Relationship Between Man And God

Augustine’s Confessions is a diverse blend of autobiographical accounts as well as philosophical, theological and critical analysis of the Christian Bible. Augustine treats his autobiography as an opportunity to recount his life and mentions how each event in his life has a religious and philosophical explanation. Augustine had many major events happen in his life but only 3 events would deem of extreme importance to his journey to faith. Theses major events were Book II how he describes that he considered his time of adolescence to be the most lurid and sinful period of his life, Book III how this becomes the lowest point in his relationship with God because his

Throughout the course of humanity’s history many questions have risen that have posed a problem to us as a species. Questions such as the following: What is the proper relationship between individuals and society? What is beauty, and why is it important? Is there purpose in human existence?, and many others have caused enough trouble in humanity’s short existence on the earth to cause a near identity crisis. However, all of these questions fall under the shadow of the main question that has been asked since the creation of Adam- “What exactly is the real relationship and purpose of humanity towards the divine?”

Christianity claims that 2,000 years ago God the son came to the earth to reveal the father to us and then die to save us from our sins. This claim needs to be further elaborated. God the son; Jesus Christ came to earth to remove sin from the lives of people so that he could come into the lives of those who were ready to accept him into their heart and transform them. The relationship with God is based entirely upon the relationship with Jesus.

In St. Augustine’s Confessions and Dante’s Inferno, the central characters in their respective narratives are presented a message from which induces distinct reactions. More importantly, their reactions are reflections of their perspective concerning the Christian outlook

God is not only there-an actually existent being; he is personal and we can relate to him in a personal way” (Alin, 2015).

Historically, theologians and philosophers have struggled to agree on the ideas of human freedom. This struggle seems to stem from the debate over faith vs. reason, or the internal and external sources that lead to human thought and understanding, through which free will is then interpreted and carried out by means of the will. A hidden and constant strive for spiritual enlightenment has always been embedded within humans since the beginning of the Fall. Through this natural drive of pursuing spiritual enlightenment comes the creation of the road to which it leads. Throughout most of time, religion has taken the reigns of showing humans the road to salvation, externally, by means of scripture, which requires faith. Yet in the past, there have been times when the powers of evil have inevitably hijacked religion, turning those who have witnessed or experienced this treachery against external values based on faith, but rather internally based values by means of philosophical thought and reasoning through God’s gift of grace.

Ancient Greece was filled with so much character, from their religion to even the stories that followed them through generation to generation. One important thing to remember is how they took their religion very seriously and believed very much in their goddesses and their gods. This strong belief carried out into their everyday lives, where they began to believe that everything that happened within their day, was from the gods. With such a love and respect for these gods, they held them up on a pedestal and gave them all their respect and looked at them only as positive. These gods that play a role in their life, often act more as a spiritual guide more than anything. They take on mortal disguises to allow them to help the world without becoming noticed. As we can see in The Odyssey, the relationship between gods and mortals is close knit, but the main difference that is evident, is the power between the two. The gods may not be able to cause death upon a mortal, but they can do everything to lead towards that. In the book, the gods can make or break your day. We see within several relationships between the gods and mortals, that the power from the gods can be not only positive, but also negative. Each mortal has been influenced in some way by the gods, for either the greater good, or bad. Which goes without saying, that the Greek take their theology in believing in the gods, very seriously.

Seemingly, when first confronted over the issue of Free Will and Divine Foreknowledge, one tends to initially think that the two are incompatible and cannot co-exist. However in the Consolation, Boethius claims that both do exist and relate to each other, in a freeing yet also in a meaningful determined way.

Originally written during the fourth century, St. Augustine’s autobiographical book, Confessions, was among the most influential models for Christian writers over the course of a millennium. As it is arguably Augustine’s most important text, it continues to influence theological discussion even today. Through writing Confessions, Augustine proves himself to be a professional scrutinizer. He analyzes every aspect of his own existence in pertinence to his purpose on Earth and relationship with God. Amongst the numerous topics covered in Confessions, Augustine makes exceptional mention to the role that friendship plays in his spiritual journey. In St. Augustine’s Confessions, the role of friendship is seen as both a method of ascending to God while also a being a means of drawing him further away through sin on his journey to spiritual contentment.

