God and the Victim: Traumatic Intrusions on Grace and Freedom (AAR Academy Series)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.28 (560 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195311094 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 176 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-04-05 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Grace E. Stoltz said Free Will Not Free?. Since I have not yet read this book, I can only say that it certainly has given rise to a great curiosity as to how Beste's theories fit in with what I have always believed about free will. I know of cases in my own life where trauma has made it difficult to carry on in a full loving style of living, but since salvation is a free gift from God for those who accept the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I see trauma as an impediment to the difficulty of living out one's daily Christian life, but not that it would take away a free gift already given by God.Grace Stoltz
Drawing on insights present in feminist and trauma theory, Beste articulates a revised Rahnerian theology of freedom and grace responsive to trauma survivors in need of healing. Do our longstanding, widespread beliefs regarding ones access to Gods grace remain credible in light of recent social scientific research on the effects of interpersonal injury? With an eye toward the concrete experiences of trauma survivors, Best carefully considers the possibility that one can be victimized in such a way that his or her receptiveness to Gods grace is severely diminished, or even destroyed. Today, however, trauma theory insists that situations of overwhelming violence can permanently damage a person's capacity for responsive agency. For Christians, this theory raises the very troubling possibility that humans can inflict ultimate harm on each other, such that some individuals' eternal destiny can be determined not by themselves but by those who do great harm. Offering crucial insights that lead to a more adequate understanding of the relation between Gods grace and human freedom, Bestes important theory reconfigures our visions of God and humani
This is an extremely significant contribution to our understandings of human freedom and our vulnerabilities to damage at the heart of our capacity for free choice." --Margaret A. Beste attempts an important revision of Christian theologies of freedom and offers pastoral recommendations for communal healing of post-traumatic syndrome. It challenges one of the most important of these theologies--the one proposed by Karl Rahner--by juxtaposing it to descriptive analyses of severe psychological and physical trauma. Farley, author of Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. "This is a highly original study of the viability of any strong version of a theology of freedom
Jennifer Erin Beste is Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics at Xavier University