Christianity Beliefs

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  • Created by: msahay
  • Created on: 10-08-17 22:33

The nature of God (1)

God as omnipotent

  • All powerful
  • Omnipotence can be seen through: creation of universe itself, the wonders of the universe which exist because of his creative and sustaining power and the miracles performed by Jesus and in the modern world. 
  • Nothing can defeat God's power
  • The Creation, the Flood and the Ten Plagues

God as loving (omni-benevolent)

  • Agape - self sacrificial love = Jesus' death
  • 'for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son'. 
  • Jesus' sacrifice allowed human beings the chance of entering heaven after death.
  • Parable of the Prodigal Son
  • 'love your enemies'
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The nature of God (2)

God as just

  • How can be God be just with so much excessive and pointless suffering in the world?
  • Cannot be explained, those who have experienced God's love must accept that God is a god of justice

Belief in Judgement Day and that God is just means that you believe God will put things right then. 

'In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you'. - Jesus

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The problem of evil and suffering (1)

Moral evil - suffering inflicted by people on each other

The problem of evil is why God (who is all-poweful, all-loving, just and all-knowing) allows evil and suffering. 

Existence of evil force = Devil that tempts people causes suffering

Free Will = Humans have the choice to be greedy, selfish and hateful so they are responsible for moral evil, not God.

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The problem of evil and suffering (2)

Why does God allow suffering?

  • Suffering is a punishment for wrongdoings
  • Suffering is a test of faith - Those who get through with God's faith will be rewarded.
  • Suffering is a form of education - We grow spiritually, learn to take responsibility and help others.
  • Suffering is needed as a balance - to truly appreciate good, we have to recognise evil. 

Remember PTEB = Punishment, Test, Education, Balance as suffering allowance reasons.

Criticisms 

  • Newborn baby with horrible disease 
  • Bad things happening to good people

Human beings simply must accept it because God cannot be fully understood. Christians should instead focus on how to alleviate suffering as Jesus did.

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The Oneness of God and the Trinity

Monotheism - Belief in one god

  • Father - creator and sustainer of universe
  • Son - incarnate saviour who lived, who died and rose again
  • Holy Spirit - source of strength in Christian hearts

All three in one. God can be known in three ways and three forms of same single entity

  • God cannot be known. Nature of God is complex so humans can't possibly understand it.
  • 'make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit' - Jesus

Symbols = shamrock, triskelion

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How belief in the Trinity influences Christians

Christians must try to show their fellow beings the same love and respect that flows between the three Persons of the Trinity. 

Challenging the idea of the Trinity

  • Jews and Muslims and others suggest Christianity believes in tritheism - belief in three separate Gods.
  • Atheist view
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Christian beliefs about creation

God is transcendent - beyond space and time and controlled by neither.

Father in Creation

'We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth' - Father means life-giving creative nature of God.

Son in Creation

'The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us'. Both the Word and Son of God = Jesus

Holy Spirit in Creation

'the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters'. 

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Genesis 1:1-31 (1)

This paragraph of the Bible describes God's creation of the universe.

Fundamentalists' view 

Some Christians are literalists and believe the story happened exactly as written in the Bible because it was inspired by God and contains no mistakes

Other Christians' view

Profound message, delivered through symbolism. 

The real message is that:

  • God is the sole and omnipotent Creator.
  • God is the creator and sustainer of everything in the universe.
  • Human beings are created in God's image - capactity for creativity and relationship
  • Human beings are given authority of the created world. 
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Genesis 1:1-31 (2)

Genesis 1's influence on Christians

Christians believe human lives have meaning and purpose

- Encourages them to adopt a positive approach to life and this makes them think things through and then act on their beliefs.

Christians believe that human beings were created in the image of God

- Applies to all human beings, which means all are of value

- Christians believe they have a responsibility to treat everyone equally with love and respect. 

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Interpretations of the Genesis 1 creation story

Fundamentalist view 

  • Literally true, word for word. 
  • God is omnipotent and omniscient so it's believable he created the world.
  • Fossil evidence is just a test from God.

Liberalist view

  • Contains the truth
  • God inspired the story, not dictated
  • General description 
  • Room for error

Other view

  • God didn't tell mankind directly what's written in the Bible
  • Whoever wrote it was inspired by the world around them
  • Message of a loving God, who created us is much more significant than whether it is true or not.
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Beliefs about the afterlife

Christianity teaches that death is not the end.  Death separates life on earth from life with God

'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain'. 

Most Christians believe in resurrection - dead will be restored back to life like Jesus did. 

The body is a 'temple of the Holy Spirit' and should be treated with respect.

Some believe their physical body will restored, and others think of it as a spiritual resurrection. 

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What Christians mean by resurrection

Some Christians reject cremation because they believe in physical resurrection - God will raise them back to life before Judgement Day.

St Paul said 'it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body'. 

Roman Catholics believe purgatory. State of existence between death and the afterlife. Souls become purified here before going to heaven. 

Many believe that souls live, not our body and that only the souls will be resurrected. 

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Judgement

Jesus taught God's love and mercy are unconditional but Christianity teaches that there will be a Judgement Day at the end of time and all will be judged by Jesus according to how they acted. 

Many Christians believe that after they die, their souls will wait for Judgement Day - rewarded with Heaven or punished with Hell. 

Some Christians reject the idea of the Second coming and final judgement. They do not deny humans will be called to account for their lives, but they disagree about the context. 

Judgement in Jesus' teaching

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus warns that ignoring the needs of others may have eternal consequences. 

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Heaven and Hell

Heaven

Christianity teaches that Heaven is a state of being, not a physical place. Being with God outside of time and space. 

Hell

Many Christians have rejected the literalist firey idea of Hell. They believe Hell is eternal separation from God. This separation results from the deliberate rejection of any relationship with God. Hell is not what God wants, but this is what humans bring upon themselves.

