/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16446070]

Good books for understanding Christianity (aside from the Bible)? Is pic related a good one?

[Anonymous No.16446112]

>>16446070
pic rel gives you a good introduction to the faith, its "interpretations" and how examining the literature and valid councils the Catholic Church remains the oldest institution and the only path to salvation, even when when the chair of Saint Peter is vacant.
Bros. Michael and Peter Dimond reveal the inconsistencies in the interpretation of holy texts and apologetics, as well as the manifest heresies displayed by recent antipopes, including the antichrist himself John Paul II.

[Anonymous No.16446132]

Read the KJV. Why do you think it is a good idea to get a filtered interpretation? Does it not then become the telephone game(Matthew 13:19)? Go word by word. Skip it and return later or go back a few verses. Underline and create marginalia so that revision reinforces your newfound wisdom(helps me re-encounter paths of thinking). The words of Christ are first everything else is second.

[Anonymous No.16446141]

>>16446070
Aquinas is worth a shot.

[Anonymous No.16446160]

Been stumped on this query for a while Christ friends. Basically, if God good why bad thing happen?

[Anonymous No.16446206]

>>16446132
Don't read KJV. Read Douay-Rheims.

[Anonymous No.16446221]

>>16446206
Why? What inside does my book lack or what does the DR include that isn't in the KJV?

[Anonymous No.16446224]

>>16446160
>Basically, if God good why bad thing happen?
Satan

[Anonymous No.16446258]

>>16446224
And why doesn’t God stop Satan?

[Anonymous No.16446270]

G. K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". Dude was an atheist that became a catholic throughout the years. He was also a really good writer, so the book is actually engaging for essay standards.

[Anonymous No.16446278]

>>16446160
SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT THE FUCK I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF THIS FUCKING QUESTION JUST RECOMMEND A BOOK YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING NIGGER

[Anonymous No.16446284]

>>16446160
Free will.
>>16446258
Satan is just the governor of the angels of temptation- himself an angel doing God's will perfectly. In essence bad things are our fault.
>>16446070
The Bhagavad Gita is a good book for understanding the gospels. Christianity is not understandable because its paradoxical idiocy designed to break peoples intellects and control them.

[Anonymous No.16446289]

>>16446160
Because we're not Gods.
>>16446258
Then why both making limited, imperfect creations to begin with?
Its a pass/fail test.

[Anonymous No.16446307]

>>16446270
buddy looks like the down syndrome version of teddy roosevelt

[Anonymous No.16446344]

>>16446221
73 books in the catholic canon opposed to 66 for protestants.

[Anonymous No.16446411]

>>16446070
I've been reading this book lately. Very good insight into the Early Church and Church Fathers.

[Anonymous No.16446441]

My mom always tells me to read this

[Jesus No.16447197]

>>16446070
Nietzsche The Antichrist

[Anonymous No.16447247]

>>16446070
MaCulloch is a gay, liberal, blue blooded Anglican. Now, maybe that doesn't invalidate his research (such as it is), but it does make him very, very, very boring. Everything he says is "safe," at least within his own social sphere, and he engages in non-stop, crude, embarassing, cultural flagellation. Honestly, one suspects the only reason he's a member of the Church of England is because his peers are as well.

[Anonymous No.16447295]

Path of Christianity the First Thousand Years.

[Anonymous No.16447300]

>>16446441
It's bland philosophical arguments

[Anonymous No.16447671]

>>16446070

[Anonymous No.16447682]

>>16446070
this

[Anonymous No.16447687]

>>16446070
Core of Christianity

[Anonymous No.16447782]

>>16446112
A sedavacatist. Submit to pope you Heretic.

[Anonymous No.16447785]

>>16446221
Rest of the biblical books luther deleted

[Anonymous No.16448325]

>>16446284
>doing God's will perfectly
So God is complicit in suffering and evil and is not all good and loving.

[Anonymous No.16448634]

I'm reading "Mountain of Silence" which is preddy good. It's pretty much conversations with a monk in Cypresses who explains many aspects of the Faith than often go unknown. Only downside is the author is a semi-libtarded professor who adds a lot of unneccesary narrative.

