A KISSed History of Beliefs

[GWH]

With the preceding post as context, let us reconsider the development of Christianity from the persecution of Nero until the conversion of Constantine.

The RE Nero instituted the persecution of Christians, murdering St. Peter and probably St. Paul in 67, about the time Mark’s Gospel was written, which seems to have been before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, since that event was not mentioned. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke incorporated much of Mark’s version of the life and teachings of Jesus, while the Gospel of John was a later and more theological work, emphasizing that Jesus was Messiah or Son of God.

Thus, by the end of the first century GW per the OT was known to Jews from Jerusalem to Rome, and GW per the NT was known only to a few thousand Christians including Messianic Jews as they left the synagogues to form churches and Gentiles associated them. Much of GW was transmitted orally as the gospels and epistles were being collected and copied. It would be interesting to know how their understanding of the Creed compares with ours, but it seems unlikely that it would be very complete, which is why it was problematic for Christians about the time of Irenaeus (c.180) to view unity as submission to the authority of bishops, and then for the bishop of Rome to gain a predominant position among Christian churches by 200, before the New Testament was canonized.

During this period NT teaching regarding salvation via personal faith in Jesus as Lord and obedience to his command for universal love was supplanted by a belief that stressed conformity to the interpretation and authority of Roman Catholicism (RC). Tertullian (d.c.220) was the first person to speak of God as a Trinity, and he became a follower of Montanism, which taught continuing ecstatic prophecy was equally as authoritative as the doctrines of the original apostles. Origen (d.254) wrote De principiis, interpreting scripture allegorically and espousing universal salvation.

About 260, Plotinus wrote the Enneads, the founding document of Neo-Platonism, which taught that there is a transcendent “One” that is beyond being, although we identify it with Good and Beauty, and that existents emanate from the One in succeeding stages of declining perfection from nous (logos, reason) to world soul to human soul to matter. About 310, Apollinarius maintained that Christ was God incarnate in opposition to Arius, who denied that Christ was eternally begotten of God.

After Trajan, the RE declined as non-Christian (pagan or heathen) Germanic tribes (Goths, Franks, Alemanni, Saxons, Thuringians, etc.) gained strength. Germanic and Norse religion was polytheistic, with Odin as chief god. Its earliest extant source document is the Eddas (probably composed about 850). During the reign of Diocletian, the RE was divided east and west in 285, until it was reunited by Constantine in 308, who ended the persecution of Christians with an edict in 313. He moved the capitol to Constantinople in 331.

Perhaps there are some CC folks who have studied this history enough to be able to share with us the content of the Christian Creed as manifested by the Nicene or other creeds?

 

[GWH]

Here is the text of the Nicene Creed that I found online:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages.
Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.
And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.
And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father;
and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead;
whose Kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit.

Following the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381, the Creed was further supplemented with the following:

And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
who spoke by the prophets.
In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

 

[GWH]

An early version of what later became the Apostles’ Creed, called the “Old Roman Creed,” was in use as early as the second century (Kelly, Creeds, 101). The earliest written form of this creed is found in a letter that Marcellus of Ancyra wrote in Greek to Julius, the bishop of Rome, about AD 341. About 50 years later, Tyrannius Rufinus wrote a commentary on this creed in Latin (Commentarius in symbolum apostolorum). In it, he recounted the viewpoint that the apostles wrote the creed together after Pentecost, before leaving Jerusalem to preach (Symb. 2). The title “Apostles’ Creed” is also mentioned about 390 by Ambrose, where he refers to “the creed of the Apostles which the Church of Rome keeps and guards in its entirety” (Ep. 42, trans. in Saint Ambrose: Letters).

The text of the Old Roman Creed is as follows, with the last phrase (included by Marcellus but omitted by Rufinus) in brackets (Kelly, Creeds, 102):

I believe in God the Father almighty;
and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord,
Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,
on the third day rose again from the dead,
ascended into heaven,
sits at the right hand of the Father,
whence he will come to judge the living and the dead;
and in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Church,
the remission of sins,
the resurrection of the flesh,
[life everlasting].

