Chris Enger
Journal 6
Key Idea-
This section was largely based on arguements for and against God's existence and the full humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. Most people belive Jesus to be only divine, disregarding that he is also fully human. Jesus reveals that he is fully human in the garden of Gethsemani, fearing persecution of the Romans. He dealt with the agonizing pain of the cross, and the lonliness and feeling of betrayal by his father, another human quality. This section also gave logical proofs to God's existence, giving examples such as The watch and the watchmaker metaphor and The Kalam Arguement. The arguements given in this section speak loudly because they use logic and reason to prove themselves, not just faith.
Three Important ideas-
1. The First thing I want to remember from this chapter is Plato and Aquinas' Arguement from the Degrees of Perfection. This method of proving God's existence is the most logical for me. When I need to remember to do things I make a list. I always have. I rank my priorities in a decreasing order. Every time exams come around I write my classes in the order that I need to spend the most time studying. Moving from non being to matter, to vegeation and all the way increasing in order up to pure spirit is the same way I rank the ammount of time I need to section off for each class, starting with the least. Spanish is the equivalent of Non being and Physics is the pure spirit of study time, to stay with that analogy. This arguement for God's existence stands out as the most logical to me, the left-brained mind.
2. Secondly, I want to remember the four Human experiences which point humans to a real need for God. They are: 1)Need for meaning 2) mystery of death 3) thirst for happiness 4) pain of lonliness. This, to me, is the thing holding the most truth that I have learned all year. Everytime I talk to God, one of thses 4 things is present. That causes me to wonder. Why don't I pray when I am happy? Why do i never mention God in the good times, only turn to him during the bad? On TV people often confront God when faced with death, or lonliness, or when they are searching for meaning. Learning these experiences helped me reflect more, and to talk to God during good times, not only bad, and to talk to him when I want to, not only when I "need" to
3. The last thing that I want to remember is the criteria for being a Christian. A person must accept the God is embodied in Jesus, accept that Jesus died so that he may rise for us to share in his alivenes, accept that on our part of the aliveness agreement, be selfless and forgiving and put the needs of others firs, and finally, accept that Jesus is fully present in celebrating the Eucharist that is a meal. This criteria is the bare minimum required to be a Christian. Most denominations of Christianity require more, such as Catholocism required belief in The Blessed Virgin Mary and The Holy Saints. I think the bar is set sort of low to be considred a Christian. Even Practical Atheists can be considered Christians according to this criteria. Its should be harder I think.
"Who do you say" Jesus is?
Jesus was one of the greatest, if not the best, teacher of all time. Mr. wehner taught last year that Jesus was the best teacher for a number of reasons. The one that stuck, and I still remeber is that he spoke the language of the people he was speaking to. When he spoke to fishermen, he spoke about fishing, and making them fishers of men. When he spoke to shephers he spoke about sheep, and how he would leave the 99 to search for the missing one. Lastly, when he spoke to farmers he spoke about farms, and told the parable of the sower and the seed. This makes Jesus seem more relevent to me, because he sent his messages in ways that everyone would understand.