ASCENT TO GOD : Faith as Art, Risk and Humor : 1981 HB

• Hardback book with Dust Jacket by Jeffrey G. Sobosan
• The Thomas More Press
• Copyright © 1981 by Jeffrey G. Sobosan

" If you have never asked yourself serious questions about God's existence and the quality of your faith in him, then this unusual book is probably not for you.
On the other hand, perhaps it is very much the book for you, because the author maintains that all those who base their faith entirely on reason, as well as those who take "a blind leap of irrational faith" will eventually encounter that moment in life when their rigid position fails them and their faith in God collapses.

In place of these two positions, Father Sobosan proposes a type of faith which he examines and brilliantly articulates under the image of ascent - an on-going, ever-changing climb toward God.
He defines this approach to faith as a "certain open-ness of mind toward life and God that takes into account and is affected by the ignorance and irrationality, the possibilities we find each day in ourselves and the world around us. "

He argues against all attempts to replace faith with logic and pure reason or to limit it merely to unquestioning assent to certain propositions about God, man and the world.
He does this by stressing as the paramount elements in the life of faith - not reason or doctrine - but risk and humor.
Indeed, in his unconventional but highly persuasive view, faith is mainly an art which in practice is full of risks which must be taken and humor - the ability to see, accept and survive those many contradictions and difficulties which afflict every life.

He tests his model of faith as ascent in stirring chapters on faith and tranquility, faith and suffering, faith and death (and the hope of life after death), and finally in a consideration of faith and love.

In these chapters he takes his readers to many places - hospitals, classrooms, rivers and forests - and introduces people young and old caught up in some phase of their personal search for God. "But in every place we go," he writes. " and in everyone we meet, we will be wanting to meet, above all, that one man who taught us what it means to say that faith is an ascent, an art involving risk and humor - that one man of whom it is written: Jesus said, 'With faith, all things are possible.' " "

Contents includes:

" Preface

I. The Vision of Markandeya
1. Faith as an Art
2. Faith as a Risk
3. Faith and Humor

II. The Pursuit of Tranquility
1. Disunity in Life
2. The Round of Pain: Images of History
3. The Unstable Center: Images of God

III. Communion with Life
1. An Ascent from the Finite
a. The Desire for the Unattainable
2. The Intrusion of the Unexpected
3. Outrage at God

IV. Communion with Death
1. The Acceptance of Mortality
2. The Importance of Possibility
3. The Content of Resurrection Life

V. Communion with God
1. Free Love and Fallenness
2. Love of Others and Love of God
3. The Art, Risk, and Humor in Love

VI. Faith and Passion
1. The Horizons of Faith
2. Final Reflection: The Crucified Wanderer "

This book was a previously owned church library book with a few church stamps and markings, including a pocket on the first blank page.
It is still in very nice condition with minor wear to the dust jacket.
No torn or ripped pages.
No other markings or writing.

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