 

[GWH]

How do these creeds compare with the elaborated Gospel kerygma/GRFS that I have shared?

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2CR 4:5 & CL 2:6). The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (DT 6:4, JN 3:16, 2THS 1:6), who is both able (2TM 1:12) and willing (1TM 2:3-4) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (RM 3:23, 2TM 3:2-4, CL 3:5), miserable (GL 5:19-21), and hopeless (EPH 2:12) when they reject God’s salvation or DOD (JN 3:18).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ or the way (means of providing salvation) that God has chosen (JN 3:16, ACTS 16:30-31, PHP 2:9-11), although pre-NT truthseekers could/can learn a proto-gospel via general revelation combined with conscience.
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (LK 2:11, JN 14:6, ACTS 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (MT 22:37-40, JN 13:35, RM 13:9)—forever (MT 10:22, PS 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (RV 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning God’s Word everyone cooperates fully with His will (RM 8:6-17, GL 6:7-9, EPH 1:13-14, HB 10:36, 12:1, JM 1:2-4).

 

[GWH]

All three statements of the Christian Creed begin by affirming faith in one God, but only the first specifically includes His role as Creator, although that is implied by "almighty" in the second and by "able" in the third.

All three affirm faith in Jesus as Christ and Lord, but #3 omits Son and inserts between God and Jesus the belief that humans are sinners in need of salvation.

The first two mention belief in Jesus being incarnate or born of the HS and virgin Mary without specifying how this was done, whereas this is omitted in #3 because it is not stressed as a necessary belief either in the gospels or in the epistles of Paul.

The first two cite belief that Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended without noting that this atoned for the sins of humanity, and #3 mentions the means of salvation without specifying the three aspects. All three Creeds could be improved in this regard by connecting the three details of Christ's work with mention that it is by this means that atonement was accomplished.

Does anyone else want to continue analyzing the three Creeds?

 

[posthuman]

Genesis says absolutely nothing about the "Universe". If God, with a Word, spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, and Christ is that Word, then words mean things.

The word universe will not be found in the original languages of the bible. A brief web search indicates the first English usage of the word universe was from Chaucer in the late 1500's

We should be very careful about using worldly terminology when describing the works and ways of God.

John 1:10 - - the cosmos ((universe)) was made through Him.

 

[GWH]

John 1:10 - - the cosmos ((universe)) was made through Him.

The Creeds do not say anything about the universe (although no English words will be found in the biblical languages :^)

 

[posthuman]

The Creeds do not say anything about the universe (although no English words will be found in the biblical languages :^)

Nicene Creed:
"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen"

 

[GWH]

Nicene Creed:
"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen"

I assume your post means that you like the Nicene Creed saying "heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen" rather than "universe, right?

Do you want to take a turn analyzing the three Creeds in order to see what the first two reveal about Christians' understanding in that historical era regarding God's requirement for salvation?

 

[GWH]

All three statements of the Christian Creed begin by affirming faith in one God, but only the first specifically includes His role as Creator, although that is implied by "almighty" in the second and by "able" in the third.

All three affirm faith in Jesus as Christ and Lord, but #3 omits Son and inserts between God and Jesus the belief that humans are sinners in need of salvation.

The first two mention belief in Jesus being incarnate or born of the HS and virgin Mary without specifying how this was done, whereas this is omitted in #3 because it is not stressed as a necessary belief either in the gospels or in the epistles of Paul.

The first two cite belief that Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended without noting that this atoned for the sins of humanity, and #3 mentions the means of salvation without specifying the three aspects. All three Creeds could be improved in this regard by connecting the three details of Christ's work with mention that it is by this means that atonement was accomplished.

Does anyone else want to continue analyzing the three Creeds?

The Nicene Creed continues by saying that Jesus will "come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, whose Kingdom shall have no end, and in the Holy Spirit."
Following the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381, the Creed was further supplemented with the following:

"And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets."

The Old Roman Creed continues by saying Jesus "will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, [life everlasting]."

