For if the Bible were divinely inspired, then the source of inspiration being divine, would not be subject to fallibility or error in that which is produced. For them, the doctrines of the divine inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy, are inseparably tied together. The idea of biblical integrity is a further concept of infallibility, by suggesting that current biblical text is complete and without error, and that the integrity of biblical text has never been corrupted or degraded.
The Protestant Old Testament is synonymous with the "Hebrew Scriptures" included in the Jewish canon , but not the Catholic Old Testament, which contains additional texts. Roman Catholic and Eastern Christians recognize 73 books as canonical, with 46 books for the Old Testament 7 more than Protestants. The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Septuagint , a Greek translation with a few books in Greek originally.
In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the 4th century a series of synods , most notably at the Synod of Hippo in AD , produced a list of texts equal to the 46 book canon of the Old Testament that Catholics use today and the book canon of the New Testament that all use.
A definitive list did not come from any early Ecumenical Council. With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time. During the Protestant Reformation , certain reformers proposed different canonical lists of the Old Testament.
The texts that are present in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish canon, fell out of favor and, in time, they would come to be removed from Protestant canons. These texts are referred to as Deuterocanonical books in Catholic Bibles, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as the Apocrypha. The "New Testament apocrypha" has a very different meaning. It is a poorly defined group of early writings in which, generally, none ever achieved acceptance by any widespread group.
In Christianity , God is the creator and preserver of the universe. God is the sole ultimate power in the universe but is distinct from it. The Bible never speaks of God as impersonal. Instead, it refers to him in personal terms — who speaks, sees, hears, acts, and loves. God is understood to have a will and personality and is an all powerful , divine and benevolent being.
He is represented in Scripture as being primarily concerned with people and their salvation. Many Reformed theologians distinguish between the communicable attributes those that human beings can also have and the incommunicable attributes those which belong to God alone. Many of these attributes are "negative", meaning that they only say what God is not. For example, saying he is immutable is saying that he does not change. Some attributes ascribed to God in Christian theology [17] are:.
Some Christians believe that the God worshiped by the Hebrew people of the pre-Christian era had always revealed himself as he did through Jesus ; but that this was never obvious until Jesus was born see John 1. Also, though the Angel of the Lord spoke to the Patriarchs, revealing God to them, some believe it has always been only through the Spirit of God granting them understanding, that men have been able to perceive later that God himself had visited them.
This belief gradually developed into the modern formulation of the Trinity , which is the doctrine that God is a single entity Yahweh , but that there is a trinity in God's single being, the meaning of which has always been debated. This mysterious "Trinity" has been described as hypostases in the Greek language subsistences in Latin , and "persons" in English.
Nonetheless, Christians stress that they only believe in one God. Most Christian churches teach the Trinity, as opposed to Unitarian monotheistic beliefs. Historically, most Christian churches have taught that the nature of God is a mystery , something that must be revealed by special revelation rather than deduced through general revelation. Christian orthodox traditions Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant follow this idea, which was codified in and reached its full development through the work of the Cappadocian Fathers.
The true nature of an infinite God, however, is commonly described as beyond definition, and the word 'person' is an imperfect expression of the idea. Some critics contend that because of the adoption of a tripartite conception of deity, Christianity is a form of tritheism or polytheism. This concept dates from Arian teachings which claimed that Jesus, having appeared later in the Bible than his Father, had to be a secondary, lesser, and therefore distinct god. For Jews and Muslims , the idea of God as a trinity is heretical — it is considered akin to polytheism. Christians overwhelmingly assert that monotheism is central to the Christian faith, as the very Nicene Creed among others which gives the orthodox Christian definition of the Trinity does begin with: In the 3rd century, Tertullian claimed that God exists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the three personae of one and the same substance.
In Christianity , the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally , as a mutual indwelling of three Persons: Since earliest Christianity, one's salvation has been very closely related to the concept of a triune God, although the Trinitarian doctrine was not formalized until the 4th century.
At that time, the Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea , to which all bishops of the empire were invited to attend. Pope Sylvester I did not attend but sent his legate. The council, among other things, decreed the original Nicene Creed. For most Christians, beliefs about God are enshrined in the doctrine of Trinitarianism , which holds that the three persons of God together form a single God.
The Trinitarian view emphasizes that God has a will and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict see Hypostatic union. However, this point is disputed by Oriental Orthodox Christians, who hold that God the Son has only one will of unified divinity and humanity see Miaphysitism. To the ancients, personhood "was in some sense individual, but always in community as well. Since the beginning of the 3rd century [28] the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance , Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Trinitarianism, belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Catholicism , Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy as well as other prominent Christian sects arising from the Protestant Reformation , such as Anglicanism , Methodism , Lutheranism , Baptist , and Presbyterianism. A small minority of Christians hold non-trinitarian views, largely coming under the heading of Unitarianism. Most, if not all, Christians believe that God is spirit, [John 4: With this background, belief in the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit is expressed as the doctrine of the Trinity , [30] which describes the single divine ousia substance existing as three distinct and inseparable hypostases persons: The Trinitarian doctrine is considered by most Christians to be a core tenet of their faith.
Nontrinitarians typically hold that God, the Father, is supreme; that Jesus, although still divine Lord and Savior, is the Son of God ; and that the Holy Spirit is a phenomenon akin to God's will on Earth. The holy three are separate, yet the Son and the Holy Spirit are still seen as originating from God the Father. The New Testament does not have the term "Trinity" and nowhere discusses the Trinity as such. Some emphasize, however, that the New Testament does repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to "compel a trinitarian understanding of God.
