An Infinite God and a Father-Son God: The Theology of God for a Contemporary World

In this last work Kenan Osborne addresses the intersection between new scientific insights into the origin of the human species and the growing awareness of a multicultural and multi-religious world with our contemporary understanding of God. After a review of current presentations of Trinitarian theology he analyzes in detail the biblical record for the names of God and develops a cogent description of the thinking about God in the first six centuries. Complementing his 2015 volume The Infinity of God and A Finite World A Franciscan Approach this present work challenges theologians and believers in two distinct ways: Do the terms Father and Son have any essential meaning for divinity? From a human standpoint God is essentially neither a Father nor a Son. Nor do these two words have some exclusive meaning when they refer to divinity. What then do we mean when we talk about God? Second in many theological textbooks the term infinite is considered as an attribute of God. Infinity is in no way an attribute even a divine attribute. It is rather an essential description of God as the Franciscan philosophical theologian John Duns Scotus argues. And if this is so can we really understand God or are all our views and descriptions of an infinite God partial insights into a transcendent infinite God who embraces all human creatures from the beginning of homo sapiens sapiens to the present?