#3 or the Kerygma Elaboration continues by saying:

4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (LK 2:11, JN 14:6, ACTS 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (MT 22:37-40, JN 13:35, RM 13:9)—forever (MT 10:22, PS 113:2).

5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (RV 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning God’s Word everyone cooperates fully with His will (RM 8:6-17, GL 6:7-9, EPH 1:13-14, HB 10:36, 12:1, JM 1:2-4).

Continuing with the comparison of the three creeds, we note:

Regarding the Second Coming, #1 & #2 say Jesus will judge the living and the dead, and #1 refers to his kingdom having no end, whereas #3 neglected to mention the judgment or hell (which needs to be corrected).

Regarding the Holy Spirit (HS), #1 says the HS "is" worshipped along with the Father and the Son, and spoke by the prophets, whereas #2 merely cites the HS and #3 describes the HS as the way God has a saving relationship with Christians.

Regarding the church, #1 affirms belief in "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church", and #2 merely listed "the holy Church", whereas #3 did not view this belief as required for salvation but rather as a subsequent doctrine.

Regarding baptism, #1 affirms that it is "for the remission of sins", and #2 affirms belief in the remission of sins without mentioning baptism. #3 views remission of sins as included in the phrase, "means of providing salvation" (but perhaps this should be specified), and it also views baptism as a secondary doctrine that can be clarified following salvation.

Regarding the conclusion of the creeds, #1 says "I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come", and #2
affirms belief in "the resurrection of the flesh", whereas #3 views this as implied by the phrase "that will eventually achieve heaven".

Are there any comments or other comparisons y'all want to make?

 

[GWH]

Here is the new and improved Kerygma/Creed #3 that includes some elements in the Nicened and Apostle's Creeds that were worth adding:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (DT 6:4, JN 3:16, 2THS 1:6), who is both able (2TM 1:12) and willing (1TM 2:3-4) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (RM 3:23, 2TM 3:2-4, CL 3:5), miserable (GL 5:19-21), and hopeless (EPH 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (MT 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (JN 3:18, RM 2:5-11).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (JN 3:16, ACTS 16:30-31, PHP 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (RM 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1CR 15:14-28).
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (LK 2:11, JN 14:6, ACTS 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (MT 22:37-40, JN 13:35, RM 13:9)—forever (MT 10:22, PS 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (RV 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word everyone cooperates fully with His will (JN 14:6, 17&26, RM 8:6-17, GL 6:7-9, EPH 1:13-14, HB 10:36, 12:1, JM 1:2-4).

We should note that the old creeds did not cite Scripture as authority for the affirmations, because they were composed before the Bible was divided into chapters and verses (c. 1560) and thus before citing such became a common practice.

 

[GWH]

Here is the new and improved Kerygma/Creed #3 that includes some elements in the Nicened and Apostle's Creeds that were worth adding:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (DT 6:4, JN 3:16, 2THS 1:6), who is both able (2TM 1:12) and willing (1TM 2:3-4) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (RM 3:23, 2TM 3:2-4, CL 3:5), miserable (GL 5:19-21), and hopeless (EPH 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (MT 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (JN 3:18, RM 2:5-11).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (JN 3:16, ACTS 16:30-31, PHP 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (RM 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1CR 15:14-28).
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (LK 2:11, JN 14:6, ACTS 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (MT 22:37-40, JN 13:35, RM 13:9)—forever (MT 10:22, PS 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (RV 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word everyone cooperates fully with His will (JN 14:6, 17&26, RM 8:6-17, GL 6:7-9, EPH 1:13-14, HB 10:36, 12:1, JM 1:2-4).

We should note that the old creeds did not cite Scripture as authority for the affirmations, because they were composed before the Bible was divided into chapters and verses (c. 1560) and thus before citing such became a common practice.

Now that the Kerygma Creed is amended/improved by incorporating elements of the Nicene and Apostle's Creed that were overlooked, it behooves us to note that those creeds overlooked appropriate mention of some elements including:

a. Mention of the reason humanity needs salvation.

b. Mention that humans who accept Christ as Lord will manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

c. Mention that those who have saving faith will persevere in learning God's Word until death so they will grow in love and unity.

