God So Loved the World: Clues to Our Transcendent Destiny from the Revelation of Jesus

by Robert Spitzer S.J

Overview

In this volume the brilliant Fr. Spitzer probes in detail the major question that if an intelligent Creator God – manifest in logical proofs, scientific evidence, and near death experiences - who is the source of our desire for the sacred, and the transcendental desires for truth, love, goodness, and beauty, would want to reveal himself to us personally and ultimately.

He then shows this is reasonable not only in light of our interior experience of a transcendent Reality, but also that a completely intelligent Reality is completely positive—implying its possession of a completely positive virtue – namely "love", defined as agape.

This leads to the question whether God might be unconditionally loving, and if he is, whether he would want to make a personal appearance to us in a perfect act of empathy – face to face. After examining the rational evidence for this, he reviews all world religions to see if there is one that reveals such a God – an unconditionally loving God who would want to be with us in perfect empathy. This leads us to the extraordinary claim of Jesus Christ who taught that God is "Abba", the unconditionally loving Father.

Jesus' claims go further, saying that He is also unconditional love, and that his mission is to give us that love through an act of complete self-sacrifice. He also claims to be the exclusive Son of the Father, sent by God to save the world, and the one who possesses divine power and authority. The rest of the book does an in-depth examination of the evidence for Jesus' unconditional love of sinners, his teachings, his miracles, and his rising from the dead. As well as the evidence for Jesus' gift of the Holy Spirit that enabled his disciples to perform miracles in his name, and evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit today.

If this strong evidence convinces us to believe that Jesus is our ultimate meaning and destiny, and desire His saving presence in our lives, that evidence should galvanize the Holy Spirit within us to show that Jesus is Lord and Savior, "the way, the truth, and the life." And our faith in him will transform everything we think about our nature, dignity, and destiny– and how we live, endure suffering, contend with evil, and treat our neighbor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621640363
Publisher:	Ignatius Press
Publication date:	03/21/2016
Series:	Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence , #3
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D. is the former president of Gonzaga University and the founder of the Magis Institute, which educates the public about the relationship between physics, philosophy, reason, and faith. He is the chief education officer of the Ethics and Performance Institute, which delivers web-based ethics education to corporations and individuals, and President of the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership, which delivers similar curricula to non-profit organizations. He is the author of Healing the Culture, Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life, and Ten Universal Principles.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 13

Introduction 15

Chapter 1 The Supremacy of Love

Introduction 23

I General Characteristics and Definition of Love 24

II Four Kinds of Love 32

III The Power of Agape 42

IV Unconditional Love as the Central Meaning of Life 47

Chapter 2 The Unconditional Love of God

Introduction 53

I From Natural Reason to God's Ultimate Self-Revelation 55

A Six Steps from the Creator to Jesus 55

B Can We Know the Unconditional Love of God by Reason Alone? 62

II A Brief Introduction to the Historical Jesus 65

A Evidence of Jesus outside of Christian Scripture 65

B The Apostolic Proclamation (Kerygma) 68

C A Brief Portrait of Jesus according to Mainstream Historical Scholarship 71

III Jesus' Proclamation of God's Unconditional Love 74

A Love as the Highest Commandment 74

B Jesus' Address of God as "Abba" 79

C The Parable of the Prodigal Son 81

IV Conclusion 88

Chapter 3 The Unconditional Love of Jesus

Introduction 91

I Jesus' Love and the Challenge of Suffering 91

A Why Would God Create an Imperfect World? 97

B The Efficacy of Suffering for Jesus and the Apostolic Church 101

II Jesus' Love of the Poor, Sick, and Sinners 107

A Jesus' Love of the Poor 107

B Jesus' Love of the Sick and Possessed 109

C Jesus' Acceptance and Love of Sinners 114

III Jesus' Love of Disciples and Friends 120

IV Jesus' Unconditional Love in the Eucharist and Passion 123

A The First Part of the Plan: The Last Supper 124

B The Second Part of the Plan: Suffering, Death, and Resurrection 130

C A Reflection on Jesus' Passion and Death 141

V Conclusion 142

Chapter 4 Resurrection and History

Introduction

I Gary Hahermas' Study of Recent Scholarship on the Resurrection 148

II The Gospel Accounts of Jesus' Risen Appearances to the Apostles 150

III Paul's Testimony to the Resurrection of Jesus 155

A Witnesses to the Resurrection 156

B Saint Paul's Witness Dilemma 161

IV N.T. Wright's Two Arguments for the Historicity of Jesus' Resurrection 163

A The Remarkable Rise of Christian Messianism 164

B The Christian Mutation of Second Temple Judaism 167

V The Empty Tomb 174

VI The Shroud of Turin and the Resurrection of Jesus 176

VII Correlations between the Resurrection of Jesus and Near-Death Experiences 179

