Must read works of theology?

Must read works of theology?

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The bible.

The bible.

the bible

seriously at least get a good handle of the new testament, otherwise you could read any pseudo deep nonsense and fall for it.

τὰ βιβλία
Confessiones
Summa Theologiae

Don Quijote

Bad advice. Avoid the new testament at all costs. Read the old testament and ruminate on it often.

HOW FAR DOES THE RABBIT HOLE GO. HOW FAR

Bad advice. Read every book that builds on the Bible.

That means The Old and New testament. And read the Koran.

Read them in the most up to date version, fuck the King James version.

De consolatione philosophiae
Divina Commedia
Paradise Lost

>That means The Old and New testament. And read the Koran.
>how to burn somebody out so they never want to read scripture again

You're a fool.

>fuck the King James version
>the version with the most majestic style of all English translations

No. Fuck you.

...

OH MY GOOOOD. I HAVE TRANSCENDED. IF HE NAMES ANY MORE BOOKS I AM CERTAIN I WILL PHASE OUT OF THIS REALITY INTO SOMETHING BETTER THROUGH GOD'S DIVINE DIRECTION

it also happens to be inaccurate

>implying it's something worth being accurate about

I know what constitutes good literature: the reality.

And the reality is God exists, every Abrahamic religion is correct to some degree. Deal with it.

if you're studying theology then yes

Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν
Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
Phänomenologie des Geistes

which one is correct to the degree of salvation? reconciliation with God? forgiveness of sins?

There is no need to read the quran... Its just a collection of talmudic folktales and legends

Both points are wrong.

>There is no need to read the bible... Its just a collection of Jewish folktales and legends

The Holy and Apostolic Roman Catholic Church

>salvation by works
>traditions that are in no way apostolic

>apostolic

Can we stop using these big words? You aren't erudite for it.

"Theology" relating to the bible is a field built by and around people basing their understanding on the inaccurate Vulgate

okay then what word would you rather me use to get the same point across
the catholic church literally uses the word apostolic to describe their tradition

the gospels including the non-canonical gospels

I believe all the events to have happened. I am certain a flood did.

If a flood did it means a couple things

1. God intervenes when humanity becomes too sinful
2. This being rewards or punishes others for what they have done in this lifetime.

He also enjoys free will. Meaning a couple things. If you have been set up to make bad decisions, in so far as determinism (satan) effects your life, then there will be leniency.

In other words, walk carefully. God is in your, so in order to gauge how God will judge you, use your own soul to feel whether he will.

The Quran has a rightful notion of what is good and bad. Read it in English if you don't know Arabic, either way it will do you good to read something that praises the good and admonishes the bad. This is what Judaism, Christianity, and Islam hold over any Eastern religion or Hinduism.

The exception is Daoism, in which is implied a singularity of being (God)

the NASB, ASV, and NKJV are all good translations that aren't translated from the vulgate

>In other words, walk carefully. God is in your, so in order to gauge how God will judge you, use your own soul to feel whether he will.
okay so can you tell me where this is taught in abrahamic tradition? particularly Jesus or his apostles

Do you seriously believe God does NOT exist? You are telling me, that you are taking a hardline atheist stance instead of agnostic?

And you are saying I am wrong... but I am not going to be listening to an atheist sorry.

Must read works of theology? No such thing, boy. Theology, if it is to be enjoyed at all, must be treated like a hobby. A Sunday afternoon affair. It is better to prune its insights from a comfortable distance than to crawl through the mud chasing after comprehension of its awkward and misshapen and rusting geoemetry for admittance into its senile arcane circles. No no - theology is a joke. A little intellectual exercise. Target practice. Not a battle. Treat it otherwise and you will drown in it, become sick with it, like being thrust into an olympic pool of holy water poured out from church fonts, full of faecal matter and e. coli and bits of dirt and pus and hair. No, the church is quite right in making ritual use of holy water so frugal and conservative. A theology of full immersion is a theology of hell.

How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation?
If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,
and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.
But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.You believe in the one God -- that is creditable enough, but even the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear.
Fool! Would you not like to know that faith without deeds is useless?
Was not Abraham our father justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar?So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.
In this way the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was considered as making him upright; and he received the name 'friend of God'.You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified There is another example of the same kind: Rahab the prostitute, was she not justified by her deeds because she welcomed the messengers and showed them a different way to leave? As a body without a spirit is dead, so is faith without deeds.

