The contributors to Divine Love cover a broad spectrum of world religions, comparing and contrasting approaches among Christians of several denominations, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and adherents of traditional African religions. Each chapter focuses on the definition and conceptual boundaries of divine love; its expression and experience; its instrumentality and salience; how it can become distorted, and how it has been made manifest or restored by great historic exemplars of altruism, compassion, and unlimited love. The ultimate aim for many of the world’s major faith traditions is to love and be loved by God—to live in connection with the Divine, in union with the Beloved, in reconciliation with the Ultimate. Religious scholars Jeff Levin and Stephen G. Post have termed this connection “divine love.” In their new collection of the same name, they have invited eight of the world’s preeminent religious scholars to share their perspectives on the what, how, and why of divine love. From this diverse gathering of perspectives emerges evidence that to love and to be loved by God, to enter into a mutual and covenantal relationship with the Divine, may well offer solutions to many of the current crises around the world. Only a loving relationship with the Source of being within the context of the great faith and wisdom traditions of the world can fully inform and motivate the acts of love, unity, justice, compassion, kindness, and mercy for all beings that are so desperately required to counter the toxic influences in the world. Contributors: William C. Chittick, Vigen Guroian, Ruben L. F. Habito, William K. Mahony, John S. Mbiti, Jacob Neusner, Clark H. Pinnock, and David Tracy.

The very heart of the Islamic tradition is love; no other word adequately captures the quest for transformation that lies at this tradition's center. So argues esteemed professor of medieval Islam William C. Chittick in this survey of the extensive Arabic and Persian literature on topics ranging from the Qur'an up through the twelfth century. Bringing to light extensive foundational Persian sources never before presented, Chittick draws on more than a thousand pages of newly translated material to depict the rich prose literature at the center of Islamic thought.

The fourteenth-century anchorite known as Julian of Norwich offered fervent prayers for a deeper understanding of Christ's passion. The holy woman's petitions were answered with a series of divine revelations that she called "shewings." Her mystic visions revealed Christ's sufferings with extreme intensity, but they also confirmed God's constant love for humanity and infinite capacity for forgiveness. Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love have had a lasting influence on Christian thought. Written in immediate, compelling terms, her experiences remain among the most original and accessible expressions of medieval mysticism. This edition contains both the short text, which is mainly an account of the shewings and Julian's initial analysis of their meaning, and the long text, completed some 20 years later and offering daringly speculative interpretations.

Love Divine provides a systematic account of the deep and rich love that God has for humans. While the associated theological territory is vast, the objective is to contend for a unified paradigm regarding fundamental issues pertaining to the God of love who deigns to share His life of love with any human willing to receive it. Realizing this objective includes clarifying and defending specific conclusions concerning how the doctrine of divine love should be approached, what God's love is, what role love plays in motivating God's creation and subsequent governance of humans, how God's love of humans factors into His emotional life, which humans it is that God loves in a saving manner, what the punitive wrath of God is and how it relates to God's love for humans, and how it might be possible for God to share the intra-trinitarian life of love with human beings. As the book unfolds, the chapters interlock and build upon one another in the effort to trace nodal issues related to God's love as it begins in Him and then spills out in the creation, redemption, and glorification of humanity--a kind of exitus-reditus structure that is driven by the unyielding love of God.

In Divine Love and Wisdom, Swedenborg uses reason and empirical facts to prove the existence of God and God's divine love. He further posits that we are all an essential part of God's Divine plan, and that without us God's plan could not come to fruition.

The Showings of Divine Love is a book of Christian mystical devotions written by Julian of Norwich. It is believed to be the first published book in the English language to be written by a woman. At the age of thirty, 13 May 1373, Julian was struck with a serious illness. As she prayed and prepared for death, she received a series of sixteen visions on the Passion of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Saved from the brink of death, Julian of Norwich dedicated her life to solitary prayer and the contemplation of the visions she had received. She wrote a short account of her visions probably soon after the event. About twenty or thirty years after her illness, near the end of the fourteenth century, she wrote down her visions and her understanding of them. This is the Grace Warrack translation that brought this great work the recognition it deserved.

This book published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, India is an explanation of select verses of Srimad Bhagavata, the great devotional scripture. The focus of the text has been in presenting the episodes connected with Lord Krishna from the Bhagavata, The original text and translation of these select verses has also been given.