Sentences with phrase «as means of»

They either focus on giving as an obligation to God, or as a means of getting something from God.

Accompanying such developments as we have noted in the substance of Biblical prayers, an even more profound change was in process: praying, employed at first as a means of persuading a god to do man's will, grew to be used as a means of releasing through man whatever was God's will.

Has he made his people feel that he is really interested in them as persons and not just as means of running a church machine?

If to sophisticated thought the irrationality of bloody altars as a means of divine placation and fellowship became troublesome, the use of symbolism could come to the aid of the devout worshiper, as it has done in every other developing religion, Christianity not least of all.

One way of expressing the new concepts is to say that God employs the sacraments as a means of giving himself to us just as he uses preaching.

For they are expressions of the divine purpose as well as the means of developing the human spirit.

One of the more outspoken alcoholics I interviewed told of a young minister who apparently tried to use the AA group as a means of obtaining members for his church.

We have discussed the limitations of religious thrill as a means of helping alcoholics.

Domenach writes that violence must be condoned as a means of combating social injustice or of coping with the violence of others — provided, however, that it be used for the benefit of others, not for that of its practitioner.

They will also continue to recognise love that is according to God's plan and purpose, and love which has, as St Augustine says, become «perverse», that is to say, distorted from its original purpose of respecting people for themselves and not simply as a means of satisfying our desires.

When he received the letter from the king of Syria he interpreted it as a means of provoking war.

II, pp. 14 - 15) Christian ideas, however, soon moved too far away from either the practice or the perusal of sacrificial laws as a means of reconciliation with God for the early Christian to be content with such a solution.

The new Roman Catholic «Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults» has also attracted attention as a means of making the conversion of an adult an experience shared in community rather than an individual matter.

Play is sometimes viewed as an instinct educator (Karl Groos); as a means of catharsis, a safety valve to vent emotions (Aristotle); as a creative modeling of situations that enables the player to better handle experience (Erik Erikson); as a means of resolving psychic conflict (Sigmund Freud), or, on the contrary, as activity not motivated by the need to resolve inner conflict (Robert Neale) 8

He quotes Geoffrey Bromiley, who argued that the Bible can serve as a means of Christian unity only when Jesus Christ is placed at its center.

In other words, our theology often involves many words, while their theology often invokes silence (thus their use of icons as means of meditation during silence).

It is the fact that non-functional sequences of dna have been passed down from parent species prior to a split in sub species or classifications and exist on the exact same location within the strand of the other sub species, which was the final evidence convincing me that God did indeed use evolution as His means of creation.

«A man convicted of the offences that this particular offender had been convicted of should be serving a lot more than 10 years in prison... as a means of punishment [and] for the protection of women.»

But that this should be interpreted as freedom from religion, and used as a means of sealing our culture against the imparting of religious knowledge, has no justification in fact.

Thus Tillich translates the transcendent Beyond into an immanent «depth» as a means of making the Christian faith meaningful to our time.

dvdrichards1115 And, yet, group prayers do serve as a means of identifying denominational and sectarian groups.

Scripture functions in the worship of thousands of Protestant congregations only as a means of reinforcing what the preacher wants to say.

Repressive regimes often ally themselves with a particular religion as a means of control, and consequently encourage the punishment of those who won't abide by the tenets of said religion.

Fasting is the means by which the Muslim voluntarily abandons certain legitimate frivolous enjoyments as a means of putting his soul to a test and promoting its capacity for perseverance.

Those who don't fear or love God will unashamedly use ministry as a means of financial gain, and to obtain a personal following.

As long as art is useful as a means of heightening religion and morality, it is permitted; but if it leads to immorality, it is forbidden.

While employing the Hegelian categories of the «universal» and the «objective» as a means of understanding the new reality created by modern man, Kierkegaard came to understand the modern consciousness as the product of a Faustian choice.

The worship of God before the fall would likewise «certainly not have involved his dependence on material things as a means of grace or knowledge.»

You see my point had nothing to do with the ramblings of what you want to «imagine» as a means of sidestepping the actual scripture.

Again, I am not advocating living under the law as a means of salvation, which is what Paul was addressing in Galatians.

Suarez, for example, argued that just as language and symbol are natural to humanity, so the sacraments are appropriate as means of communion with God.

The term did not become popular currency again until the beginning of the modern era — as a means of self - identification, in response to the Turkish threat — and was asserted more generally in the eighteenth century.

In this instance it may not be the case that the acceptance of the free market as the means of pricing goods and services entails all the other features of global capitalism.

As a means of analysis, then, reductionism has certainly proven its value.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.»

When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests.

My impression of these religious leaders was that they used tradition and their external «holy appearance» as a means of authority to simply govern people's lives and not truly lead them to God.

Baptism as a means of being «born again by water» was a common practice among Judaism.

That mercy is only found in Jesus Christ who lived the perfect life we failed to live and died the death we deserve as a means of appeasing the wrath of God towards us.

So that the delusional people in each parish can find a sense of relief when the CC comes a runnin» with an exorcist to cast out their self - created demons??? Having an exorcist in each parish will just help to add more delusion to the faithful (which would of course benefit the CC as a whole as a means of psychologically wrestling their believers further under their proverbial thumb).

The polarization is so deep that when, in 1996, the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin founded the Catholic Common Ground Initiative as a means of addressing division in the church, he was criticized by some liberal Catholics who thought that the project was not radical enough and by some of his brother cardinals who believed that it jeopardized the essential truths of the faith.

The Law can be used in either way, and while many religious leaders used it to destroy life, Jesus wanted to show how to use the Law as means of giving life.

My observation reflects my history with an abusive church where public displays of spirituality were often used as a means of control and as such my comment was perfectly valid.

In all likelihood, abortion will be used as a means of selecting healthy offspring by deselecting the rest.

In its ritual function, etiquette serves the sacred, as a means of satisfying those of our spiritual needs that make us distinctly human.

They are therefore to be thought of not as means of consumption but as means of their own production.

Our prayers are not to alter the will of a sovereign God who remains forever unchangeable, but instead, prayer molds our disfigured and malleable wills to be like His perfect will, as well as operating as a means of revealing His character to us through a personal interaction with His word that has been intricately meshed together with our lives.

Faust, a noted historian, said: «The «black Mass» had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and is highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond.»

It is almost a control thing and they do it as a means of recruitment.

Used correctly, as a means of Grace rather than an object of faith, both Sacrament and Bible point beyond themselves to the Ultimate Reality of the Living God.