In his text On Loving God, St. Bernard of Clairvaux explores the four degrees of love a person experiences as they grow in their relationship with God. His “Love of God” is similar to Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud’s projection theories. St. Bernard’s first degree of loving God is similar to Feuerbach’s human’s wants to have certain qualities and Freud’s human wishes. His second and third degrees of loving God are similar to Feuerbach’s human’s reason to believe in God and Freud’s experience of God. Consequently, his fourth degree of loving God is similar to Feuerbach’s definition of love and Freud’s understanding of human contemplation of God through doctrine. St. Bernard’s first degree of loving God is similar to Feuerbach’s human’s …show more content…
This means that humans first have to love themselves because that is their nature, which is weak and powerless when they want or wish for things themselves. However, when they notice that they do not have the capacity to fulfill their wants, they seek God for help. In his text Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach says, “God is what man is – man is not what God is” (32). This means that man and God have different qualities that make them who they are; that is man is finite and God is infinite, man is emotional and God is logical, man is constantly changing and God does not change. This is similar to St. Bernard’s first degree of loving God because humans want to acquire certain qualities that will make them like God, however they have to acquire themselves first these qualities. For example, humans want power, and the only way to get power is by first getting power by themselves. Humans want to get an education, and the only …show more content…
Bernard’s second and third degrees of loving God are similar to Feuerbach’s human’s reason to believe in God and Freud’s experience of God. St. Bernard second degree of loving God is loving God as your helper and this connects to his third degree, which is loving God as God. This connection means that humans look for God in order to obtain their fulfillment. This search turns into loving God as their helper who will do anything to help them, and thus humans love God as God for all these marvelous accomplishments. Feuerbach says, “That which I recognize in the understanding as essential, I place God in as existent: God is, what the understanding thinks as the highest” (37). This means that human’s mind understand who God is and how God plays a role in their lives. This is similar to St. Bernard’s second and third degrees of loving God because when humans do not get what they want, there conscience proceeds to ask God for it and if this wish comes true, then humans start to love God as their provider and start praising him for who he is and what he does. For example, when humans want power and they do not get it, they will ask God for power. When they get power from God, they start to notice that God contributes to their power, and star loving him for it. Hence, they start to praise him as God because they notice that the Highest Being has given them power. Freud says, “Through the kind of divine Providence, anxiety over the dangers of life is assuaged; the introduction
He further clarifies that in Christianity, God is not even a person. Instead, he is a dynamic, pulsating activity — almost a kind of drama. Additionally, he says the Holy Spirit also shares in the same love that exists between God and Jesus; and like them, He is eternal also. The author informs us that we too can share in that eternal love, and we can help others share in it as well. Here, he reminds us that those superior traits, as well as appalling ones that we know, come by a kind of infection — we come in contact with the source of the infection. Therefore, we can take part in the shared love that exists between the three persons by coming in contact with that love. Furthermore, we can expose others to that love, so that they might also become infected. Each of us, then, can become a "little Christ," which is the whole purpose of becoming a
The author provides five models for relating to psychology and theology. These models seek to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the various perspectives about book of God’s word, which reveals the will of God and the book of God’s works which is his expressed power that
At this time, the author maintains, we have two kinds of lives. There is the natural life and the spiritual life and they are opposed to each other. The natural life knows that if the spiritual life got a hold of it, all its self-centeredness and its self-will would be killed. Therefore, it fights for its life. The author compares this to a child who tries to bring to life his toy tin soldier, but the toy soldier did not want to be alive. So, just like us, it would rebel. Because the toy soldier likes the tin, he would think that you are killing him if you tried to change him. Similarly, man has some things about him that he likes, and probably wants to keep. He, too, may become obstinate even if God tried to change him. The author explains, however, that God sent this one man through whom all other men could become a Son of God, and the natural man would have to change for this process to take place. Man could resist, but the opportunity is still there for
By the start of Meditation Four Descartes has established the reliability of his clear and distinct criterion of knowledge, and he has concluded that he exists as an essentially thinking thing and that the idea of an infinite, perfect being entails God's existence. Descartes has also eliminated concern about being systematically deceived, since acting in such a way would be indicative of some deficiency rather than the exercise of some power, and God is perfect. This generates further questions, as humans do regularly judge falsely, even without the meddling of a malicious, deceptive being (99). Given God's nature, attributing error to him is unacceptable, but, conversely, how could humans be blamed for the faulty faculty of judgement that
It was this that humanity was created in the image of God. We were all created not only with a body, but with a spirt and soul as well. This allows us as humans the ability to love, even the people whom we wish not to love, and those who seem unlovable. It allows us to love those who choose not to love one
To attain this truth, we must suppress our individuality and participate instead in the universal. There is no private relation to God because we must forgo our privacy in order to come into contact with God: as a result, we can only speak of God in the third person. Johannes seizes on this point in suggesting that the knight of faith can speak to God in the second person singular. Johannes suggests that the knight of faith has an intimate relation to God.