You know nothing of theology or what is apostolic. Read the church fathers you ignoramus. We are justified through faith and the blood of the cross, but there is no such thing as faith without works.

"This is my Body" come home to the Eucharist, brother.

stop presupposing the nature of the absolute

The book of Paul.

Although I don't agree with Christianity's whole 'divide God into three' methodology, Paul's interpretation of The Holy Spirit will do here for a justification just fine.

we are justified by faith apart from works
the works are evidence, just as jesus said "you will know them by their fruit". we are saved at the moment of sincerely believe (ephesians 1:13). thats why the fruit is called fruit of the spirit, first the spirit inhabits us, seals us with his guarantee of salvation, and then produces fruit to god's glory
paul wrote many books, you don't know what you're even quoting

The writings included in the New Testament...

The quran is a collection of non canonical Jewish legends that weren't even in the bible but just teaching stories used by rabbis, and Muhammad couldn't read so he assumed these oral stories were from bible.

be specific, give quotes

Jesus christ, you have a high standard for Veeky Forums. Who the fuck quotes books here? This isn't wikipedia or reddit.

You have Paul to thank for the current conception of Christianity. Just read the writings in the bible and I am certain he alludes to The Holy Spirit.

You're dumb as fuck.

The quran says whatever Muhammad and Allah orders you to do is good and what they prohibit is bad.

Which is why Muhammad dumb fuck followers didn't question when he told them to assassinate people who made fun of him and fight non believers.

you were sure wordy here
but then back off when asked to back up your own statements
fuck off if you're not gonna actually contribute

Faith and works are not mutually exclusive. Read the Church Fathers, they align with the Catholic faith. And so does scripture.

Make no mistake, my brothers, if anyone joins a schismatic he will not inherit God’s Kingdom. If anyone walks in the way of heresy, he is out of sympathy with the Passion. Be careful, then, to observe a single Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one cup of his blood that makes us one, and one altar, just as there is one bishop along with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow slaves. In that way whatever you do is in line with God’s will.- St. Ignatius

I have read the quran and know Arabic.

I'm ex muslim and studied in a Madrassa for 4 years. You seem to be just another larping 'exoticist' white boy who thinks he's cultured for praising Islam.

Islam is trash, all the arguments it offers for itself fall apart when looked at critically, when it is seen to be cult established by a lying murderer that it is.

I don't see why that quote is particularly catholic. I'm Protestant and agree with it, other than using those particular titles

And even further..

He that believes in the Son has everlasting life." Is it enough, then, to believe in the Son,' someone will say, 'in order to have everlasting life?' By no means! Listen to Christ declare this himself when he says, 'Not everyone who says to me, "Lord! Lord!" shall enter into the kingdom of heaven'; and the blasphemy against the Spirit is alone sufficient to cast him into hell. But why should I speak of a part of our teaching? For if a man believe rightly in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, but does not live rightly, his faith will avail him nothing toward salvation. - Saint Chrysostom

Paul, joining righteousness to faith and weaving them together, constructs of them the breastplates for the infantryman, armoring the soldier properly and safely on both sides. A soldier cannot be considered safely armored when either shield is disjoined from the other. Faith without works of justice is not sufficient for salvation; neither is righteous living secure in itself of salvation, if it is disjoined from faith- Gregory of Nyssa

You, then, who are rich and wealthy, buy for yourself from Christ gold purified in fire, for with your filth, as if burned away in the fire; you can be like pure gold, if you are cleansed by almsgiving and by works of justice. Buy yourself a white garment so that, although you had been naked like Adam and were formerly frightful and deformed, you may be clothed in the white garment of Christ. You who are a matron rich and wealthy, anoint not your eyes with the antimony of the devil, but with the salve of Christ, so that you may at last come to see God, when you have merited before God both by your works and by your manner of living- Cyprian

Let us therefore join with those to whom grace is given by God. Let us clothe ourselves in concord, being humble and self- controlled, keeping ourselves far from all backbiting and slander, being justified by works and not by words. . . . Why was our Father Abraham blessed? Was it not because of his deeds of justice and truth, wrought in faith? . . . So we, having been called through his will in Christ Jesus, were not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the almighty God justified all men- Clement of Rome

It is not, and is one of the best religions because of its embrace of the Singularity.

