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Explain the apostles creed
Explain the apostles creed
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Saint Augustine’s On Faith and the Creed breaks down the Apostles Creed and expresses the essence of the Christian faith. The 11 chapters within On Faith and The Creed express many truths of the faith. Chapter one explains the origin of the creed and object of its composition. The Apostles Creed is a sufficient summary of the faith for beginners and those who who are more diligent in their faith. Many heretics have tried to corrupt the interpretation of the Apostles Creed. Yet, since it is written according to the scripture, the Apostles Creed is based on complete truth. Chapter two expresses the fact that eternity is exclusive. Saint Augustine talks about how the Apostles Creed will not truly be understood or impact a person if they are not …show more content…
His body, soul, mind, and spirit were of human origin. Chapter five expresses the truth that Jesus died and resurrected. Jesus was mortal and humble and, with His human nature, he suffered on the cross. Christians believe Jesus rose again on the third day. Chapter six expresses that after His resurrection, He ascended into heaven. Scripture says that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to earth to be with those who follow Christ. Saint Augustine explained in chapter seven that Jesus, following His ascension, sits at the right hand of God the Father. This does not suggest that God is in human form and literally has a right and left hand. To sit at the right hand means to have power. Jesus had power after his ascension into heaven. One example of this power is that Jesus will be the Judge in the final days. Chapter eight expresses Christ’s coming to judgment. Jesus Christ will come and judge the quick and the dead. The quick are those who are still living when the second coming occurs, and the dead are those who passed previous to the second coming of Christ. The eternal Son of God will be the ultimate Judge of all people. The next truth in which Saint Augustine describes, in chapter nine, is the Holy Spirit and the mystery of the …show more content…
We should live by this truth and meditate on it day and night. The Creed is based on Scripture. The One who the truth points to is the Almighty God. God is omnipotent and He does whatsoever He rightly and justly will. He created us in His image. Yet we fell into sin and corrupted our lives. The wages of sin is death. Because of this, God sent His Perfect Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us as a way to pay all our debt. The Father and the Son both have divine nature. Both are God, and both are Holy. There is only one God, and He is a Triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God in one Divine Nature. God does not change, He does not grow or learn, He is almighty and never-changing. Jesus Christ became humble and low by becoming human. He came down to earth and exemplified servant hood. He suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried for sinners. Nevertheless, the eternal son of God has always existed, similar to the eternal Father. There was no beginning to God. Augustine explained that Jesus showed us in the cross what we have to endure, and He showed us in the resurrection what we have to hope. Job teaches us that God will give and take away. God is the ultimate leader of our lives and we, as humans, are sinful followers of Him. Sometimes God causes us to learn through suffering, trials and tribulations. We should be very thankful because Jesus died for us, which allows
One of the main principles of Christianity is the belief in both the divinity and humanity of Jesus, that these two natures are combined harmoniously in one being. In general, all modern Christians believe that Jesus was human, he was considered to be “The Word was made flesh” (John, I: 14). However, Jesus was more than just a human, despite being subjected to pain, suffering and death like all other human beings, he was sinless and also possessed the power to heal and to defy death in order to ascend, both body and spirit, into heaven. He was all man and all God, a combination of these two elements, remaining distinct but united in one being. The deity of Jesus is a non-negotiable belief in Christianity, which is referred to in many parts of scripture, “God was revealed in the flesh” (I Timothy, 3:16). The Christian faith does not perceive Jesus as God but rather a reincarnation of God, a mysterious deity who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Throughout history, controversy has surrounded the issue of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, leading to the formation of Docetism, the belief that Jesus was fully divine but not fully human, Arianism, that Jesus was superior to all of creation, but less divine than God, and Nestorius, that there were two separate persons within Jesus. This the proportion of the divine and human within Je...
It mentions that all human beings exist in a relation to a triune God which is also known as the Trinity. This Trinity is known as one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As explained by the first claim, in the Catholic Tradition, being fully human and living a life of meaning and purpose means joining in this relationship of the triune God. This claim mentions that we have to be fully human, meaning knowing what good and bad, helping others and doing all the good things that God wants us to do, living a life of meaning and purpose that’s the foundation or means joining in the relationship of Love. By Love, they imply to God. In Genesis we are shown that God is love and he loved and respected the human being. We are also shown that an indication of plurality in Godhead, meaning that God is not just one person but he is made of more than one person. In Genesis 1:26 He says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” He doesn’t say I’m going to make man in my image, but uses the plural, ‘our’. This shows that God's actions in the creation are not just his works but he is helped by someone with the same intentions as him, and human beings exist because God loves us. Human beings are related to God as they represent him and were made in his
St. Augustine considers his mother as a crucial factor in his conversion to Catholicism. However through the analysis of his Confessions it leads me to believe that St. Augustine’s mother was not a decisive figure. Monica was in the background keeping him in thought and prayer however Augustine’s watershed moments came as a result of his own examination of readings as well as his conversations with his friends and mentors. Therefore I argue that Monica had delayed Augustine’s baptism and it was his own experiences that allowed him to come to God.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Augustine is fixated upon the idea of evil and its origins in Christian theology. He struggles to come to terms with the doctrine of sin. A popular counterargument to the belief in God is that a good, kind, and loving divine power would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. According to Christian belief, God created everything, and everything He created is good because He Himself is righteous. Augustine claims that God pervades the entirety of the universe and all it contains. So, how can things outside of God, such as evil, even exist? He asks this in various forms of rhetorical questions, such as, “Where then is evil? What is its origin? How did it steal into the world?...Where then does evil come from, if God made all things
A common thread of faith and reason runs through the two different theological visions of St. Augustine in his Confessions. This can be seen by comparing the ascent, the vision, the descent, and language in the two visions. Although other parts of the text will be referred to, the central part of these visions are as follows:Vision 1: "...
