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For any Christian who's grown weary of pat answers and would rather find a way to embrace the unanswerable questions of life and faith rather than seeking to explain them away, Richard Hansen's Paradox Lost provides a bracing and wonder-filled invitation to a deeper, better way of knowing God.
List of contents
Introduction
Part I: A Strange Sort of Comfort: Rediscovering Paradox
1. Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
2. Newton’s Apple
3. Fog
4. Eagles and Hippos
5. Bill Gates’ Sunday Morning
6. The Duke Humphrey Library
Part II: Serious Playfulness: Paradoxes in Scripture
1. Serious Playfulness
2. Trying Harder?
3. New Frames
4. King Solomon’s Sword
Part III: The Tuning Fork: Paradoxes in Our Relationship with God
5. The Tuning Fork
6. Jesus and Jules Verne
7. God is Love
8. Job’s Dilemma
9. Pavlov’s Dogs
10. The Two-Headed Monster
11. An Intolerable Compliment
Part IV: The Two Handles: Paradoxes in God’s Being and in Ours
12. The Two-Handled Auger
13. A Hatred for Dirty Gray
14. Pascal and the Human Paradox
15. Would Jesus Sound Like John Wayne?
16. Paul Harvey
17. All for a Letter?
Epilogue: How Mystery Nurtures Faith---Reclaiming Spiritual Imagination
Appendix 1: Questions About Paradox
Appendix 2: A Field Guide to Mystery
About the author
Richard P. Hansen (D.Min, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a longtime pastor and former missionary professor at Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has written articles for Leadership Journal, Preaching, Books & Culture, and International Bulletin of Missionary Research and received study grants from both the Louisville Institute and the Lilly Endowment.
Summary
Too often the tensions and unanswerable questions of Scripture and the Christian life are seen as barriers to faith. In Paradox Lost, pastor and author Richard Hansen shows that they are exactly the opposite—indeed, God’s mysteries are one of the places where we may encounter him most closely.
In exchange for Enlightenment-based rationalism that can stunt spiritual imagination, Hansen invites readers to:
- Discern that there is a hiddenness to God that can be inviting rather than threatening
- Appreciate that God is far greater than we sometimes assume, and to adjust our mental maps to make more space for awe
- Realize that faith and reason are not enemies but rather dance partners that complement one another
Hansen examines three kinds, or “orders,” of biblical paradox, each at a deeper level than the last, demonstrating for readers that paradox is both endemic to modern life and also a natural part of the landscape of Christian faith.
Paradox Lost doesn’t seek to solve or justify paradox; instead, it looks through paradox toward what it reveals—namely a holy, mysterious, and awesome God.
