A History of God

1. A History of God Chapter 3 Light to the Gentiles

2. Gospels • Gospel of Mark • First full-length account of Jesus’ life • Written about 70 AD, 40 years after Jesus’ death • Presents Jesus as “a perfectly normal man” • Gospel of Matthew • Matthew addresses the concerns of a Jewish audience. • Written by a Jewish Christian. • Jesus was promised Messiah, in him the ancient prophecies had their fulfillment.

3. Who was Jesus? • Jesus never claimed to be God • Did not claim to be God incarnate

4. India: Bhakti [personal devotion] • Hinduism: Krishna • Krishna is a deity worshiped across many traditions in Hinduism. • Recognized as an avatar of Vishnu, he has been the object of personal devotion or bhakti

5. Bodhisattva • An enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgoes nirvana in order to save others.

6. The West: Idealism • The world is an illusion • Idealism is the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas. • It holds that the so-called external or "real world" is inseparable from mind, consciousness, or perception.

7. Idealism: George Berkeley • Berkeley was a talented metaphysician famous for defending idealism, that is, the view that reality consists exclusively of minds and their ideas. • Berkeley's system, while it strikes many as counter-intuitive, is strong and flexible enough to counter most objections.

8. Gospel of John • Jesus as Logos • The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, through which all things are made. • The gospel further identifies the Logos as divine. • Second-century Christian Apologists, such as Justin Martyr, identified Jesus as the Logos or Word of God, a distinct intermediary between God and the world.

9. The Roman Empire • Religion and Philosophy

10. Gnosticism • Gnosticism is an ancient belief system whose basic tenets seem to reappear in many different times and cultures. • Gnostics hold that this world is essentially a prison for the spirit. • In Gnostic forms of Christianity, the creator god of the Bible is interpreted as an evil demiurge, who built the world to trap us.

11. Gnosticism • The real God is on a higher plane entirely, and Christ is our connection to him, providing the possibility of reuniting the trapped spark of spirit within us with its divine source.

12. Early Christian Writers: Marcion • Marcion (ca. 85-160) was an Early Christian theologian who was excommunicated by the Christian church at Rome as a heretic. • He propounded a Christianity free from Jewish doctrines • Jewish God too violent.

13. Early Christian Writers: Clement Clement of Alexander (ca 150-215): Yahweh andthe God of the Greek philosophers were one and the same. Clement believed that Jesus was God.

14. Early Christian Writers: Irenaeus • Irenaeus [130-200]: Jesus had been the incarnate Logos, the divine reason.

15. Origen • Like Plotinus, Origen wrote that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God. • He imagined even demons being reunited with God. • For Origen, God was the First Principle, and Christ, the Logos, was subordinate to him.

16. Plotinus [205-270] • Plotinus is generally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. • He is one of the most influential philosophers in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle. • Ultimate reality was a primal unity, the One.

17. Neoplatonism • Neoplatonismis the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century CE, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato. • An enlightenment that was impersonal, beyond human categories and natural to humanity.

18. Triumph of Christianity: 4th Century • 1. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire • 2. “Supremely a religion of adversity, it has never been at its best in prosperity.” • 3. Next issue: the nature of God – the Trinity.