Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions.” Jesus Christ had a different belief when it came to the existence of God and the increase of “human good”. Jesus believes that he is the son of God and that he is also God. That view differs from Dewey’s view all together because Dewey believes that that there was not personal God or Christ. “Education” that omits reference to Jesus’ role in this world is not education at all. (John 14:6) Jesus believed that God had communicated truth to all mankind through personal revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ and today Christians believe that God reveals himself through propositional, verbalized revelation of Himself in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
‘The universe needs no explanation.’ Discuss. (10 marks) Christian philosopher St Thomas Aquinas would have disagreed with this statement as he was the one that put the cosmological argument forward which questions the universe and how it came into existence. Aquinas would have maintained his view as he believes that everything that is in motion has been caused by something else and he believes that this something else is God. He also claims that God is the first cause as he is the one that caused the universe to come into existence and continues to keep it in motion. He would continue to disagree with this statement because he claimed that because everything in the universe is contingent, it must mean that the universe as a whole must have a cause behind it.
Situation Ethics runs on the idea of agapeistic love which is the Christian concept of unconditional love, which is how the greater good works. Joseph Fletcher during the 1960’s was being opposed to be a radical Christian ethic. He argued that Agape is the only guiding principle in morality. This was taken from the golden rule, therefore situation ethics plays a large part in the religion Christianity. This act rejects legalistic (which is where the law comes from) for example this ethical theory could be for example ‘The Divine Command Theory’, however, it also undermines the idea of antinomian ethics (where there’s no law.)
The common belief today is that our nation, the United States of America, was founded on Christian principles by colonists who fled from religious persecution. Most American’s are under the impression that the Founding Fathers came from the same background as the Puritans or Pilgrims and instilled their Christian beliefs into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But the early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, who believed in one God, but found fault with organized religion. When you examine the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, you will see the absence of any reference to Christianity and the Constitution has no reference to God or religion except to ensure it wasn’t part of America’s framework. The United States of America was not founded on Christian principles but on the enlightened principle of human rights, that all people are created equal, and endowed with certain rights, among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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). He credits faith's mass appeal and staying power as the main reason for the growth of corrupted notions of miracles and saving grace. Kant was not a believer that accepting Jesus Christ as our savior would be all that is needed in Christian grace to free oneself from sin. Kant says “It is totally inconceivable, however, how a rational human being who knows himself to deserve punishment could seriously believe that he only has to believe the news of satisfaction having been rendered Page 1 for him, and accept it utiliter, in order to regard his guilt as done away with” (p. 123). These ideas of Kant seem to imply he is not a believer of Jesus or that miracles have never happened, the idea Kant is developing that miracles are not necessary for us to develop moral
But it seems as though Russell feels he can rule that Christianity is not only one of its kind and that it is not true. We will see that his epistemological basics as well as his good credentials are narrow and we are doubtful of both his arrogant rationalism and his spiritual ability to defeat the Biblical and historical testimony to Jesus Christ. In addition, we will see that most of his believed logical refutations of arguments for God do not work (Britannica). Bertrand Russell thought that religious belief came from culture and fantasy. He thought that people believe in God because they have been taught as a baby to believe.
Soren Kierkegaard, a protestant Fideist, saw the biblical figure of Abraham as a hero and an example of the fideist position; this is because against all moral and ethical qualities, Abraham was willing to go against any kind of reason and sacrifice his own under the will of God. Strong rationalism and Fideism are the two extremes of each concept, the middle ground between those two is Critical Rationalism, believing that a balanced life allows for both reason and faith. Some things can be known by reason alone, whereas other things must be known by faith. History and reason through the bible will explain to us that Jesus lived and preached the kingdom of God, also performing
Example can be seen in the Ten Commandments in Christianity. Can present problems because they do not adapt to social norms. Modern Christianity believes in a hierarchy of absolutes – graded absolutism Kantian ethics and Natural law are both absolutist theories. Absolutism gives people a fixed
The school in Antioch adhered to a more literal interpretation the Bible. The teachers associated with this school stood in opposition to the philosophical allegory and mysticism that characterized the school of Alexandria. The theologians at Antioch also rejected both Docetism and Apollinarianism. In contrast to these views, they stressed the humanity of Christ and taught a distinction between the humanity and deity of Christ. They believed that Christ was perfect in humanity as well as perfect in deity.
• Jung’s idea of religious experience – Martin Buber argues that an experience which takes place in the mind, rather than externally to the individual, is not a religious experience. Jung has also been criticised for suggesting that any vision is religious. Perhaps he has failed to understand the uniqueness of a religious experience and the effect that they have on religious believers. • Individuation – Is this a religious process? If it is concerned with the Self, is it really about God?