Mark Wreford examines the reasons that prompted the New Testament writers to create the texts which would become the formation of the Christian religion, exploring the possibility that certain religious experiences were understood as revelatory, and consequently inspired the writing of texts which were seen as special from their inception. Wreford uses Luke-Acts and Galatians as test-cases within the New Testament, reflecting both on the stated importance of religious experiences – whether the author's own or others' – to the development of these texts, and the status the texts claim for themselves. Wreford suggests that Luke-Acts offers a helpful example of the relationship between religious experience and the creation of Scripture, as an extensive narrative which reflects on early Christian claims to Spirit-inspired witness and which begins with an explicit authorial statement of purpose. Similarly, in Galatians, Paul's autobiographical account of God's revelation of Christ to him is the foundation of a letter that is intended to play an authoritative role in shaping its addressees' own faith and practice. Wreford argues that religious experiences are presented as the driving force behind the creation of the texts, examining how such religious experience links with notions of scripture and canonicity. He then asserts that both Luke and Paul understood themselves to be creating new scriptural writings on the basis of their relationship to new religious experiences, citing the experience and speech at Pentecost, the inclusion of gentiles in the experience, and Paul's own conversion experience as key elements behind the self-understanding of these New Testament authors.

This volume examines the reasons that prompted the New Testament writers to create the texts which would become the formation of the Christian religion, exploring the possibility that certain religious experiences were understood as revelatory, and consequently inspired the writing of texts which were seen as special from their inception. Mark Wreford uses Luke-Acts and Galatians as test-cases within the New Testament, reflecting both on the stated importance of religious experiences – whether the author's own or others' – to the development of these texts, and the status the texts claim for themselves. Wreford suggests that Luke-Acts offers a helpful example of the relationship between religious experience and the creation of Scripture, as an extensive narrative which reflects on early Christian claims to Spirit-inspired witness and which begins with an explicit authorial statement of purpose. Similarly, in Galatians, Paul's autobiographical account of God's revelation of Christ to him is the foundation of a letter that is intended to play an authoritative role in shaping its addressees' own faith and practice. Wreford argues that religious experiences are presented as the driving force behind the creation of the texts, examining how such religious experience links with notions of scripture and canonicity. He then asserts that both Luke and Paul understood themselves to be creating new scriptural writings on the basis of their relationship to new religious experiences, citing the experience and speech at Pentecost, the inclusion of gentiles in the experience, and Paul's own conversion experience as key elements behind the self-understanding of these New Testament authors.

For many Christians, personal experiences of God provide an important ground or justification for accepting the truth of the gospel. But we are sometimes mistaken about our experiences, and followers of other religions also provide impressive testimonies to support their religious beliefs. This book explores from a philosophical and theological perspective the viability of divine encounters as support for belief in God, arguing that some religious experiences can be accepted as genuine experiences of God and can provide evidence for Christian beliefs.

Now revised, The Experience of God is a balanced synthesis of present-day thinking on issues such as experience and God, revelation and history, faith and unbelief. Theology emerges as an exciting adventure available to all.

There is hardly a category more prominent in modern and postmodern reflection on religion than that of religious experience. In Divinising Experience, scholars gathered in the Research Group 'Theology in a Postmodern Context' (K.U.Leuven), have sought to investigate from quite different perspectives the theological approaches of twelve key authors in the history of religious experience. Organised chronologically, they present studies on Origen, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Ignatius of Loyola, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, Wolfhard Pannenberg, Paul Tillich, John Henry Newman, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Paul Ricoeur. Not surprisingly, each of the investigations in itself suggests a different approach to and an analysis of 'experience' as a category. This volume therefore presents almost a 'double movement' on the one hand as enquiries into specific thinkers, and on the other to discover who we are as readers, when we take up the category of religious experience as a reading key. In their own way, the twelve essays of Divinising Experience provide a kind of introductory reader in the question of religious experience.

This new edition of A Window to the Divine presents a summary of developments on a number of basic questions pertaining to creation theology and what a synthesis might look like at this time. It is based on the premise that contemporary believers can sense a remarkably rich communication of the divine mystery through the insights of science, and that the sciences may open even richer and more challenging possibilities to the understanding of our tradition. "Our tradition is rooted in the belief that however the universe may look empirically, it is precisely this universe described to us at the empirical level by the sciences that our faith holds to be the fruit of God's creative knowledge and love. It is my hope that these reflections may help us discover in what sense this universe may truly be seen as a window to the mystery of the divine." --from the preface to A Window to the Divine

This book brings together lessons from three journeys. The first journey began with my acceptance of Jesus at a young age, together with my growing recognition of the differences between the scriptural record and scientific understanding. It continued with a young man’s adventure, a retreat into nature, and an encounter with war. War and life’s darker side convinced me that even as nature brings awe and opens us to religious experience, we need morality. The second journey began as I inquired into the ministry. When the church transferred the guide they had assigned to me, Bob Wessman became my mentor. Bob was an ordained pastor with a doctorate in theology. For twenty years, we read and discussed theology, including the Catholic ideas that I had discovered while teaching with the Dominican Sisters. Bob is in hospice care as I write this, and my library is full of the books that he gifted to me. Thank you, Bob. I now had many ideas from my first two journeys, but they floated about in my head without an organizing form. The challenge was to find a form that would allow the ideas to come together and speak in harmony. Differences between Scripture and science had troubled me since my youth, and I could not ignore science. It was simply too good at finding truth to ignore. So science would have to help me. Science cannot touch all that religion touches, but science and technology can be in correspondence with theology. Researching and writing this book could explore that relationship. The result was to have remained personal, but then I thought that a reader might find an idea or two useful. A person who is literate in science might see why trusting Jesus is both good and reasonable. This book is the story of the third journey, an odyssey through science and Christian theology.