In many monotheist religions, God is addressed as the father, in part because of his active interest in human affairs, in the way that a father would take an interest in his children who are dependent on him and as a father, he will respond to humanity, his children, acting in their best interests. In Christianity, God the Father's relationship with humanity is as a father to children—in a previously unheard-of sense—and not just as the creator and nurturer of creation, and the provider for his children, his people.
Thus, humans, in general, are sometimes called children of God. To Christians, God the Father's relationship with humanity is that of Creator and created beings, and in that respect he is the father of all. The New Testament says, in this sense, that the very idea of family, wherever it appears, derives its name from God the Father, [Eph 3: However, there is a deeper "legal" sense in which Christians believe that they are made participants in the special relationship of Father and Son, through Jesus Christ as his spiritual bride.
Christians call themselves adopted children of God. In the New Testament, God the Father has a special role in his relationship with the person of the Son, where Jesus is believed to be his Son and his heir. According to the Nicene Creed , the Son Jesus Christ is "eternally begotten of the Father", indicating that their divine Father-Son relationship is not tied to an event within time or human history.
In Eastern Orthodox theology, God the Father is the "principium" beginning , the "source" or "origin" of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, which gives intuitive emphasis to the threeness of persons; by comparison, Western theology explains the "origin" of all three hypostases or persons as being in the divine nature, which gives intuitive emphasis to the oneness of God's being.
Christology is the field of study within Christian theology which is primarily concerned with the nature, person, and works of Jesus Christ , held by Christians to be the Son of God. Primary considerations include the Incarnation , the relationship of Jesus' nature and person with the nature and person of God, and the salvific work of Jesus. As such, Christology is generally less concerned with the details of Jesus' life what he did or teaching than with who or what he is. There have been and are various perspectives by those who claim to be his followers since the church began after his ascension.
The controversies ultimately focused on whether and how a human nature and a divine nature can co-exist in one person. The study of the inter-relationship of these two natures is one of the preoccupations of the majority tradition. Teachings about Jesus and testimonies about what he accomplished during his three-year public ministry are found throughout the New Testament. Core biblical teachings about the person of Jesus Christ may be summarized that Jesus Christ was and forever is fully God divine and fully human in one sinless person at the same time, [34] and that through the death and resurrection of Jesus , sinful humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life via his New Covenant.
While there have been theological disputes over the nature of Jesus, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and " true God and true man " or both fully divine and fully human. Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin.
As fully God, he defeated death and rose to life again. Scripture asserts that Jesus was conceived, by the Holy Spirit, and born of his virgin mother Mary without a human father. The apostle Peter, in what has become a famous proclamation of faith among Christians since the 1st century, said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The word is often misunderstood to be the surname of Jesus due to the numerous mentions of Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible.
The word is in fact used as a title , hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus , meaning Jesus the Anointed One or Jesus the Messiah. Followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah, prophesied about in the Old Testament , or Tanakh.
The Christological controversies came to a head over the persons of the Godhead and their relationship with one another. Christology was a fundamental concern from the First Council of Nicaea until the Third Council of Constantinople In this time period, the Christological views of various groups within the broader Christian community led to accusations of heresy , and, infrequently, subsequent religious persecution.
In some cases, a sect's unique Christology is its chief distinctive feature, in these cases it is common for the sect to be known by the name given to its Christology. The decisions made at First Council of Nicaea and re-ratified at the First Council of Constantinople , after several decades of ongoing controversy during which the work of Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers were influential.
The language used was that the one God exists in three persons Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; in particular it was affirmed that the Son was homoousios of one substance with the Father. The Creed of the Nicene Council made statements about the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus, thus preparing the way for discussion about how exactly the divine and human come together in the person of Christ Christology. Nicaea insisted that Jesus was fully divine and also human. What it did not do was make clear how one person could be both divine and human, and how the divine and human were related within that one person.
This led to the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries of the Christian era.
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The Chalcedonian Creed did not put an end to all Christological debate, but it did clarify the terms used and became a point of reference for all other Christologies. He is considered by Trinitarians to be coequal with the Father and Holy Spirit. He is all God and all human: His mission on earth proved to be that of enabling people to know God as their Father, which Christians believe is the essence of eternal life. God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit the first and third persons of the Trinity.
So Jesus was always "God the Son", though not revealed as such until he also became the "Son of God" through incarnation. So, in Christian theology, Jesus was always God the Son, [38] though not revealed as such until he also became the Son of God through incarnation. The exact phrase "God the Son" is not in the New Testament. Later theological use of this expression reflects what came to be standard interpretation of New Testament references, understood to imply Jesus' divinity, but the distinction of his person from that of the one God he called his Father. As such, the title is associated more with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity than with the Christological debates.
There are over 40 places in the New Testament where Jesus is given the title "the Son of God", but scholars don't consider this to be an equivalent expression. Matthew cites Jesus as saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God 5: The book of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of the New Testament, however, record the early teaching of the first Christians— those who believed Jesus to be both the Son of God, the Messiah, a man appointed by God, as well as God himself.
This is evident in many places, however, the early part of the book of Hebrews addresses the issue in a deliberate, sustained argument, citing the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible as authorities. For example, the author quotes Psalm The author of Hebrews' description of Jesus as the exact representation of the divine Father has parallels in a passage in Colossians. John's gospel quotes Jesus at length regarding his relationship with his heavenly Father. It also contains two famous attributions of divinity to Jesus. The biblical basis for later trinitarian statements in creeds is the early baptism formula found in Matthew Docetism from the Greek verb to seem taught that Jesus was fully divine, and his human body was only illusory.
