The author's theological inquiry is intended to raise questions of interpretation within the camp of openness theology and to direct a discussion on the implications of this movement for the charismatic/Pentecostal community. Open theism or openness theology affirms that the universe is open, the future is not settled, God is essentially relational love, and the risks of love and the threats against it are real. The author digs deep into this area of doctrine in order to question how far openness theology is willing to go. Is it only the future that is open to God, or are there perhaps unknown aspects to the past and present as well? What does God know about sin, and when does he know it? Is it possible for God to be totally absent from a person's life or even from an entire nation? If God can be absent, can he also be exceptionally present in the lives of believers? What would the divine presence and the charismata (spiritual ministries) look like in an open universe?

Sharing in God's Presence means far more than "getting saved" and experiencing God's blessing in our lives. As believers, his presence becomes a very personal part of who we are and what we do--God actually shares himself with us! The language that we use often fails to capture the depths of God's nature penetrating ours, the fullness of his Spirit permeating our hearts, and the innermost infusion of his presence in our lives. But the truth couldn't be more intimate: "The person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him" (1 Corinthians 6:17)! This book is an invitation to share in God's presence by allowing God to share himself with you. God wants everyone to share in his embrace. As we accept our responsibility for prayer, ministry, and even revival, we share in the very precious dynamic of give and response that's involved in an intimate walk with Jesus Christ. For a general readership, this book is a reworking of material from the second half of the author's academic work God's Absence and the Charismatic Presence.

Safeguarding the distinction between God and world has always been a basic interest of negative theology. But sometimes it has overemphasized divine transcendence in a way that made it difficult to account for the sense of God's present activity and experienced actuality. Criticisms of the Western metaphysics of presence have made this even more difficult to conceive. On the other hand, there has been a widespread attempt in recent years to base all theology on (religious) experience; the Christian church celebrates God's presence in its central sacraments of baptism and Eucharist; process thought has re-conceptualized God's presence in panentheistic terms; and some have argued that God might be poly-present, not omnipresent. But what does it mean to say that God is present or absent? For Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike God is not an inference, an absentee entity of which we can detect only faint traces in our world. On the contrary, God is present reality, indeed the most present of all realities. However, belief in God's presence cannot ignore the widespread experience of God's absence. Moreover, there is little sense in speaking of God's absence if it cannot be distinguished from God's non-presence or non-existence. So how are we to understand the sense of divine presence and absence in religious and everyday life? This is what the essays in this volume explore in the biblical traditions, in Jewish and Christian theology and philosophy, and in contemporary philosophy of religion.

Sharing in God’s Presence means far more than “getting saved” and experiencing God’s blessing in our lives. As believers, his presence becomes a very personal part of who we are and what we do—God actually shares himself with us! The language that we use often fails to capture the depths of God’s nature penetrating ours, the fullness of his Spirit permeating our hearts, and the innermost infusion of his presence in our lives. But the truth couldn’t be more intimate: “The person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him” (1 Corinthians 6:17)! This book is an invitation to share in God’s presence by allowing God to share himself with you. God wants everyone to share in his embrace. As we accept our responsibility for prayer, ministry, and even revival, we share in the very precious dynamic of give and response that’s involved in an intimate walk with Jesus Christ. For a general readership, this book is a reworking of material from the second half of the author's academic work God's Absence and the Charismatic Presence.

This book, the first comprehensive study in English of Heidegger's philosophy of art, starts in the mid-1930s with Heidegger's discussion of the Greek temple and his Hegelian declaration that a great artwork gathers together an entire culture in affirmative celebration of its foundational 'truth', and that, by this criterion, art in modernity is 'dead'. His subsequent work on Hölderlin, whom he later identified as the decisive influence on his mature philosophy, led him into a passionate engagement with the art of Rilke, Cézanne, Klee and Zen Buddhism, liberating him not only from the overly restrictive conception of art of the mid-1930s but also from the disastrous politics of the period. Drawing on material hitherto unknown in the anglophone world, Young establishes a new account of Heidegger's philosophy of art and shows that his famous essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' is its beginning, not its end.

