THE ROOTS OF HUMANITYETH301 – ETHICS

WUV – SPRING 2021

ON BEING HUMAN – JESUS WORDSOF LOVE, SERVICE, AND FREEDOM

• The Sabbath was made for Humanity, not Humanity for the Sabbath

• The Son of Man came not to be served but to Serve

• Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God as something to hold onto, but emptied himself and took up the form of a Servant

• God so loved the world that he emptied himself of his Son, that whoever would believe in Him should not be left alone, but joined with others in eternal living.

HUMANITY WITHIN IDEALISM AND DUALISM

• Rene Descartes: I think therefore I am• The primary function and role of the Human Mind• Not, what is Truth, but of what can I be Certain. – My Mind as a thinking thing, My Body which houses my Mind• The secondary (and of lesser value) the function and role of the Human Body• Mind over matter

• Immanuel Kant: Transcendental Realism – Objects cannot be know in themselves, only as they are experience / appear to the individual under the circumstances of our awareness

• Space and time do not have an existence "outside" of us, but are the "subjective" forms of our sensibility and hence the necessary a priori conditions under which the objects we encounter in our experience can appear to us at all. Kant describes time and space as "empirically real" but transcendentally ideal.

CHRISTOLOGY – PNEUMATOLOGY – ECCLESIOLOGYFINDING THE PERSON IN HUMANITY

• The Kantian Human – Self – Objective – Knowing – Subject / Object dilemma • Schopenhauer says of Kant's doctrine of the ideality of space and time: "Before Kant, it may be

said, we were in time; now time is in us. In the first case, time is real and, like everything lying in time, we are consumed by it. In the second case, time is ideal; it lies within us."

• Opposing Kantian transcendental idealism is the doctrine of philosophical realism, that is, the proposition that the world is knowable as it really is, without any consideration of the knower's manner of knowing. Realism claims, contrary to idealism, that perceived objects exist in the way that they appear, in and of themselves, independent of a knowing spectator's mind.

• The Object to be known determines the method of knowing it. Reality Exists

CHRISTOLOGY – PNEUMATOLOGY – ECCLESIOLOGYFINDING THE PERSON IN HUMANITY

• John 1:1-18 – A careful review of the relationship between Word – Flesh – Us (Incarnation)• In the beginning – all things – made – nothing that was made – life – love – grace – truth• Sin and the estrangement of darkness – the human impact – self-assessment – self-awareness

• The Kierkegaardian Human – Self – Subjective – Engaging – Thou – I • Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual",

giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.

• John MacMurray – The Human as Agent and Humans as Persons

God as Triune:Relational,

Loving,Reaching out

Self – Isolation – Estrangement –

Defensive – Alone –Tabula Raza

Other 1

HUMANITY UNDERSTOOD GRAPHICALLYTHE ONE AND THE MANY

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Significant other

Self defining but Self InsecureSelf at Center but seeming off centerOthers as objects, means, managementOthers as external – suspect – opaque

HUMANITY UNDERSTOOD GRAPHICALLYGod as Father

Jesus – Son

Holy Spirit

Inca

rnat

ion

/ Rev

elatio

nLove – Experience – IdentificationSuffering – Emptying – Obedience

Response / Atonement

The Spirit of JesusThe Son of the God

God as a dynamic

relationship of love and

triune mutuality

What if God was actuallyA relational being: already Open,Loving, At Peace, Mutually Aware,In Memory and Hope with Grace?

What if Humanity as created inThe Image of God was intended To be like God in Mutual Help, Feelings, Awareness, Peace?

God Hides in Humanity Humanity Revealed in Jesus

Self – Isolation – Estrangement –

Defensive – Alone –Tabula Raza

Other 1

HUMANITY UNDERSTOOD GRAPHICALLYTHE ONE AND THE MANY

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Significant other

Self defining but Self InsecureSelf at Center but seeming off centerOthers as objects, means, managementOthers as external – suspect – opaque

DIVINE KENOSIS AND EK-STASIS HUMAN ( TO EMPTY AND TO EXTEND )

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Other 1

Defined by relationships with othersSelf as a part of relationships with otherExtend is a part of being in relationshipsRecognize All as significant others

Self – Open – Loving – Mutuality

– Connected –Image of God

SignificantOther

SignificantOther

SignificantOther

Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh

SignificantOther

SignificantOther

SignificantOther

DIVINE KENOSIS AND EK-STASIS HUMAN ( TO EMPTY AND TO EXTEND )

AdamEve

Gen 1 – Godas Creator(ex nihil)

John 1 – The Wordas Creator(ex nihil)

Abraham

CainSeth

All Nations

Gen 12 Covenant Promise to all nations

Gen 10 Disobedienceof all nations

JudahIsrael

King David

The Promise of GoodNews through Isaiah,Jeremiah: Messiah

A Servant from theBranch of DavidIsa 43:10; 42:1-4; 53

John 1 Jesus

Christ

Father

Holy Spirit

John 1 Jesus

Christ

Father

Holy Spirit

Church

THE NATURE OF COMMUNITY / ETHICS OF SERVICE

• To overcome defensiveness there has to be vulnerability – emptying oneself of center

• To love is to see in the other what is truly there, not as object, but as actual subject

• To intensify the other is the honor and acceptance of the other as an end not a means

• The Sabbath was made for Humanity, not Humanity for the Sabbath

• The Son of Man came not to be served but to Serve

• Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God as something to hold onto, but emptied himself and took up the form of a Servant

• God so loved the world that he emptied himself of his Son, that whoever would believe in Him should not be left alone, but joined with others in eternal living.