Mercy Of God Research Articles

What Can Postliberals and Evangelicals Learn from Each Other? Merciful Substitution in George Hunsinger's Philippians and Historic Reformed Theology

This article brings George Hunsinger's treatment of substitutionary atonement in his Philippians into dialogue with John Owen and B. B. Warfield as representatives of historic Reformed theology. The aim of the article is to reassert the primacy of expiation over propitiation in evangelical theology by considering Hunsinger's proposal to replace the term “penal substitution” with what he calls a “merciful substitution.” He accepts the notion of propitiation when it is defined as the removal of God's wrath predicated upon the removal of sin (expiation), but rejects the distorted understanding of propitiation according to which God is a God of wrath first and only subsequently a God of mercy. For Hunsinger, expiatory sacrifice is the means provided by God's mercy so as to reconcile us to God. Similarly, for Owen and Warfield, expiation is accomplished by Christ's substitutionary sacrifice in which the believer's sin and guilt are translated to him through mystical and federal union. While it is unlikely that evangelicals would make “merciful substitution” a normative expression of the atonement, Hunsinger's caveats against the excessively forensic and nominalistic connotations of the term “penal substitution” are worth the consideration of evangelicals who share his passion for the dogmatic norma normata that regulates our understandings of the biblical texts.

Heresy and Hypocrisy of the Church: A Marxist Analysis of Okezie Nwoka's God of Mercy

Heresy and Hypocrisy of the Church: A Marxist Analysis of Okezie Nwoka's God of Mercy

Sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine: A Historical Overview

The research aims to collect historical information on the sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine that are dedicated to the Persons of the Holy Trinity (or the Divine mystery), the Blessed Virgin Mary, saints, and blesseds. The study applies a comprehensive approach using methods of scientific analysis, systematisation and generalisation, and a combination of historical, cultural and art historical methods to provide a broader understanding of the topic. This research considers twenty sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese that were officially proclaimed from June 13, 1995, to June 10, 2020, as well as the ancient Sanctuary of the Mother of God Merciful and God of Mercy. It has been established that all sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese are diocesan. The study analyzed more than fifty publications. The scientific novelty of the results obtained is a comprehensive analysis of historical information about the sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. The sanctuaries of the Lviv Archdiocese in Ukraine require further historical, cultural, and art historical research that will complement previous publications.

Unworthy Recipients and the Mercy of God

This article examines the ideology of gift in the Sant hagiographies (paracaī) of Anantadās (16th/17th century). It is assumed that understanding author’s implicit view of gift giving (dāna) is fundamental to unraveling the meaning of certain episodes of the paracaīs. These involve curious cases such as that of Kabīr abandoning his dāna-related duties or those of various Sants, for example, Pīpā, offering gifts to the brahmins (who are, nevertheless, depicted mainly as enemies of the bhakts). The approach of Anantadās to dāna seems to differ significantly from the ideas expounded by the medieval Brahmanic, Buddhist, and Jain sources as it transcends the notion of the gift as being motivated by the socioreligious status of the recipient. It also proves the existence of a certain God-bhakt reciprocity. As such, dāna works on a soteriological level, as a devotional act aimed at creating a relationship with Hari, and on a proselytic level as a tool for expanding the religious community.

From the Aramaic raḥmānāʾ to raḥmānān and al-raḥmān

Abstract The oldest record of the notion of “mercy”, raḥmān, in Aramaic is known from a bilingual text in which the word is the translation of the Akkadian rēmēnû. The latter is used in Mesopotamian onomastics, hymns and prayers, which delivered the oldest formulae of calls for the mercy of gods, especially in a recurrent expression: “the merciful god, that is good to pray,” translated verbatim in the Aramaic text of the statue of Tell Fekheryeh. Almost a thousand years later, the same wording has been inherited unchanged in Palmyrene Aramaic. Nevertheless, the Palmyrene interest on the divine epithet raḥmān and its revival in Palmyrene epigraphy may be explained by the influence of the new Roman concept of clementia. Meanwhile, this contribution proposes to outline a chronology of the Aramaic inscriptions from Syria and Palestine, in which raḥmānāʾ is either the main substitute for the divine name, or a major divine epithet. As the Akkadian phonetic assimilates the consonant <ḥ> to the laryngeal <ʾ> but preserves the velar <ḫ>, the supposed East Semitic root was rḥm, not rḫm. On the contrary, in the Arabian Peninsula, the earliest attested root is rḫm, as evidenced by South Arabic onomastics or toponymy. A late use of rḥm in South Arabic as a verb or noun is the result of a loan from Aramaic and does not appear until the fifth century AD. The first South Arabian inscriptions naming the monotheistic god raḥmānn are preceded by the Palmyrene inscriptions by almost two centuries and are contemporary with the Jewish-Aramaic inscriptions in the Palestinian synagogues, which call the God Raḥmānāʾ. Late, the Aramaic epithet was transferred to the Arabic al-raḥmān, through South Arabian.