This research is an investigation into the charismatic leadership of Saul, David, and Solomon. Regarding methodology the study is a synchronic reading and is keen to demonstrate the theology explicit or implicit in the text. This study assumes that charismatic leaders emerge in crisis situations and in order to resolve the crisis by the charisma granted by God. In regard to Saul, the book argues that Saul proved himself a charismatic leader as long as acting resolutely and independently from Samuel, his mentor. He failed, however, because in Samuel's shadow he could not establish himself as a charismatic leader. David was successful because of his autonomy and resolution. Also, he was a successful charismatic leader as long as he remained independent. King David, however, was gradually sidelined by Joab. Another major theme of the David narrative is the clash between the concepts of charismatic military leadership and that of oriental kingship. David's military leadership and the charisma related to it are constantly challenged by the concept of oriental kingship. Although at his emergence he had lacked charisma, Solomon wisely chose the leadership skills needed to lead Israel. Attention is, however, drawn to the tensions between Solomon's leadership benefiting Israel and the royal pretension manifest in royal projects. The relationship of the new charismatic leader with the old leader is scrutinized: how the new leader is appointed, how he emerges, how the old persists—in short the transition and succession in leadership. An evaluation of the activity of the charismatic follows; could he resolve the crisis from which he emerged and for which he was granted God's spirit? To what extent were these leaders charismatic?

What transpires when Classical Pentecostals pray for God to intervene within their suffering, but God does not? Traditionally, Classical Pentecostals center on encountering God as demonstrated through the relating of testimonies of their experiences with God. In seeking to contribute to a theology of suffering for Pentecostals, Pam Engelbert lifts up the stories of eight Classical Pentecostals to discover how they experienced God and others amidst their extended suffering even when God did not intervene as they had prayed. By valuing each story, this qualitative practical theology work embraces a Pentecostal hermeneutic of experience combined with Scripture, namely the Gospel of John. As a Pentecostal practical theological project it offers a praxis (theology of action) of suffering and healing during times when we experience the apparent absence of God. It invites the reader to enter into the space of the other’s suffering by way of empathy, and thereby participate in God’s act of ministry to humanity through God’s expression of empathy in the very person of Jesus.

Heidegger's later philosophy has often been regarded as a lapse into unintelligible mysticism. While not ignoring its deep and difficult complexities, Julian Young's book explains in simple and straightforward language just what it is all about. It examines Heidegger's identification of loss of 'the gods', the violence of technology, and humanity's 'homelessness' as symptoms of the destitution of modernity, and his notion that overcoming 'oblivion of Being' is the essence of a turning to a post-destitute, genuinely post-modern existence. Young argues that Heidegger's conception of such an overcoming is profoundly fruitful with respect to the ancient quest to discover the nature of the good life. His book will be an invaluable resource for both students and scholars of Heidegger's works.

The main aim of this book is to provide an answer to the question: is there a connection between God's people's praise and God's presence? The central argument is that Scripture in both Testaments testifies to a correlation between human praise and divine presence. This hypothesis has been investigated in the light of contemporary Christian worship culture and the ensuing need for further biblical studies, which represents the background for this investigation. The study achieves the above aim by applying biblical theology as a discipline and canonical and intertextual models as a method.

Suppose that God exists: what difference would that make to the world? The answer depends on the nature of God and the nature of the world. In this book, William E. Mann argues in one new and sixteen previously published essays for a modern interpretation of a traditional conception of God as a simple, necessarily existing, personal being. Divine simplicity entails that God has no physical composition or temporal stages; that there is in God no distinction between essence and existence; that there is no partitioning of God's mental life into beliefs, desires, and intentions. God is thus a spiritual, eternal being, dependent on nothing else, whose essence is to exist and whose mode of existence is identical with omniscience, omnipotence, and perfectly goodness. In metaphysical contrast, the world is a spatial matrix populated most conspicuously by finite physical objects whose careers proceed sequentially from past to present to future. Mann defends a view according to which the world was created out of nothing and is sustained in existence from moment to moment by God. The differences in metaphysical status between creator and creatures raise questions for which Mann suggests answers. How can God know contingent facts and necessary truths without depending on them? Why is it so easy to overlook God's presence? Why would self-sufficient God create anything? Wouldn't a perfect God create the best world possible? Can God be free? Can we be free if God's power is continuously necessary to sustain us in existence? If God does sustain us, is God an accomplice whenever we sin? Mann responds to the Euthyphro dilemma by arguing for a kind of divine command metaethical theory, whose normative content lays emphasis on love. Given the metaphysical differences between us, how can there be loving relationships between God and creatures? Mann responds by examining the notions of piety and hope.