 

[GWH]

Now that we have considered the development of Christianity from the persecution of Nero until the conversion of Constantine by examining the Nicene and Apostle's Creed, let us move on to consider the transition from Christianity to Roman Catholicism (RC). In 386, Augustine decided to convert to RC, returning from Milan to Carthage before settling in Hippo and writing prolifically until his death in 430 what became the dominant RC theology. Especially significant were his doctrines regarding original sin, predestination, infant baptism and papal supremacy. (The doctrine of predestination was adopted by John Calvin and is accepted by many who post on CC.) RC theology was dominant in Christendom through the Middle Ages until the Protestant Reformation. The Christological controversy continued with Nestorius opposed to calling Mary the “mother of God” because it denied Jesus’ humanity, prompting Cyril of Alexandria to convene the Council of Ephesus in 431.

After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the RE was redivided permanently, and the western part weakened as Rome was sacked by Visigoths from Dacia (Romania) in 410 (before they established a kingdom in Gaul and Spain in 419), then in 455 by Vandals from the Baltic area (who had migrated across Europe to Spain and then across the straits of Gibraltar and eastward along the African coast as far as Sicily by 429). The Roman part of the empire ended in 476, when Italy was captured by Germans led by Odoacer. Pope Felix III excommunicated Patriarch Acacius in 484, causing a schism in Christendom until 519. Odoacer was deposed in 493 by Ostrogoths allied with the eastern or Byzantine Empire (BE). Their king, Theodoric, married a sister of Clovis in France, and his sister married the Vandal king (implying alliances or at least truces). During his reign, Boethius translated the works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid and Ptolemy. He discussed whether universal concepts only exist as ideas, and he expounded on topics of the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. He was arrested for treason and wrote The Consolation of Philosophy before being executed in 524.

In 529, the BE Justinian I closed the Athens School of Philosophy. His General Belisarius took North Africa in 533 and Italy in 535, then began a series of wars with the Sassanids in Persia in 539. Justinian sent missionaries to China in 552, who smuggled out silkworms. That year Japanese prehistory ended and the Asuka period began when the emperor introduced Buddhism. In 542, a plague in Constantinople spread and halved the population of Europe before ending in 594. The barbarian migrations ended about 600 with the Czechs and Slovaks in Bohemia, the Yugoslavs in Serbia, Lombards in Italy, Visigoths in Spain, and Franks in France. In that year, books were printed in China, and smallpox arrived in Europe from India.

During this period NT Christianity waned in the Middle East, became philosophical in Byzantium, was gradually accepted by the barbarians, died back because of plagues, and then was overcome by Muslim conquests after 628, when Mohammed began Islam’s expansion via forced conversion by capturing Mecca, as Buddhism spread from India eastward. The Muslims closed the library and school in Alexandria and expanded to the Indus River by 674, while RC Christendom “fiddled” with the Monothelitism controversy (622-680), which debated whether Christ Jesus had one (human) or two (also divine) wills. The Muslims took Armenia in 694 and Algiers in 700, then Spain in 711-716. During this time the population of China was “exploding”, and Ch’ang-an (capitol of the Han, Sui and Tang dynasties near present-day Xi’an) became the largest city in the world, followed by Constantinople.

In 715, the Muslim Empire extended from the Pyrenees to China, and in 717 tax exemption was granted to all believers. However, Charles Martel of France decisively defeated them in 732, which halted the Islamic advance from the direction of Spain. At this time Boniface was working to eliminate heathenism northeast of the Rhine River, and the BE was threatened by Bulgarians. In 750, the Abbasids won the Muslim Caliphate and defeated China in the Battle of Samarkind in 751, where the Arabs learned how to make paper. Pepin of France made Lombardy a vassal state and granted land (the Papal State) to the popes. In 763, the Caliphate capitol was moved to Baghdad, where Indian numerals became used.

