The Divine Mind

A Jungian psychoanalyst with a background in Judaism and Zen Buddhism explores the history of God concepts in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. This book is about the Abrahamic God’s inner journey, an epic that begins in the Hebrew Bible—the common source of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This God emerges as a living, textured personality as tormented as a Shakespearean character and as divided against humanity as the devil who personifies his dark side. Yet in heroic fashion, he embarks on a journey to greater consciousness, stretching into himself in the Talmud, New Testament, Qur’an, and Gnostic writings. Then finally, with and through the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystics, he discovers his true self as the absolute Godhead. He takes up residence in their psyches as their own Divine Mind or true self. The book suggests that what God learned from his journey might be something that we in turn could learn from and that could help us at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In this way, God’s inner journey becomes a metaphor for our own. Michael Gellert, a Jungian psychoanalyst, treats this story and the sacred writings that convey it as psychological facts—as expressions of the human psyche—regardless of whether or not God actually exists. He shows how the Hebrew Bible presents God as a primitive, barbaric tribal war god while centuries later the mystics portray him as their innermost essence and emptied of all projected, external, anthropomorphic images. Thus, God’s inner journey and the evolution of human consciousness—his story and ours—parallel each other and are integrally related. Rich in historical detail and psychological insights, this is a book that will be welcomed by seekers of every background and orientation.

If God is all powerful and entirely good and loving, why is there so much evil in the world? Based on a close canonical reading of Scripture, this book offers a new approach to the challenge of reconciling the Christian confession of a loving God with the realities of suffering and evil. John Peckham offers a constructive proposal for a theodicy of love that upholds both the sovereignty of God and human freedom, showing that Scripture points toward a framework for thinking about God's love in relation to the world.

Constantine’s conversion to Christianity marks one of the most significant turning points in the epic of Western civilization. It is also one of history’s most controversial and hotly-debated episodes. Why did Constantine join a persecuted sect? When did he convert? And what kind of Christian did he ultimately become? Such questions have perennially challenged historians, but modern scholarship has opened a new door towards understanding the fourth century’s most famous and mysterious convert. In Constantine and the Divine Mind, Chandler offers a new portrait of Constantine as a deeply religious man on a quest to restore what he believed was once the original religion of mankind: monotheism. By tracing this theological quest and important historical trends in Roman paganism, Chandler illuminates the process by which Constantine embraced Christianity, and how the reasons for that embrace continued to manifest in his religious policies. In this we discover not only Constantine’s personal religious journey, but the reason why Christianity was first developed into a world power.

The Eternal Essence of the Divine Mind By: Mark A. Notar After years of investigating, studying, and contemplating the teachings of the inherent wisdom of the human race, Mark A. Notar has produced an inspirational extended essay that is designed to serve as a gateway to the pursuit of greater understanding and spiritual revelation. The Eternal Essence of the Divine Mind is the result of his study of hundreds of texts concerning philosophy, comparative spirituality/religion, mythology, metaphysics, psychology, and sociology over the course of twenty-plus years. Notar will guide you on an unrelenting journey toward greater realization and understanding.

How many of our distinguished scientists have derived honour and credit by merely dressing up the ideas of those old philosophers, whom they are ever ready to disparage, is left to an impartial posterity to say. An era of disenchantment and rebuilding has already begun. The cycle has almost run its course; a new one is about to begin, and the future pages of history may convey full proof of the above. The “Primal Being” is an emanation of the Demiurgic or Universal Mind, which contains from eternity the idea of the “to be created world” within Itself, which idea the Unmanifested Logos produces of itself. The first Idea, “born in darkness before the creation of the world,” remains in the Unmanifested Mind; the second Idea, a reflection from the Universal Mind, becomes clothed with matter and assumes objective existence.

Challenges theological models of divine action that locate God's activity in human mind. Emphasizes God's relationship with all of nature.

In six closely-reasoned chapters, Joseph Gordon presents a detailed account of a Christian doctrine of Scripture in the fullest context of systematic theology. Divine Scripture in Human Understanding addresses the confusing plurality of contemporary approaches to Christian Scripture—both within and outside the academy—by articulating a traditionally grounded, constructive systematic theology of Christian Scripture. Utilizing primarily the methodological resources of Bernard Lonergan and traditional Christian doctrines of Scripture recovered by Henri de Lubac, it draws upon achievements in historical-critical study of Scripture, studies of the material history of Christian Scripture, reflection on philosophical hermeneutics and philosophical and theological anthropology, and other resources to articulate a unified but open horizon for understanding Christian Scripture today. Following an overview of the contemporary situation of Christian Scripture, Joseph Gordon identifies intellectual precedents for the work in the writings of Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine, who all locate Scripture in the economic work of the God to whom it bears witness by interpreting it through the Rule of Faith. Subsequent chapters draw on Scripture itself; classical sources such as Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, and Aquinas; the fruit of recent studies on the history of Scripture; and the work of recent scholars and theologians to provide a contemporary Christian articulation of the divine and human locations of Christian Scripture and the material history and intelligibility and purpose of Scripture in those locations. The resulting constructive position can serve as a heuristic for affirming the achievements of traditional, historical-critical, and contextual readings of Scripture and provides a basis for addressing issues relatively underemphasized by those respective approaches.

The fourth edition of World Religions in America continues its lauded tradition of providing students with reliable and nuanced information about America's religious diversity, while also reflecting new developments and ideas. Each chapter was updated to reflect important changes and events, and current statistics and information. New features include a timeline of key events and people for each tradition, sidebars on major movements or controversies, personal stories from members of various faiths, a theme-based organization of subjects, more subheads, three new chapters exploring America's increasing religious diversity, and suggestions for further study.