At a very early stage, various Docetic groups arose; in particular, the gnostic sects which flourished in the 2nd century AD tended to have Docetic theologies. Docetic teachings were attacked by St. Ignatius of Antioch early 2nd century , and appear to be targeted in the canonical Epistles of John dates are disputed, but range from the late 1st century among traditionalist scholars to the late 2nd century among critical scholars. The Council of Nicaea rejected theologies that entirely ruled out any humanity in Christ, affirming in the Nicene Creed the doctrine of the Incarnation as a part of the doctrine of the Trinity.
That is, that the second person of the Trinity became incarnate in the person Jesus and was fully human. The early centuries of Christian history also had groups at the other end of the spectrum, arguing that Jesus was an ordinary mortal. The Adoptionists taught that Jesus was born fully human, and was adopted as God's Son when John the Baptist baptised him [39] because of the life he lived.
Another group, known as the Ebionites , taught that Jesus was not God, but the human Moshiach messiah, anointed prophet promised in the Hebrew Bible. Some of these views could be described as Unitarianism although that is a modern term in their insistence on the oneness of God. These views, which directly affected how one understood the Godhead, were declared heresies by the Council of Nicaea.
Throughout much of the rest of the ancient history of Christianity, Christologies that denied Christ's divinity ceased to have a major impact on the life of the church. Arianism affirmed that Jesus was divine, but taught that he was nevertheless a created being there was [a time] when he was not [in existence] , and was therefore less divine than God the Father.
The matter boiled down to one iota; Arianism taught Homo i ousia —the belief that Jesus's divinity is similar to that of God the Father—as opposed to Homoousia —the belief that Jesus's divinity is the same as that of God the Father. Arius ' opponents additionally included in the term Arianism the belief that Jesus' divinity is different from that of God the Father Heteroousia.
Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicea, but remained popular in the northern and western provinces of the empire, and continued to be the majority view of western Europe well into the 6th century. Indeed, even the Christian legend of Constantine's death-bed baptism involves a bishop who, in recorded history, was an Arian.
In the modern era, a number of denominations have rejected the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, including the Christadelphians and the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Christological debates following the Council of Nicaea sought to make sense of the interplay of the human and divine in the person of Christ while upholding the doctrine of the Trinity. Apollinaris of Laodicea — taught that in Jesus, the divine component took the place of the human nous thinking — not to be confused with thelis , meaning intent.
This however was seen as a denial of Jesus' true humanity, and the view was condemned at the First Council of Constantinople. Subsequently, Nestorius of Constantinople — initiated a view that effectively separated Jesus into two persons—one divine and one human; the mechanism of this combination is known as hypostas e s , and contrasts with hypostas i s —the view that there is no separation.
Nestorius' theology was deemed heretical at the First Council of Ephesus Though, as seen by the writings of Babai the Great , the Christology of the Church of the East is highly similar to that of Chalcedon, many orthodox Christians particularly in the West consider this group to be the perpetuation of Nestorianism ; the modern Assyrian Church of the East has at times shunned this term, as it implies acceptance of the entire theology of Nestorius.
Various forms of Monophysitism taught that Christ only had one nature: A notable monophysite theologian was Eutyches c. Monophysitism was rejected as heresy at the Council of Chalcedon in , which affirmed that Jesus Christ had two natures divine and human joined in one person, in hypostatic union see Chalcedonian creed.
While Eutychianism was suppressed into oblivion by the Chalcedonians and Miaphysites, the Miaphysite groups who dissented from the Chalcedonian formula have persisted as the Oriental Orthodox Church. As theologians continued to search for a compromise between the Chalcedonian definition and the Monophysites , other Christologies developed that partially rejected the full humanity of Christ.
Monothelitism taught that in the one person of Jesus there were two natures, but only a divine will. Closely related to this is Monoenergism , which held to the same doctrine as the Monothelites, but with different terminology. The Incarnation is the belief in Christianity that the second person in the Christian Godhead , also known as God the Son or the Logos Word , "became flesh" when he was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The incarnation is a fundamental theological teaching of orthodox Nicene Christianity , based on its understanding of the New Testament.
The incarnation represents the belief that Jesus, who is the non-created second hypostasis of the triune God , took on a human body and nature and became both man and God. In the Bible its clearest teaching is in John 1: In the Incarnation, as traditionally defined, the divine nature of the Son was joined but not mixed with human nature [42] in one divine Person, Jesus Christ, who was both "truly God and truly man".
The Incarnation is commemorated and celebrated each year at Christmas , and also reference can be made to the Feast of the Annunciation ; "different aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation" are celebrated at Christmas and the Annunciation. This is central to the traditional faith held by most Christians. Alternative views on the subject See Ebionites and the Gospel according to the Hebrews have been proposed throughout the centuries see below , but all were rejected by mainstream Christian bodies.
In recent decades, an alternative doctrine known as " Oneness " has been espoused among various Pentecostal groups see below , but has been rejected by the remainder of Christendom. In the early Christian era , there was considerable disagreement amongst Christians regarding the nature of Christ's Incarnation.
While all Christians believed that Jesus was indeed the Son of God , the exact nature of his Sonship was contested, together with the precise relationship of the " Father ," "Son" and " Holy Ghost " referred to in the New Testament. Though Jesus was clearly the "Son," what exactly did this mean? Debate on this subject raged most especially during the first four centuries of Christianity, involving Jewish Christians , Gnostics , followers of the Presbyter Arius of Alexandra, and adherents of St.
Athanasius the Great , among others. Eventually, the Christian Church accepted the teaching of St. Athanasius and his allies, that Christ was the incarnation of the eternal second person of the Trinity , who was fully God and fully a man simultaneously. All divergent beliefs were defined as heresies. This included Docetism , which said that Jesus was a divine being that took on human appearance but not flesh; Arianism , which held that Christ was a created being; and Nestorianism , which maintained that the Son of God and the man, Jesus, shared the same body but retained two separate natures.