God develops many special relationships with His people throughout the Old Testament. Another word to describe the relationship between God and his people is covenant. The word covenant goes into the details of the relationship. Within the five books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Historical books, Poetical books, and the Prophet books, one may pick up on the relationships being developed between God and humanity. God has an unconditional love for His people; He is always faithful to them. On the other hand, humanity has more of a conditional relationship with God. Humanity continuously falls short, making the love seem “conditional,” but are given a choice to either follow God into a relationship and receive love and benefits of the covenant or not. “No child of the covenant who presents to Him a faithless and insincere heart shall be included in its blessings.” Going off the idea of love being unconditional and conditional, this paper focuses on how the Old Testament is about God, humanity and their relationship.

1. Based on the course material, how “just” is the world and the relationship that exists between man and god that is envisioned in the different myths you have read? Based on the course material there's a hierarchy in the world where gods are above all human kind due to the fact they created them for the purpose to serve. For instance, in the "Enuma Elish" myth it's widely expressed the gods created the human race. The gods are divided up into two groups younger and older gods. Each group shared the interest of having the human kind worship them and become loyal servants. In this myth, gods are viewed above humans and humans are viewed to be beneath gods. In fact, they're viewed in the lowest form possible and shed in a very good light in relation to the gods. This is the first aspect of where we see hierarchy in the world and unjust world. Another example of this is suggested in this myth when the gods comment on how unjust the humans are to each other. In fact, in this myth, the humans are so unjust and unruly towards each other that the gods contemplate what to do with them. As a result, the humans were flooded by the gods. Also in the Enuma Elish, the relationship that exists between man and god is as I mentioned before man was meant to be a lowly, worshipping servant and the gods were to be high, powerful, mighty, and worshipped with great importance. In several other myths such as the Sumerian version of this one, the concept is similar. Both versions are similar in

St. Augustine was a theologian and philosopher born in Africa to St. Monica. Although he is now known as a an incredibly influential Christian writer and thinker, his early years were defined by rebellion and discord that did not, in the least, reflect Christianity or the values that he is now known for supporting. His early years were freckled with mindless disobedience, wretched behavior, and characterized godlessness that makes his conversion to the faith incredibly remarkable and one that is worth defining in Saint Augustine 's Confessions. His incredible turnaround from a faithless man to a devout supporter of Christianity is significant and is freckled with many major milestones that truly demonstrate his spiritual and internal growth into one of the biggest spiritual icons of the fifth century. These major milestones include his realization that his boyhood was defined by pointless rebellious behavior, even though he grew up in a Christian home, his new found appreciation for philosophy as well as God and his incredible mercy during his years as a student at Carthage,

At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was one of the greatest philosophers of the roman period. He was raised in a religiously divided home, but through time he found his own truth. He was always an excellent student. He fully mastered the Latin language, however, he never did well with Greek. Saint Augustine was also a man who had a way with words. After his teenage rebellious stage, he found an unorthodox religious group that he decided to become involved with for a while. He traveled the area and ended up staying in Milan for a while. This is where he met Bishop Ambrose and began to listen to his teachings. This caused for Augustine think about his life and ultimately converted him to Christianity. After converting, he wrote books such as: Confessions, The City of God, and De Doctrinia (On Christian Doctrine), along with many others. Saint Augustine was and still is a great Christian influence in the world today.

Today we are going to be looking at one of the most important question in the world. That question is how can man be right with God? It is the question everyone asks when ty begin to learn about God. A Catholic person would ask it this way: “How can a man be right with God?” Somewhere in the world right now there is a man who is making offering on an alter and mostly likely that offering is his son. That person is trying to please his angry god that he believes is angry at him. Somewhere else in the world there is someone that believes that he can keep cutting himself to please his god and to seek approval from him. You got Muslims that pray toward Mecca every morning and are following allah there god. You may be answering yourself why are they doing this to themselves? Why will someone willing to cut themselves like crazy to please and seek approval from them god? The answering is always the same with these types of questions. Men and Women really want to do right in their Gods eyes. There do not want to do wrong in their Gods eyes because they want to please him and to win the flavor of them over. We all want to stand before God someday and hear Him say to us: Will done good and faithful servant. Everyone is try to hear from God that they were righteous in His eyes from praying the rosary to offering sacrifices on a alter, from going to church every week to saying the Lord’s praying every week to save them. We do these things because we believe that they can make us