“Without Contraries Is No Progression”: William Blake’s Monistic Understanding of Theodicy as Reflected in His Engravings of the Book of Job

In the book of Job, Job is initially described as “perfect and upright,” yet Yahweh allows Satan to inflict terrible suffering on him. From their Deuteronomistic orientation, Job’s comforters insist that Job must have sinned and deserves punishment. If Job is truly innocent, the quandary of theodicy arises because Yahwistic monism views Yahweh as the one and only loving, all powerful God of justice and mercy. However, in his exegesis in his set of engravings of the book, the nineteenth-century poet and artist William Blake viewed Job not as “perfect and upright,” but as wrapped in a self-absorbed bubble of false piety, dedicated to traditional memory and habit. This article selects six of Blake’s engravings and by means of a literary-psychological methodological approach demonstrates how Blake anticipated certain modern exegetical methods in his aim to “justify the ways of God to man.” He claimed the right to use his own imaginative response to the text, rather than rely on the meaning handed down by tradition and memory. The initial divide between heaven and earth is bridged when the youthful Elihu rejects their traditional wisdom, and brings Job to the point where he can experience God as an immanent divine presence. The advance of science, for instance, Darwin’s theory of the origin of the species, and subsequent research in a variety of disciplines has resulted in a new understanding of the inevitability of suffering and evil, and goes some way to validate Blake’s monistic insistence that “without contraries is no progression.”

برصغیر پاک وہندکے صو فیاءکرام کی اخلاقی، سماجی واصلاحی کاوشوں کا تجزیاتی مطالعہ

Sufism means purity and” Suf” is the name of purity of heart and action, which civilizes his conduct and affairs and becomes clean from the calamities of nature, and in reality, a Sufi is one whose heart is free from filth. Self-purification is a very important factor if a person wants to live peacefully and according to the wishes of Allah Almighty. Therefore, in every period of history. A large number of people were impressed by the simple teachings, lofty character, and fair treatment of the Sufis and entered the fold of Islam and contribution towards the spread of Islam in the sub-continent. The message of Islam was spread across the length and breadth of the sub-continent by the Islamic mystics. All work of educating people in the simple and direct message of Islam was done by Sufis like Ali Hajvery of Lahore, Khawaja Moinuddin of Ajmer, Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki, Baba Farid of Pakpattan, Sheikh Bahaudin Zakriya of Multan, Makhdoom Jahania Jhangasgt of Bahawalpur, Sheikh Nazimudin of Delhi etc. Sufis taught clear faith to the people around them. They did their best for inculcating the concept of the mercy of God in human hearts and eventually purifying spiritual and moral behaviors. The pleasures of honest dealing, sympathizing with fellow beings, and striving to obtain the nearness of God. Understanding the power of prayer and the beauties of faith, and ultimately fulfilling the duties and responsibilities.

ADAM’S WRONGDOING IN THE LIGHT OF THE BENEFICENT QUALITIES OF THE TREE OF ETERNITY AND MERCIFULNESS OF ALLAH

The conventional view is that God had prohibited Adam from eating of the Tree of Eternity. However, he forgot the promise and, prodded by the Satan, he ate. He thus fell and then repented his wrongdoing. In this view, Ayat 20:115: “And We had already taken a promise from Adam before, but he forgot; and We found not in him determination,” draws attention of Prophet Mohammad to the wrongdoing of eating of the Tree mentioned in 7:22 and 20:121. This view leaves unexplained why would God, being beneficent and merciful, prohibit Adam from eating of the Tree of Eternity. We provide an alternative exegesis to resolve this issue. We suggest that the earlier promise mentioned in 20:115 was that of eating of the Tree. However, Adam forgot and did not eat of it. Then, God gave him a “negative order” to prompt him to eat of it. Adam still did not eat. Then, Satan assured Eve that God actually wanted them to eat of the Tree. Thereupon Adam and Eve ate of it and their wrongdoing of not eating of the Tree earlier became apparent to them. They repented for their mistake of not-eating of the Tree and God chose Adam and guided him. Both alternatives are fraught with difficulties. The conventional alternative does not explain why Merciful God would prohibit eating of the Tree of Eternity. Our alternative is challenged by interpreting the words of God as a “negative order.” There is a need to consider both alternatives dispassionately.