Some Christians reject the idea of Hell because they think its existence would mean that God's love wouldn't triumph over evil. People will repent their mistakes and be forgiven by God - universalism

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The incarnation - Jesus the Son

Incarnation - belief that God took on human form as Jesus. 'The Word became flesh and lived among us'

Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. 'Jesus is inseparably true God and true man.'

Impossible to understand

Virgin Birth

'conceived by the Holy Spirity, born of the Virgin Mary'. 

Some Christians think this is a myth, being used to show Jesus was not simply a divine being but was fully human and fully divine. 

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The incarnation - Jesus the Son (2)

Jesus' knowledge is a problem for believers' fully human and fully divine idea. 

Limited knowledge

Jesus said, that not even he knew what would happen at the end of the world. If he was truly divine he'd know this...?

St Paul's letter said that Jesus willingly became fully human. He came in 'the nature of a servant'. Some Christians say that God could only be properly human by giving up most of His divine knowledge. 

The importance of belief in the incarnation

  • Shows God's love for humanity. - Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins.
  • 'He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ...since God so loved us, we ought to love one another'.
  • Mother Teresa is an example of this.
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The crucifixion (1)

Jesus was convicted of blasphemy by the Jewish authorities (punishable by death in Jewish law)

Found guilty by Pontius Pilate and sentenced to death by crucifixion - agonising and painful death

Mark 15:21-39

Mark recorded that for the final three hours of Jesus' crucifixion, the land went dark. Some Christians think this was invented as a symbol of the judgement falling on Israel for rejecting the Messiah. 

Temple curtain was torn in two - Some Christians think this is symbolic of the destruction of the barrier of sin that had separated humanity from God, making it possible for everyone to access God. 

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The crucifixion (2)

Why did Jesus have to die?

1) The SanhedrinThe religious leaders of the ruling council believed that Jesus' new interpretation of the Torah was blasphemous. He helped people on the Sabbath Day, where no work is permitted.

2) Pontius Pilate and the pressure from people - He said he intended to release Jesus, but the crowd warned him that if he did he was no friend of Caesar, the ruler of the empire. He feared a report going to Rome that he had set free a Jewish rebel which made him sentence Jesus to death.

3) Fulfilling God's command - Without Jesus' death human beings could not be reunited with God and could not enter heaven. Human beings had strayed from God, and Jesus' artificial death would be atone for this. 

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Christian beliefs about the role of Christ in salv

'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life'. 

Christians see Jesus' death as atonement

  • On the Cross, Jesus bore the consequences and penalty of human sin
  • God taking initiative in reconciling humanity to God
  • Inspires humans to take the moral lead in reconciliation in the world today

Contradictions 

Human beings are willingly disobedient, refusing God's will so being just, God must punish human beings.

God is also loving and merciful so he made it possible to be forgiven through the incarnation and Jesus taking on the punishment of sin. 

Hard to grasp where God is a judge whose jusiice needs to be satisfied through retribution and where Jesus bears a penalty that is not his own. 

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Christian beliefs about the role of Christ in salv

Atonement - making amends 

Reconciliation - restoration of friendship. 

Human beings could not reconcile with God by themselves so  it was up to God through a drastic event: this was God's self sacrifice in the form of Jesus. They believe Jesus went willingly because he knew it was a way for reconciliation to happen. 

Reconciliation for Christian lives today

Just as Jesus surrendered himself to God's will, Christians should serve God to the best of their ability. 

They aim to follow Jesus' example of caring and showing love for others. 

Examples

Mother Teresa

Maximilian Kolbe - gave his life for a prisoner in Auschwitz

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The resurrection

Jesus was buried in rock tomb and the boulder pushed in front of it.

The women came back to see the boulder was pushed to one side and the body was not there. 

Women were told Jesus had risen.

Mary Magdalene sees him and she tells disciples.

Jesus reappeared to his believers over a period of 40 days in a physical state but many did not recognise him. 

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The ascension

Jesus took his followers to Bethany and there he was 'taken up into heaven' and a cloud 'received him out of their sight'. 

Shows the finality of his appearance, the successful completion of his work on Earth and Jesus' divine kingship. 

Fundamentalists think the cloud really did take him to another dimension.

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Why Jesus' resurrection is important to Christians

If death was the end for Jesus, his life ended in failure. 

Christians interpret his resurrection from the dead as: ultimate proof that he is the Son of God, showing God's triumph over evil. 

The resurrection of Jesus is important for several reasons. First, the resurrection witnesses to the immense power of God Himself. To believe in the resurrection is to believe in God. If God exists, and if He created the universe and has power over it, then He has power to raise the dead.

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Sin and salvation through law

Original sin bought by Adam and Eve meant humans were born with a tendency to disobey God. This meant their sinful actions separated them from God. 

God dealt with this through the incarantion and sacrificial death of Jesus.

God in Christ offered salvation, cancelled out original sin and the promise of eternal life.

Salvation - being accepted by God and assured of eternal life. 

Salvation through law 

Some Christians believe that in order to be accepted by God, you must obey his laws (scriptures and commandments)

Most Christians reject this, however, Jesus taught that the thoughts in our minds and love for God in our hearts is far more important. 

Christians are influenced by this in their actions. 

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Salvation: grace and the Spirit

Grace - unconditional love that God shows to everyone. God loves humans, despite their bad actions and forgives. 

Parable of the Prodigal Son = example of this

His offer of salvation as a free gift to all who believe in Jesus as the Son of God = act of his love, 'salvation through grace and Sprit'

Jesus' actions made forgiveness for the sins and reconciliation possible. 

Christians believe they receive God's grace through the presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts which enables them to try and show love as Jesus did. 

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