Lutheran theology Essays

In the age of modernity, there was a drastic shift in all aspects of society. This shift can be attributed to the new thought that arose out of the Reformation and the Enlightenment periods. With the earlier Reformation, the thought of the conforming away from extensive domain of the Roman Catholic Church emerged with the growing sense of individualism. This concept carried directly over into the next century where the Enlightenment gave new meaning to the individual, shifting even more towards individualistic

In The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace, Kenneth J. Collins, makes another important contribution to the area of Wesley Studies. Collins seeks to organize his discussion of Wesley’s theology around the “axial theme” of “holiness and grace” (6). The organization of the book is logical and easy to follow, essentially guiding the reader through the Way of Salvation or more accurately (according to Collins’ view) the order of salvation. A major strength of The Theology of John

Augustine, in his work The Perfection of Human Righteousness, combatted the heresy of Pelagianism as described by Caelestius in his treatise, The Definitions Attributed to Caelestius. Following Pelagius, Caelestius by logic and Scripture argued that the Fall did not destroy man’s natural capability to do right. Caelestius argued that God made us free to do the good and thus we all have the power not to sin, and that both the devil and Adam’s original sin are unable to destroy this power. As proof

1. The Suffering and the Mystery of Evil “Man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of evil.” The concept of suffering and evil are closely connected. Pope John Paul II addresses this relationship between suffering and evil in his apostolic letter as follows: Man suffers on account of evil, which is certain lack, limitation or distortion of good. We could say that man suffers because of a good in which he does not share, from which in a certain sense he is cut off, or of which he has deprived

Religion was an extremely important aspect of the Renaissance. During that era, it was near enough impossible to find a text that was not heavily influenced by Christianity and what it represented for different types of people. Perhaps the most famous text that did this was The Divine Comedy, or more specifically, Inferno, written by Dante Aligheri. In this poem, Dante, as a fictionalised version of himself, reflects on morality, death and sin. He wrote the poem in his native tongue to make the poem

In both the Metamorphoses and The Bacchae, there is an emphasis on the relationship between god and man. First, in the Metamorphoses, each story describes a transformation. In many of the stories, the gods are involved in the transformations of humans to animals as the result of an obstruction of power between the two (Ovid 194). Likewise, The Bacchae also exhibits physical transformations as one of its main themes. Again, this involves the power of a god being inserted over humans (Euripides 56)

God 's existence has been a continuous debate certainly for centuries. The issue of God 's existence is debatable because of the different kind of controversies that can be raised from an "Atheist as being the non-believer of God" and a "Theist who is the believer of God". An atheist can raise different objections on the order of the universe by claiming that the science is a reason behind the perfection of the universe. In Aquinas 's fifth argument, he claims that the order of the universe

How do you allow God to take control of your life and entrust that everything will be okay? This was the type of question author Anne Lamott (2006) baffled with in these next few chapters. Lamott (2006) shares her personal life story of entrusting God in her book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. This paper will provide a summary of chapters two thru four, combined with a personal reflection, and conclude with a few desired questions that ideally could be answered by Lamott. To begin, the

For Kierkegaard Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma. It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by the clergy or by human’ artefacts. Faith is the most important task to be achieved by a human being, because only on the basis of faith does an individual have a chance to become a true self. This self is the life-work which God judges for eternity. However bad a priest, the whisky priest cannot change what he is, any more than the lieutenant

The power of Gods and their divinity are used to intervene during multiple occasions in the Golden ass and Genesis. These acts are no simple feat when they are brought into the story, and build on the basis that something impossible to explain is happening. In the Golden Ass divine intervention is used as a punishment. “Venus, with her words, rousing his natural impudence and wildness to new heights, led him to the city and showed him Psyche in person (Golden Ass IV:29-31).” Cupid would do anything

In Proslogium St. Anselm presents his argument for the existence of God, an argument that has thus far withstood the test of time and many criticisms, one of which I will discuss here. Anselm works his way from the “fool’s” assumption that God does not exist, or at least does not exist in reality, through his premises that existence is greater than understanding alone and that a being with God’s properties and existence can be conceived of, to the conclusion that because God is that than which nothing

Weaver 1 Michelle Weaver Faith & Philosophical Enquiry PHI-110RS-ATWE Co_PHI-110-ATWE-2018SP1 Dr. DonatienCicura 25 February 2018 Saint Thomas Aquinas: Proof of the Existence of God Saint Thomas Aquinas was a theologian who wrote about proving the existence of God. There are five ways that Aquinas argues to show that God exists and I chose to write about two of those ways. The second way: “Argument from Efficient Causes” meaning that nothing in this world could have been created from itself. I

In his 1802 work Natural Theology, William Paley attempts to logically prove that God exists and created the universe, known the Intelligent Design argument (Himma). In this argument, he states that the universe is like a watch in three relevant aspects, complexity, regularity, and purpose. Because of this, he says, we know that a watch has a creator, therefore the universe must also have a creator. However, I believe that this argument is flawed because I think the analogy does not work on two of

When looking through the logic of philosophers from the medieval period of Philosophy and their unconvincing logic, we first look at Anselm. Anselm wanted to prove God existed, Anselm argues that you can prove the existence of God through metaphysic metaphysical analysis for example: Think of the most perfect being possible. If you can picture the most perfect being in your mind, then it is possible that it exists only in your mind as an example of Plato’s Theory of Forms. I think Anselm’s argument

When looking through the logic of philosophers from the medieval period of Philosophy and their unconvincing logic, we first look at Anselm. Anselm wanted to prove God existed, Anselm argues that you can prove the existence of God through metaphysic metaphysical analysis, for example: Think of the most perfect being possible. If you can picture the most perfect being in your mind, then it is possible that it exists only in your mind as an example of Plato’s Theory of Forms. Anselm’s argument fails

Analysis on 3rd meditation of Rene Descartes on Existence of God In his third meditation, named “The existence of God”, Descartes proves that God exists and the only cause of God is our clear and distinct perception. In previous meditations Descartes proved that he is a thinking thing, he exists, but now he is still in doubt and is asked by questions like where his existence came from, where his ideas or thoughts came from, why they appear in his mind. The raising so many questions makes me think

What is Atheism? Atheism does not necessarily mean the disbelief in gods or a denial of gods. It is the lack of belief in God or gods. In some dictionaries, atheism is defined as "a belief that there is no God." Some define Atheism as "wickedness," "sinfulness," and other derogatory adjectives. Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic, for example Buddhism. That does not mean that atheism is a religion. Atheism will be defined in the

Many people believe that if you cannot see something, that something does not exist. By something I mean God. Those who discard the thought of a Creator then turn to science to provide evidence for our origins. The theory science puts forth is called evolution. What is evolution? Evolution is the thought that the first life forms on this planet were tiny microorganisms. These microorganisms then turned into fish, the fish grew legs and walked on land, the land animals turned into dinosaurs, the dinosaurs

Systematic theology as a field of study of Christian theology theorizes a regular, logical and coherent account of Christian faith and beliefs. The Christian doctrine has gone through philosophical evolution over the course of history. Systematic theology draws on such doctrines and fundamental sacred texts of Christianity. At the heart of the system of theological thought is the development of method; one that can be applied universally or specifically. The Systematic theology in this essay will

Throughout his lecture, Bertrand Russell presents quite a few convincing arguments for the reasons he is not a Christian. Watering down of the foundations and expectations of Christianity, rejection of the advances of science, and behavior uncharacteristic of the Christ that Christians claim to emulate are all valid concerns that merit further consideration. While Russell makes many valid points throughout his account that I agree with, I would speculate that Russell based these observations on a