Denying a God of Mercy

This essay concerns itself with notions of masculinity in John Milton’s Samson Agonistes. Essentially, the essay argues that the violence in the play is a direct result of concepts of masculinity and the projection of those concepts onto God. The characters in the play repeatedly fail to recognize a God of compassion or mercy, preferring to remain within their notions of a voluntarist, vindictive, vengeful, and violent God. The argument considers the relationship of the play with the Book of Judges before shifting its focus to the Chorus, particularly their activity in framing and controlling the narrative. The play gives us various hints as to why we should pause before following their interpretations. The essay then examines a motif of hands/touch, which intersects with the motif in Paradise Lost, but to very different outcomes. The ending of the play is catastrophic and a direct result of an adherence to a particular view of God and an inability to entertain other views.

Endo Šusaku - pisac inkulturacije

Endo Shusaku's oeuvre is a fascinating literary attempt at reconciliation of (Western) Christianity and Japanese culture. As a Christian and a Japanese, Endo was a living embodiment of this religious and cultural struggle, but he was also a writer and thus in a fitting position to express the agonies of identity crisis that he and his Christian compatriots had to endure for centuries. Endo was, in other words, interested in the mission process known as inculturation, which signifies specific ways in which Christianity becomes a natural part of any given culture. The success of this process depends on the identification of the most important causes of conflict between Christianity and culture, while the solutions usually tend to produce something new. In most cases of successful inculturation, new images of Christ were produced in accordance with the religious mentality of the baptized community. Throughout his writings, Endo has managed to offer several such images. His Christ is a Suffering Servant of God, similar to the one described by Isaiah, a companion figure (dohansha), and a merciful God full of motherly love. While based on the Bible, these images are, at the same time, inspired by Japanese religious traditions, specifically Buddhist notions of merciful buddhas and bodhisattvas. Several controversial details in Endo's novels have aroused suspicions among Catholic clergymen, such as the presumed justification of apostasy in Silence and the pluralist tone of Deep River, but Endo was not trying to justify Asian religious mentality to Westerners. On the contrary, he was trying to present Christianity to the Japanese audience using the religious motifs they were familiar with. Thus, one might interpret Endo's images of Christ as an "experimental" inculturation - theologically imperfect but nevertheless valuable for pointing out the most significant issues in the evangelization of Japan.

La debolezza di Paolo e la grazia di Dio nella Seconda Lettera ai Corinzi

The experience of his own weakness leads Paul to a greater trust in the presence of the Lord who works with the power of grace in his life and consoles him in tribulations and suffering. By walking the path of weakness, Paul grows in the awareness of his participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. The synthesis of the theology of the cross, which we find in Paul’s letters, shows how God acts in his life through weaknesses and leads the apostle to express his trust in the God of consolation and mercy.

“Liberty or Death!”

“Liberty or Death!”

Sweden, Inc.: Temporal Sovereignty of the Realm and People from the Middle Ages to Modernity

Sweden, Inc.: Temporal Sovereignty of the Realm and People from the Middle Ages to Modernity

Aslak Rostad. Human Transgression—Divine Retribution: A Study of Religious Transgressions and Punishments in Greek Cultic Regulation and Lydian-Phrygian Propitiatory Inscriptions (“Confession Inscriptions”)

Aslak Rostad. <i>Human Transgression—Divine Retribution: A Study of Religious Transgressions and Punishments in Greek Cultic Regulation and Lydian-Phrygian Propitiatory Inscriptions (“Confession Inscriptions”)</i>

Consequences of Practical Polytheism in Human Deviation in the Qur'an and Nahj Al-Balaghah

Shirk (polytheism) literally means the combination of two properties and two shares. Practical polytheism means associating (a) partner(s) with God along side Him, and it is overt (Jali) and covert (Khafi) polytheism. Covert polytheism appears in the stage of worship and obedience to God such as Obedience to the mundane wish and desires (Havaye Nafs), obedience to the devil, following the tyrants; Worldliness, selfishness, pursuit of certain habits and tendencies common among some believers for example, friendship with the deniers of God, Prophets or infallible Imams (as); Humility and submission to non-God; Being a slave and captive of others ( being controlled by others ) ; Honoring the rich and the oppressors; Also hypocrisy and Sum’ah... . The present study entitled "Consequences of practical polytheism in human fall" with the aim of enlightenment in this field; in order to protect faith from the influence of superstitions and false heresies, has been carried out in narrative and descriptive methods. It is a library research which made references to the Holy Book of the Qur'an, Nahj al-Balaghah, some commentary books of Quran, theological, moral, and lexical books. Practical polytheism has consequences such as actions being void (Habt ‘Amal); reduction of sustenance; anxiety and distress; shortening life in this world and the hereafter; going far from the mercy of God; the wrath of God in this world and the hereafter; wandering; lack of cheerfulness in worship, regret and so on.

