CHRISTIANITY

(Group 3)

Christianity - the most widely practiced religion in the world, with more than 2 billion
followers

Some basic Christian concepts include:

 Christians are monotheistic

 Believe on the resurrection of Jesus.
 Jesus will return to earth again
 The Holy Bible.
 The cross
 The most important Christian holidays are Christmas and Easter

Who was Jesus?

 Was born to a young Jewish virgin named Mary in the town of Bethlehem, south of
Jerusalem between 2 B.C. and 7 B.C
 Grew up in Nazareth,
 According to most scholars, he aimed to reform Judaism—not create a new religion.
 When he was around 30 years old, Jesus started his public ministry
 For about three years, Jesus traveled with 12 appointed disciples

John the Baptist – A prophet who baptized Jesus in Jordan River

Parables – Jesus teachings

Sermon on the Mount - one of Jesus’s most famous speeches

Some of the main themes that Jesus taught, which Christians later embraced, include:

 Love God.
 Love your neighbor as yourself.
 Forgive others who have wronged you.
 Love your enemies.
 Ask God for forgiveness of your sins.
 Jesus is the Messiah and was given the authority to forgive others.
 Repentance of sins is essential.
 Don’t be hypocritical.
 Don’t judge others.
 The Kingdom of God is near. It’s not the rich and powerful—but the weak and poor—
who will inherit this kingdom.

Jesus’s Death and Resurrection

  Many scholars believe Jesus died between 30 A.D. and 33 A.D., although the exact
date is debated among theologians.
 According to the Bible, Jesus was arrested, tried and condemned to death
 Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers in Jerusalem, and his body was laid in a tomb.
 According to scripture, three days after his crucifixion, Jesus’s body was missing.
 In the days after Jesus’s death, some people reported sightings and encounters with
him. Authors in the Bible say the resurrected Jesus ascended into Heaven.

Pontius Pilate - a Roman governor that issued the order to kill Jesus

The Christian Bible

 a collection of 66 books
 Divided into two parts: The Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament - describes the history of the Jewish people, outlines specific laws to
follow, details the lives of many prophets, and predicts the coming of the Messiah.

The New Testament - was written after Jesus’s death.

Gospels – the first four books in the new testament

Acts of the Apostles - the apostles’ ministry after Jesus’s death

Epistles – letters written by early Christian leaders

Revelation- describes a vision and prophecies that will occur at the end of the world

Persecution of Christians
Paul – a former persecutor converted into Christianity

Emperor Nero – blamed Christians for a fire that broke out in rome. (64 AD)

Emperor Domitian, - during his time Christianity was illegal

Great Persecution – 303 AD under Emperors Diocletian and Galerius

Constantine – 313 AD a roman emperor converted into Christianity and lifted the ban on
Christianity

The Catholic Church

Emperor Theodosius - 380 A.D., declared Catholicism the state religion of the Roman
Empire.

Pope/Bishop - operated as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Catholics expressed a deep devotion for the Virgin Mary, recognized the seven sacraments,
and honored relics and sacred sites.

When the Roman Empire collapsed in 476 A.D., differences emerged among Eastern and
Western Christians.

1054 A.D. Church split into two groups.

 Roman Catholic Church

 Eastern Orthodox Church

The Crusades
Crusades - a series of holy wars

After the Crusades, the Catholic Church’s power and wealth increased.

The Reformation
Martin Luther – a german monk published 95 theses

Reformation – a movement that aimed to reform Catholic Church

As a result, Protestantism was created, and different denominations of Christianity

eventually began to form.

Christian Denominations
Christianity is broadly split into three branches: Catholic, Protestant, and (Eastern) Orthodox.

The Catholic branch - is governed by the Pope and Catholic Bishops around the world.

The Orthodox (or Eastern Orthodox) - is split into independent units each governed by a
Holy Synod; there is no central governing structure akin to the Pope.

Protestant Christianity - There are numerous denominations within

denominations that fall under the category of Protestant Christianity include:

 Baptist
 Episcopalian
 Non-Denominational
 Evangelist
 Methodist
 Presbyterian
 Pentecostal/Charismatic
  Lutheran
 Anglican
 Evangelical
 Assemblies of God
 Christian Reform/Dutch Reform
 Church of the Nazarene
 Disciples of Christ
 United Church of Christ
 Mennonite
 Christian Science
 Quaker
 Seventh-Day Adventist

Although the many sects of Christianity have differing views, uphold separate traditions, and
worship in distinct ways, the core of their faith is centered around the life and teachings of
Jesus.

St. Thomas Aquinas (AKA Thomas of Aquin or Aquino) (c. 1225 - 1274)
- An Italian Philosopher and a Christian theologian of the medieval period.
- He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology at the peak of
Scholasticism in Europe, and the founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and
theology.

Most Important works

1. "Summa Theologica - "quinquae viae" (the five proofs of the existence of God
2. "Summa Contra Gentiles".

Natural Revelation – truths are available to all people through their human nature
and through correct human reasoning.

Supernatural Revelation –Faith –based knowledge revealed through scriptures.

Five positive statements about the divine qualities or the nature of God:

 God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or

matter and form.
 God is perfect, lacking nothing.
 God is infinite, and not limited in the ways that created beings are physically,
intellectually, and emotionally limited.
 God is immutable, incapable of change in respect of essence and character.
 God is one, such that God's essence is the same as God's existence.

Aquinas believed that the existence of God is neither self-evident nor beyond
proof. In the "Summa Theologica", he details five rational proofs for the
existence of God, the "quinquae viae" (or the "Five Ways"), some of which are
really re-statements of each other:
Quinquae viae (“Five ways”) – five rational proof for the existences of God.