The Oneness belief held by certain modern Pentecostal churches is also seen as heretical by most mainstream Christian bodies. The most widely accepted the early Christian Church made definitions of the Incarnation and the nature of Jesus at the First Council of Nicaea in , the Council of Ephesus in , and the Council of Chalcedon in These councils declared that Jesus was both fully God: These two natures, human and divine, were hypostatically united into the one personhood of Jesus Christ.
The link between the Incarnation and the Atonement within systematic theological thought is complex. Within traditional models of the Atonement, such as Substitution , Satisfaction or Christus Victor , Christ must be Divine in order for the Sacrifice of the Cross to be efficacious, for human sins to be "removed" or "conquered". In his work The Trinity and the Kingdom of God , Jurgen Moltmann differentiated between what he called a "fortuitous" and a "necessary" Incarnation. The latter gives a soteriological emphasis to the Incarnation: The former, on the other hand, speaks of the Incarnation as a fulfilment of the Love of God , of his desire to be present and living amidst humanity, to "walk in the garden" with us.
Moltmann favours "fortuitous" incarnation primarily because he feels that to speak of an incarnation of "necessity" is to do an injustice to the life of Christ. Moltmann's work, alongside other systematic theologians, opens up avenues of liberation Christology. In short, this doctrine states that two natures, one human and one divine, are united in the one person of Christ. The Council further taught that each of these natures, the human and the divine, was distinct and complete. This view is sometimes called Dyophysite meaning two natures by those who rejected it.
Hypostatic union from the Greek for substance is a technical term in Christian theology employed in mainstream Christology to describe the union of two natures, humanity and divinity, in Jesus Christ. A brief definition of the doctrine of two natures can be given as: The First Council of Ephesus recognised this doctrine and affirmed its importance, stating that the humanity and divinity of Christ are made one according to nature and hypostasis in the Logos. The First Council of Nicaea declared that the Father and the Son are of the same substance and are co-eternal.
This belief was expressed in the Nicene Creed. Apollinaris of Laodicea was the first to use the term hypostasis in trying to understand the Incarnation. The Nestorian Theodore of Mopsuestia went in the other direction, arguing that in Christ there were two natures dyophysite human and divine and two hypostases in the sense of "essence" or "person" that co-existed. The Chalcedonian Creed agreed with Theodore that there were two natures in the Incarnation. However, the Council of Chalcedon also insisted that hypostasis be used as it was in the Trinitarian definition: Thus, the Council declared that in Christ there are two natures; each retaining its own properties, and together united in one subsistence and in one single person.
As the precise nature of this union is held to defy finite human comprehension, the hypostatic union is also referred to by the alternative term "mystical union. The Oriental Orthodox Churches , having rejected the Chalcedonian Creed, were known as Monophysites because they would only accept a definition that characterized the incarnate Son as having one nature. The Chalcedonian "in two natures" formula was seen as derived from and akin to a Nestorian Christology. However, the Oriental Orthodox have in modern ecumenical dialogue specified that they have never believed in the doctrines of Eutyches, that they have always affirmed that Christ's humanity is consubstantial with our own, and they thus prefer the term "Miaphysite" to refer to themselves a reference to Cyrillian Christology, which used the phrase "mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene".
In recent times, leaders from the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches have signed joint statements in an attempt to work towards reunification. Although Christian orthodoxy holds that Jesus was fully human, the Epistle to the Hebrews , for example, states that Christ was 'holy and without evil' 7: The question concerning the sinlessness of Jesus Christ focuses on this seeming paradox.
Does being fully human require that one participate in the "fall" of Adam , or could Jesus exist in an "unfallen" status as Adam and Eve did before the "fall," according to Genesis 2—3? Evangelical writer Donald Macleod suggests that the sinless nature of Jesus Christ involves two elements. The assertion is that Jesus did not commit sin, nor could he be proven guilty of sin; he had no vices. In fact, he is quoted as asking, "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?
The temptation of Christ shown in the gospels affirms that he was tempted. Indeed, the temptations were genuine and of a greater intensity than normally experienced by human beings. Jesus was tempted through hunger and thirst, pain and the love of his friends. Thus, the human weaknesses could engender temptation. The temptations Christ faced focused upon his person and identity as the incarnate Son of God. MacLeod writes, "Christ could be tempted through his sonship. Regarding the temptation of performing a sign that would affirm his sonship by throwing himself from the pinnacle of the temple, MacLeod observes, "The sign was for himself: I must forget all else and all others and all further service until that is clear.
The communion of attributes Communicatio idiomatum of Christ's divine and human natures is understood according to Chalcedonian theology to mean that they exist together with neither overriding the other. That is, both are preserved and coexist in one person. Christ had all the properties of God and humanity. God did not stop being God and become man. Christ was not half-God and half-human. The two natures did not mix into a new third kind of nature. Although independent, they acted in complete accord; when one nature acted, so did the other. The natures did not commingle, merge, infuse each other, or replace each other.
One was not converted into the other. They remained distinct yet acted with one accord. Some now disregard or even argue against this "doctrine" to which most denominations of Christianity ascribe. This section looks at the Christological issues surrounding belief or disbelief in the virgin birth.
A non-virgin birth would seem to require some form of adoptionism. This is because a human conception and birth would seem to yield a fully human Jesus, with some other mechanism required to make Jesus divine as well. A non-virgin birth would seem to support the full humanity of Jesus. Barth speaks of the virgin birth as the divine sign "which accompanies and indicates the mystery of the incarnation of the Son. Donald MacLeod [56] gives several Christological implications of a virgin birth:. The discussion of whether the three distinct persons in the Godhead of the Trinity were of greater, equal, or lesser by comparison was also, like many other areas of early Christology, a subject of debate.