Return to God in Tennyson's In Memoriam: An Islamic Perspective

This research is an analytical study discussing the issue of doubt as it contradicts the belief in God to Alfred Lord Tennyson in his great elegy, “In Memoriam.” The Islamic religion calls for the return to God and it emphasizes that God would rejoice in the believer’s return to Him and repentance of sins and disobedience. The mercy of God is available for those who would like to be repented at any time in their lifetime. God has no deadline for repentance and return. This research is a comparative study that deals with the issue of return to God after disobedience and doubt between what was mentioned in the poem In Memoriam and the Islamic perspective in this regard. This study revolves around the question of whether there is any correspondence in the concept of return to God between what is mentioned by Tennyson in In Memoriam and what is given in the Holy Quran. Through the evidence that is presented in the body of the paper, harmonization between what Tennyson mentioned in In Memoriam and what is written in Quran and the prophetic Hadiths (The Prophet Muhammad's sayings) would be proved.

Wobec tajemnicy i skandalu zła – teodycea Karola Ludwika Konińskiego

The article presents religious and philosophical views of journalist and writer Karol Ludwik Koniński (1891–1943), which he included in his intimate journal, written mostly during the war and the occupation period. He intertwines his observations of daily dramatic events with reflections on the metaphysical and ethical status of evil present in the world. Koniński was inspired in his theodicy, trying to reconcile the image of merciful God with the severity of evil present in the world, the views of Gnostics and Origen. He took the view that God was not fully omnipotent, and emphasized that on a cosmic scale the process of overcoming multiform evil by God, who is Love, is constantly taking place. Koniński’s theodicy therefore constitutes religious evolutionism. He combined Gnostic sensitivity to the presence and severity of evil with the belief in the ultimate, full apocatastasis. Koniński’s reflection does not accept some of the dogmas of Roman Catholicism, it also includes a critique of the views of St. Augustine and scholastic theology. The author of the article puts forward a thesis that Koniński, due to his in-depth analysis of the subject of evil and his sensitivity to the dramatic dimension of human and non-human existence, can be attributed to a particular current of the philosophy of the heart, in Pascal’s understanding of this concept.

Getting the Cosmology Right

Getting the Cosmology Right

‘God has had Mercy on Me’: Theology and Soteriology in Philo of Alexandria’s de Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini

Abstract Philo of Alexandria’s treatise De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini offers a rich example of his theology and soteriology. The majestic God of De sacrificiis is transcendent, omnipresent, and absolutely unique. Anthropomorphic and anthropopathic conceptions of God also are memorably discussed and dismissed. Standing in tension with these ontological characteristics are relational attributes of God, which often are expressed in redemptive acts. Thus, the merciful God of De sacrificiis ‘transcends his transcendence’, and compassionately reaches out to humans in need. A full array of soteriological themes populate the pages of the treatise, including the war against the passions, the allegory of the soul, transformative revelatory experiences, salvific worship, contemplative ascent, and the vision of God. Furthermore, the agential acts and roles played by God and humans are complexly intertwined, demonstrating a sophisticated, experientially informed soteriology. Though these important Philonic themes typically are interpreted thematically and systemically, thus ‘ironing out’ any idiosyncrasies, this essay closely attends to the particular thought of this treatise. As a consequence, unique elements and emphases emerge, which in addition to distinctive depictions of divine compassion and soteriological agency, include a Stoic emphasis on reason, the relative absence of mediatorial figures, and a rare portrayal of an unequivocal visio Dei.

God Is Love – The Experience of the Just, Compassionate, and Merciful God

AbstractIn 2022, the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) is to gather in Karlsruhe, Germany, around the theme “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” This article offers reflections on understanding the theme in a holistic way against the background of the work undertaken in the WCC on trinitarian and incarnational theology, and the reconciliation of all in Christ that is expressed in the WCC document “Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC.” It goes on to offer reflections from an Orthodox perspective on the just, merciful, and compassionate God that we experience as love.