However, this view also holds this; if one does abandon the faith and turn away from God, then they were never actually apart of the body of Christ and were indeed never ultimately guaranteed salvation through Christ. ... In 2 Peter 2:20 Peter fears for those who have begun once again to sin after getting out of it, for they will be in a worse state then they were prior. ... First, since there are several other passages stating we cannot lose our salvation, then we must not take these verses to mean we can. ... Thirdly, just because verses speak of such things as "falling from grace&quo...

• Word Count: 2774
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

Assuming there is no end to this regression of causes, this succession of events would be infinite. ... If it did, there would be no first cause of change and, consequently, no other causes of change.... If there is no one who has the gift, the gift cannot be passed down the chain of receivers, however long or short the chain may be. If everyone has to borrow a certain book, but no one actually has it, then no one will ever get it. If there is no God who has existence by his own eternal nature, then the gift of existence cannot be passed down the chain of creatures and we can never get it. ...

• Word Count: 2697
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

However, experience has consistently taught me that when I get up, there is more in store for me than I could ever achieve while in bed. ... Christ, who is always the teacher, explains to this father that if he believes, there is no limit to the miracles that can take place. ... He allowed the father to state verbally his belief so that the father's faith could then be strengthened. ... Nephi declared that we must "follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent" (2 Nephi 31:13). ... "Some [seeds] fell upon...

• Word Count: 3373
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

(John 3:16, NRSV) "But to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God." ... If there is any part of creation outside of God=s sovereign control, then God is simply not sovereign. If God is not sovereign, then God is not God" (p. 26). ... If this definition is accurate, then this is not only irrational, it is unbiblical. ... Where there is no inclination, no disposition, or no motive, then there can be no exercise of free choice. ...

• Word Count: 5514
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

If He has someone equal in Authority, that is the second God, then both gods will no longer be unique and would not have the ultimate power. Hence, this cannot be associated with God, and there is simple logic in believing that there exists only one God. Arguing on Corporeity of God and that if God exists, then He should have a body and visibility, Tertullian briefs that, God do have a body but unlike that of humans. ... During this time, there were other groups opposing his concepts and considered Christ to be a human with no divine power. ... Marcoin's argument was based on the exoteri...

• Word Count: 2524
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Why feel so sorry for a child who dies if they were just as cruel as some adult? ... Children are like chalkboards, when they start out there's no writing on them, but after a while chalk starts to build up on the board masking it, and so you have disguised your chalkboard. ... then everything would be made clear. ... They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony... There must be no more of this monks, no more torturing of children, rise up and preach that, make haste, make haste! ...

• Word Count: 2613
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

However, to a caveman, if you said that you were going to cast a spell for a good hunt, and then the hunters came back with a bison, you had special power. ... However, this piece is just a stone slab, there are no precious stones. ... Art is no exception. ... They were so huge, there are other monuments just to the installation of one of these monuments. ... There is some truth to this myth th...

• Word Count: 2959
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

(Damrosch 1243-5) In the Victorian Age there were many doubts about several different issues. ... There were arguments about rights for different economic classes, the sexes, and the separation between religion and government. ... It is probably hard for anyone during Victorian times to deal with grief because there is no more happy satisfaction that there is a heaven. ... If you are good then before people thought they would go to heaven. ... Once there is no God in their society, Browning shows that there are no morals. ...

• Word Count: 2549
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Then, a comet hit the earth and the dinosaurs disappeared. Mammals, including primates, were then able to evolve. ... Then they started to walk on their two hind legs. ... They were then able to make fire, shelter and many tools for living and evolving as people. ... They remembered how they had been invaded from the north and decided to no longer rely on their geographical location to protect themselves. ...

• Word Count: 4738
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: High School

I then make the case that the views of morality and meaning found in The Road imply that morality does not depend upon God for its existence or justification. ... Ely wonders about being the last person left alive: "Suppose you were the last one left? ... Where men cant live gods fare no better " (McCarthy 172). ... Strikingly, Ely simultaneously denies the existence of God and declares himself to be a prophet in a single paradoxical sentence: "There is no God and we are his prophets " (170). ... There was no argument " (58). ...

• Word Count: 8991
• Approx Pages: 36
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

No parable of Jesus has been used or quoted more than that of "The Prodigal Son-. ... When you and I miss the concept of God as "Abba- then we seriously jeopardize our relationship and view of our heavenly Father. ... "Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons."" ... He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything."" ... He realized that he no longer had claims on his father's goods, and morally he no longer has the right to be called a son; but if not a son then maybe a servant. ...

• Word Count: 3350
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

If the stoicheon is not an element (water, air, fire, etc.) then it is a being that has the capacity to create, a being that creates from nothing. ... Augustine, Anselm and Clement of Alexandria were among those who taught philosophy and secular knowledge as handmaids of theology8. ... " Anselm says that we should seek first, then desire of what we seek, that we may be eager in finding the thing which we seek and desire. ... He thus refers to the Letter to the Hebrews: "By faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made of thi...

• Word Count: 4208
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

When I watch a sitcom from my childhood, like "MASH", I think, "How innocent things were back then." ... "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." ... And I certainly knew that I had no other gods! ... Then I was convicted. ... For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. ...

• Word Count: 2596
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

The demons of Mesopotamia were usually hostile spirits and lower than the gods in both dignity and power (Russell 1977, 92). ... There were demons of plagues, graveyards, nightmares, headaches, and so forth. ... Even though there was a history of daemonology in place before the Greeks and Romans began to develop their own, the Greeks were the first to question the origin and nature of evil in strictly philosophical terms. ... Moreover, there is no mention of a single principle of evil. ... In Homer, we find a daimon with no visible shape, no mind, and no history (Brenk 1986, 2081). ...

