Monday, January 23, 2017

Fullness of life

The Living God and the Fullness of Life ~ by Jürgen Moltmann, 2015
Modern humanity has accepted a truncated, impoverished definition of life.  Focusing solely on material realities, we have forgotten that joy, purpose, and meaning come from a life that is both immersed in the temporal and alive to the transcendent.  We have, in other words, ceased to live in God.  Moltmann shows us what that life of joy and purpose looks like.  Describing how we came to live in a world devoid of the ultimate, he charts a way back to an intimate connection with the biblical God.  He counsels that we adopt a "theology of life," an orientation that sees God at work in both the mundane and the extraordinary and that pushes us to work for a world that fully reflects the life of its Creator.  Moltmann offers a telling critique of the shallow values of consumerist society and provides a compelling rationale for why spiritual sensibilities and encounter with God must lie at the heart of any life that seeks to be authentically human.
I'm slowly getting back into the study of theology.  So far I've only managed to read the Preface (3 pages) and the Introduction (20 pages) of this book, but it's a start.  This book contributes to the theology of life that Moltmann began with
The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 1992
and
The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, 1997

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