Matthew Fox's
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God ... Including the Unnameable God has been a sheer delight! At a time and in a culture in which competing theologies are only too quick to name the Divine in opposition to the expansive experience of the Holy, Fox is able to offer -- in the rich spiritual tradition of both apophatic and cataphatic theology -- so many of the ways in which the Divine has been known (and even unknown) in our prayers and experiences of the Divine over thousands of years.
This collection of brief essays (most are usually just a couple of pages), Fox brings forward 89 "names for God" from various spiritual teachers over millennia and across traditions. "
How
we conceive of God", he writes, "will have enormous impact on how we behave toward
each other, how we justify our actions, what we believe is possible, and
what we find sacred and are therefore willing to sacrifice to
protect ... We need a new understanding of God. We need a God that can
connect us spiritually to the real universe and guide our now globally
conscious species toward a long-term and honorable civilization". That's precisely what Naming the Unnameable then proceeds to do.
There are so many of these ways that spoke to me that it's nearly impossible to highlight just one or two. Like I said, this book has been a sheer delight!
And it's a must-read for those who continue to struggle with God in their prayers.
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I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.
