Further, it is this intensity of the divine propositional feelings which most contributes to their effectiveness in achieving
the divine purpose in the world.
A personalistic philosophy of life does not offer us absolute knowledge;... we discover
divine purpose in so far as our human purposes are ruled by the New Testament principles of logos and agape - reason and love.
The preacher can now use the story to make plain to his hearers that the event of Jesus Christ is indeed on a genuinely human level; like all the rest of us, Jesus had to grow and develop in his awareness of
the divine purpose in the world.
Therefore the tradition has spoken insistently of judgment — or to use perhaps a better word, appraisal — both moment by moment and at the conclusion of every human life, with a further appraisal made when the entire created order is evaluated in its contribution or failure to contribute to the advancement of
the divine purpose in the world.
God is somehow working out
a divine purpose in the career of the nation Israel.
But ideals have their own power — and, in any event, we are commissioned to seek
the divine purpose in the politics of our day.
Such knowledge is good and true so far as it goes, but its very variety and its wide diffusion make it impossible for it to be used as giving a determinative disclosure of the divine nature and
the divine purpose in the world.
It was perhaps already in contact with speculations regarding
the divine purpose in the creation of the world, the angelic powers, the figures of Adam, Death, Satan or Antichrist, the Heavenly Man, the coming salvation, the relation of spirit and flesh, soul and body — speculations which were at least tinged, no doubt, with Gnosticism.
Its real point, he said, was «to trace
the divine purpose in a pagan world.»
Not exact matches
yo the thing is not about believing or not, is the fact that if we don't believe then we are worthless living garbage who occupy a space
in the universe only to create crap and pollution,
in that kind of case we would better be recycled into some industrial material for a better use than eating and living like cattle, but if there is a god we acquire a
divine status and a
purpose to continue to exist beyond afterlife or at least the idea of it, which would give life a sense right?
In the Whiteheadian interpretation of reality, these initial aims proposed by God are not capricious nor due to inscrutable
divine purposes for his creatures, but are relevant aims toward maximizing the intensity of experience which is possible from the particular perspective of each concrescing occasion.
Violeta John 1:3: «
In the beginning there was one God, who had reason,
purpose and a plan, which was, by its very nature and origin,
divine.
I now wish to argue that conformity with the
divine telos may, for
purposes of ethical deliberation, be translated into what I call the maximal happiness principle: so act as to maximize happiness — and, by implication,
in the long run.
The emphasis has characteristically been on «a theology of the infinite» — an inquiry into the identity and existence of
divine beings,
divine activity
in history and nature, the
purpose and destiny of human life as these are revealed by a being called «God» to others called «persons.»
In this way, women would first be given an empowering script about
divine grace that secures their personal identity, affirms the goodness of their embodiment and sends them forth into the world with renewed agency and
purpose.
That is how Mark ponders and wrestles with and finally solves the problem: Christ had to die — it was the
divine decree — but Christ voluntarily accepted his death, as «for many»; and the characters
in the tragedy all express, the events
in the story all serve, this one overmastering
purpose.
In so doing they were convinced that God had disclosed or manifested the innermost
divine character, nature, and
purpose.
If Christians believe that there is a
divine plan for everyone and that everything has a
purpose in that plan, then all of them should believe that every move of every player
in every game is part of that plan.
There can be no doubt that what he takes over
in his letter from a great philosophical tradition and from other pagan sources is included by him
in this comprehensive concept of
divine paideia, for if it were not so, he could not have used it for his
purpose in order to convince the people of Corinth of the truth of his teachings.»
How can Christians speak of about the
purposes of God — hence,
in some way, God's nature — when we have no knowledge of the
divine timetable.
(Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; 32:35)
In the next generation Ezekiel tried another apologetic: granting both that the command to sacrifice children was in the Law, as it obviously was, and that Yahweh was responsible for its presence there, he asserted none the less that; Yahweh had given «statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live,» for the ultimate purpose of punishing them with such desolation that they might recognize the divine hand in their traged
In the next generation Ezekiel tried another apologetic: granting both that the command to sacrifice children was
in the Law, as it obviously was, and that Yahweh was responsible for its presence there, he asserted none the less that; Yahweh had given «statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live,» for the ultimate purpose of punishing them with such desolation that they might recognize the divine hand in their traged
in the Law, as it obviously was, and that Yahweh was responsible for its presence there, he asserted none the less that; Yahweh had given «statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live,» for the ultimate
purpose of punishing them with such desolation that they might recognize the
divine hand
in their traged
in their tragedy.
Jesus» language
in all its vigorous overstatement still reflects a sense of
divine fury over the failure of the
divine purpose to work itself out
in the actions of human beings that does not compute with our urbane, 20th - century middle - class liberal Christianity.
How can Christians speak about the
purpose of God — hence,
in some way, God's nature — when we have no knowledge of the
divine timetable?
The Christian approach would ideally include the desire to uncover and probe the goodness, beauty and
divine purpose of creation, as well as an emphasis upon the pre-eminence of love among men and the dire effects of sin on creation
in general (see Romans 8.22) and on men
in particular.
For Jesus» language
in all its vigorous overstatement still reflects a sense of
divine fury over the failure of the
divine purpose to work itself out
in the actions of human beings that does not compute with our urbane, 20th - century middle - class liberal Christianity.
Yet the basic certainties stand sure; they concern the dynamic reality who is God, God's pervasive action
in the world, God's self - manifestation through the whole range of creation, God's focal self - expression
in Jesus Christ, the effecting of God's
purpose through loving activity
in the world and
in human existence, and the assurance that our human life is not an end
in itself but finds its fulfillment through reception into the
divine life.
Perhaps pursuit of the maximal human creativity should be constrained by the following principle of environmental respect: A
purpose that reduces natural creativity relative to some alternative for the decision
in question is a violation of the maximal
divine good unless the
purpose is required
in order to maximize human creativity
in the long run.8 All implications considered, I expect that maximizing human creativity itself includes adherence to this principle.
Virtually all previous representatives of the modern natural law tradition, including Grotius and even Hobbes, had
in some way or other related natural rights to
divine power or command, which served as the source for the directives of natural law notwithstanding that these did not derive from a
divine telos or comprehensive
purpose.
But again, and even with the possible implication of
divine judgment
in the death of Rachel, we see the repeated motif of the Jacob cycle: the tension between sin and
divine grace, the expression of faith that Jacob - Israel is saved and redeemed only by the will and
purpose of God (35:5), and finally the repetition of the promise and the blessing, and the second account of the changing of Jacob's name to Israel.
By refuses to evolve, the Catholic Church is as good as denying the possibility of continuing
divine revelation which, when viewed
in a certain light, is as good as saying God is dead to humanity for all intents and
purposes.
Civil religion portrays a
divine order of things, giving us a sense of worth and direction
in relation to ultimate
purposes.
To postulate the truth of the second alternative — that is to say, to accept that
in terms of the
divine purpose the two impulses are one — is to define
in its essentials, and
in all its splendour, the attitude of Christian humanism.
Each of us is an «unfulfilled capacity,» made with and for a
purpose — or, as our process conceptuality requires us to put it, «being made...» The Christian would say that we are thus being made toward the image of God, to reflect, and personally (and socially) act for, the
divine Love; and the deepest intentionality
in us is
in the direction of finding genuine fulfillment
in fellowship with God.
Obviously my prayers for the departed will not be effectual
in persuading God to do what already God must be doing — remembering them once they have been received into the
divine life and employing their human accomplishments for the furthering of the
divine purpose.
