Theology is the exploration of God and the beliefs that follow. With new information and the ever changing society people are forced to further develop their belief in God. No one person will have the same answer as to what or even who God is to them. Through the various teachings of people, the definition of God has never become concrete for it is a belief and will always be prone to change.
The name of God is different from all religion and in Judaism the name is too ineffable to even speak of. Dennis Edwards ,in "Human Experience of God", along with other theologians such as Rahner prefers to use the word "mystery". (Edwards, pg 16) Mystery is one of the many words that are appropriate to the name God for we don’t fully know and understand
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(Downey, pg 19) With reforming movements and the gaining of rights for people of all gender and color, the image of God is effected. As the minority gained rights the image of a God was argued. Throughout history ,in the teachings of Christianity, it can be observed that the image of god remained as the white old man with a big white beard floating around on a cloud. In this context, we can presume and assign the name of “Father” to him due to the outward appearance that the past has provided us with. We as people have subconsciously accepted this image of God and it has been taught to the younger generations. The ages where people have been limited have passed and now more than ever we question the image of God. "Supernatural theism imagines God as a person like being."(Borg, pg 65) Edwards in Human Experience of God states that we as people look forward to our conceptual awareness and use what we know to base our image of God. He also states we are “explicitly aware of this person, there is always present an obscure awareness of all …show more content…
It is always when we are on our knees when we will call to God. God is seen more so as a protector something a parental figure does. Rather than making God be powerful and unattainable we make him be someone who is nurturing, providing, and compassionate. People want to be able to reach within themselves for that inner piece that is within us and to be able to communicate ,although all along the piece is there within us listening. This is why prayer should not be viewed as it has been over the years. As children we are taught that prayer is to worship God, we must not sin or God will punish us, and we are in this world to provide it with good. Rather than accepting such beliefs people have altered them to be more befitting of the modern nature of religion. People now look to live in the moment and take everything
They have been called "gods." These almighty, powerful beings that are far too superior for us to understand; or so most of us have been made to believe. Some may say he is a Great Examiner, others could say he is the Creator. Some could even say he doesn't exist. Frankly, what I want to emphasize is how such beliefs could reduce even the bravest and strongest of us all to a whimpering child. Something that we ar...
Jonathan Edwards was a brilliant man that lived a life that glorified God. He is considered one of the greatest thinkers in America. During his childhood, he was a very smart boy who used that to find out the wonders of God’s creation. Soon he went to Yale University where he got his bachelor and masters degree and started preaching. While preaching, he married a young woman, Sarah, and had 11 children. He was a great preacher to his church. When the great awakening started he was one of the most important figure in the great awakening. He influenced many people and he preached one of the most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which made many people convert to Christ. After the great awakening he provided sound Gospel to the people. However, he also got persecuted because of preaching what was right. Though he was persecuted he went on missions to Indians and became the president of Princeton University. He died young
For many centuries, God has been changing; His interpretations are what that has changed the most about him. The God of the 1st century is nothing compared to the God that billions of people worship today. Seeing that God has undergone so many different types of transformations, I would be correct to say that many diverse understandings about His role and His teachings have come about. For example, there are several, unique types of Bibles addressing what God has said, but honestly, He only said what He spoke in one way. The various beliefs about God have led Christians to gain different perceptions about their God, which caused them to worship and appreciate Him in drastically different ways. This can be seen particularly in the way Deists, such as Benjamin Franklin, recognize God and His Word in opposition to that of the Puritans.
However, the latter is the integral way toward humanity’s flourishing in God. In mythology, we ought to understand the different steps of the theogonical process in the light of the increasing truth of the symbols of God. In revealed religion, the concern is not so much around our images of God as in a sense they cannot be improved. Rather, we must care about how much these images are interiorized. In mythology the images of the divine become more and more spiritual as we better imagine God, where in revealed religion to do the same does not bring new images but rather deepen our relationship with them. In other words, Christians do not ever get to move past the image of God as the Holy Trinity, but can develop an ever better communion with the transcendent by deepening their understanding of this symbol of the divine. In other words, they can always re-imagine the Trinity, this way developing the metaphorical bridge between the symbol and God and renewing the life of their relationship with
Aristotle and Plato both believed that there were forces at work in nature which were beyond sight and not of the physical world and eternally present. What we call philosophy is really a second philosophy, due to these unseen forces. Plato, one of the world’s greatest philosophers, once had a ground breaking idea. He came forth with the idea of the Forms. These Forms were perfect and unchanging. Everything else in existence took various qualities from the Forms and used them to create their own shapes and purposes. There was one Form, however, that stood above all the rest. The Form of the Good. This is where Aristotle, Plato’s kindred student, related his idea of God to. Through reason and facts and many similarities, it is proven in great detail that these two ideas are one in the same. In addition to Plato and Aristotle, Istvan Bodnar make this claim:
Throughout the Bible God can be represented in a number of different ways. In some chapters of the Bible God can be found to be a compassionate, loving God, who would do anything for his people. To contradict this, in other chapters of the Bible God can be found trying to instill fear into people so that they believe in him, or do what he wants of them. In both instances it shows how different God can be seen and why believers can have doubts about how God really is.