[Anonymous No.16448707]

>>16448325
Classic example if man putting his wisfoim above God's. The Christian system makes sense when you understand it. God deemed it good to give man agency and evil came about when man did the one thing forbidden and it was forbidden only as an arbitrary check on man's obedience. The inky thing he gained by eating the fruit was knowledge of good and evil which is simply experiencing the difference between doing God's will and going against it. The world now is an opportunity for each person to redeam himself by seeking to do God's will and avoid going against it. Those who fail are doomed to destruction or eternal containment (if souls are eternal they cannot be destroyed so Hell is where they are contained) and those who reach salvation will be ressurected to live in the Kingdom where God will rule directly and evil will not exist because God has vanquished the sinners and the demons who inspire the sins. Human nature is so corrupted that God took human form and lived as a man and through His own suffering established a new Covenent that via His Church people can more readily attain salvation.

[Anonymous No.16449421]

>>16448707
>just suck it up and bow to the demiurge tyrant goy

[Anonymous No.16449563]

>>16449421

[Anonymous No.16449599]

>>16446160
Read Job and some commentary on Job

[Anonymous No.16449608]

Introduction to Christianity (German: Einführung in das Christentum) (1968) by Joseph Ratzinger

[Anonymous No.16449639]

>>16446224
Sorry anon you now have to read this entire book
http://maistre.uni.cx/st_petersburg.html

failure to read this entire work before posting on this website again will result in the immediate and subtle extinguishing of your intellect
thank you for understanding the severity of the matter

[Anonymous No.16449681]

>>16446070
>Is pic related a good one?
I haven't read pic related, but it's about the history of Christianity. Is that what you want to learn about? Or do you want to learn about Christian theology, i.e., the doctrines and practices of Christianity?

[Anonymous No.16449735]

CS Lewis and GK Chesterton. From there pick a denomination and you can narrow your focus a bit.

[Anonymous No.16449789]

>>16446070
Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Ecclesiastical History of the English People

[Anonymous No.16449794]

>>16446070
That all shall be saved by David Bentley Hart

[Anonymous No.16449813]

>>16446160
>Basically, if God good why bad thing happen?
God is an eternal and perfectly good being.
Everything else is a finite being with a degree of finite potential goodness.
Bad thing happens when your finite potential for good doesn't actualize properly. This can happen to both mankind and the world itself, that's why catastrophes happen.

[Anonymous No.16449818]

What book should I read to recant Sola Scriptura heretics?

[Anonymous No.16450493]

>>16447671
>>16447682
>>16447687
Based

[Anonymous No.16450586]

>>16446070
Westminster Confession of Faith

[Anonymous No.16450811]

>>16447671
>>16447682
>>16447687
>>16450586
these

[Anonymous No.16451260]

>>16446070
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.

[Anonymous No.16451899]

I just finished the Divine Comedy today, it provides some anwsers to questions i guess.
It definetly paints a picture

[Anonymous No.16451929]

>>16447247
He also sucks plenty of muslim cock in OP's book, like every post-WW2 anglo historian.

[Anonymous No.16451969]

>>16449794
I was an atheist from the age of 15 to around my mid 20s. I wanted to believe in God during most of those years and read a lot of religious texts but found none of them convincing enough to convert me. Eventually I got around to reading David Bentley Hart and he was the one who finally convinced me. He seems a somewhat controversial figure in the theological world but the rhetorical power of his writing makes a much stronger impression than the bloodless pedantry of most theologians I've read. Proselytizers would do well to learn from him.

[Anonymous No.16451995]

MacCulloch is a smarmy jackass and that book is his worst
His texts on the reformation are okay though, worth checking out
Eusebius is biased but less biased than his interpreters and accusers
The patrologia is a really large collection of texts for eastern Christianity, using Eusebius as a basis for people of interest you can filter through it and find the ones worth reading for you. Alternatively, Nicodemus' Philokallia is a great compilation that narrows it down to the fundamentals and has some interesting texts that are not completely theological
The correspondence of people like Erasmus is also of interest
One of the most popular forms of literature in the middle ages were saint's lives
These were long villified by pompous academics but gradually, they're being rehabilitated and actually inspected with an open mind
Max Weber's analysis of the Protestant ethic is not exactly historically accurate but it is a good analysis of Protestant "natural law" to idea bad term for it, the eastern ones are better than the western ones though
Anselm, John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart are really good too

[Anonymous No.16452003]

>>16451995
The qualitative judgement fell down a couple of paragraphs, not sure how

[Anonymous No.16452011]

>>16446132
Yes because after the scriptures were completed nothing happened to the movements which came to be collectively known as Christianity that it's logical to rely entirely on a 17th century translation of the Bible by one of many such movements to learn about all of them.

[Anonymous No.16452081]

>>16446160
Omnipotence is a lie