In Athenagoras of Athens c. On the other end of the spectrum were tritheism as well as some radically subordinationist views, the latter of which emphasized the primacy of the Father of Creation to the deity of Christ and Jesus's authority over the Holy Spirit. During the Council of Nicea, the modalist bishops of Rome and Alexandria aligned politically with Athanasius; whereas the bishops of Constantinople Nicomedia , Antioch, and Jerusalem sided with the subordinationists as middle ground between Arius and Athanasius. Theologians like Jurgen Moltmann and Walter Kasper have characterized Christologies as anthropological or cosmological.
These are also termed 'Christology from below' and 'Christology from above' respectively. An anthropological Christology starts with the human person of Jesus and works from his life and ministry toward what it means for him to be divine; whereas, a cosmological Christology works in the opposite direction.
Starting from the eternal Logos, a cosmological Christology works toward his humanity. Theologians typically begin on one side or the other and their choice inevitably colors their resultant Christology. As a starting point these options represent "diverse yet complementary" approaches; each poses its own difficulties. Both Christologies 'from above' and 'from below' must come to terms with the two natures of Christ: Just as light can be perceived as a wave or as a particle, so Jesus must be thought in terms of both his divinity and humanity.
You cannot talk about "either or" but must talk about "both and". Christologies from above start with the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity, establish his eternality, his agency in creation, and his economic Sonship. Jesus' unity with God is established by the Incarnation as the divine Logos assumes a human nature. This approach was common in the early church—e. John in the Gospels. The attribution of full humanity to Jesus is resolved by stating that the two natures mutually share their properties a concept termed communicatio idiomatum.
Christologies from below start with the human being Jesus as the representative of the new humanity, not with the pre-existent Logos. Jesus lives an exemplary life, one to which we aspire in religious experience. This form of Christology lends itself to mysticism, and some of its roots go back to emergence of Christ mysticism in the 6th century East, but in the West it flourished between the 11th and 14th centuries.
A recent theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg contends that the resurrected Jesus is the "eschatological fulfillment of human destiny to live in nearness to God.
Gaudium et spes
The Christian faith is inherently political because allegiance to Jesus as risen Lord relativises all earthly rule and authority. Jesus is called "Lord" over times in Paul's epistles alone, and is thus the principal confession of faith in the Pauline epistles. Wright argues that this Pauline confession is the core of the gospel of salvation. The Achilles' heel of this approach is the loss of eschatological tension between this present age and the future divine rule that is yet to come.
This can happen when the state co-opts Christ's authority as was often the case in imperial Christology. Modern political Christologies seek to overcome imperialist ideologies. The resurrection is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity hinges on this point of Christology, both as a response to a particular history and as a confessional response.
After Jesus had died, and was buried, the New Testament states that he appeared to others in bodily form. Some skeptics say his appearances were only perceived by his followers in mind or spirit. After seeing Jesus they boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ despite tremendous risk. Eusebius of the early church worked out this threefold classification, which during the Reformation played a substantial role in scholastic Lutheran Christology and in John Calvin 's [64] and John Wesley 's Christology.
Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit. In Christian theology pneumatology refers to the study of the Holy Spirit. Within mainstream Trinitarian Christian beliefs he is the third person of the Trinity. The Christian theology of the Holy Spirit was the last piece of Trinitarian theology to be fully developed. Within mainstream Trinitarian Christianity the Holy Spirit is one of the three persons of the Trinity who make up the single substance of God.
The English word comes from two Greek words: Pneumatology would normally include study of the person of the Holy Spirit, and the works of the Holy Spirit. This latter category would normally include Christian teachings on new birth , spiritual gifts charismata , Spirit-baptism , sanctification , the inspiration of prophets , and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity which in itself covers many different aspects. Different Christian denominations have different theological approaches. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit leads people to faith in Jesus and gives them the ability to live a Christian lifestyle.
The Holy Spirit dwells inside every Christian, each one's body being his temple. The word is variously translated as Comforter, Counselor, Teacher, Advocate, [72] guiding people in the way of the truth. The Holy Spirit's action in one's life is believed to produce positive results, known as the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables Christians, who still experience the effects of sin, to do things they never could do on their own. These spiritual gifts are not innate abilities "unlocked" by the Holy Spirit, but entirely new abilities, such as the ability to cast out demons or simply bold speech.
Through the influence of the Holy Spirit a person sees more clearly the world around him or her and can use his or her mind and body in ways that exceed his or her previous capacity. A list of gifts that may be bestowed include the charismatic gifts of prophecy , tongues , healing, and knowledge.
Christians holding a view known as cessationism believe these gifts were given only in New Testament times. Christians almost universally agree that certain " spiritual gifts " are still in effect today, including the gifts of ministry, teaching, giving, leadership, and mercy. After his resurrection , Christ told his disciples that they would be " baptized with the Holy Spirit" and would receive power from this event, [Ac 1: The other two sins can be committed by anyone.
The first, desecrating the Eucharist, is particularly bad because Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. Messing with them is like messing with Jesus. And then, there's the sin of attempting to assassinate the pope. That one's pretty self-explanatory. The meetings of the Apostolic Penitentiary are kept confidential because they're a different form of confession. The sinner is referred to by a pseudonym, and only the Major Penitentiary, Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, decides how the sin shall be dealt with.
Presumably, a bunch of Hail Marys doesn't cut it. Today, it's even more accessible. Outsiders are free to examine the correspondences of every pope for the past 1, years, although there is one catch: Guests have to know exactly what they're looking for. With 52 miles of shelves in the archives, the librarians prohibit browsing. Henry divorced Catherine anyway and married Anne Boleyn and four other women , leading to Rome's break with the Church of England. The archives also contain an abundance of red ribbons, which were used to bind 85 petitions from English clergyman and aristocrats.