VIII Conclusion 184

Chapter 5 Jesus' Miracles and Spirit

Introduction 187

I Jesus' Miracles 188

A The Purpose and Distinctiveness of Jesus' Miracles 190

B A Brief Consideration of Historical Criteria 198

C The Historicity of Jesus' Exorcisms and Healings 202

1 The Exorcisms 203

2 The Healings 205

D The Historicity of Jesus Raising the Dead 213

1 The Raising of Jairus' Daughter (Mk 5:21-43) 214

2 The Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain (Lk 7:11-17) 218

3 The Raising of Lazarus (Jn 11:1-45) 223

E Conclusion to Section I 227

II The Holy Spirit in the Apostolic Church 229

A Jesus' Gift of the Holy Spirit 230

1 The Visible Manifestation of the Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles 231

2 Visible and Interior Manifestations of the Spirit in Paul 233

3 Conclusion to Section II.A 237

B The Interior Gifts of the Spirit according to Saint Paul 238

III Conclusion 239

Chapter 6 Jesus' Identity and Mission

Introduction 241

I Jesus' Identity: The Exclusive Beloved Son of the Father 246

A The Son of Man 247

B The Only Beloved Son 250

1 "No One Knows the Father except the Son" 251

2 The Allegory of the Wicked Tenants (Mk 12:1-12) 255

II Jesus' Mission: To Bring the Kingdom of God 258

A Jesus' Idea of the Kingdom 258

B Jesus as Definitive Bringer of the Kingdom 260

C Jesus Accomplishes the Mission Reserved to Yahweh 265

III Jesus Is Emmanuel 267

IV Conclusion 271

Chapter 7 Our Transcendent Destiny

Introduction 275

I God's Universal Offer of Salvation 278

A New Testament Passages in Favor of God's Universal Offer of Salvation 279

B New Testament Passages That Possibly May Imply a Restricted Offer of Salvation 283

C Christian Doctrines of God's Universal Offer of Salvation 287

D Why Should Christians Evangelize? 289

II Heaven according to Jesus 291

A The Messianic Banquet 292

B The Kingdom of Love in John and Paul 294

C A Reflection on the Kingdom of Heaven 296

D Correlation with Near-Death Experiences 301

III Why Would an Unconditionally Loving God Allow Hell? 303

IV The Path to Salvation 312

A "Repent and Believe in the Good News" 312

B Jesus' Four Gifts to Inspire and Build His Kingdom 314

C Jesus Himself AS the Way to the Kingdom of God 317

D Six Steps on the Path to Salvation 318

E My Personal Journey into the Catholic Church 320

V Conclusion 322

Conclusion: Our Journey to Transcendence-Thus Far

I The Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason 325

II The Need for Revelation and the Plausibility of "Emmanuel" 330

III The Evidence for Jesus-Emmanuel 332

IV Our Transcendent Destiny through Jesus 336

V Where Do We Go from Here? 339

Appendix 1 The Shroud of Turin

Introduction 343

I A Brief Documented History of the Shroud from 1349 to the Present 347

II Dating the Shroud 349

A Problems with the 1988 Carbon Test 350

1 Raymond Rogers on Aberrant Samples Used in the 1988 Carbon 14 Testing 351

2 Garza-Valdes and Mattingly on Microbiological Contaminants 354

3 Kouznetsov, Jackson, and Moroni on Carbon Contaminants from Fire and Other Sources 354

4 Summary and Conclusions 355

B Four New Scientific Dating Methods 355

1 Raymond Rogers' Vanillin Test 356

2 Giulio Fanti's Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy Test of Cellulose Degradation 357

3 Giulio Fanti's Raman Spectroscopy Test for Cellulose Degradation 358

4 Giulio Fanti's Mechanical Test of Compressibility and Breaking Strength of Fibers 359

5 Summary of the Fanti and Rogers Dating Tests 359

C Other Indications of the Shroud's Age 360

1 Max Frei's Evidence of Pollen Grains 361

2 Roman Coins on the Eyes of the Man in the Image 363

3 The Sudarium of Oviedo 365

D Summary of the Dating Evidence 369

E A Probable Journey of the Shroud from First-Century Jerusalem to Fourteenth- Century France 371

III The Image on the Shroud 376

A The 1978 STURP Investigation of the Shroud's Image 378

B The Hypothesis of John Jackson 378

C Partial Confirmation of the Jackson Hypothesis in 2010 385

D Does the Shroud Give Evidence of Jesus' Resurrection? 387

IV Conclusion 390

Appendix 2 Making Sense of the Trinity and Incarnation

Introduction 393

I Divine Nature versus Divine Person 393

A One Divine Nature 394

B "Person" and Self-Consciousness 396

II Making Sense of the Trinity 398

III Making Sense of the Incarnation 400

IV Conclusion 402

Bibliography 405

Name Index 419

Subject Index 423