Home » Posts tagged 'God' (Page 3)
Tag Archives: God
“The Groaning of Creation” – Chapter 1 “Introduction”: Part II
Above is a reading from a scene between Ivan (a skeptic) and his religious brother Alyosha from Fydor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov regarding the difficulty of believing in a loving God in the face of the abuse and suffering of innocent children.
Though Southgate’s book focuses primarily on the suffering of animals, he uses the illustration above in this chapter to convey his thesis that “[T]he crux of the problem is not the overall system and its overall goodness but the Christian’s struggle with the challenge to the goodness of God posed by specific cases of innocent suffering.”
UPDATE: “The Groaning of Creation” – Preface – Chapter 1-1.5: Part I:
We completed our first session of our new book last Sunday.
One of the takeaways of the session was the discovery that when dealing with issues in theodicy, it wasn’t necessarily that we had a problem with the horror of suffering, death, and randomness in the world, but rather the real issue was that we had an issue with God – namely the goodness with God that we were having a hard time with.
You can read our essays here.
The youtube clip above gives us an interesting overview of the moral issues we have over animals. Why is it that we have no qualms eating a cow, but we are repulsed by the idea of eating a pet cat? They are both animals right? Why is one right and the other wrong? Answer seems simple and obvious, but it’s interesting to think about at another level.
“The Groaning of Creation” – Preface – Chapter 1-1.5
We will begin a new semester this year as we focus on topics in theology and science. This time, we will cover Christopher Southgate’s The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil.
UPDATE: “Confessions” – Book IX: Chapters 1 – 6
Here are our essays for the first half of Book IX of the Confessions.
We covered the role emotions play to religious and spiritual practices; how conversion changes our view of others and the world around us; the use and place of the Bible in a believer’s life; and whether or not non-believers will be rewarded for good works in the afterlife.
“Confessions” – Book IX: Chapters 1 – 6
Baptism of St. Augustine of Hippo, from a fresco cycle of the Life of St. Augustine, 1465 by Benozzo De Lesse Gozzoli, c. 1420 – 97, Italian
For this Sunday we will cover Book IX Chapters 1 – 6 of Confessions.
In this book he ties up his autobiographical story by telling the aftermath of his conversion, in particular, the events leading up to his baptism.
He describes his stay in the fall and winter months of 386 at the country estate of his friend Vercundus at Cassiciacum near Milan. This provided Augustine and his friends a quiet place of withdrawal as they prepared for baptism that coming Easter. While there, Augustine wrote a series of dialogues based on the conversations he was having with his friends there. These writings (On the Happy Life, Against the Academics, On Order, Soliloquies) show that he was working out some of the solutions to his theological problems.
By the end of Chapter 6, he, along with his son Aeodatus and friend Alypius get baptized together.
Update: “Cofessions” – Book VIII: Chapters 7 – 12
“The Conversion of St. Augustine”, Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – 1455) and workshop
In the latter half of Book VIII, Augustine wrote a lot about free will, however, everyone in the group decided not to write about it (I was betting someone was bound to) surprisingly. We did come around to discussing free will in the beginning and was equally surprised to learn that a majority of our group thought that free will was more or less an illusion and that everything was deterministic, even from a theological standpoint.
Interesting.
Anyway, here are our essays about whether or not conversion to Christianity limits your options and freedoms; thoughts about original sin; the role of shame and repentance prior to conversion (whether it’s necessary or not); and bibliolatry and the Barthian or “encounter” view of Scripture.
UPDATE: “Confessions” Book VIII – Chapters 1 – 6
How pagan are modern-day church services today? Have church services been pagan all along?
Here are our essays on Book VIII – Chapters 1 – 6 of Augustine’s Confessions.
We discussed the implications of delayed gratification, the pagan elements and origins of the Catholic Mass and Protestant services, the life of Anthony the Great and whether or not Christ calls us to a life of asceticism.
“Confessions” – Book VIII: Chapters 1 – 6
“Born Again” by Dean Kermit Allison
After bit of a break we’re back once again. We will cover Book VIII: Chapters 1 – 6.
At the start of this book, Augustine has achieved an understanding of God and the humility to accept Christ, but still has reservations about being fully committed to the Church.
This is the beginning of his conversion experience.
Was God Pro-Choice?
Every election year, many Christians (Evangelical and Catholic) gather together to make the issue of abortion a major topic in politics. They cite the sanctity of life all together and tell how abortion is murder of the unborn. Many also claim that abortion is impermissible on any grounds because of the Bible, even in cases of rape, incest, or even if a woman’s life is in jeopardy due to complications in a pregnancy.
OK, maybe God being “pro-choice”as the title states might be a bit of an anachronism, but it seems rather clear that in some instances he does sanction abortion or at the very least, permit ways to allow for a woman to have a miscarriage if she’s pregnant due to adultery.
UPDATE: “Confessions”: Book VII – Chapters 11 – 21
This past week we concluded Book VII of “Confessions” by covering chapters 11 – 21.
We had good conversations about human reason and the (Neoplatonic) discipline of focusing on spiritual things to draw closer to God; is Jesus the only way? and religious pluralism; the nature of Jesus; the nature of evil; the distinction between Creator and creation; the influence of Platonic thought on Christian education throughout the centuries and its problems.
We also had a stimulating discussion centering around the questions, “Who is Jesus?” One can easily spurt out, “Oh, he’s my Lord and Savior.” But if you trip away the “churchy” language everyone uses and really, really ask yourself who he is to you and what he really means to you (if anything), it might be harder than you think it is. One reason I believe that it is so hard is because that question is also a very personal question as well.
You can read our essays here.
Project Augustine 