Any work which professes to have experienced or show miracles under the direction of, or because of, one God, is a good religion. It requires faith for this very reason to believe in God. And The Qu'ran is the only Abrahamic book to consistently use wildlife and the world around you as a proof of God's existence. Beautifully interwoven into the book.

The Qu'ran says not to murder because of your religion. Period.

Because the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist are not a mere symbol..They are truly the Lords Flesh and Blood. The early Church believed in this Eucharist. Christ Himself declares it John chapter 6. It also describes a visible Church instituted by Christ.

Thank you for the nice quotes?

I said earlier, if you read, I don't exactly agree with Paul's teachings of Christ, so that second quote is something I even agree with wholeheartedly.

that quote doesn't imply that its not a symbol

Okay, well, you just admitted you don't 'agree' with the inspired Word of God.

What do you believe?

You are a liar. It says fight (qatil, which also means kill) those who disbelieve.

Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.

Ah my mistake, I see now that Gregory of Nyssa was praising Paul. Yes that is the only quote I fundamentally disagree with.

Christ existed, but please note he never said to refer to him as 'God's only son'.

I take Islam's side on this issue.

However, Muslim's have a defeatist view towards God as well when they say that Muhammad was the 'last prophet'. Clearly there will be more miracles from God. This requires heavy faith and belief in God's work.

Jesus Himself declares it to be His true Flesh and Blood. How much more point blank can he get in John 6? He allows many to depart from Him because they find the teaching hard. Why would he do that if it were merely a symbol?

This is another quote by Ignatius--They [i.e. the Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that THE EUCHARIST IS THE FLESH OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again.

Here is Justin Martyr circa 100 AD

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, AND BY THE CHANGE OF WHICH our blood and flesh is nourished, IS BOTH THE FLESH AND THE BLOOD OF THAT INCARNATED JESUS.

And Irenaeus circa 140 AD

When, therefore, the mixed cup and the baked bread receives the Word of God and BECOMES THE EUCHARIST, THE BODY OF CHRIST, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, WHICH IS ETERNAL LIFE -- flesh which is nourished BY THE BODY AND BLOOD OF THE LORD…receiving the Word of God, BECOMES THE EUCHARIST, WHICH IS THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

There are many more quotes by the early Church Fathers which profess the same.

Many of these were regards to war. If you had actually read the Qu'ran you would know I am not lying.

The Qu'ran never says to kill another because of religion, it explicitly says NOT TO. God is real, and love is a proof used in the Qu'ran to prove he exists as well.

Stop it, you have lost before and you will lose again. The problem is that no one reads the Qu'ran with context or interpretation. They do it almost out of hate and fear. In case you haven't figured it out, ISIS is going to hell, because they are essentially misinterpreting their scripture. Says almost all other Muslims.

Read your fucking holy book again you wannabee God believer.

Okay, I thought you were a Protestant. There are miracles from God happening everyday. Look at the lives of the Saints. The world can bear the Divine.

you understand those could still be interpreted as symbolic
they aren't explicit. the closest thing to actually making an argument for your interpretation is
>He allows many to depart from Him because they find the teaching hard. Why would he do that if it were merely a symbol?
which is only a question, not really an argument. but Christ could have allowed them to go because their faith was weak and dependent upon easy teachings? your interpretation would make it cannibalism would it not?

I don't believe in any gods as I told you I reject islam.

If you had any idea of the context of these verses you would know that muhammads life was mostly taken up with ghazawat, battles against the infidels.

Have you even read his biography? Or spent time with Muslims learning Islam traditionally? He was a violent murderer as were his followers.

Yes and that is an aspect that most modern religious gloss over. That miracles could, and do, happen every day.

There were various tales of the sort. One man, and many sources, said he flew (yes flight) with God's faith back in the first Millenium. There was a story last decade about the waves stopping so a man could be saved by a boat. How many of these stories do you think could be true? How many are fabricated? Certainly not all of them.

God must be real. Or there would not be evidence around us all. In everything we do is an element of God. Some of the material reality may reflect God or Satan in how it is and what it professes to be. After all, vice is something that God wishes none of us have, but these sinful days it seems we are almost born with it.

