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Samantha B's Reviews > Revelations of Divine Love
Revelations of Divine Love
by
by
I have A LOT of thoughts about this.
On the one hand, she has so much in here that is beautiful, but most of it is stuff that I already know. Like how much God loves us all the time. (That one is at least 50% courtesy of our current pastor who thinks, and rightly so, that it's really, really important for us to internalize that. I didn't know how much I HADN'T internalized God's love until he started preaching and teaching about it on a semi-regular basis). And how He loves us even when we sin, and how His grace surrounds us, and how He is the root of our prayer. I also thought it was really cool how she talks about joy in suffering, and how she has an almost Lewisian view of the joys of heaven. So: the vast majority of the time, I really enjoyed/appreciated this.
That said. She's trying to be very careful to stay within the teachings of the Church (i.e. the Catholic Church, which was the only Christian Church at that point). Which I appreciate. BUT.
-Some of the time, it takes a certain amount of knowledge of theology and looking at what she's saying through a couple of different lenses before you can quite figure out how what she's saying fits into the framework of the Faith. That's not necessarily a problem, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it for someone who doesn't have a solid foundation in philosophy and theology.
-Sometimes she veers close to the edge. For instance, when she's talking about humans, and souls and bodies, she comes dangerously close to the "meat-puppet fallacy" (by which I mean, the soul just kind of lives in the body, or the body is bad, etc. The correct conception of this is that humans are union of body and soul. Credit again goes to our pastor for the coinage of the term "meat-puppet fallacy" XD). In addition, she has some strange idea about a human will which never consents to sin??? And I'm not sure that's legit. Oh, and she has one statement which implies EITHER that everyone is saved OR that Jesus only suffered for those that were saved? And I'm pretty sure that neither of those is true. (Catechism says: we can't say the first one for sure, and the second one is completely false.)
Within context, these things are fairly minor, but they did bug me. So. Yes. Enjoyable, but read with caution.
[Edit]: Also, I forgot to say how much the secular edition of this book irritated me. Because, like, the notes were so condescending? And so much of the notes/cover material assume that she's BREAKING MOLDS and BEING UNORTHODOX and it's like, no, she veers close to the edge sometimes, but it's NEVER THE TIMES THAT YOU ARE SAYING SHE'S BEING UNORTHODOX. /rant over/
Three stars, methinks.
On the one hand, she has so much in here that is beautiful, but most of it is stuff that I already know. Like how much God loves us all the time. (That one is at least 50% courtesy of our current pastor who thinks, and rightly so, that it's really, really important for us to internalize that. I didn't know how much I HADN'T internalized God's love until he started preaching and teaching about it on a semi-regular basis). And how He loves us even when we sin, and how His grace surrounds us, and how He is the root of our prayer. I also thought it was really cool how she talks about joy in suffering, and how she has an almost Lewisian view of the joys of heaven. So: the vast majority of the time, I really enjoyed/appreciated this.
That said. She's trying to be very careful to stay within the teachings of the Church (i.e. the Catholic Church, which was the only Christian Church at that point). Which I appreciate. BUT.
-Some of the time, it takes a certain amount of knowledge of theology and looking at what she's saying through a couple of different lenses before you can quite figure out how what she's saying fits into the framework of the Faith. That's not necessarily a problem, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it for someone who doesn't have a solid foundation in philosophy and theology.
-Sometimes she veers close to the edge. For instance, when she's talking about humans, and souls and bodies, she comes dangerously close to the "meat-puppet fallacy" (by which I mean, the soul just kind of lives in the body, or the body is bad, etc. The correct conception of this is that humans are union of body and soul. Credit again goes to our pastor for the coinage of the term "meat-puppet fallacy" XD). In addition, she has some strange idea about a human will which never consents to sin??? And I'm not sure that's legit. Oh, and she has one statement which implies EITHER that everyone is saved OR that Jesus only suffered for those that were saved? And I'm pretty sure that neither of those is true. (Catechism says: we can't say the first one for sure, and the second one is completely false.)
Within context, these things are fairly minor, but they did bug me. So. Yes. Enjoyable, but read with caution.
[Edit]: Also, I forgot to say how much the secular edition of this book irritated me. Because, like, the notes were so condescending? And so much of the notes/cover material assume that she's BREAKING MOLDS and BEING UNORTHODOX and it's like, no, she veers close to the edge sometimes, but it's NEVER THE TIMES THAT YOU ARE SAYING SHE'S BEING UNORTHODOX. /rant over/
Three stars, methinks.
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