I would never get upset! Glance back at the dialogue !
It’s respectful but also in lighting from different perspectives.
——> The history of the first two thousand years of Christian thought is generally broken down into two manageable sections. While every-one has their own views about how best to decide Christian history, many use a framework which looks something like this.
The apostolic period:
The first one hundred years is often referred to as the apostolic period. This is the period during which the works now included in the New-Testament were written. During this time, Christianity was spreading throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. The missionary journeys of St. Paul, described in the Acts of the Apostles, are an excellent example of this activity.
The patristic period:
The apostolic period is followed by what is still generally known as the patristic period (some now prefer to refer to this as the “period of the early church”), which is usually held to begin about the year 100. There is no firm agreement about when this period ended: some scholars suggest it ends in the fifth century, while others extend it by at least two centuries.
One of the most important achievements of the patristic period was the establishing by which books dating back from the apostolic period were to be regarded as “canonical” or “biblical.”
Development of Christian Theology:
The Middle Ages, or medieval period, is regarded as extending from the end of the patristic era to about year 1500. This long period was immensely creative culturally, and productive theologically, producing theological classics such as Peter Lombard’s Four Books of the Sentences and Thomas Aquinas’s great thirteenth-century work, the Summa Theologiade.
What is faith?:
Let’s begin by noting two different senses of the word “belief” and “faith.” Theologians have traditionally made distention between faith as a set of beliefs, and faith as an act of believing. Two Latin phrases are often used in theological literature to express this difference between the content of faith, and the human act of faith.
(1.) Fides quae creditur (Which can be loosely translated as “the faith we believe”). This Refers to an object set of beliefs, such as those set out in Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. This is understood to provide an outline of the basic beliefs of Christian faith.
(2.) Fides qua creditur (which can be loosely translated ”as the faith by which we believe”).
Faith affects the human mind, heart, and will. Consider for example, the statement from an early twentieth - century Angelican theologian.
“[Faith] affects the whole of [human] nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart of emotions based on conviction, and it is crowded in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.”
Can God’s existence be proved?:
“Somethings can indeed be proved; but some, by the very nature, lie beyond proof. God is one of these.” (Tenson, Alfred. 1809-92)
The basic Christian attitude to proofs for the existence of God can be set out as follows.
(1.) The existence of God is something that reason cannot prove conclusively. Yet the fact that the existence of God lies beyond reason does not mean that the existence of God is contrary to reason.
(2.) Certain excellent reason maybe put forward for the suggesting that God exists; these do not, however, count as “proofs” in the sense of “rigorous logical demonstrations” or “conclusive scientific experiments.”
(3.) Faith is about trusting God, rather than just excepting that God exists.
McGrath, Alister. “Theology: The Basics.” Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2018. Hoboken, New Jersey United States.
