Without Metaphor, No Saving God

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Title: Without Metaphor, No Saving God
Subtitle: Theology after Cognitive Linguistics
Series Title: Studies in Philosophical Theology, 54

Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: ISD, Distributor of Scholarly Books
http://www.isdistribution.com

Book URL: https://www.isdistribution.com/BookDetail.aspx?aId=34846

Author: R. Masson

Paperback: ISBN:  9789042930193 Pages: 347 Price: U.S. $ 79.00

Abstract:

Studies of conceptual and neural mapping in cognitive linguistics, while
posing a fundamental challenge for religious belief, also suggest new ways of
understanding how people conceptualize God and make theological inferences.
This book, inspired by that research and attentive to the distinctive insights
of Christian theology, elaborates an innovative explanation of God-talk,
better able to credibly address confusion and controversies that trouble the
church, academic theology, and broader culture. The first part analyzes both
cognitive linguistics’ challenge to standard theological depictions of
metaphorical, analogous, symbolic, and literal language, and the discipline’s
promise for providing a more satisfactory account. The second half examines
six case studies to illustrate how clarifying the conceptual mapping in
God-talk and theological inferences provides a powerful tool for advancing
religious understanding. The illustrations include the hypothesis that
religion is an epiphenomenon of evolution, the so-called “new atheism,” Black
theology, and controversies between theologians and Church authorities.
(Peeters Publishers 2014)

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