LITMIR.BIZ

Is Christianity but a selection of stories, as some suppose, or is there more to it than that? Are its adherents guided by something real or simply following their own fancies? That there are communities of Christians is itself real enough, but is their mere existence its own justification? Events like the birth and death of Jesus are for the most part real enough, though they have been overlaid with stories that may at times be helpful symbolism but may also distract or distort. The very human way Jesus and his disciples followed during his ministry was also real enough, though again overlaid with interpretative material; however, the circumstances of his followers then varied, and those of Christian communities in succeeding generations differ still more. On the eve of his death Jesus sought to bind his followers together with one another and himself rather than offering them a way of otherworldly salvation. He may yet have expected such a salvation, as did the Apostle Paul, but it is more fruitful to follow the latter in seeing «life» to be gained in «death,» in a «dying to sin,» in this life.

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Although it might seem natural that Jesus' beliefs about God should shape Christian theology, this has often not been the case. Jesus' beliefs about God, including such aspects as omnipotence and personality, were largely shaped by contemporary Judaism. His view of God's character–exercising impartiality and mercy in this world, but at times retribution in the next–was often distinctive, though not always. The questions about the divine nature that had exercised earlier philosophers and theologians and would continue to puzzle later ones were not his concern, and later discoveries and theories about the nature of the cosmos, still often so mysterious to us, were naturally not part of his thought-world. Similarly, the role that later theologians found for him within the divine Trinity was also alien to him. On the other hand, alternative attempts to argue about the existence and the nature of God on the basis of cosmology or human «religious experience» have led to no conclusive results. The man Jesus himself, however, offered moral teaching and a way of life that he believed, rightly or wrongly, reflected the nature and will of his God, and this is his lasting contribution, regardless of whatever divine reality does or does not lie behind it.

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