Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology PDF Download

Author: Carol Harrison
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191535885
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Carol Harrison counters the assumption that Augustine of Hippo's (354-430) theology underwent a revolutionary transformation around the time he was consecrated Bishop in 396. Instead, she argues that there is a fundamental continuity in his thought and practice from the moment of his conversion in 386. The book thereby challenges the general scholarly trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396), which were begun ten years after his conversion, and refocuses attention on his earlier works, which undergird his whole theological system.

Author: David C. Alexander
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781433101038
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
The nature and development of Augustine's understanding of the church between his conversion (386) and his forced entry into the clergy (391) provides an essential lens to understanding this seminal period of transition and the foundations of his future ecclesial contributions. Even so, most studies of Augustine's ecclesiology bypass this period, starting with the clerical Augustine (post 391). In fact, research on the 'young' Augustine and the Confessions too often stalls over debates between his neo-Platonic or Christian orientation, focusing on dichotomies in Augustine or an individualistic Augustine too rigidly labeled. This book helps fill these gaps and provides a case study supporting arguments for continuity between the 'young' and the clerical Augustine. A careful chronological textual approach to Augustine's early Christian years demonstrates how his ecclesiological thought began during this period and comprised a core component of his first theological synthesis. The emergence of his ecclesiological ideas was intimately intertwined with his overall personal, religious, philosophic, and theological development. As such it is crucial to our biographical and theological understanding of the great North African and will be of interest to specialists and students alike of Augustine's development, Confessions, mature ecclesiology, and the late antique world.

Author: Carol Harrison
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191588296
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
St. Augustine, the North African bishop of Hippo (AD 354-430), has been much studied. But there has been no systematic attempt to consider the context which shaped his life and thought. Augustine's long and controversial career and his vast literary output provide unrivalled evidence for understanding the diverse ways in which Christianity confronted, assimilated, and finally transformed the traditional society of late antiquity. This book sets Augustine in his cultural and social context showing how, as a Christian, he came to terms with the philosophical and rhetorical ideals of classical culture, and, as a bishop, with the ecclesiastical, ascetic, and political structures of late antique society. According to Augustine, the Fall of man and Original sin fracture and vitiate mankind's ability to know or to will the good. This is revealed as the keystone of his theology, effecting a decisive break with classical ideals of perfection and shaping the distinctive theology of Western Christendom.

Author: Carol Harrison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199543649
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Carol Harrison counters the assumption that Augustine of Hippo's (354-430) theology underwent a revolutionary transformation around the time he was consecrated Bishop in 396. Instead, she argues, there is a fundamental continuity in his thought and practice from the moment of his conversion in 386. The book thereby challenges the general scholarly trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396), which were begun ten years after his conversion, and refocuses attention on his earlier works, which undergird his whole theological system.

Author: Allan Fitzgerald
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802838438
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 962

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Book Description
This one-volume reference work provides the first encyclopedic treatment of the life, thought, and influence of Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), one of the greatest figures in the history of the Christian church. The product of more than 140 leading scholars throughout the world, this comprehensive encyclopedia contains over 400 articles that cover every aspect of Augustine's life and writings and trace his profound influence on the church and the development of Western thought through the past two millennia. Major articles examine in detail all of Augustine's nearly 120 extant writings, from his brief tractates to his prodigious theological works. For many readers, this volume is the only source for commentary on the numerous works by Augustine not available in English. Other articles discuss: Augustine's influence on other theologians, from contemporaries like Jerome and Ambrose to prominent figures throughout church history, such as Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Harnack; Augustine's life, the chaotic political events of his world, and the church's struggles with such heresies as Arianism, Donatism, Manicheism, and Pelagianism; Augustine's thoughts about philosophical problems (time, the ascent of the soul, the nature of truth), theological questions (guilt, original sin, free will, the Trinity), and cultural issues (church-state relations, Roman society).

Author: Christopher M. Date
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630871605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.

Author: J. Joyce Schuld
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Using Augustine as a conversation partner, this text explores the value of Michel Foucault's controversial writings for theologians, ethicists, philosophers and cultural theorists. It demonstrates the possibilities and difficulties of applying Foucault's social criticisms within Christian contexts.

Author: Keith E. Johnson
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 083083902X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Founding his argument on a close reading of St. Augustine?s De Trinitate, Keith Johnson critiques four recent attempts to construct a pluralistic theology of religions out of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

Author: Jonathan Bernier
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493434675
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This paradigm-shifting study is the first book-length investigation into the compositional dates of the New Testament to be published in over forty years. It argues that, with the notable exception of the undisputed Pauline Epistles, most New Testament texts were composed twenty to thirty years earlier than is typically supposed by contemporary biblical scholars. What emerges is a revised view of how quickly early Christians produced what became the seminal texts for their new movement.

Author: Chad Tyler Gerber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317014898
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
St Augustine's pneumatology remains one of his most distinctive, decisive, and ultimately divisive contributions to the story of Christian thought. How did his understanding of the Spirit develop? Why does he identity the Spirit with divine love and cosmic order? And from what personal and literary sources did he receive inspiration? This examination of Augustine's pneumatology - the first book-length study of this important topic available - seeks answers in Augustine's earliest extant writings, penned during the years surrounding his famed return to the Catholic Church and the height of his efforts to synthesize Catholic theology and the Platonic philosophy of his day which had postulated a divine 'trinity' of its own. Careful analysis of these initial texts casts fresh light upon Augustine's more mature and well-known theology of the Holy Spirit while also illuminating on-going discussions about his early thought such as the nature and extent of his Platonic sympathies and the possibility that the recent convert remained committed to the divinity of the human soul.