God with Us in Moral Conflict: Divine Righteousness Personified
The recurring biblical idea of ‘God with us’ is underdeveloped in the literature. This article corrects for that deficiency. The God of Jews and Christians offers to ‘be with us’ but is also famous for moral conflict with humans, from the beginning to the end of the scriptural writings. In this rega...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
2023
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| In: |
The expository times
Year: 2023, Volume: 134, Issue: 8, Pages: 335-345 |
| Further subjects: | B
Righteousness
B Cooperation B Moral death B Divine evidence B Divine accompaniment B Moral Conflict |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The recurring biblical idea of ‘God with us’ is underdeveloped in the literature. This article corrects for that deficiency. The God of Jews and Christians offers to ‘be with us’ but is also famous for moral conflict with humans, from the beginning to the end of the scriptural writings. In this regard, at least, we have a marked contrast with the typical gods of deists and of various other theists. This article clarifies the relevant kind of divine conflict in terms of moral life ‘with God’ against moral death. It shows, on this basis, what humans should expect of God regarding morally significant relations in ‘being with’ humans. The article avoids two extremes regarding the divine accompaniment of humans: one extreme as constant presence to awareness, and the other as merely causal without salient experienced content. An important result is a basis in experienced evidence for our assessment of the reality and the moral character of God. Such a basis can move inquirers beyond some stalemates in longstanding controversy about God’s reality and goodness. It also can highlight a unique value of God for humans: namely, being a trustworthy accompanier bringing lasting moral life over moral failure and death. The divine conflict reveals God’s righteous character and aims for an interpersonal divine-human resolution in moral life that is inherently cooperative rather than competitively exclusive. The article identifies how this conflict includes a quest for God’s accompanying, or being together with, humans in righteousness and thus is irreducibly interpersonal and interactive, and not merely moralistic. |
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| ISSN: | 1745-5308 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The expository times
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/00145246231156830 |