Every single person in the world, regardless of their race, religion or gender, is different. Therefore, there is more than one way to reach God, enlightenment, or whatever each respected person chooses to believe in. In Christianity, there are two main paths taken to reach the divine; the communal path embracing obedience and the individual route which focuses on asceticism. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and The Rule of St. Benedict in English reveal what each road to the divine entails while explaining how the ascetic hermits and monks live for the mutual goal of reaching unity with God.
Freud in his writing suggests that religion is an “illusion.” Not your typical deception of something, rather misapprehension of religion. Additionally, Freud provides brand new eyes to look at religion and its construct of civilization. He further provides evidence of his own, as well as suggesting a psychoanalytical approach to religion.
In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is seeking to find a system of stable, lasting and certain knowledge, which he can ultimately regard as the Truth. In his methodical quest to carry out his task, Descartes eventually arrives at the proverbial fork in the road: how to bridge the knowledge of self with that of the rest of the world. Descartes’ answer to this is to prove the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to state and explain Descartes' Third Meditation: Proof of God's Existence by identifying relevant concepts and terminology and their relationship to each other and examining each premise as well as the conclusion of the proof and finally
I found the concept of the strong relationship with love and religion to be quite interesting in “Ego Dormio”. While we often think that love is created by friend, family, and the relationships we have between these groups Rolle challenges this notion by proposing the opposite. It really makes me wonder the emotions of love that are connected with God and Jesus versus the emotions connected with family. Is love more simple or is it less clear cut? Another part of the piece that I found interesting was the degrees of love. It really struck me when he said that the frst degree of love is when one keeps the Ten Commandments, I really wondered what emotions that evoked from a person. Is it really just the act of keeping them that makes us love
(Diffey, 2014) Humanity was created to know and worship God. Being made in His likeness means that humans have been created with both spirit and body, also possessing many of God’s attributes. Some of these attributes are creativity, love, logic, reason, and a sense of right and wrong. God also gave humanity the privilege to care for and have dominion over earth, which gave humanity value and a higher purpose. (Herring, 2008) Soon after God’s perfect creation, sin entered the world, bringing about the Fall and introduced pain, suffering, and death to the world. (Gen. 3: 6, 14-19) The Fall is the root cause of human problems and caused humanity’s departure from God’s wisdom. (Diffey, 2014) Humanity has the capability to love because we are made in the image of Christ, however, humanity’s nature is flawed and sinful by nature. (Diffey, 2014) All of humanity has sinned, and fall short of God’s glory. (Romans 3:23 NIV) It is because this that we need a Savior.
Mary Ann Fatula’s The Triune God of Christian Faith provides for the reader the inner life of God as well as insight into the human reality. Fatula’s writing draws the devotional discussion of the Trinity as the present-day effect of the Trinitarian faith is called to support attempts to articulate and live the Trinitarian mystery. The Trinity in a human’s life is the content of our definition of our human meaning and for an infinite gift: love. Each of us has a desire for achieving meaning, for love, and for wholeness. Fatula in her book develops the study of the divine ‘persons’ and states the importance of understanding what it is to be truly a ‘person’ of both human and divine potential.
He argues that it is man’s responsibility to use this freedom to search for knowledge and enlightenment in order to get higher. It sounds as if he was saying God would be happier to see man reach perfection and would even admire man for being the creature who works on the creation of God the architect, and bring about changes.
The catholic four common core questions, what is our relationship to God, How does one live a life of meaning and purpose, what is our relationship with the natural world and how can we form a more just society for the common good can be answered differently. However, the great books in the Catholic Intellectual tradition answered these questions in a broad distinctive way. This essay will examine the question, what is our relationship with God, from the view point of three writers, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Pope Paul. What is our relationship with God was a better one answered by these writers. Most Christians refer a relationship with God to praying and communicating with him. As an explanation, many well-meaning Christians will explain that you can develop a personal relationship with God by “seeing Jesus. However, the great books in the Catholic Intellectual tradition such as Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness, Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, etc. have a broader explanation of our relationship with God. They say a relationship with God is being fully human, living a meaningful life and having a relationship with the triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Conjunctive faith allows one to consider the paradoxes of life and multiple truths of the universe and expand their sense of connection with others (Hutchinson, 2015). Universalizing faith focuses on an awareness of justice, injustices, and love resulting in selfless actions (Hutchinson, 2015). Although many never reach the final stages of faith development, Fowler’s theory of faith development can still be used to critically evaluate how one utilizes faith to cope with life’s challenges as the go through the stages of faith