Comparison Of Christmas Eve: A Conversation On The Incarnation

This sermon provokes the one who has had their own hearts weaken to seek holiness from the transformation of love. Wesley desires every Christian to attain the status of perfect love, where the love of God and neighbor would reign in their hearts. As evidence he quotes St. Paul, “Earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show unto you a more excellent way.” (The More Excellent Way,

Thomas Aquinas is a major religious thinker from Italy. He lived from 1225-1274. Throughout his life he shared his beliefs about God and how people are connected to Him. In “Summa Theologiae” Aquinas’ wrote about what he believed to be the purpose of humans: happiness. This is unlike other major thinkers would come to think about the meaning of human life. Darwin believed humans main goal in life is to survive. Aquinas believed human beings can attain this happiness through virtue, God’s grace, reason, and love.

Aquinas makes numerous claims regarding happiness. Specifically, Aquinas uses the term “happiness” in a sense of objective fulfillment, rather than subjective well-being. He asserts that human happiness does not consist in acquiring things such as money, honor, fame, power, goods of the body, or pleasure. He also claims that complete, i.e. perfect, happiness can only be achieved by contemplating God in the afterlife. I will discuss arguments for, arguments against, and my opinion for both claims.

The 12 days of christmas was written for the 12 days in between Dec 25 and Jan 6. This song was originally made in England. Catholics sang this song outside without the feeling of getting arrested. People start counting down 12 days of christmas 12 days before christmas, but the true mark to start counting is Dec 25th, christmas day. It counts down to Jan 6th. Jan 6th is the arrival of the 3 wise men. The arrival of the 3 wise men is called the Epiphany. What do the gifts mean of the days of christmas? Well here is what they mean. 1st day of christmas doesn’t mean anything. 2nd day of christmas, 2 turtle doves, means new and old testaments. 3rd day of christmas, 3 french hens, means faith, hope and charity. 4th day of christmas, 4 calling birds,

Some of the largest questions that are present in Christianity are centered around how God reaches out to human beings. Throughout Christianity’s history, this question has been answered and reanswered many times with different results each time. One person who thoroughly answered this question in chapters eight, nine, and ten of his biography, The Confession, was Augustine of Hippo. Throughout this biography, he goes through the struggles, successes, and ultimately the way that God reached out to him throughout his own conversion to Christianity. Augustine explains that God reaches out to humans by the examples of others and changes in their own personal lives.

One thing that makes Christmas such a special holiday is the fact that it combines festivities and religion, two things that have driven humanity for centuries. The fact that Christianity is the most popular religion around the world, drives anticipation for a day tied to the centerpiece of the religion. There is also the historical context of religion and festivals that has stake in many cultures throughout history. These two things make Christmas uniquely positioned to drive anticipation in the lives of people around the world.

Thomas Aquinas is an Italian philosopher whose ideology was a mix of the catholic church and Aristotle. In the packet, The attainment of Happiness by Thomas Aquinas, he answers questions regarding the meaning of happiness and how to ultimately attain it if it is even possible and attainable. Along with Aquinas, I will be introducing Aristotle and Al-Ghazali’s take on happiness and whether they have similar views or not. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, talks about happiness being the end goal and how it makes life self-sufficient and desirable in his book Nicomachean Ethics (books 1,2&10). In the packet, Deliverance from Error Al-Ghazali expresses his theory of attaining happiness through purifying the soul and reaching oneness with God. This

“I was going to propose on Christmas Eve.” Those are the chilling words of Jason Befort to HG when he knew that he probably would not make it past that night. Reginald and Jonathan Carr broke in and tortured five victims with the intent of killing all in 2000, leaving only one survivor (Kovalchik). The Carrs were sentenced to death in 2002, but three of those capital murder sentences have been overturned since. The Supreme Court heard the case on the seventh of October in 2015. The Carr brother case has shaken the nation for what it is, through the defenses and issues in court, and where the case will go next.

Aristotle promotes happiness by way of self-fulfillment and Aquinas promotes happiness in the eyes of God. Aristotle speaks to happiness as man being able to look back on life and judge that it was good and desirable because it brought him happiness. In addition to this view Aristotle states that happiness is “something [both] final and self-sufficient,” thus meaning that it is left largely up to man to determine his worth in life. For if he acts justly, he shall then achieve happiness and if he is to act in an unjust manner, he is to miss that final happiness (71). Aquinas, however, differs from Aristotle in this view because he sees a need for both divine law and natural law. Aquinas believes that it is not solely on man himself to determine his happiness, but that there is an upper hand also determining the outcome of man’s life. In his article, “Beatitude and Moral Law in St. Thomas,” John Langan speaks on this by remarking that “Christians have generally supposed that [human actions serve towards the final end] only indirectly, that is in some way that is dependent on God’s judgement and his just distribution of rewards to the good and punishments to the evil” (Langan 186). This goes to say that Aquinas and Christians alike express that in contrast to Aristotle, man’s actions themselves do not bring about fulfillment it is the

In Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas has argue that people closer to God can easily fulfill their needs. Need of any kind from Fame to honor, sadness to happiness and even from poor to rich. The closeness to God makes every seems to be coming to its place. Life became easier then it use to be. Happiness has a really strong connection with God who is itself is esoteric. God nature is unique itself and his ways are mysterious often unknown. Human can easily unfold this mystery if he try to understand him. Human usually gets confused as he see the incomplete representation of their creator, his thoughts gets covered with the cloudy questions. And when he tries to solve this puzzle no word or name support to define this divine essence. God existence

Saint Augustine, a Christian philosopher, says “following God” he portrays by telling us that the key to enjoyment is happiness. He explains “happy life exists when that man’s chief good is both loved and possessed. (Lines 1234) The meaning of chief good is a person who is a Christian virtue, obeys God and avoids sin. Here he expressed how is happiness is carried out followed by the souls that possess virtue or wisdom. He further discusses how a person who is happy cannot be unhappy at the same time. He clarifies that a man of wisdom is a subordinate of God; therefore, if a wise man does not succeed we must follow and obey God. Here is the formula to happiness. Happiness is obtained by virtue and in order to obtain virtue you follow God which

Maximum marveling, at the mere assurance, in absolute awareness, of being rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work is an exuberant experience. God’s pardon and power becomes ours as a result of receiving Jesus into our hearts. The “in-Christ” doctrine is amazing. Placing complete trust in Christ and His finished work, its vastness of provision, and all that it has cinched for us will change our lives. As our disposition becomes grateful and we learn of Him and His love, this will make us lovelier.

Saint Thomas Aquinas is known by most as a man with an unearthly intellect. Throughout his brilliant life, he produced many works that have helped defend the Catholic church’s position against many atheistic arguments, specifically materialism. Because of his gifted intellect, at times, many may fail to recognize that in order for one to have such gifts, there needs to be a desire and firm commitment in their spiritual life to submit to the will of God. In Jean-Pierre Torrell’s proclamation of Aquinas spiritual life, Saint Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, he addresses the importance and explains Aquinas’ transcendent mind in two sections: A Trinitarian Spirituality and Man in the World and Before God. This explanation is done is a similar style to Aquinas himself, in which, he writes in an ontological order so that the later context can be perfected by the earlier and visa-verse. This overview takes aim and clearly orientates Aquinas understanding of Nature, humanity, human society, politics, and fellowship through communication with God and each other. Essentially, one can find that Aquinas’ thought is not only rooted in the mystical teachings of the Catholic faith but is very practical and applicable to the physical and metaphysical worlds.

Aquinas was deeply influenced by Aristotle and agrees with him that happiness should be our primary focus. According to Aquinas, happiness is based on God and our desires. He argues that there are both higher and lower desires, the higher being one in accordance with faith and God where the lower is our Earthly pleasures. Aquinas asserts that it is society’s duty to satisfy our material wants, allowing us to endeavor for the rational parts of our nature. It is impossible to be completely happy without fulfilling both of these desires according to Aquinas, this means that it is impossible to be completely happy on Earth without faith. He says, “Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of Divine Essence” (Summa Theologiae 2). Aquinas argues that as a society we seek to know the essence of things. To achieve that objective, we must

In Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, he discusses his insights on man as a being made in God’s image and relates this to the goals of man, his purpose in life, the end he wishes to achieve and the concept of happiness and how it is attained. Aquinas believes that humans willingly strive to achieve an ultimate end which is, in turn, and ultimate good. Evidently, his excerpt revolves around the idea that true happiness lies in the ultimate good. Aquinas states, “Were there no ultimate end, nothing would be desired.” This is to say that God is the ultimate end because he is the first good. Thus, we can never truly happy