Tag: Divinity

Free Download Emily McAvan, "Divinity, Hospitality and the Posthuman in 21st-Century Literature: The Material Sacred"
English | ISBN: 1350280372 | 2024 | 224 pages | PDF | 2 MB
What does it feel like to experience the sacred today? Examining in detail many of this century’s most significant writers, including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth Strout, Marilynne Robinson, Mohsin Hamid, Michael Chabon, Howard Jacobson and Don DeLillo, Postsecular Fiction in the 21st Century: Divinity, Hospitality and the Posthuman argues that contemporary social and cultural forms, most especially those of 21st century literature, are marked by what Emily McAvan calls a material sacred.

Free Download Jon Balserak, "Divinity Compromised: A Study of Divine Accommodation in the Thought of John Calvin"
English | 2006 | pages: 222 | ISBN: 1402050550, 9048172683 | PDF | 2,1 mb
Divine accommodation in John Calvin’s thought has yet to receive the attention it deserves. To date it has not been the subject of a monograph-length treatment in any language (this study is the first) and the number of journal articles and book chapters devoted solely to it is small. The present work will, it is hoped, help to fill this lacuna in research on the topic, but additional research is undoubtedly still needed. Its title probably deserves a comment. The use of the word compromised is intended to raise the question of the extent of accommodation’s penetration into Calvin’s doctrine of God. It aims to suggest the idea that Calvin’s thinking on accommodation might possess qualities which push against traditional thinking on the divine attributes. The idea was first suggested by E. David Willis. The present study will aim to expand upon it. This monograph owes much to the efforts of Emeritus Professor of Patristic and Reformed Christianity, David F. Wright, who, as supervisor, colleague and friend, has offered assistance to me on innumerable occasions and has also demonstrated a level of scholarly excellence in his own work that has been enormously instructive and encouraging. Thanks are also due to a host of others. Thanks must be expressed to Professor Tony Lane, who offered very helpful criticisms of two earlier versions of this work and whose kindness has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.

Free Download André van der Braak, "Ayahuasca as Liquid Divinity: An Ontological Approach "
English | ISBN: 1666906441 | 2023 | 240 pages | EPUB, PDF | 1028 KB + 2 MB
Ayahuasca often yields transformative experiences that merge such familiar categories as the sacred and the secular, transcendence and immanence, subject and object, and the human and the nonhuman. However, such experiences are interpreted differently by Western and indigenous discourses. Using the work of French philosopher Bruno Latour, André van der Braak asks fundamental ontological questions in order to reimagine ayahuasca as liquid divinity, shifting the focus from ayahuasca experiences to ayahuasca-based ritual practices that aim to cultivate relationships with more-than-human powers, described by Latour as "beings of transformation and religion." Ayahuasca as Liquid Divinity: An Ontological Approach describes Santo Daime practices as a contemporary form of "theurgy" (god-work), as defined by the third-century Platonic philosopher and mystagogue Iamblichus. Theurgical practices aim at drawing down divine action through ritual procedures, using the imagination as an active faculty. Van der Braak argues that ayahuasca religiosity is ultimately not about individual recreation or healing, or even personal visions, but rather about engaging in communal transformative ecodelic practices that let us work as companions of the gods in order to practice solidarity with all sentient beings.