Learning to live beyond evil and embrace the Good is what Plato teaches us. Here I think I will end this post, but you can see how Plato applies. 'The Good' that is high and hard to achieve. Heavy to strive for. The thing that is Phaedrus is praised for being more than simple rhetoric, the thing that is really almost unattainable is simply pure faith.

He lived in warlike times. You could say the same of any kingdom around his.

No, those aren't meant to be symbolic, the Church father never held such a view. Neither did Paul when he speaks of partaking in the Eucharist unworthy, which causes one to eat and drink judgement on himself. Justin Martyr even explicitly mentions the Eucharistic prayer.

It isn't cannibalism because the the accidental properties remain, thus there is a substantial change.

In order to become like truth, we must eat truth Himself.

>It isn't cannibalism because the the accidental properties remain, thus there is a substantial change.
so wheres it say this then?

I like Plato and am a platonis in many aspects. However, I think that all material reality is good by nature and only reflects God. Satan definitely has an influence on the world, but Evil is just an absence of a due good, as Aquinas and Augustine would say. So, evil functions as darkness, where darkness is just the absence of light, not a thing in of itself. Sin is also a product of free will, with free will, we will always have the option to sin.

I do agree with your sentiment in the first sentence. It would go against reason to deny those things.

What do you mean? Your reason and your senses can tell you that the bread and wine still remain. Thus, the change must be transubstantial. The definition of transubstantiation was put forth 500 years before the reformation.

And it is through this agreement that we get somewhere.

That definitely is an excellent way of looking at things. I will have to read Aquinas. Have you read Kierkegaard? Here is a philosopher who makes concrete arguments for free will and against determinism (the darkness, or Satan, as you would say)

It's funny how similar views can be when you read a little more. It's like all the great philosophers and theologians are intimating and hinting at the inevitable certainty of God's existence, and somehow this singularity is told through different acts of him and mankind. Certainly his character is defined, then. Now, this I would call wisdom.

These days, the institution of scientific understanding is lauded over wisdom. As if to say, we are smarter now than we've ever been. And this is shown to be dangerous behavior, if we've learned anything from history. Our empire looks like Xerxes' Persian empire marching on the Laconians, ready to be battered by God's storm.

Not a good enough reason to be a Muslim.

You're being anachronistic by reading the modern debate about transubstantiation into the early church fathers. You're even emphasizing certain parts of it that they didn't emphasize to influence the meaning. What are they actually responding to? It's certainly not Baptists. How did they understand the concept of a symbol? To them, did something "being" something else symbolically mean that it changes in its substance? Can a symbol be said to "be" the object it symbolizes without its substance altering? It's easy to look at the writings of these people and think they're saying something in modern terms when they are not.

Nope, I know a lot about the ancients, medieval, and moderns, but I still have a lot to learn about the contemporary philosophers. Any good introductory books to Kierkegaard?

A good introduction to Aquinas and his metaphysical schema can be found in the book Aquinas by Edward Fesser.

Very true, empiricism is not the be all and end all, it is useful for what it is, but people fail to understand it cannot answer everything. It seems as if we have lost sight of what truly matters. The denial of truths and knowledge outside of ourselves has caused us to error in a horrible way.

It is a response to the heresies which prevailed during the age, mainly gnosticism and arianism. The early christians were not dense, they understood the difference between a symbol and the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ. The defining of terms was merely a way to better explain what the Church Fathers have always believed.

If you cannot take Christ Himself and Paul at their word, your not going to take the early Christians at their word either. Let alone someone on the internet. A symbol does not signify what it contains, nor contain what it signifies. For example, a stop sign is just a symbol, it contains nothing, only the meaning we ascribe to it. It is not so for the Eucharist, which signifies what it contains, and contains what it signifies.

If you are sincere then I suggest you do some independent research and discover what was taught and believed. The Eucharist is a tangible fulfillment of Christ's promise to be with us to the end of the age.

Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is a great read. In it, you can really see and feel the connection between determinism and evil.

