of the prologue materials of Genesis 1. The construction of the cosmic temple strongly hints that the "image of God" language serves liturgical functions. Lints argues that "idol" language in the Bible is a conceptual inversion of the "image" language of Genesis 1. These constructs illuminate each other, and clarify the canon's central anthropological concerns. The question of human identity is distinct, though not separate, from the question of human nature; the latter has far too frequently been read into the biblical use of image. Lints shows how the "narrative" of human identity runs from creation (imago Dei) to fall (the golden calf/idol, Exodus 32) to redemption (Christ as perfect image, Colossians 1:15-20). The biblical-theological use of image/idol is a thread through the canon that highlights the movements of redemptive history. In the concluding chapters of this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Lints interprets the use of idolatry as it emerges in the secular prophets of the nineteenth century, and examines the recent renaissance of interest in idolatry with its conceptual power to explain the "culture of desire." Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

In eight chapters, David Harned explores the theology of the Apostles’ Creed, taking the position that the creed, in fact, provides us with a master image for self-understanding, and that controlling image is “child of God.” The creed is seen as being important for personality formation and the development of “character,” rather than as either a statement of beliefs or a loyalty oath. Harned’s ninth and final chapter is intended for those who wish to pursue further the question of master imagery for the formation of a Christian Sense of Identity.