Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

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1. Alienation, existential loneliness, isolation, to be unloved.

2. Sin - pride: to be turned inward on our own feelings, to do what we do not want to do and know it wrong, to destroy that which is Good (beautiful, real and virtuous).

3. Death - that everything we value will be swept away and lost as if it never were.

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Alienation leads to Despair.

Sin leads to Guilt.

Death leads to Terror.

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The work of Christ was threefold.

1. Incarnation.

2. Death.

3. Resurrection.

By these Christ is our saviour from Despair, Guilt and Terror

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1. Christmas: By the incarnation in this world, Man was taken up into God, and made a Son of God, a brother to Christ who calls God not just Father but 'Daddy' (Abba): we are invited to become part of the Holy Family bound by mutual love.

2. The week leading to Good Friday: By Christ's death, his self-sacrifice, all sin was put to death, Man was purified of sin.

3. Easter Day, Ascension, Pentecost: By Christ's resurrection he made a path on the other side of death, leading to Heaven, and for all his brothers - the Sons of God - to follow.

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Christ offers, therefore, the answer to all problems of life: by the Holy Ghost he offers earthly intimations of the Heavenly reality - utter belonging, unsullied joy and total significance - which will eternally be ours, if we choose.

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These are the promises of Christianity; no other religion or spirituality or ideology offers anything to approach the promises of Christianity.

Therefore either Christianity is uniquely dishonest in its promises, indeed the only essentially false world view.

Or, Christianity knows something that nobody and nothing else knows.


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