Cover of The darkness of God
Read Time: ~4.6 hr

The darkness of God

by Denys Turner (1995)

About this book

"For the mediaeval mystical tradition, the Christian soul meets God in a 'cloud of unknowing', a divine darkness of ignorance. This meeting with God is beyond all knowing and beyond all experiencing. Mysticisms of the modern period, on the contrary, place 'mystical experience' at the centre, and contemporary readers are inclined to misunderstand the mediaeval tradition in 'experientialist' terms. Denys Turner argues that the distinctiveness and contemporary relevance of mediaeval mysticism is precisely in its rejection of 'mystical experience',. and locate the mystical firmly within the grasp of the ordinary and the everyday. The argument covers some central authorities in the period from Augustine to John of the Cross.

Setting / LocationGlobal
Story EraMedieval
Protagonist / CoreThe darkness of God Lead Character

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Cover of Graalslegende in psychologischer Sicht

Graalslegende in psychologischer Sicht

Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz

The Holy Grail and its quest is a legend which has had a powerful impact on our civilization and culture. The Grail itself is an ancient Celtic symbol of redemption and eternal life, the chalice which caught the blood of the crucified Christ. The story of the Grail sheds profound light on man's search for the supreme value of life, for that which makes life most meaningful. Two leading women of the Jungian school of psychology present this legend as a living myth that is meaningful to modern life. [Back cover].

Cover of Post-Roman transitions

Post-Roman transitions

Walter Pohl, Gerda Heydemann

Classical civilization (and hence contemporary Western culture) had deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures, but these influences have been systematically overlooked. This series of monographs and collections of articles addresses the social, religious, and cultural interactions between East and West. This volume looks at changing identities during the transition from the Roman Empire to a political world defined by different kingdoms and peoples in western Europe. It addresses 'ethnicity' in the context of alternative modes of identification, mainly Christianity and Romanness. To widen the horizon of current debates, it shows that the ancient dichotomy between barbarians and Romans is hardly helpful in understanding the complex transitions to a post-imperial age in the West. In a broad sweep of regional examples, from Spain and North Africa to Dalmatia and the British Isles, the book follows the unfolding of Christian and barbarian identities: How were both the Roman and the barbarian past used for the formation and legitimation of new identities? The 'scripts of Romanness' changed in the early Middle Ages, and so did the significance of othering pagans, heretics, or barbarians. The contributions trace the tenacity and the ambiguity of traditional narratives and signs of distinction: manuscripts and material remains, costume and epigraphy, historiography and hagiography were used in creative ways to shape civic, local, or religious communities. Many of the contributions show the fundamental importance of Christian 'strategies of identification' for-creating a stronger political role for ethnicity in the post-Roman kingdoms. As such, they follow-a line of argument that has also been explored in the book's companion volume in this series, Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe (CELAMA 13).

Cover of Unsettled minds

Unsettled minds

Christopher G. White

"This book examines how nineteenth- and twentieth-century American believers rejected older, often evangelical, theological traditions and turned to scientific psychologies to help them formulate new ideas about mind and spirit and new practices for spiritual growth. Christopher G. White looks in particular at how a group of liberal Protestants, including William James and G. Stanley Hall, turned away from traditional Christian orthodoxies and built a revised religious identity based on new psychological motifs and therapies. Whereas the conventional wisdom about these religious positions and abetted secularization. White points out that they did not minimize or obliterate belief but aided and reshaped it in unexpected ways. Unsettled Minds is the first book to explain the dramatic rise of new spiritualities of the mind, spiritualities that, but the early twentieth century, were turning eagerly to scientific and clinical psychological studies to reimagine religion and the problems of religious uncertainty."--BOOK JACKET.

Cover of The Judas Kiss

The Judas Kiss

Victoria Holt

Pippa Ewell had left behind the dark and forbidding Greystone Manor -- also the memories of Conrad, the handsome stranger who had swept her breathlessly into his arms and heart. But Pippa returned to find the truth behind her sister's mysterious death. And suddenly the fairy-tale kindgom glittered with evil and danger . . .

The darkness of God by Denys Turner | Literally Just Books