Self, death and afterlife Flashcards
What are the meanings and purposes of life?
To glorify God and have a personal relationship with him. To prepare for judgement. To bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth.
Give a Biblical Quotation that supports To glorify God and have a personal relationship with him.
‘God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good’ Genesis
What does ‘God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good’ say?
They represent God’s qualities to everything else that God has made, and to one another. By reproducing and filling the Earth, they are supposed to spread the qualities of God that they represent over the whole Earth.
What is a biblical quotation that supports the purpose of their existence is to represent and spread God’s glory?
‘we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father’ John
How do these influence Christians in multiple ways?
They try to make their own lives more God-like in order to represent them better in the world. They draw people’s attention to God’s qualities in the world by talking and writing about them. They engage in worship which draws on and reflects back God’s glory.
What do Christian’s do to build a close relationship with God?
Communicating through prayer. Aiming to know God better through studying the Bible. Trying to model their lives on the life of Jesus. Trying to follow Jesus’ teachings, because Christians believe that God can be known through the person of Jesus Christ.
Explain to prepare for judgement. Include references to God.
Adam and Eve were persuaded by the serpent to disobey God, and as a result, they were banished from the garden. Christianity teaches that God paid for the sin of humanity by suffering.
Give a quotation that relates to prepare for judgement.
‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ Corinthians
What does the image of the Last Judgement imply?
To remind worshippers that they would have to face judgement.
Talk about Christian’s responses to evil
Christians who respond to those evils with compassion and generosity become better people.
Talk about Hick and the existence of evil.
Hick argues that God made humans free to choose good or evil, so that true virtues are those gained through freely overcoming temptations and trials. In Hicks’s view, the existence of evil is essential to developing moral perfection.
Explain To bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth
A more holistic view is that humans are part of the whole fabric of creation, and that the purpose of everything in creation is to bring to completion God’s work by bringing about God’s Kingdom on Earth. Jewish scriptures take God’s kingship for granted because God created everything. However, by the time of Jesus, the Jews were expecting a Messiah who would free them from the oppression of Roman Rule, as both an earthly king and a spiritual leader.
What is Matthew’s similar term that relates to Kingdom of God?
Kingdom of Heaven. He is linking the kingship of God over all creation to the possibility that there will come a time when all of the created order, on Earth as well as in heaven, will follow God’s laws.
What is the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples?
‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven’
What does ‘your kingdom come, your will be done, as earth as in Heaven’
This hope is an eschatological, relates to the end of time. They believe that one day, Jesus Christ will return to Earth in glory, and sin and death will be eliminated. However, other Christians see the whole purpose of their existence as a responsibility to work towards creating perfection on Earth. This means that they not only try to build up their own relationship with God, and develop virtues to make them more like God, but also work to bring about the conditions of a perfect heaven.