• Word Count: 2828
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

There are many purposes behind why the parables were written. ... "Starting from the time that Jesus chose to say this parable, this was by no means accidental. ... Jesus said this parable when many people were coming to him to hear the Word of God. ... In this parable Jesus uses a similarity of a farmer or a sower as he plants his field in the beginning of the season, and then it tells what happens to the four different types of seeds that were planted. ... There are four different types of people or soils. ...

• Word Count: 2530
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

In Blake's epoch, children were considered to be sinful before God for only the ones who accepted Christ were forgiven and were the heirs of eternal life. ... According to Blake the children were not born condamned but were the owners of innocent souls which were in close touch with God. They were His constant companions. ... There is a triple parallel in the person of the lamb: Christ- Lamb of God, the lambs of Christ's flock and a lamb, the animal as the symbol of one or the other. ... The lamb is then the child of God who is well taken after? ...

• Word Count: 2918
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

He was also 75 years old with no child. ... There were three promises that would affect Abram personally, the nation of Israel, and the nations of the world in general. ... There is a saying, "For every action there must be a reaction.... They were getting impatient with God's timing. ... We have no idea what tomorrow holds. ...

• Word Count: 3094
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

Can it then be true that our religious beliefs are but a mere attempt to subconsciously justify ourselves? ... Yet we are promised that if we attempt to sanctify our lives then we shall be assisted from above. Supposing even greater uncertainty, Heschel posits a standard for judging religious insight: if it manifests oneness or love then it is most likely correct, if it generates pride, separation, or evil, then it is not in Her way. ... How is it then, that we begin to establish this relationship with our Creator? ... "It is as if God were unwilling to be alone, and She had chosen man t...

• Word Count: 3573
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: High School

Later on, in 1837, Tolstoy's father died and they were brought up by their aunt. ... Then it was followed by Boyhood in 1854 and Youth in 1857. ... Ivan knows no news about his family and knows not whether his wife is alive or dead. ... Among the new convicts, there is a tall man in his sixties named Makar Semyonich, he tells the other that he is in the prison for nothing but he should have been there for something he has done before, and declares that he is from Vladimir. ... Makar slaps his knee and happily tells Ivan that is wonderful he meets him there but tells Ivan that he has grow...

• Word Count: 4087
• Approx Pages: 16
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

that there's a power at work imposing order, design, structure and purpose in creation. ... Such innocuous-sounding, even camouflaged assertions by Hume were in actuality a D-Day invasion on the Normandy Beach of the Deists. ... "Why torture your brain to justify the course of nature upon suppositions, which, for aught you know, may be entirely imaginary, and of which there are to be found no traces in the course of nature?" Then, Hume raises an objection. ... We have no experience to arbitrate here, there is no existing genus of thought. ...

• Word Count: 4391
• Approx Pages: 18
• Has Bibliography

If 2:3 indicates that Haggai saw Solomon's temple before it was destroyed, then he must have been at least seventy years old at the time of his prophesy. ... Those who did return were probably the poorer ones who had nothing to lose in such ventures. ... Until the people turned their attention to this priority, there would be no prosperity for them. 1.4 The Solution for the People (1:7-11) The Lord gives another reminder that their expectations of provisions continue to fall short because the temple lay in ruins while their houses stood finished and furnished. ... The Lord again tells...

• Word Count: 3103
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Odin and Ymir In the beginning of time, there was nothing: neither sand, nor sea, nor cool waves. ... These three were invisible. The earth was young then, and land floated like oil, and from it reed shoots sprouted. ... Disappointed by their failures in procreation, they returned to Heaven and consulted the deities there. ... First she sent the thunder deities after him, and then she herself pursued him. ...

• Word Count: 3045
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

 AN EXEGESIS OF 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7 There are perhaps few passages within the Pauline Corpus1 that have so much ambiguity involved as that of 2 Cor 12:7. ... " There are questions about the dative use of th/: sarkiv. ... However, the dative of disadvantage does fit well.17 τῇ σαρκί would then refer to something that was a disadvantage for Paul's worldliness. ... The thorn was obviously given to Paul, but because there is no agent mentioned to have given the thorn to Paul, it is assumed that ἐδόθη is a use of the divine passive. ... Then in 2 Cor 11 he starts...

• Word Count: 3123
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

This is where a lot of skeptics try to discredit religion as something false and made up since there is no proof to back its teachings up, and in a civilization where proof is the only way people will start to believe. ... Freud believes that if there was a great improvement in the way we handle human relations, civilization would be freed of its dissatisfactions. ... Freud points that the two biggest reasons that some degree of coercion is necessary is due to our nature of not being spontaneously fond of work, and due to that fact that arguments are of no purpose against our passions. ... ...

• Word Count: 3198
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Lodahl then makes an analogy from our own bodies to demonstrate this point; that we "know and feel our own bodies not from a distance, but from within, in immediate sympathy" (GNG, 119-120). It is in this immediate context that Lodahl then refers to McFague's comment referred to above. ... If God is indeed God the creator and who has divine self-existence that belongs to God alone, and which is not derived from any world, then God must be other than the world. ... Hence, Lodahl totally misses my point in his reply that "I am entirely unsure as to what such a rendering of...

• Word Count: 4369
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: Undergraduate