The Pope liked to text message During his tenure, Pope Benedict XVI routinely sent text messages of his homilies to mobile subscribers around the world, and in , the Vatican opened up an official YouTube channel to show various papal addresses and ceremonies. The Vatican even released an iPhone application that contains multilingual versions of the Breviary prayer book and the prayers of daily mass. Most recently, Benedict had joined Twitter in December, two months before his resignation. The Vatican's enthusiasm for technology isn't limited to cell phones and the internet.
It has also added solar panels to the roof of the Pope Paul VI auditorium as part of its commitment to fight climate change. Swiss armies were renowned for the their mastery of a weapon called the halberd, a deadly combination of a spear and an axe, and their ground troops were famous for routinely demolishing legions of enemies on horseback. After Pope Julius II witnessed their ferocity in battle years ago, he recruited a few soldiers to become his personal bodyguards. Ever since, Swiss Guards have pledged fidelity to the pope, sometimes dying for the cause.
During the sacking of Rome in , for instance, three quarters of them were killed while providing cover for Pope Clement VII to escape. Today, the hundred or so members of the Swiss Guard spend most of their time bedecked in Renaissance garb, twirling their halberds in ceremonies or manning checkpoints around the Vatican. When the Guards are actually protecting the pope, they wear plain clothes and carry distinctly modern weapons. Was this based on a true story? But God did not create man as a solitary, for from the beginning "male and female he created them" Gen. Their companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion.
For by his innermost nature man is a social being, and unless he relates himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential. Therefore, as we read elsewhere in Holy Scripture God saw "all that he had made, and it was very good" Gen. Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history man abused his liberty, at the urging of the Evil One.
Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, but their senseless minds were darkened and they served the creature rather than the Creator. Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations toward evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator.
Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things. Therefore man is split within himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness. Indeed, man finds that by himself he is incapable of battling the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone feels as though he is bound by chains. But the Lord Himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out that "prince of this world" John The call to grandeur and the depths of misery, both of which are a part of human experience, find their ultimate and simultaneous explanation in the light of this revelation.
Though made of body and soul, man is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart. Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man.
For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart, 7 awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God.
Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter. Man judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe, for he shares in the light of the divine mind. By relentlessly employing his talents through the ages he has indeed made progress in the practical sciences and in technology and the liberal arts.
In our times he has won superlative victories, especially in his probing of the material world and in subjecting it to himself. Still he has always searched for more penetrating truths, and finds them. For his intelligence is not confined to observable data alone, but can with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though in consequence of sin that certitude is partly obscured and weakened.
The intellectual nature of the human person is perfected by wisdom and needs to be, for wisdom gently attracts the mind of man to a quest and a love for what is true and good.
Christian theology
Our era needs such wisdom more than bygone ages if the discoveries made by man are to be further humanized. For the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser men are forthcoming. It should also be pointed out that many nations, poorer in economic goods, are quite rich in wisdom and can offer noteworthy advantages to others. It is, finally, through the gift of the Holy Spirit that man comes by faith to the contemplation and appreciation of the divine plan.
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.
There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin. Only in freedom can man direct himself toward goodness. Our contemporaries make much of this freedom and pursue it eagerly; and rightly to be sure.
Often however they foster it perversely as a license for doing whatever pleases them, even if it is evil. For its part, authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain "under the control of his own decisions," 12 so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him.
Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when, emancipating himself from all captivity to passion, he pursues his goal in a spontaneous choice of what is good, and procures for himself through effective and skilful action, apt helps to that end.
Since man's freedom has been damaged by sin, only by the aid of God's grace can he bring such a relationship with God into full flower. Before the judgement seat of God each man must render an account of his own life, whether he has done good or evil. It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person.
He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast. Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery.
In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned 14 will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him.
At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God. The root reason for human dignity lies in man's call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he not created by Gods love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator. Still, many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God, or have explicitly rejected it.
Thus atheism must be accounted among the most serious problems of this age, and is deserving of closer examination. The word atheism is applied to phenomena which are quite distinct from one another. For while God is expressly denied by some, others believe that man can assert absolutely nothing about Him. Still others use such a method to scrutinize the question of God as to make it seem devoid of meaning. Many, unduly transgressing the limits of the positive sciences, contend that everything can be explained by this kind of scientific reasoning alone, or by contrast, they altogether disallow that there is any absolute truth.
Some laud man so extravagantly that their faith in God lapses into a kind of anemia, though they seem more inclined to affirm man than to deny God. Again some form for themselves such a fallacious idea of God that when they repudiate this figment they are by no means rejecting the God of the Gospel.
Some never get to the point of raising questions about God, since they seem to experience no religious stirrings nor do they see why they should trouble themselves about religion. Moreover, atheism results not rarely from a violent protest against the evil in this world, or from the absolute character with which certain human values are unduly invested, and which thereby already accords them the stature of God. Modern civilization itself often complicates the approach to God not for any essential reason but because it is so heavily engrossed in earthly affairs. Undeniably, those who willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions are not following the dictates of their consciences, and hence are not free of blame; yet believers themselves frequently bear some responsibility for this situation.
For, taken as a whole, atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious beliefs, and in some places against the Christian religion in particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism.
To the extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion. Modern atheism often takes on a systematic expression which, in addition to other causes, stretches the desires for human independence to such a point that it poses difficulties against any kind of dependence on God.
Those who profess atheism of this sort maintain that it gives man freedom to be an end unto himself, the sole artisan and creator of his own history. They claim that this freedom cannot be reconciled with the affirmation of a Lord Who is author and purpose of all things, or at least that this freedom makes such an affirmation altogether superfluous.