Augustine:
>Confessions
>City of God
>On Christian Doctrine
Boethius:
>The Consolation of Philosophy
Aquinas:
>Summa Theologiae
Thomas à Kempis:
>The Imitation of Christ
Martin Luther:
>Ninety-Five Theses
>On the Freedom of a Christian
John Calvin:
>Institutes of the Christian Religion
Saint Teresa of Ávila:
>The Way of Perfection
>The Interior Castle
Francis de Sales:
>Introduction to the Devout Life
Ludwig Feuerbach:
>The Essence of Christianity
Soren Kierkegaard:
>Either/Or
>Fear and Trembling
>The Sickness Unto Death
Leo Tolstoy:
>A Confession
Vladimir Solovyov:
>The Meaning of Love
>G.K. Chesterton:
>Orthodoxy
>Manalive
>The Everlasting Man
Martin Buber:
>I and Thou
Karl Barth:
>Church Dogmatics
C.S. Lewis:
>The Problem of Pain
>Mere Christianity
>The Abolition of Man
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
>The Cost of Discipleship
>Life Together
Alvin Platinga:
>God and Other Minds
>The Nature of Necessity
>God, Freedom, and Evil
>Warranted Christian Belief

>It is a response to the heresies which prevailed during the age, mainly gnosticism and arianism.
Yes, they're dealing with different questions than what you are. Something they say may sound pertinent to you but it may not actually be because the discussion is focused around different issues entirely.
>The early christians were not dense, they understood the difference between a symbol and the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ. The defining of terms was merely a way to better explain what the Church Fathers have always believed.
I am not calling them "dense." I am saying that their presuppositions about what a symbol is are not necessarily the same as yours.
>If you cannot take Christ Himself and Paul at their word, your not going to take the early Christians at their word either. Let alone someone on the internet.
This is just begging the question.
>A symbol does not signify what it contains, nor contain what it signifies. For example, a stop sign is just a symbol, it contains nothing, only the meaning we ascribe to it. It is not so for the Eucharist, which signifies what it contains, and contains what it signifies.
A symbol can be understood as being what it signifies while not changing into the thing which it signifies. The Nicene Creed, the "symbol of faith" for instance, *is* the faith, but it has not transubstantiated into the faith. This is a non-modern view, of course. You're reading a specific understanding of "symbol" into people who did not necessarily understand a symbol in that way.
>If you are sincere then I suggest you do some independent research and discover what was taught and believed. The Eucharist is a tangible fulfillment of Christ's promise to be with us to the end of the age.
Many Protestants could happily agree with your last sentence, you know? But of course they won't mean the same thing as you.

Okay, I will give it a read.

Also, as I reflected on what you said I realized you made a great point. The similarities in thinkers who at first glance seem to be so different is a testament to the fact that pure reason can take us fairly far in the ascent to an ultimate truth. It does imply that object truths and even natural law does exist, and that we can know a great deal about them through our reflection, whether we are musing over the existence of God, moral truths, ect.

Yes! Exactly. I do believe in moral truths for that very reason. God bless you and merry Christmas

Well, it is evident that we are not going to come to any sort of mutual agreement. All I ask is that you research and I am confident if you read the Church Fathers, in depth, on more issues than just the Eucharist, you will come to the correct conclusion. I will sincerely pray that if it be in accordance with God's will that you be able to accept these teachings. As a fellow Christian, I wish you nothing but the best on your faith journey.

God bless and Merry Christmas to you as well!

Fair enough. This isn't a day to argue anyway. Merry Christmas and God bless.

Indeed. God Bless and Merry Christmas, brother.

Christian Theology:

The Bible: I suggest ESV, NKJ. Go for a literal translation from the Greek and Hebrew not a paraphrase like The Message or NIV

Catholic:
Augustine, Aquinas, Chesterton

Lutheran: Book of Concord

Reformed: Calvin's Institutes, Francis Schaeffer trilogy

Other: CS Lewis's Mere Christianity. Tolstoy's theological writings

Those are a few things I would suggest to start with.They contradict each other, but there is also a unity in them also in that none of them step outside of what it means to be Christian.

Thy Thou hither and tither.
Am I a majestic King James yet?

Ad homenim

hominem

quran too

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>theology
>Koran
pick one

The floods are a reference to babylonian texts that were talking about boats to prevent stock and lifestock damage from often occuring floods. Jews of old testament made a hollywood blockbuster out of the babylonian how to.

...