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The Mystery of God: Theology for Knowing the Unknowable by Christopher A. Hall, Steven D. Boyer
adamrshields's review
4.0
Short Review: The Mystery of God is focused on helping us to understand how to talk about the mystery of God (how God is unknowable) in a way that allows for the revealed knowledge of God (scripture, Christ's incarnation, etc) and placing that in a historical and theological context.
Part one is a mix of historical theology and philosophical background. The authors looking at how historical theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther and others and understood the God as both unknowable and knowable. There is a wide range of theological streams that the authors pull from so they quite adequately prove their point that God as unknownable and mystery is part of long term orthodox Christianity. And then mixed in with the historical theology is the philosophy of what knowing God is all about and how knowing God is fundamentally different from knowing other types of knowledge.
It is here that the authors using their ongoing illustration of how 2 dimensional people could theoretically understand how a ball is different from a circle, but they never can fully know the difference because they are unable to experience the full difference because they lack the ability to move in three dimensions. Or how a cylinder will look like both a circle and a rectangle depending on the angle if you are in 2 dimensions, but it is actually neither a circle or a rectangle in the reality of three dimensions. The illustration has its problems, but it gets the basic point across.
This first section is a bit dense and takes a bit to get through. But that leads to the second section where the authors walk through various doctrines and illustrate how mystery works and makes our theological life richer and more fulfilling. Using the Trinity, Christ's Incarnation, the nature of Election and salvation, Prayer and interfaith relationships, the authors show how we should and should not use the concept of mystery appropriately.
This is a book I am planning on reading again soon. Well worth reading.
My full review is at my blog at http://bookwi.se/mystery-of-god/
___
The publishers provided me a digital copy of the book for review through netgalley.
Part one is a mix of historical theology and philosophical background. The authors looking at how historical theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther and others and understood the God as both unknowable and knowable. There is a wide range of theological streams that the authors pull from so they quite adequately prove their point that God as unknownable and mystery is part of long term orthodox Christianity. And then mixed in with the historical theology is the philosophy of what knowing God is all about and how knowing God is fundamentally different from knowing other types of knowledge.
It is here that the authors using their ongoing illustration of how 2 dimensional people could theoretically understand how a ball is different from a circle, but they never can fully know the difference because they are unable to experience the full difference because they lack the ability to move in three dimensions. Or how a cylinder will look like both a circle and a rectangle depending on the angle if you are in 2 dimensions, but it is actually neither a circle or a rectangle in the reality of three dimensions. The illustration has its problems, but it gets the basic point across.
This first section is a bit dense and takes a bit to get through. But that leads to the second section where the authors walk through various doctrines and illustrate how mystery works and makes our theological life richer and more fulfilling. Using the Trinity, Christ's Incarnation, the nature of Election and salvation, Prayer and interfaith relationships, the authors show how we should and should not use the concept of mystery appropriately.
This is a book I am planning on reading again soon. Well worth reading.
My full review is at my blog at http://bookwi.se/mystery-of-god/
___
The publishers provided me a digital copy of the book for review through netgalley.
skybalon's review
5.0
It takes a delicate touch to explain things by invoking the inexplicable. The author does a great job of using analogy and solid theology to help explain why God being a mystery is not only a sufficient explanation for significant theological issues but a necessary one.
Sometimes the book is a little dry and academic, but it is well worth plowing through slowly and thinking about each section.
Sometimes the book is a little dry and academic, but it is well worth plowing through slowly and thinking about each section.
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