Favoring this doctrine can be the sense of power which modern technical progress generates in man. Not to be overlooked among the forms of modern atheism is that which anticipates the liberation of man especially through his economic and social emancipation. This form argues that by its nature religion thwarts this liberation by arousing man's hope for a deceptive future life, thereby diverting him from the constructing of the earthly city.
Consequently when the proponents of this doctrine gain governmental power they vigorously fight against religion, and promote atheism by using, especially in the education of youth, those means of pressure which public power has at its disposal. In her loyal devotion to God and men, the Church has already repudiated 16 and cannot cease repudiating, sorrowfully but as firmly as possible, those poisonous doctrines and actions which contradict reason and the common experience of humanity, and dethrone man from his native excellence. Still, she strives to detect in the atheistic mind the hidden causes for the denial of God; conscious of how weighty are the questions which atheism raises, and motivated by love for all men, she believes these questions ought to be examined seriously and more profoundly.
The Church holds that the recognition of God is in no way hostile to man's dignity, since this dignity is rooted and perfected in God. For man was made an intelligent and free member of society by God Who created him, but even more important, he is called as a son to commune with God and share in His happiness. She further teaches that a hope related to the end of time does not diminish the importance of intervening duties but rather undergirds the acquittal of them with fresh incentives. By contrast, when a divine instruction and the hope of life eternal are wanting, man's dignity is most grievously lacerated, as current events often attest; riddles of life and death, of guilt and of grief go unsolved with the frequent result that men succumb to despair.
Meanwhile every man remains to himself an unsolved puzzle, however obscurely he may perceive it. For on certain occasions no one can entirely escape the kind of self-questioning mentioned earlier, especially when life's major events take place. To this questioning only God fully and most certainly provides an answer as He summons man to higher knowledge and humbler probing. The remedy which must be applied to atheism, however, is to be sought in a proper presentation of the Church's teaching as well as in the integral life of the Church and her members. For it is the function of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit Who renews and purifies her ceaselessly, 17 to make God the Father and His Incarnate Son present and in a sense visible.
This result is achieved chiefly by the witness of a living and mature faith, namely, one trained to see difficulties clearly and to master them. Many martyrs have given luminous witness to this faith and continue to do so. This faith needs to prove its fruitfulness by penetrating the believer's entire life, including its worldly dimensions, and by activating him toward justice and love, especially regarding the needy. What does the most reveal God's presence, however, is the brotherly charity of the faithful who are united in spirit as they work together for the faith of the Gospel 18 and who prove themselves a sign of unity.
While rejecting atheism, root and branch, the Church sincerely professes that all men, believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live; such an ideal cannot be realized, however, apart from sincere and prudent dialogue. Hence the Church protests against the distinction which some state authorities make between believers and unbelievers, with prejudice to the fundamental rights of the human person.
The Church calls for the active liberty of believers to build up in this world God's temple too. She courteously invites atheists to examine the Gospel of Christ with an open mind. Above all the Church knows that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart when she champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to those who have already despaired of anything higher than their present lot.
Far from diminishing man, her message brings to his development light, life and freedom. Apart from this message nothing will avail to fill up the heart of man: The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.
It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. He Who is "the image of the invisible God" Col. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, 22 by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man.
He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice 23 and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin. As an innocent lamb He merited for us life by the free shedding of His own blood. In Him God reconciled us 25 to Himself and among ourselves; from bondage to the devil and sin He delivered us, so that each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son of God "loved me and gave Himself up for me" Gal.
By suffering for us He not only provided us with an example for our imitation, 26 He blazed a trail, and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning. The Christian man, conformed to the likeness of that Son Who is the firstborn of many brothers, 27 received "the first-fruits of the Spirit" Rom. But, linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ, he will hasten forward to resurrection in the strength which comes from hope. All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation.
Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us 33 so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father One of the salient features of the modern world is the growing interdependence of men one on the other, a development promoted chiefly by modern technical advances. Nevertheless brotherly dialogue among men does not reach its perfection on the level of technical progress, but on the deeper level of interpersonal relationships.
These demand a mutual respect for the full spiritual dignity of the person. Christian revelation contributes greatly to the promotion of this communion between persons, and at the same time leads us to a deeper understanding of the laws of social life which the Creator has written into man's moral and spiritual nature. Since rather recent documents of the Church's teaching authority have dealt at considerable length with Christian doctrine about human society, 1 this council is merely going to call to mind some of the more basic truths, treating their foundations under the light of revelation.
Then it will dwell more at length on certain of their implications having special significance for our day. God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who "from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth" Acts For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law" Rom.
To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance. Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. Man's social nature makes it evident that the progress of the human person and the advance of society itself hinge on one another.
For the beginning, the subject and the goal of all social institutions is and must be the human person which for its part and by its very nature stands completely in need of social life. Among those social ties which man needs for his development some, like the family and political community, relate with greater immediacy to his innermost nature; others originate rather from his free decision.
In our era, for various reasons, reciprocal ties and mutual dependencies increase day by day and give rise to a variety of associations and organizations, both public and private. This development, which is called socialization, while certainly not without its dangers, brings with it many advantages with respect to consolidating and increasing the qualities of the human person, and safeguarding his rights. But if by this social life the human person is greatly aided in responding to his destiny, even in its religious dimensions, it cannot be denied that men are often diverted from doing good and spurred toward and by the social circumstances in which they live and are immersed from their birth.
To be sure the disturbances which so frequently occur in the social order result in part from the natural tensions of economic, political and social forms. But at a deeper level they flow from man's pride and selfishness, which contaminate even the social sphere. When the structure of affairs is flawed by the consequences of sin, man, already born with a bent toward evil, finds there new inducements to sin, which cannot be overcome without strenuous efforts and the assistance of grace.
