The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery [Paperback]

Raimon Panikkar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

In this beautiful meditation, Panikkar charts the paradoxes and possibilities of our experience of God. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from the Bible and Western mystics to the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita, he probes human language and silence, adoration and alienation, to find the root of all our experience in God and its special character in Christian encounter with Jesus. He concludes with reflections on the many places - such as love, joy, suffering, pardon, nature, silence, and even evil - where we meet God today.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Endorsements: "In the context of Raimon Panikkar's massive life's work, this volume stands out as a theological meditation that is also a mystical hymn to the namelessness of God. The gift is Panikkar's ability to approach fundamental religious ideas with a new innocence, and to pierce beneath the façade of theological confusion, division, or laziness. There is an explosive force at work in his words ripping through the text, coloring it with hues and banging out harmonies that leave the reader wanting to probe more deeply and to understand more fully. The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery is a seamless garment of praise for the religious dimension of life, for the trinitarian structure of reality, and, most of all, for silence." — Beverly Lanzetta, Research Scholar, Southwest Institute for Research on Women, University of Arizona Founder, Schola Divina

About the Author

Raimon Panikkar is one of the world's leaders in interreligious dialogue and the author of more than thirty books. Professor Emeritus of Comparative Philosophy and History of Religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he has in retirement returned to his native Catalonia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: FORTRESS PRESS (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800638255
• ISBN-13: 978-0800638252
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #719,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More accessible than the Christophany book, May 22, 2010

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C. S. Smith "contemplative, entrepreneur, tec... (Waco, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery (Paperback)

I found Panikkar's 'Experience of God' a more accessible read than the Christophany treatise. I think maybe his writing is translated to a difficult reading vernacular...since he writes in Italian, or Spanish. However, he is a unique scholar of Abrahamic faith, having experienced God from many contexts. He maintains an academic objectivity which is possibly off-putting to 'soaked in Western Protestant oriented church people', but refreshing to seekers of wisdom, who can read such material without a slant.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clear-sighted look at the meaning of God, October 14, 2010

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ecclesial hypostasis - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery (Paperback)

This is a short and refreshing book, and Panikkar weaves an elegant summary of how we experience God. He draws together different spiritual traditions without flattening out their differences or claiming to have found insights 'behind' them. For him, 'God' is the experience of the depth of being and beyond being, transcendent yet immanent, personal and in communion. We experience God through the mediation of ourselves and our traditions and language. While writing from a Christian perspective, he is not dogmatic but rather shows quite subtly the mystical presuppositions of the Trinitarian formula and its possibilities for transforming our lives. His obvious scholarship and personal experience of God is on display. This is a model of interfaith theology.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Than Icons, February 9, 2011

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DGraves - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery (Paperback)

I read this book as part of an assignment for a class on Christian Theology. I thought it would be dealing with physical icons, so I was a little surprised when there were not any. It a deeply moving book about how we experience "God." I have put that in quotations, because the author feels that even that word is limiting. Labels have a way of limiting our interaction with the Divinity and that is explored in this book. A great read and I will read it again for pleasure to absorb more of the insight.