Provides a sustained account of how the thought of Aquinas may be used in conjunction with contemporary science to deepen our understanding of divine action and address such issues as creation, providence, prayer, and miracles.

This book provides a fundamental introduction to Aquinas's theology of the One Creator God. Aimed at making that thought accessible to contemporary audiences, it gives a basic explanation of his theology while showing its compatibility with contemporary science and its relevance to current theological issues. Opening with a brief account of Aquinas’s life, it then describes the purpose and nature of the Summa Theologica and gives a short review of current varieties of Thomism. Without neglecting other works, it then focuses primarily on the discussion of the One God in the first part of the Summa Theologica. God's transcendence and immanence is a recurrent theme in that discussion. Evidence of God's immanent causality in the natural world grounds Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God (the Five Ways) which then open onto God's transcendence. The subsequent discussion of the divine attributes builds on the modes of God's causality established in the Five Ways. It also shows the need for a language of analogy to preserve God's transcendence and prevent us from reducing God to the level of creatures, even as qualities such as "goodness" and "love," which we first know from creatures, are applied to God. The discussion of God's providence and governance establishes that the transcendent Creator God is most intimately present in creation. God acts in all creatures in a way that does not diminish their proper causality, but is rather its source. As there is no contradiction between God's transcendence and immanence, so there is no competition between the primary causality of God and the secondary causality of creatures. Empirical science, which is limited by its method to the secondary causality of creatures, is shown to be compatible with the broader discipline of theology which also embraces the primary causality of the Creator.

In GREEN LIKE GOD, Jonathan Merritt gently and insightfully observes that the bible has a lot to say about environmental problems like unclean water, material waste, over consumption, air pollution, and global warming. In fact, Jonathan writes that "in the book of Genesis, God went green and never looked back." Relying heavily on scripture, Jonathan gives the case for green living, but not because it's trendy and hip. Rather, it's part of living rightly as a believer. It's an act of obedience to our Creator-God. GREEN LIKE GOD is at once practical, prescriptive, and conversational in tone. The author looks at a number of trends with tips to help the reader wade into the world of creation care living. An appendix includes suggestions of things we can do. In addition, the book includes interviews with everyday Christians to tell the story of the journey to environmental stewardship among people of faith. This is the book that Christians are longing for and need today. Written for a new generation of Christians who are struggling with how to deal with the important issue of creation-care and green living, GREEN LIKE GOD is both highly relevant and theologically sound. It will have a profound impact on how Christians live and interact with the world today.

Theologian Harry Lee Poe and chemist Jimmy H. Davis argue that God's interaction with our world is a possibility affirmed equally by the Bible and the contemporary scientific record. Rather than confirming that the cosmos is closed to the actions of the divine, advancing scientific knowledge seems to indicate that the nature of the universe is actually open to the unique type of divine activity portrayed in the Bible.

"If the God of Israel has acted to save his people through Christ, but Israel is not participating in that salvation, how then can this God be considered righteous? Unlocking Romans is directed in large extent toward answering this question in order to illuminate the righteousness of God as revealed in the book of Romans." "The answer here, J. R. Daniel Kirk claims, comes mainly in terms of resurrection. Even if only the most obvious references in Romans are considered - and Kirk certainly delves more deeply than that - the theme of resurrection appears not only in every section of the letter but also at climactic moments of Paul's argument. The network of connections among Jesus' resurrection, Israel's Scriptures, and redefining the people of God serves to affirm God's fidelity to Israel. This, in turn, demonstrates Paul's gospel message to be a witness to the revelation of the righteousness of God."--BOOK JACKET.

IVP Readers' Choice Award Rarely does a new theological position emerge to account well for life in the world, including not only goodness and beauty but also tragedy and randomness. Drawing from Scripture, science, philosophy and various theological traditions, Thomas Jay Oord offers a novel theology of providence—essential kenosis—that emphasizes God's inherently noncoercive love in relation to creation. The Uncontrolling Love of God provides a clear and powerful response to one of the perennial challenges to Christian faith.