Plantinga’s (2002) book Engaging God’s World consists of five parts: “Longing and Hope,” “Creation,” “The Fall,” “Redemption,” and “Vocation in the Kingdom of God.” Throughout the work, Plantinga references public speakers and activists, lyricists, philosophers, saints, and authors to help his audience connect to his perspective.
Moreover, classic theology is a doctrine that is most commonly received in the western churches because it describe the fundamental aspect of religious beliefs and doctrine as it relates to Christianity. This theological system is the innovation that secure a believer’s thoughts on the nature of God without having to compromise with religious ideologies that tends to oppose biblical facts in favor of some enticing or deceptive truth that could lead to uncertainty religious conviction. According to Vanhoozer,”Classical theism pictures God, not as a utilitarian or pragmatist who delights in results, but rather as a Kantian, a modern, Stoic, who takes pleasure simply in his good will; Classical theism pictures God as spiritual, personal substance
Taylor then describes God as soft, gentle, feminine and has an eye for beautiful things and great designs. Taylor imagines that God is both male and female, and that he or she resides in all human endeavors and not only found in heaven, but in all objects of nature and of human construction. This evidence shows of a twofold consciousness. Taylor sees God through the interplay of the masculine and the feminine, the sacred and the profane, the temporal and the eternal, and the conscious and the unconscious
When you think of God, you jump straight to the immortal God of the Christianity faith where they are not physically present; they are omnipresent (ReligionFacts, 2004). In relationship
It is important that Christians, and especially myself, never get too comfortable to pray. Prayer must be part of the rhythm of our daily lives. To remain close to God is to recognize the presence of God everyday and to be prayerful in our thoughts and actions. The center of the Christian life is to listen to God and to follow God’s call for our lives.We must slow down and spend time with God in order to build a healthy relationship. We listen for God through the Word, through people, and through the Holy Spirit. Prayer is a way to maintain constant communication with
The poem “God’s Grandeur” by Gerald Hopkins is a poem of the relationship between God, nature and humans and the idea that no matter what is done to nature, it will heal itself. The title of the poem could be literally be taken to say “God’s Magnificence” and from this it can be inferred that the poem will draw positive connotations and images of the greatness or glory of God and his creation of nature. The poem spans and speaks literally of the effect God has on nature and man’s work that changes the landscape by production and industry but the “freshness” of nature is protected always remains and could never be destroyed. The poem is directed towards the reader where the tension of the work is the relationship between God/nature and man.
Systematic Theology will continue to evolve as God continues to open our minds to His divine revelations, because God will avail Himself to us if we seek for him with our whole heart (Jeremiah
When I was a kid we would play a game in class where the teacher would line up the all of the students shoulder to shoulder. She would then whisper something into the first student’s ear and tell him or her to pass it down the line. By the time it reached the other end the phrase wouldn’t resemble the original statement at all. To me this is how God is perceived in society. Everyone has their own point of view based on their experience. Just like the experiment, the students would use their own experience and vocabulary to interpret what the previous student was trying to say.
The concept of God being found and described in art is a very interesting concept. God can be much easier understood and explained by the concepts of art. This is not a common idea, although it actually makes a lot of sense. In Joseph Kupfer’s essay The Art of Religious Communication he discusses his ideas of God in relation to art. His essay discusses all of the different ways in which God can often be looked at through art in a much more realistic way. Often in the world of art things can be explained in ways that other things cannot be. In Kupfer’s essay, he explains God’s existence and transcendence, as being something only understood though art. Art has a way of explaining things that science and logic cannot.