The understanding of historical judgment as positive
in divine purpose may well be already implicit
in Amos (see 4:6 - 11 and the discussion above) But still
in the eighth century, it is most warmly expounded
in Hosea (see especially 2:14 - 23; 5:15; 11:11) It is a pervasive if often only implicit element
in the utterances of Jeremiah and makes possible that stunning declaration of a new covenant with Israel «after those days» of judgment:
After all, isn't
purpose in nature a clear signal of
divine design?
The myth of the
divine consummation (found
in books like Revelation
in the New Testament and suggested by the picture of resurrection, as well as by the «last things») is an assertion that the
divine purpose can not fail, that God will take into the
divine self what is achieved
in the world, and that
in some fashion, obviously beyond our imagining, God will be disclosed as all
in all.
In this sense, as we can see, there is deep truth in the medieval saying tota vita Christi misterium crucis — «the entire life of Christ is the mystery of the Cross» — because, as the apostolic witness testifies, Jesus gave himself at all times and in all places and with all those who met him, as One obedient to the divine Father's purpose for hi
In this sense, as we can see, there is deep truth
in the medieval saying tota vita Christi misterium crucis — «the entire life of Christ is the mystery of the Cross» — because, as the apostolic witness testifies, Jesus gave himself at all times and in all places and with all those who met him, as One obedient to the divine Father's purpose for hi
in the medieval saying tota vita Christi misterium crucis — «the entire life of Christ is the mystery of the Cross» — because, as the apostolic witness testifies, Jesus gave himself at all times and
in all places and with all those who met him, as One obedient to the divine Father's purpose for hi
in all places and with all those who met him, as One obedient to the
divine Father's
purpose for him.
We do not know what effect such prayers will have, but we do know that all generous prayer is valued by God, and while God always does the best that can be done
in every circumstance, we may cherish the thought that God also can use prayer of that kind for furthering the
divine purposes for good, though it may be
in a way past human comprehension.
They insisted that God works
in history, and works through a community dedicated to his
purpose, a «people of God» or
divine commonwealth, Israel was intended to be such a people; that was its raison d'étre.
These impel them into full and busy lives
in the light of a
divine purpose whose extent remains finally unknowable.
The more our thoughts and actions are compatible with God's loving will and
purpose, the more fully he will incorporate them as objectively immanent
in one aspect of his nature.21 We earlier emphasized the
divine priority
in the whole event Jesus Christ: we also thought of Jesus intensifying his obedience to the call of God
in each situation that confronted him.
The structure of the
divine purposings can be analyzed apart from any presumptive claim to private knowledge of what God's
purposes in fact are.
I have suggested that Christianity makes a claim concerning God's activity that is susceptible to analysis
in terms of the interpenetration of
divine and human structures of
purposings.
If, for our
purposes, Cotton Mather can stand as a kind of archetype of Puritanism, with his very considerable impulsive energy kept
in tight control and consecrated with meaning by its service to the
divine plan, Benjamin Franklin may serve, as he has for so many others, as an archetype of the worldly American.
To summarize then, God election of people or nations is not to receive eternal life, but rather, to play a role or fulfill a
purpose in His
divine plan.
The
divine aim to call forth civilizations whose meanings and
purposes are at one with God's
purposes - for - them and whose histories accord with the
divine activity succeeds, therefore, only where individual human beings, citizens of those societies, act and believe
in ways transparent to the ways of God.
It may be insight into the
divine mysteries, the nature of Ultimate Reality, and of the laws governing the existence of the cosmos, of society, and of individual lives; or the gift of restoring into wholeness broken physical or spiritual health; or the ability to develop, by teaching and
in other ways, the hidden possibilities
in one's fellow men, and to give direction and
purpose to their lives.
His
purposes for institutions are
in this sense akin to his
purposes; for other inanimate or nonhuman portions of the creation, They are: necessary conditions instrumental for the fulfillment of human aims and of the
divine aims for human beings.
Christians for whom the
divine purpose requires a political community that fashions and draws out our common humanity are summoned to join
in the search for appropriate ways to regulate the role of money
in political campaigns.