Knowing the Unknowable God
How Faith Thrives on Divine Mystery
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Meet the God Who Is Greater Than Your Biggest Questions.
The Bible never shies away from seeming contradictions. We are told both to resist our enemies and to love them, and that our all-knowing God can sometimes forget. Unable to reconcile such biblical paradoxes, some people abandon Christianity, while others pretend that the seeming contradictions don’t exist–preferring to believe in an uncomplicated, easy-to-comprehend God. Yet countless others are hungry for new insight into the God behind the Bible’s mysterious paradoxes.
Responding to this spiritual hunger, James Lucas delves into the mysteries of Scripture, demonstrating that biblical “contradictions” are actually exquisite paradoxes that enlarge our understanding of God.
With this book as your guide, you can embrace the paradoxes of Scripture and pursue honest answers to your hardest questions. The study of biblical paradox leads to greater devotion to the majestic God who makes himself known even while he surpasses human understanding. Today, you can begin Knowing the Unknowable God.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lucas, author of 13 books on parenting and leadership as well as some fictional works, begins with a good idea to explore some significant paradoxes found in the Bible. He sets out to discuss issues like God's judgment versus God's mercy, God's declared hatred of sinners versus God's declared love of sinners, God's omniscience versus statements about God "forgetting." However, this exploration lacks the sort of precise thinking such topics deserve. Several chapters discuss the difficulty of God's foreknowledge, but Lucas's conclusions don't really help sort out that paradox's innate tension. Several of the other paradoxes are not true paradoxes at all, such as the instruction to Christians to be both innocent and shrewd. His interpretation of scripture is disappointingly flat, interpreting wisdom proverbs as "commands," and allowing no notion that Jesus' teaching might be used as a critique on some of the ideas in the Old Testament. Several of his theological conclusions are disturbing that God's love is in fact conditional, or that while we are called to forgive our own enemies, we are called to hate God's enemies: "In the end, we apparently have no choice but to reject those who have rejected God." The book could be valuable to spark discussion, as each section concludes with a set of questions, but it does not fulfill the potential of its interesting premise.
Customer Reviews
Knowing the Unknowable God
This is a whole different level of thinking about God and the Bible. I’ve never heard much if any of this talked about in a sermon or Bible study. This book is a detailed guide to a multi-dimensional view of God and a courageous attempt to uncover the fullness of God’s character.