Alister Acgrath Analysis

Defined as a complete trust in people, faith prevails as an essential quality for the development of interpersonal and personal connections. Accordingly, John Brehm, author of “Sea of Faith,” illustrates a scholar experience in a freshman class. A teacher, which the reader implies as Brehm himself, becomes irritated at the lack of knowledge in his students at such a simple topic: figurative language. Disgruntled at the question he begins to examine the significance behind it. Ultimately, after self-examination, he comes to understand the young lady who posed the question that annoyed him (1000). Through the use of literary devices such as personification, tone, and comparison: the author illustrates the changing perspective and ultimate connection the teacher makes with the students as he realizes the positivity that arises from faith.

To capture the reader’s attention and improve their understanding of the book, the author provides a detailed analysis and description of what a Christian needs to understand regarding faith and factors that influence it. By the end of the initial section or at least the detailed introduction, almost any persons that reads Gonzalez work is confident that the book will provide a wide range of Christian related topics that influence our future. This will also entail informing the Christians who are the main audience that the author aims to reach on the importance of faith as a Christian.

Fowler saw faith as greater than religious faith and viewed it as a “universal aspect of human existence” (Hutchison, 2015). The ultimate environment is an important element of Fowler’s theory. He saw faith as not only an internal image but also how one relates to that image. Faith is not an unchangeable image or idea, but a way of being. The six stages of

In life, there is a constant battle ensuing over faith and reason. Those two things are constantly feeding off of each other in someone’s mind when making a decision. Over time in which some say is a great conversation about history this battle is changing. The Great Conversation of history spans over many eras where the questions of faith and reason are always things battling for a spot in our minds, but they shouldn’t be in battle because they are very much dependent on the other. Among the time periods from Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, and the 19th century, writers such as Socrates, Kant, and Martin Luther King Jr have looked at the issue of faith and reason.

James Fowler’s theory of faith development includes six stages: primal faith, intuitive-projective faith, mythic-literal faith, synthetic-conventional faith, individuative-reflective faith, conjunctive faith, and universalizing faith (Hutchison,

Throughout his book, Tillich references faith as an ultimate concern to emphasize the importance of faith in the personality of individuals. Furthermore, Tillich believes faith is a vital part of human nature and that even the rejection of faith is, in itself, an act of faith. This displays Tillich’s understanding that faith will never disappear from society because it is a piece of the puzzle in what makes up humanity (Tillich).

Miriam Toews’ novel, A Complicated Kindness, explores the aspects of one’s interpretation of faith, their reintegration into society and self-improvement. These elements are explored through Natasha Nickel’s formulation of her newfound faith, a step in which she soaks knowledge, questions what has been learned, and then incorporates the changes into her lifestyle. Through this critical thinking process, Tash becomes the most logical follower of faith in the community.

One argues that today we have a crisis of belief, not a crisis of faith. To explain this crisis, I will briefly examine the relationship between faith and belief, explain why cultural shift is important to note when trying to understand religious issues, go into detail on the three hallmarks of each of the two cultures by showing how they compare to each other, show how Tillich’s notion of correlation deals with this idea of culture and a crisis of belief, and explain how Marsh’s notion of a “theology of negotiation” (33) fits with Lonergan’s definition and allows him to argue that film can help us raise theological questions.

In his writing The Freedom of a Christian, Martian Luther discusses a wide variety of elements regarding the Christian faith walk. These topics include; The inner soul and outer body, faith and works, those in power through the Catholic Church, the common man, and finally humanity and God’s role in the lives of His creation. Luther approaches these topics with the strong bias of faith alone bringing salvation and reconciliation with God. It can be seen that with these views Luther believes on the other hand, that works are a product of faith, but have no direct connection to one’s righteousness or salvation. Throughout his writing Luther pulls from various contexts, scriptures, and logic to effectively support his argument of faith alone and

Agosin discussed that all relationships shift into different directions, and if they're lucky they will store footprints in their heart or better, yet you will enhance a part of yourself imprinted in their mind and soul. However not, everyone has that luxury, when she says, "Many of my friends disappeared, others were tortured, and the most fortunate like me, became guardians of a memory"(81). Most individuals that flourished together as minors have lost the connection. They will live every minute of the everyday day without missing their friendship. The ones that fade away completely diminished the attachment they had to one another.  Agosin stated a mixed foundation of current life, by enhancing the possibilities of an ending bond between

According to Martin the path of belief is when we are first introduced to the idea of religion at a young age and how much it impacts us. We are often introduced to religion or spirituality at home and in the media, but we mostly introduced to it via our families. Also how the idea of faith is brought up in our lives and how prominent it can be. Martin touched on the idea of faith being so important in our lives at such a young age, “Faith has always been an essential element in their lives. They pray regularly, attend religious services,

I will be discussing the two different views of faith from the writings of John and Paul. These two understandings of faith show two different sides of becoming a true believer of God and his works. The illustration I chose to use to get a better understanding of faith in John’s view is from chapter 3. I chose this illustration because I thought it illustrated his views the best on forming faith in God. The illustration I chose for Paul was the letter he wrote to the Galatians. I believe this shows his views and understandings of faith very well compared to other letters he wrote.

We were so lucky to have had such great sources to read from this quarter. Some of my favorite content came from Stone’s “Compassionate Ministry – Theological Foundations”. Stone writes, “(Faith) is the attitude that we bring to our activity, which transforms it and makes it human, thereby also making it the image-of-God-in-action.” It’s easy to have faith, God is all around us, he wants us to be “in” him, always. When we bring faith with us, to where we are and where we are going, we take God with us, we are acting and living in the way God intended. The faith, the attitude we bring, we carry allow us to reach out to those who long for a time in the light and love of God but have somehow fallen away; compassion for one another brings us closer, closer to the plan God has for us all.

It was the night before the last day of our Faith & Reason class and I had previously been tasked with finding a specific topic to argue for. I decided to cover the idea of my own faith and how it copes with the multiple viewpoints varying from atheists, theists, and the Bible as well as the opinions on reason and the very existence of God. Within this paper, I will explain why my faith is eternal and no matter how much evidence there is against the existence of God, my conviction that there is a supreme being who oversees all that goes on in this world, will continue to avail.

In most views, Faith means a belief in one’s attitudes and ideology towards a specific outcome. Pannikar describes faith as “an attitude that transcends the simple data” and how “these realities manifest themselves so that they make sense for our partner” (69-70). Hope is described as an attitude that is “urged from above to perform a sacred duty” so that we can put aside our previous conceptions of who we are in order to better prepare ourselves for religious dialogue. Love is an “impulse, that force impelling us to our fellow-beings and leading us to discover in them what is lacking in us” (70). When first reading this particular part of the book I merely glanced over it but after re-reading and re-focusing, I grew to really appreciate what he is trying to say. In my view, these three basic words (and the more intricate definitions proposed by Pannikar) gives me and the reader a very sturdy foundation on which we can delve into the ever-growing realm of not only religious dialogue, but self-appreciation of our