The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Essay

The Puritan settler’s beliefs in the relationship between individuals, God, and the community during the seventeenth century in New England created a sense of us (the Puritans) vs. them (the Native Americans and non-Puritan colonists), who hindered the idea of a city upon a hill, the perfect Christian community. From John Winthrop’s sermon warning the first settlers of New England about the retributions God would bring to the community if individuals broke there covenant with God (Winthrop 17-20). To the way, those same beliefs, brought over by the first Puritan settlers, affected the future interactions Puritans would have with Native Americans during the times of declension, and their views towards them as seen in Mary Rowlandson’s narrative.

As Mary’s story unravels, she continues to suffer long hours of work, starvation, and separation from her family. She reads her holy bible and is constantly reminding herself that God is with her and will see her through these trials. Her spirits are lifted her master agrees to sell Mary to her husband, and her mistress begins the journey with her, but before long the mistress decides not to go any further and they turn back. Not long after, she starts to loose hope that she will ever be reunited with her family. She becomes discouraged, and her spirit

Both Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were held captive at a time in their lives. White men captured Olaudah Equiano, while Mary Rowlandson had Indian captivators. Olaudah’s story tells of the time where he first saw the slave ship he was put on and the journey across great waters to the new world. Rowlandson’s story tells of the apathy of the Indians and her stay with the tribe. It is apparent that the journey across the sea was horrible enough for the ship’s passengers to commit suicide by jumping off of the ship rather than staying on board with the putrid smell of human wastes and lack of ventilation. In a brief paragraph, Equiano wrote of his daily routine before his captivity. He mentioned the relationship he had with his mother, and how he was her favorite child. "I became, of course, the greatest favorite with my mother and was always with her." (72) Olaudah and Mary were alike because Olaudah had a great relationship with his mother while Mary was fond of her own child in her narrative. "About two hours in the night, my sweet babe like a lamb departed this life; I must and could lie down next to my dead babe, side by side all the night after." (2) Neither Olaudah Equiano nor Mary Rowlandson ended their stories with the family members they were most fond of. Equiano’s captivity was the reason why he was stripped from his mother while Rowlandson’s baby died during her

Colonial America was a time of great change and discovery. The era was a time of conflict between people’s secular desires as innovation boomed and their spiritual growth as they discovered more about God and explored new religious ideas. In his essay, Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies, David D. Hall accurately argues that despite the secular advances of the Colonial Era, religion was undoubtedly the most prevalent area of Americans’ focus because the power of God was being manifested into their lives in so many irrefutable ways.

In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of

In the trial of Anne Hutchinson, we meet a well intentioned yet lost people described and labelled as the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. These self governing Puritans, once a people who sought God to set them on their way, settled only to be found as a people who simply lost their way. This journey to lost began when first motivated by a desire for religious reform and separation from the liturgy, ceremonies and practices of the Church of England. Once they banned together, they set on their way and traveled in groups to the New World. With the Word of God as their ultimate authority and the desire for a personal relationship with God, these people landed in Boston in 1630 united to self govern the newly founded Massachussets Bay Colony. Unfortunatly, this self rule resulted in a government of intolerance, fear and a liturgy not much different from what was once found in the Church of England. A system designed to set apart outward morality, or sanctification, to strengthen the authority of the Church only worked to neglect the place of true piety purposed to strengthen the spiritual lives of the people it served.

After her house was burned during a raid by local Indians. Rowlandson’s friends and family members were killed or captured by Native American in the 1676. Rowlandson and her baby were wounded, capture and forced to walk for days after the raid and Rowlandson had to watch her own child wither away and die due a lack food and medical care. During Rowlandson’s captivity with the Indians, the only thing she had to fall back on for her survival was her bible and her Puritan beliefs in God. This paper shows how Rowlandson’s understanding of the Puritan Tenets or beliefs helped her in deal with her captivity physically and spiritually. The reader should have an understanding of the Puritan Tenets and understand that the Tenets are not just words but a way of life for the Puritan.

Concurrently, as the Puritans intended on maintaining their way of life within the New World, a key goal of theirs was to avoid bringing great harm to the natives they would encounter. The English had witnessed the abuse of natives during the Spanish conquests and the harsh religious demands placed among non-Catholics in the Spanish Inquisition. The torture and destruction of the native of life had been incredibly embarrassing upon the Spanish people, and in all obviousness, phenomenally painful and paralyzing to the natives themselves. These “Spanish Cruelties” were not only in great opposition to the Puritan beliefs, but as one knows, the last thing the Puritans wished to do would be to embarrass the great mother country of England.

Within the colony of Massachusetts, religion played an important role in shaping the community’s people and interests. The reason for the Puritans move to North America was to escape the convictions the Christians of England were placing on them (Divine, 89). Winthrop and his followers believed that in this new land they must create a place where they could come together as a people and build the perfect religious society (Divine, 90). In a speech about his vision for the land, John Winthrop said, “We must delight in each

This article was created to inform its readers about the ideological conflict between the Puritans and Quakers. Pestana defends her assertion that, “The reaction of the Puritan

The 17th century Puritans were known to represent a religious group migrating from England to America in order to practice religious freedom. These groups were determined to “purify” churches of England from Catholic practices. Puritans are known for their religious, social, and political influences on early America. Edmund S. Morgan’s novel The Puritan Family highlights a part of history that many would tend to look over upon- that is, the complex structural life of Puritan Families in the 17th century.

Although Mary did not always live with abusive families, the main focus in her book were the ones that treated her poorly. From roughly age twelve to her death in 1833, she was a subject to unfortunate treatment while living with the three families mentioned above, the Inghams, the D-s, and the Woods.

The strictness of Puritan society makes an image of purity (especially for those in positions of authority) necessary for its citizens to be acceptable and to rise through the Puritan social strata, and it is this need for an image of purity that undoes Goodman Brown’s initiation from a spiritually immature, idealistic faith to a spiritually mature faith.

The theological problem of evil is a problem that many philosophers have tried to solve. The problem is stated as, "if one believes that god is omnipotent and wholly good, why does evil still exist?" In this writing I will discuss the solutions/propositions of John L. Mackie in his work, "Evil and Omnipotence." I will do this in order to illustrate the concept of free will for understanding or resolving the problem, and to reveal how and why Mackie arrives at his conclusions.

a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things: