The Transcendent Character of the Good PDF Download

Author: Petruschka Schaafsma
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100064636X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This volume addresses issues of moral pluralism and polarization by drawing attention to the transcendent character of the good. It probes the history of Christian theology and moral philosophy to investigate the value of this idea and then relates it to contemporary moral issues. The good is transcendent in that it goes beyond concrete goods, things, acts, or individual preferences. It functions as the pole of a compass that helps orient our moral life. This volume explores the critical tension between the transcendent good and its concrete embodiments in the world through concepts like conscience, natural and divine law, virtue, and grace. The chapters are divided into three parts. Part I discusses metaphysical issues like the realist nature and the unity of the good in relation to philosophical, naturalist, and theological approaches from Augustine to Iris Murdoch. The chapters in Part II explore issues about knowing the transcendent good and doing good, exemplified in the delicate balance between divine command and human virtuousness. Early Protestant theological views prove to be excellent interlocutors for this reflection. Finally, Part III focuses on how transcendence is at stake in two heavily debated moral issues of today: euthanasia and the family. The Transcendent Character of the Good will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in theological ethics, moral philosophy, and the history of ethics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Author: Katelyn Detweiler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698155653
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
A timely work of contemporary magical realism, about a world plagued by violence, and the girl called upon to be a hero. When terrorists bomb Disney World, seventeen-year-old Iris Spero is as horrified as anyone else. Then a stranger shows up on her stoop in Brooklyn, revealing a secret about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Iris’s birth, and throwing her entire identity into question. Everything she thought she knew about her parents, and about herself, is a lie. Suddenly, the press is confronting Iris with the wild notion that she might be “special.” More than just special: she could be the miracle the world now so desperately needs. Families all across the grieving nation are pinning their hopes on Iris like she is some kind of saint or savior. She’s no longer sure whom she can trust—except for Zane, a homeless boy who long ago abandoned any kind of hope. She knows she can’t possibly be the glorified person everyone wants her to be… but she also can’t go back to being safe and anonymous. When nobody knows her but they all want a piece of her, who is Iris Spero now? And how can she—one teenage girl—possibly heal a broken world?

Author: Dan Barker
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
ISBN: 1634311795
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
What drives us to be good? How do we even know how to be good? Philosophers and theologians have dealt with such questions for millennia, but Dan Barker thinks the answers are not so complicated. In Mere Morality, he argues there's no need to appeal to supernatural commandments or the fear of some higher power when considering morality. Stripping "good" and "evil" down to the basics, he offers a simple compass for navigating life's most difficult moral and ethical dilemmas.

Author: Christopher Peterson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198037330
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 816

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Book Description
"Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees. Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.

Author: Katelyn Detweiler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698155645
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Mina is seventeen. A virgin. And pregnant. Mina is top of her class, girlfriend to the most ambitious guy in school, able to reason and study her way through anything. But when she suddenly finds herself pregnant—despite having never had sex—her orderly world collapses. Almost nobody believes Mina’s claims of virginity. Her father assumes that her boyfriend is responsible; her boyfriend believes she must have cheated on him. As news of Mina’s story spreads, there are those who brand her a liar. There are those who brand her a heretic. And there are those who believe that miracles are possible—and that Mina’s unborn child could be the greatest miracle of all.

Author: Yaa Gyasi
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 052565819X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! • Finalist for the WOMEN'S PRIZE Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.

Author: Jerry H. Gill
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004349715
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
A comparison of the views of Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Kazantzakis on the topic of transcendence. A fresh model for understanding this important yet complex notion is offered by the author

Author: Alan Lightman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101871873
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Einstein's Dreams—“an elegant and moving paean to our spiritual quest for meaning in an age of science" (The New York Times Book Review). As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was merging with something larger than himself—an eternal unity, something absolute and immaterial. The result is an inspired, lyrical meditation from the acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams that explores these seemingly contradictory impulses. Lightman draws on sources ranging from Saint Augustine's conception of absolute truth to Einstein's theory of relativity, and gives us a profound inquiry into the human desire for truth and meaning, and a journey along the different paths of religion and science that become part of that quest. This small but provocative book explores the tension between our yearning for certainty and permanence versus the modern scientific view that all things in the physical world are uncertain and impermanent.

Author: Scott Barry Kaufman
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
ISBN: 0143131206
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
A bold reimagining of Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs--and new insights for living your most authentic, fulfilled, and connected life. When positive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman first discovered Maslow's unfinished theory of transcendence, sprinkled throughout a cache of unpublished journals, he felt a deep resonance with his own work and life. In this groundbreaking book, Kaufman picks up where Maslow left off, unraveling the mysteries of his unfinished theory, and integrating these ideas with the latest research on attachment, connection, exploration, love, purpose and other building blocks of a life well lived. Maslow's model provides a roadmap for finding purpose and fulfillment--not by striving for money, success, or "happiness," but by becoming the best version of ourselves, or what Maslow called self-actualization. Transcend reveals a level of human potential that's even higher, which Maslow termed "transcendence." Beyond individual fulfillment, this way of being--which taps into the whole person-- connects us not only to our best self, but also to one another. With never-before-published insights and new research findings, along with thought-provoking examples and personality tests, this empowering book is a manual for self-analysis and nurturing a deeper connection with our highest potential-- and beyond.

Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674986911
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.