According to a Christian, there is one true God, and he revealed Himself through the Holy trinity, which is made up of three people; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They also believe that God alone created the world and everything that encompasses it from nothing in six days. They believe that the world was good until Adam sinned against God, and now all people are born into sin. They believe that God sent his only son Jesus to save the world from sin and that Jesus died for all their sins and rose from the dead. They believe that the Holy bible is the sacred word before and after Jesus’s time and that they should live by it to please God and thank him for his son. They believe that people are saved by faith through the grace of Jesus Christ.
In Saint Augustine’s deeply personal work, Confessions, he shares the story of his life up to his eventual conversion to the Christian faith. His odyssey through life is, at times, one of bitter inner conflict between his intellect and faith. Augustine’s classical education had a profound affect on the way he viewed the world, and eventually had a major affect on the way he approached Christianity. He is definitely an “intellectual” Christian, and viewed many aspects of his faith from this perspective. Augustine’s attitude towards classical literature and thought was at times slightly self-contradictory. It is clear, however, that although he was grateful for the education he was given, it was not necessary to his conversion. At many points throughout his life, his education actually seemed to hinder his flight towards Christianity.
The first major part of the creed is the recognition that God the Almighty created the heavens and the earth, anything that is, is made by God the Father. The second major part of the Creed is that Jesus Christ is the one and only begotten Son of God. The key word being that Jesus is begotten by God, not created like the universe or humankind. Jesus being begotten by God, is one with God and is God. Like God the Father, through Jesus all things were made. Being begotten by the Father and one with Him, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross is what forgives us of our
Later, after much study and introspection, Augustine discovers that he has been mistaken in attributing a physical form to God. Yet, he still presses on to reconcile his mind to the true precepts of Christian ideology. But what does he...
The Trinity is made up of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This concept is what many Catholics believe in, but other worldwide religions believe in other beliefs. Out of all the three Divine Persons, “Jesus is the most qualified to bring the renewal of creation because it was through him that creation came into being” (Pohle February 7th). We as humans will have to face the consequences for actions that we have done in the past, present and future. Jesus has come into the world as a human to show his dignity and save us from sin; he was the world and of all creation. As we come to read more about Jesus we get to know Jesus more, we learn about what he did, how he did it and why he had to do these saving actions.
Sanctuary, a place of refuge or safety. -- There was once a time when this very church could offer that for Sean, it was his place of comfort, his hideaway and the spot he could retreat to when troubles of the outside world got to him. However, that was long ago, long before the darkness ever got a hold of him. It seeped into his very being and grasped his once gentle soul, taking hold of everything good and pure inside of him, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell of his former self. Now this church could not offer even an ounce of solace and that troubled him far more than he cared to admit. It seemed that no matter where he wandered, he would not find peace,
Throughout the evolution of philosophic thought, there have been many different views on the relationship of mind and body. The great philosopher Plato and the Neoplatonists held the belief that man's body is merely a prison of his soul, but St. Augustine later refutes this with his idea of the disembodied soul. He distinguishes between the concept of the physical form and the spiritual soul, and he argues that humankind can be redeemed because of the God spirit contained in the intellectual soul. This intellectual soul is not an inseparable part of the body, as St. Thomas Aquinas postulates. Instead, this soul is indeed the higher part of man, the state and well-being of man depends upon its stability.
There are many times we as Believers are asked questions regarding our faith and beliefs on the Doctrine of God. Whether we have studied them to such length or if it has been a mere thought in our minds, it is important to have a response and willingness to come to a more complete understanding. At times we find ourselves caught in the unknown of why something is the way it is, knowing after some research that we may never fully know and be able to articulate an answer. We also know that our opinions, understandings, assumptions, even our research will not give a total answer. It is our duty as Christians to grow in wisdom and discernment of God and His call on our lives to bring glory and
The creed begins with the most general statement in the Christian rule book, the affirmation of God himself, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth” (Apostles’). In the book of Genesis, it is found in the first verse that “…In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth…” (Genesis). As stated, it says “I believe”, not “I think” or “I was told”. There is a clear distinction in maturity of a Christian: youth, adolescence, and adulthood. As a young child, Christians are introduced to the entity of God. In adolescent years, Christians are analyzing God through a scope of skepticism. But in adulthood, Christians take in the glory of God and find that he governs all, which is why they assert the most powerful words of the creed, “I believe”. In the following lines of the creed, the Holy Trinity is presented and briefly identified the role they play, “…and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit…” (Apostles’). The placement of the Holy Trinity is without a doubt in close proximity. After the triad, the life of Jesus, from birth to sacrifice, to resurrection and ascension, is addressed, “…born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended