God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God

Front Cover
Fortress Press, 1. sept 1993 - 384 pages
The title expresses the book's intention: not to go on distinguishing between God and the world, so as then to surrender the world, as godless, to its scientific 'disenchantment' and its technical exploitation by human beings, but instead to discover God in all the beings he has created and to find his life-giving Spirit in the community of creation that they share. This view¿which has also been called panentheistic (in contrast to pantheistic)¿requires us to bring reverence for the life of every living thing into the adoration of God. And this means expanding the worship and service of God to include service for God's creation.

From inside the book

Selected pages

Contents

4 THE MODERN CRITICISM OF HEAVEN
175
5 GODS GLORY IN HEAVEN AS IT IS ON EARTH
181
The Evolution of Creation
185
2 EVOLUTION OR CREATION? FALSE CONFRONTATIONS GENUINE PROBLEMS
190
3 EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES IN NATURE
197
4 CONTINUOUS CREATION
206
Gods Image in Creation Human Beings
215
IMAGO DEI
216

8 The Cosmic Spirit and Human Consciousness
17
In the Ecological Crisis
20
The Crisis of Domination
23
2 ON THE WAY TO AN ECOLOGICAL THEOLOGY OF NATURE
33
3 THE ALIENATION AND LIBERATION OF NATURE
40
Nature as Subject
42
3 The Home Country in Nature
46
4 Soul and Body
47
5 The Naturalization of the Human Being
49
The Knowledge of Creation
53
2 NATURAL THEOLOGY
57
3 THE WORLD AS PROMISE AND ANTICIPATION
60
4 MESSIANIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD
65
5 THE EUCHARISTIC COMMUNITY OF CREATION
69
God the Creator
72
2 GODS DETERMINATION OF HIMSELF TO BE CREATOR
79
3 CREATION OUT OF NOTHING
86
4 THE TRINITARIAN DOCTRINE OF CREATION
94
5 THE COSMIC SPIRIT
98
The Time of Creation
104
2 TIME AS THE ETERNAL PRESENT
109
3 THE TIME OF CREATION
112
4 EXPERIENCES OF TIME IN THE HISTORY GOD
118
5 THE INTERLACED TIMES OF HISTORY
124
1 The Experience of History against the Horizon of its Future
126
2 The Historicization of the Present Past
130
3 The Futurization of the Present Future
132
4 The Synchronization of Historical Times
135
5 The Synchronization of Historical Time and Natural Time
137
The Space of Creation
140
1 THE ECOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF SPACE
142
2 THE CONCEPT OF HOMOGENEOUS SPACE
145
3 THE CREATION OF SPACES AND THE SPACE OF CREATION
147
4 THE PROBLEM OF ABSOLUTE SPACE
152
Heaven and Earth
158
2 THE HEAVEN OF NATURE
164
3 THE HEAVEN OF JESUS CHRIST
169
IMAGO CHRISTI
225
GLORIA DEI
228
4 AT ONCE GODS IMAGE AND A SINNER
229
5 SOCIAL LIKENESS TO GOD
234
Embodiment is the end of all Gods works
244
1 THE PRIMACY OF THE SOUL
247
1 Plato and the Death of the Body
248
2 Descartes and the Mechanistic Body
250
3 Karl Barth and the Ministering Body of a Ruling Soul
252
2 SOUL AND BODY
255
1 Thinking with the Body in the Old Testament
256
2 The Perichoretic Pattern of Body and Soul
258
3 Spirit and Gestalt
262
4 Spirit as Anticipation
264
5 Spirit as Communication
266
6 Spirit as the Affirmation of Life
268
3 LIFE IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS
270
The Sabbath The Feast of Creation
276
1 THE COMPLETION OF CREATION
278
2 THE BLESSING OF CREATION
281
3 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CREATION
283
4 THE FEAST OF REDEMPTION
287
5 JESUS AND THE SABBATH
290
THE FEAST OF THE BEGINNING
292
Symbols of the World
297
1 THE GREAT WORLD MOTHER
298
2 MOTHER EARTH
301
3 THE FEAST OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
303
2 THE WORLD AS DANCE
304
5 THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD
308
6 PLAY AS SYMBOL OF THE WORLD
310
7 THE WORLD AS WORK AND AS MACHINE
312
8 SYMBOLS COMPARED IN THE MESSIANIC LIGHT
316
NOTES
321
INDEX OF NAMES
361
Copyright

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Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 345 - Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death; The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.
Page 345 - I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God. I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope. And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.
Page 346 - And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law— Tho...
Page 96 - Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou takest away- their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created : and thou renewest the face of the earth.
Page 345 - Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life...
Page 289 - The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives. And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; "To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn...
Page 10 - Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth.
Page 10 - ... when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men (Prv, 8:22—31).
Page 122 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Page 355 - Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.

About the author (1993)

Jürgen Moltmann is professor emeritus of systematic theology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He is the author of more than twenty books with Fortress Press, including The Crucified God (1973), Theology of Hope (1993), and The Spirit of Life (2001).

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