Bibliographic information:
Loke, Andrew. A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.
Description:
Description:
The Incarnation, celebrated by millions every Christmas, refers to the union between divinity and humanity in the one person of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, many have objected that the idea is incoherent, for being divine seems to entail having properties such as being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent; but the New Testament portrays Jesus as having human properties such as being apparently limited in knowledge, power and presence. It seems logically impossible that any single individual could possess such mutually exclusive sets of properties.
This book develops a new model—the Divine Preconscious Model— that aims to help people understand how the Incarnation might be possible. Integrating aspects from analytic philosophy of religion, systematic theology, and historical-critical studies, and drawing from the Greek word Krypsis meaning ‘hiding’, it proposes that in a certain sense Christ’s supernatural properties were concealed during the Incarnation.
This book synthesizes the contents of a number of articles which I have published in international journals such as Religious Studies (Cambridge University Press), Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford University Press), Journal of Analytic Theology (Notre Dame University Press), and Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, together with a significant amount of new materials in the book which are not found in my earlier works. It will be suitable for people interested in Theology, Philosophy, Church History, and Apologetics, as well as
-Participants in inter-religious dialogues: it provides a comprehensive engagement with the difficulties concerning the coherence of the Incarnation raised by Islamic and Judaist theologians,
-Participants in inter-denominational dialogues e.g. between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches, between Lutheran and Reformed churches concerning the presence of Christ at the Eucharist
-Participants in interdisciplinary dialogues (between theology, philosophy and early Christian history)
-Pastors and Professors teaching Christian Doctrine in churches and seminaries, and
-Sunday School Teachers: my 9, 10, and 11 year old daughters had asked me questions like ‘Did Jesus know everything when he was a baby?’!.
P.S. I have been given a Flyer by the publisher with a 50% discount code (which can be used at their website http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472445735 ) and this note: ‘This code can be given out at your discretion to your colleagues, students, network or other interested parties – but cannot be used in conjunction with any other discounts. Please do not circulate the code on open forums.’ If you would like a 50% discount code for purchasing this book you can email me at andyloke@hku.hk .
Publisher:
Ashgate (website: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472445735 )