Lesson 21 : Circumcision, the Law, the Gentiles & the Will of God (15:1-35)
A History of God Chapter 3 Light to the Gentiles.
-
date post
19-Dec-2015 -
Category
Documents
-
view
223 -
download
1
Transcript of A History of God Chapter 3 Light to the Gentiles.
Gospels
• Gospel of Mark• First full-length account
of Jesus’ life• Written about 70 AD,
40 years after Jesus’ death
• Presents Jesus as “a perfectly normal man”
• Gospel of Matthew• Matthew addresses the
concerns of a Jewish audience.
• Written by a Jewish Christian.
• Jesus was promised Messiah, in him the ancient prophecies had their fulfillment.
India: Bhakti [personal devotion]
• Hinduism: Krishna• Krishna is a deity
worshiped across many traditions in Hinduism.
• Recognized as an avatar of Vishnu, he has been the object of personal devotion or bhakti
The West: Idealism
• The world is an illusion • Idealism is the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas.
• It holds that the so-called external or "real world" is inseparable from mind, consciousness, or perception.
Idealism: George Berkeley
• Berkeley was a talented metaphysician famous for defending idealism, that is, the view that reality consists exclusively of minds and their ideas.
• Berkeley's system, while it strikes many as counter-intuitive, is strong and flexible enough to counter most objections.
Gospel of John• Jesus as Logos • The Gospel of John identifies
Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, through which all things are made.
• The gospel further identifies the Logos as divine.
• Second-century Christian Apologists, such as Justin Martyr, identified Jesus as the Logos or Word of God, a distinct intermediary between God and the world.
Gnosticism
• Gnosticism is an ancient belief system whose basic tenets seem to reappear in many different times and cultures.
• Gnostics hold that this world is essentially a prison for the spirit.
• In Gnostic forms of Christianity, the creator god of the Bible is interpreted as an evil demiurge, who built the world to trap us.
Gnosticism
• The real God is on a higher plane entirely, and Christ is our connection to him, providing the possibility of reuniting the trapped spark of spirit within us with its divine source.
Early Christian Writers: Marcion
• Marcion (ca. 85-160) was an Early Christian theologian who was excommunicated by the Christian church at Rome as a heretic.
• He propounded a Christianity free from Jewish doctrines
• Jewish God too violent.
Early Christian Writers: Clement
Clement of Alexander (ca 150-215): Yahweh and the God of the Greek philosophers were one and the same.
Clement believed that Jesus was God.
Early Christian Writers: Irenaeus
• Irenaeus [130-200]: Jesus had been the incarnate Logos, the divine reason.
Origen
• Like Plotinus, Origen wrote that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God.
• He imagined even demons being reunited with God.
• For Origen, God was the First Principle, and Christ, the Logos, was subordinate to him.
Plotinus [205-270]
• Plotinus is generally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism.
• He is one of the most influential philosophers in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle.
• Ultimate reality was a primal unity, the One.
Neoplatonism• Neoplatonism is the
modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century CE, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato.
• An enlightenment that was impersonal, beyond human categories and natural to humanity.