Tag: Monotheism

The Maturing of Monotheism A Dialectical Path to its Truth


Free Download Garth Hallett, "The Maturing of Monotheism: A Dialectical Path to its Truth"
English | ISBN: 1350089354 | 2019 | 224 pages | EPUB | 978 KB
Tracing a dialectical path, The Maturing of Monotheism emphasises the plausibility of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and kindred forms of monotheism and responds to anti-theistic challenges of our day. These include materialism, determinism, the denial of objective value, the pervasiveness of evil, and predictions of human individual and collective extinction. The book reviews traditional metaphysical ways of arguing for monotheism but employs a cumulative, more experiential approach. While agnosticism affects humanity’s most basic beliefs, Garth Hallett demonstrates that there remains ample room for rational, theistic faith.

(more…)

Monotheism and Fundamentalism Prevalence, Potential, and Resilience


Free Download Rik Peels, "Monotheism and Fundamentalism: Prevalence, Potential, and Resilience "
English | ISBN: 1009500481 | 2024 | 84 pages | PDF | 7 MB
This Element explores the relation between monotheism and fundamentalism. It does so from both an empirical perspective and a more theoretical one that combines theological and philosophical insights. The empirical part addresses how as a matter of fact, particularly quantitively, monotheism and fundamentalism relate to one another. The more theoretical part studies the relation between the two by considering the doctrine of God and the issue of exclusion, theories of revelation, and ethics. Finally, the book considers whether monotheism has particular resources that can be employed in mitigating the consequences of or even altogether preventing fundamentalism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

(more…)

The Idea of Semitic Monotheism The Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth


Free Download Guy G. Stroumsa, "The Idea of Semitic Monotheism: The Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth"
English | ISBN: 019289868X | 2021 | 320 pages | AZW3 | 2 MB
The Idea of Semitic Monotheism examines some major aspects of the scholarly study of religion in the long nineteenth century-from the Enlightenment to the First World War. It aims to understand the new status of Judaism and Islam in the formative period of the new discipline. Guy G. Stroumsa focuses on the concept of Semitic monotheism, a concept developed by Ernest Renan around the mid-nineteenth century on the basis of the postulated and highly problematic contradistinction between Aryan and Semitic families of peoples, cultures, and religions. This contradistinction grew from the Western discovery of Sanskrit and its relationship with European languages, at the time of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Together with the rise of scholarly Orientalism, this discovery offered new perspectives on the East, as a consequence of which the Near East was demoted from its traditional status as the locus of the Biblical revelations.

(more…)

Monotheism and Forgiveness


Free Download S. Mark Heim, "Monotheism and Forgiveness "
English | ISBN: 1108737749 | 2022 | 76 pages | AZW3 | 242 KB
Forgiveness is a hallmark teaching within monotheistic religions. This Element introduces the topic in three ways. First, it considers the extent to which forgiveness is specific to or constituted by monotheistic beliefs, by a comparison with analogous teaching and practice in Buddhism. Second, the most extensive section explores the grammar of forgiveness shared across the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam – elements of repentance, intercession, and eschatological deferral. This section identifies some of the divergent tendencies or emphases on this topic among those traditions. A third section addresses the role of forgiveness and monotheistic religions in human cultural evolution and the emergence of eusociality. The aim is for the reader to gain an introductory view of monotheism and forgiveness from a comparative religious example, from an internal examination of Abrahamic traditions, and from a developmental, secular perspective.

(more…)