Every day human interdependence grows more tightly drawn and spreads by degrees over the whole world.
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As a result the common good, that is, the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment, today takes on an increasingly universal complexion and consequently involves rights and duties with respect to the whole human race. Every social group must take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the entire human family. At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness of the exalted dignity proper to the human person, since he stands above all things, and his rights and duties are universal and inviolable.
Therefore, there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one's own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom even in matters religious.
Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person if the disposition of affairs is to be subordinate to the personal realm and not contrariwise, as the Lord indicated when He said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. This social order requires constant improvement. It must be founded on truth, built on justice and animated by love; in freedom it should grow every day toward a more humane balance.
God's Spirit, Who with a marvelous providence directs the unfolding of time and renews the face of the earth, is not absent from this development. The ferment of the Gospel too has aroused and continues to arouse in man's heart the irresistible requirements of his dignity.
Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone must consider his every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all His life and the means necessary to living it with dignity, 8 so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus. In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, "As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me" Matt.
Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed.
They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator. Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.
This love and good will, to be sure, must in no way render us indifferent to truth and goodness. Indeed love itself impels the disciples of Christ to speak the saving truth to all men. But it is necessary to distinguish between error, which always merits repudiation, and the person in error, who never loses the dignity of being a person even when he is flawed by false or inadequate religious notions. The teaching of Christ even requires that we forgive injuries, 12 and extends the law of love to include every enemy, according to the command of the New Law: Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy.
But I say to you: Since all men possess a rational soul and are created in God's likeness, since they have the same nature and origin, have been redeemed by Christ and enjoy the same divine calling and destiny, the basic equality of all must receive increasingly greater recognition. True, all men are not alike from the point of view of varying physical power and the diversity of intellectual and moral resources. Nevertheless, with respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent.
For in truth it must still be regretted that fundamental personal rights are still not being universally honored. Such is the case of a woman who is denied the right to choose a husband freely, to embrace a state of life or to acquire an education or cultural benefits equal to those recognized for men. Therefore, although rightful differences exist between men, the equal dignity of persons demands that a more humane and just condition of life be brought about. For excessive economic and social differences between the members of the one human family or population groups cause scandal, and militate against social justice, equity, the dignity of the human person, as well as social and international peace.
Human institutions, both private and public, must labor to minister to the dignity and purpose of man. At the same time let them put up a stubborn fight against any kind of slavery, whether social or political, and safeguard the basic rights of man under every political system. Indeed human institutions themselves must be accommodated by degrees to the highest of all realities, spiritual ones, even though meanwhile, a long enough time will be required before they arrive at the desired goal. Profound and rapid changes make it more necessary that no one ignoring the trend of events or drugged by laziness, content himself with a merely individualistic morality.
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It grows increasingly true that the obligations of justice and love are fulfilled only if each person, contributing to the common good, according to his own abilities and the needs of others, also promotes and assists the public and private institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life. Yet there are those who, while possessing grand and rather noble sentiments, nevertheless in reality live always as if they cared nothing for the needs of society. Many in various places even make light of social laws and precepts, and do not hesitate to resort to various frauds and deceptions in avoiding just taxes or other debts due to society.
Others think little of certain norms of social life, for example those designed for the protection of health, or laws establishing speed limits; they do not even avert to the fact that by such indifference they imperil their own life and that of others. Let everyone consider it his sacred obligation to esteem and observe social necessities as belonging to the primary duties of modern man. For the more unified the world becomes, the more plainly do the offices of men extend beyond particular groups and spread by degrees to the whole world. But this development cannot occur unless individual men and their associations cultivate in themselves the moral and social virtues, and promote them in society; thus, with the needed help of divine grace men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity can be forthcoming.
In order for individual men to discharge with greater exactness the obligations of their conscience toward themselves and the various group to which they belong, they must be carefully educated to a higher degree of culture through the use of the immense resources available today to the human race. Above all the education of youth from every social background has to be undertaken, so that there can be produced not only men and women of refined talents, but those great-souled persons who are so desperately required by our times.
Now a man can scarcely arrive at the needed sense of responsibility, unless his living conditions allow him to become conscious of his dignity, and to rise to his destiny by spending himself for God and for others. But human freedom is often crippled when a man encounters extreme poverty just as it withers when he indulges in too many of life's comforts and imprisons himself in a kind of splendid isolation. Freedom acquires new strength, by contrast, when a man consents to the unavoidable requirements of social life, takes on the manifold demands of human partnership, and commits himself to the service of the human community.
Hence, the will to play one's role in common endeavors should be everywhere encouraged. Praise is due to those national procedures which allow the largest possible number of citizens to participate in public affairs with genuine freedom. Account must be taken, to be sure, of the actual conditions of each people and the decisiveness required by public authority. If every citizen is to feel inclined to take part in the activities of the various groups which make up the social body, these must offer advantages which will attract members and dispose them to serve others.
We can justly consider that the future of humanity lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping. As God did not create man for life in isolation, but for the formation of social unity, so also "it has pleased God to make men holy and save them not merely as individuals, without bond or link between them, but by making them into a single people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness. Revealing His mind to them, God called these chosen ones "His people" Ex.
This communitarian character is developed and consummated in the work of Jesus Christ. For the very Word made flesh willed to share in the human fellowship. He was present at the wedding of Cana, visited the house of Zacchaeus, ate with publicans and sinners. He revealed the love of the Father and the sublime vocation of man in terms of the most common of social realities and by making use of the speech and the imagery of plain everyday life.
Willingly obeying' the laws of his country He sanctified those human ties, especially family ones, which are the source of social structures.