A-Personal Conceptions of God and the Christian Promise of Eternal Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-268
Author(s):  
John Bishop ◽  
Ken Perszyk
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Paul Cefalu

The introductory chapter argues that, during the early modern period in England, the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of Saint John the Evangelist were as influential as Pauline theology and, in many respects, more influential than the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The chapter outlines several features of a distinctive, post-Reformed, English Johannine devotionalism: a high Christology that emphasizes the divine rather than human nature of Christ; the belief that salvation is achieved more through revelation than objective atonement and expiatory sin; a realized eschatology according to which eternal life has been achieved and the end-time has already partially arrived; a robust doctrine of assurance and comfort, usually tied to Johannine eschatology and pneumatology; and a stylistic and rhetorical approach to representing these theological features that often emulates John’s mode of discipleship misunderstanding and irony not found to a comparable degree in the Synoptic writings.


1854 ◽  
Vol s1-IX (224) ◽  
pp. 122-122
Author(s):  
T. J. Buckton
Keyword(s):  

Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (60) ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
William Lyons

The author sets out to respond to the student complaint that ‘Philosophy did not answer “the big questions”’, in particular the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ The response first outlines and evaluates the most common religious answer, that human life is given a meaning by God who created us and informs us that this life is just the pilgrim way to the next eternal life in heaven. He then discusses the response that, from the point of view of post-Darwinian science and the evolution of the universe and all that is in it, human life on Earth must be afforded no more meaning than the meaning we would give to a microscopic planaria or to some creature on another planet in a distant universe. All things including human creatures on Planet Earth just exist for a time and that is that. There is no plan or purpose. In the last sections the author outlines the view that it is we humans ourselves who give meaning to our lives by our choices of values or things that are worth pursuing and through our resulting sense of achievement or the opposite. Nevertheless the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ can mean quite different things in different contexts, and so merit different if related answers. From one point of view one answer may lie in terms of the love of one human for another.


1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond E. Brown

With this study―companion to the masterful two-volume The Gospel According to John―Raymond E. Brown completed his trilogy on the Johannine corpus. Meticulous in detail, exhaustive in analysis, persuasive in argument, it examines controversies that have long troubled both biblical scholars and lay readers. Questions of authorship, composition, and dating, as well as the debate over source theories, are discussed at length; but these are kept subordinate to the overall question of meaning. What gives this commentary special interest and excitement is the bold, imaginative reconstruction of the setting of the Johannine work―in particular of the “opposition figures,” who are only dimly sketched in the Epistles―so that we see clearly that the author is writing to his flock both about the dangers and difficulties confronting them, and about the eternal life that is theirs by the gift of God. In this way, the Epistles of John become intelligible as broadsides in a critical engagement between the forces of light and darkness. In addition to his superb textual analysis of the letters, Raymond Brown has brought to life the community in which these works were formed and shaped. We are forcefully reminded that the Gospel and the Epistles were addressed to very real people living in the first century a.d., people with religious problems not unlike our own. In all respects, The Epistles of John stands out as a model of biblical scholarship and study.


DIALOGO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-200
Author(s):  
Tudor-Cosmin Ciocan ◽  
Any Docu Axelerad ◽  
Maria CIOCAN ◽  
Alina Zorina Stroe ◽  
Silviu Docu Axelerad ◽  
...  

Ancient beliefs such as astral projection, human possession, abduction and other similar are not only universal, taught by all religions, but also used as premises for core believes/expectations, such as after-life, eternal damnation, reincarnation, and many others. Transferring Consciousness to a Synthetic Body is also a feature of interest in our actual knowledge, both religious as for science. If immortality were an option, would you take it into consideration more seriously? Most people would probably dismiss the question since immortality isn’t a real deal to contract. But what if having eternal life was a possibility in today’s world? The possibility of the transfer of human consciousness to a synthetic body can soon become a reality, and it could help the world for the better. Thus, until recently, the subject was mostly proposed by religion(s) and saw as a spiritual [thus, not ‘materially real’ or ‘forthwith accomplishable’] proposal therefore not really fully engaged or trust if not a religious believer. Now, technology is evolving, and so are we. The world has come to a point where artificial intelligence is breaking the boundaries of our perception of human consciousness and intelligence. And with this so is our understanding about the ancient question ‘who are we?’ concerning consciousness and how this human feature sticks to our body or it can become an entity beyond the material flesh. Without being exhaustive with the theme's development [leaving enough room for further investigations], we would like to take it for a spin and see how and where the religious and neuroscience realms intersect with it for a global, perhaps holistic understanding. Developments in neurotechnology favor the brain to broaden its physical control further the restraints of the human body. Accordingly, it is achievable to both acquire and provide information from and to the brain and also to organize feedback processes in which a person's thoughts can influence the activity of a computer or reversely.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-548
Author(s):  
Anja Zlatović ◽  

The fear of death and the myth of immortality are themes long present in various narratives, whether literary or visual. Science fiction as a genre offers us many venues for new explorations of this idea. Mind uploading is one of them. This fictional technique, related to cloning, is performed when the mind and consciousness of a person are transferred to another biological body or machine with the help of technology. In this way, a person continues their social life through their brain functions. This paper looks at four separate recent screen narratives – the movies Self/less, Transcendence, and Replicas, and the episode “Be Right Back” of the TV show Black Mirror. With the help of Tzvetan Todorov’s structural analysis, we find clauses that are present in all of the plots and see what ideas and topics they share. The paper also uses the idea of anthropological reading of science fiction and therefore uses scientific research to analyze these themes. By looking at anthropological findings of immortality, mortality, death in modern society, and digital techniques, we see how the analyzed narratives portray a unique mixture of fear of and longing for all the mentioned processes and ideas. Finally, this paper shows how science fiction could possibly reflect reality – both through presenting thoughts of society and inspiring future technological advances and ideas (in this case, the quest for immortality). While humans are still far from achieving eternal life, the mentioned screen narratives portray the growing stream of ideas that deal with mind uploading in the age of the internet and social media.


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