For the last century, philosophers have focused on problems concerning religious language. After understanding that language is the way that we communicate concept, trying to describe concepts that no one physically sees and hears, such as God became a massive dilemma. Religious believers have to use language to make statements about God and his being and aspects known to be able to express human understanding. How do the meanings of words change when applied to God? To use univocal or universal language for God raises the problem being that if we argue God is ‘all loving,’ we would also be able to describe a loved one as such, thus demining his almighty status as a supreme being, so how can we use words to accurately describe God?
This is seen in the Bible when miracles occur and also when god punishes the world. This suggests that this concept of god may be subject to change and that he is affected by the world. God is also changed by prayer as he is happier with his creation when they live peacefully, and they pray to and worship God. The Prime mover contrasts sharply. He is self-contemplatory therefore does not think about the world and is transcendent, hence he is not subject to cause and effect.
That thought pattern is rooted in sin and rebellion because the gospel message is centered on repentance of sin and accepting Jesus as Lord. It is not centered on people living as they like and expecting God to adjust his precepts to us in that spiritual state. 2. This culture has become so morally loose until morality is almost non-existent. To live a moral life according to the gospel message is perceived as being too restrictive to a large number of the populace.
Edwards' success shows not only his absolute devotion to his Christian belief but also that his words do somehow give proper credence in spite of their Earthly shackles. Edwards' saw himself in a very precarious situation since his prose is both incapable of divine description and yet the only possible way he can convey his sermons. Edwards' openly admits in his inner contemplations that the soul cannot be described in words, that it "is no impression upon the mind, as though one saw anything with bodily eyes. It is no imagination or idea of an outward light or glory, or any beauty of form or countenance, or a visible luster or brightness of any object". Through the use of oxymoron Edwards claims that since man cannot rationalize the way to God, he must turn to his senses to connect with pure adoration.
There are situations in which God would have to compromise in terms of his attributes in order to be all-knowing. The first difficulty is that there are some things that are impossible for God to do. For example, Can God know lust? As we know, God is, and has to be morally perfect and morally right. If God breaks this, then he is not being omnibenevolent (all good), which is another of his attributes.
This argument is very important for religious believers, but has come under criticism from those who do not believe, who say that it is flawed. Gaunilo, and Immanuel Kant, feel that we will never have the answer to this question due to our human limitations, and reason. . St. Anselm’s first form of the argument is that God is “that than which none greater can be conceived”. This means that no one can think of anything that is greater than God.
But also Absolutism does not take other situation into consideration, things change and people change, so should the rules change as well? Personally, I think that they need to be amended; this could cause even worse conflicts than they are in this day and age, although it might be necessary, Common sense isn’t that common. An example of the Absolute theory is the Divine law theory; this is all stated in the bible, it dictates what’s good and what’s bad, according to the will of God. Everything we do, has the question behind it: Does it follow the will of God? This is the question absolutes ask before making any decisions.
Augustine did believe though that people can overcome sin through choosing to be morally right and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Evil is the free-will of each human to turn away from good. Not simply choosing evil, because evil is not a thing, but choosing to not do what is right. So for any person or Christian to overcome sin, they must continue to live as Christ did and have the will to do what is right. Augustine’s role for Grace in
Kant and Counterfeit Service Immanuel Kant puts forth the argument in his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that he is accepting the following proposition as a principle requiring no proof, and it says “apart from a good life-conduct, anything which the human being supposes that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit service to God” (p. 166). This quote immediately provokes questions of what does this mean to the Roman Catholic monks of Saint Martins Abbey who devote their life’s to God, and how does my faith Mormonism fit into the ideas of Kant? He establishes that there is three kinds of religious delusions that we should try to avert. These three delusions known as delusory faith include faith in miracles, faith in mysteries and faith in means of grace which overstep the boundaries of our reason with respect to the supernatural (p. 185). Kant proclaims “the belief that we have cognition of something through experience which we in fact cannot accept as happening according to objective laws of experience (faith in miracles)”(p.185).
Faith without reason is impossible but with knowledge faith can be possible and know God and what all he has done. With faith you have to use your mind. “Conversely, Christian faith needs reason in order to communicate its beliefs clearly, to arrange those beliefs in a more systematic form, to guard it from straying into fanaticism, or error, and to provide answering to reasonable objections to those beliefs” (Albl 1). To understand faith you have to be able to reason with your beliefs. “Rationalism and materialism understand faith as, at best, a harmless opinion about matters that are not real” (Albl 30).