 The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu): everything that is moved
is moved by a mover, therefore there is an unmoved mover from whom all
motion proceeds, which is God.
 The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything that is caused is
caused by something else, therefore there must be an uncaused cause of all
caused things, which is God.
 The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are contingent
beings in the universe which may either exist or not exist and, as it is
impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent (as something
cannot come of nothing), so there must be a necessary being whose
existence is not contingent on any other being, which is God.
 The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees of
perfection which may be found throughout the universe, so there must be a
pinnacle of perfection from which lesser degrees of perfection derive,
which is God.
 The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all
natural bodies in the world (which are in themselves unintelligent) act towards
ends (which is characteristic of intelligence), therefore there must be an
intelligent being that guides all natural bodies towards their ends,
which is God.

Four Cardinal Virtues

1. Prudence
2. Temperance
3. Justice
4. Fortitude

Three Theological Virtues

1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Charity

Four kinds of Law

1. Eternal law - the decree of God that governs all creation

2. Natural law- human "participation" in eternal law, which is discovered by reason
3. Human law - the natural law applied by governments to societie
4. Divine law - the specially revealed law in the scriptures

For St. Thomas Aquinas,

The goal of human existence is union and eternal fellowship with God. For
those who have experienced salvation and redemption through Christ while living
on earth, a beatific vision will be granted after death in which a person experiences
perfect, unending happiness through comprehending the very essence of God.
During life, an individual's will must be ordered toward right things (such as
charity, peace and holiness), which requires morality in everyday human choices,
a kind of Virtue Ethics.

Aquinas was the first to identify the Principle of Double Effect in ethical
decisions,

“when an otherwise legitimate act (e.g. self-defense) may also cause an effect
one would normally be obliged to avoid (e.g. the death of another).”

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354 - 430)

- Real name Aurelius Augustinus

- was born on 13 November 354 in Tagaste (or Thagaste), a provincial Roman
city in Algeria, North Africa
- an Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian of the late Roman / early
Medieval period.
- one of the most important early figures in the development of Western
Christianity, and was a major figure in bringing Christianity to dominance in
the previously pagan Roman Empire.
- often considered the father of orthodox theology
- the greatest of the four great fathers of the Latin Church (along with St.
Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory).

Unlike the later Scholastics who took Aristotle as the classical model to be
integrated into Christian thought, Augustine developed a philosophical and
theological system which employed elements of Plato and Neo-Platonism in support
of Christian orthodoxy. His many works profoundly influenced the medieval
worldview.

At the age of 17, he went to Carthage, Tunisia (the metropolis of Roman Africa) to
continue his education in rhetoric, and there he came under the influence of the
controversial Persian religious cult of Manichaeism, much to the despair of his
mother. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, including frequent visits to the
brothels of Carthage, and developed a relationship with a young woman

Floria Aemilia - his concubine for over fifteen years, and who bore him a son,
Adeodatus.

386 (summer) – converted to catholic Christianity.

391 - he was ordained a priest (and later bishop) at Hippo Regius

August 28 , 430 – Augustine died during the siege of Hippo

Germanic Vandals – Destroyed all of the city except for the Augustine’s Cathedral An
library.
The best known work of Augustine:

Confessiones - a personal account of his early life

De civitate Dei (The city of God) – Consist of 22 books, dealing with God,
martyrdom, Jews and Christian Philosophies.

De Trinitate (On the Trinity) – Consisting if 15 books written over the final 30 years
of his life , in which he developed the “psychological analogy” of the trinity

Augustine believed that genuine human knowledge can be established with

certainty. He believed reason to be a uniquely human cognitive capacity that
comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity.

Augustine claimed "Si fallor, sum" ("If I am mistaken, I am”). He also

adopted a subjective view of time, arguing that time is nothing in reality but exists
only in the human mind’s apprehension of reality, and that time cannot be infinite
because God “created” it.

Augustine struggled to reconcile his beliefs about free will and his belief that
humans are morally responsible for their actions, with his belief that one’s life is
predestined and his belief in original sin (which seems to make human moral
behavior nearly impossible). He held that, because human beings begin with
original sin and are therefore inherently evil (even if, as he believed, evil is not
anything real but merely the absence of good), then the classical attempts to
achieve virtue by discipline, training and reason are all bound to fail, and the
redemptive action of God's grace alone offers hope. He opined that "We are too
weak to discover the truth by reason alone".

Original sin - the guilt of Adam which all human beings inherit) in his works against
the Pelagian heretics, providing an important influence on St. Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine developed doctrine of:

 predestination (the divine foreordaining of all that will ever happen)

 efficacious grace (the idea that God's salvation is granted to a fixed number
of those whom He has already determined to save), which later found eloquent
expression in the works of Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther
(1483 - 1546) and John Calvin (1509 - 1564), as well as Cornelius Jansen
(1585 - 1638) during the Counter-Reformation.

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted
literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason
(e.g. he believed that God created the world simultaneously and that the seven-day
creation recorded in the Bible merely represents a logical framework, rather than
the passage of time in a physical way). Although he believed that God had chosen the
Jews as a special people, he considered the scattering of Jews by the Roman empire
to be a fulfillment of prophecy, and believed that the Jews would be converted at
the end of time. He associated sexual desire with the sin of Adam, and believed that
it was still sinful, even though the Fall has made it part of human nature.
In "The City of God", he conceived of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom,
ruled by love, which will ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are
self-indulgent and ruled by pride. He emphasized the church's strict independence
from, and its superiority over, the civil state. Begun in the aftermath of the sacking
of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, it was to some extent written as a defense
against those who blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, and to restore the
confidence of his fellow Christians.