 

[GWH]

It appears that after Paul established numerous small churches in Asia Minor and Greece, NT Christianity percolated during a period of persecution until the conversion of Constantine, and then there was a period of problematic perversion of NT Christianity in Europe as it gained political power, while it failed to make much of an impact in the rest of the world, which gave Islam the opportunity to fill the spiritual void with an anti-Christian form of monotheism.

In 951, Otto I of Germany became king of the Franks and Lombards also, and was crowned HRE in 962. The Poles converted to RC in 966. Universities were founded at Cordoba in 968 and at Cairo in 972. A Chinese encyclopedia of 1,000 volumes was compiled in 978-984. Venice and Genoa were trading centers between Europe and Asia. Eastern Catholicism was accepted by Kiev (Russia) in 988.

By 1000, RC had reached Greenland, and Judaism (see this Summary before Christ) was strongest in Spain. The Mayan civilization was at its height, and China invented gunpowder. The Danes (see 826) deposed the English king in 1013, and they conquered Norway in 1028. The Caliphate in Cordoba was abolished in 1031, and the Seljuk Turks gained strength in Turkestan in 1042. In 1054, the schism between RC and what became Eastern Orthodoxy, due mainly to its rejection of the primacy of the Pope, became permanent (“Great”).

In 1060, Anselm of Canterbury joined Lanfranc at the Bendictine Abbey in Bec, where he wrote philosophical tracts, such as De incarnation Verbi (reconciling divine foreknowledge with human free will), and logical arguments for the existence of God, such as Proslogion (including the ontological argument: God is the first cause and greatest conceivable being). In 1062, Berengar of Tours opposed the RC doctrine of transubstantiation (the communion bread and wine becoming the physical body and blood of Christ) for being irrational. The Danes in England were defeated by William of Normandy in 1066 (the year of Halley’s comet). Poland (see 966) took Kiev in 1067, and China nationalized agriculture in 1068. The Normans conquered Italy in 1071, and the Mesa Verde culture existed in America. The Seljuks conquered Armenia in 1064 and Syria-Palestine in 1075. HRE Henry IV tired of being twice excommunicated, so he stormed Rome and imprisoned the Pope in 1084.

El Cid took Valencia from the Muslim Moors in 1094, and Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade in 1095, which took Jerusalem from the Seljuks in 1099. In 1113, the order of Knights Hospitalers was organized in order to protect a hospital for pilgrims. In 1141, Peter Abelard’s ideas were condemned by a council called by Bernard of Clairvaux. Abelard wrote Sic et Non, which utilized the dialectical method of stating pros and cons. He defined sin as bad intention, and affirmed a nominalist position (which views only individuals as existing) in the debate over universals.

About 1175, Peter Waldo began preaching poverty as the way to perfection, founding a movement that presaged the reform of Luther. About this time in Spain, Avicebron published neo-Platonist ideas, including that God can be apprehended only by intuition or mystical experience, not by reason. In 1182, Jews were banished from France. In 1185, the order of Knights Templars was formed for the purpose of protecting pilgrims on the route from Jaffa to the Temple Mount. About 1200, Moses Maimonides, who fled from Spain to Cairo, attempted to align theology with Aristotelianism, saying that if statements in the OT contradict reason, then they should be interpreted allegorically, and identifying God as first Mover and necessary Being. His views influenced Jewish kabbalistic philosophy collected in the Zohar, by Moses de Leon.

In 1204, the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople, and in 1209 Pope Innocent III authorized the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heresy in France, which effectively began the period of the Inquisition (that continued with the prohibition of Bible reading in Toulouse in 1229). In 1214, Ghengis Khan captured Peking, then Persia in 1218. In 1215, King John signed the English Magna Carta, establishing the rule of law and certain civil rights, the same year the order of Dominicans was founded for the purpose of combating heresy, and in 1233 it was assigned to lead the Inquisition, joined later by the Franciscans.

 

[GWH]

By the end of the first century GW per the OT was known to Jews from Jerusalem to Rome, and GW per the NT was known only to a few thousand Christians including Messianic Jews as they left the synagogues to form churches and Gentiles associated them. Thus, the
obvious question is, “What is GRFS for those who have never heard of Jesus?” (which includes everyone living B.C. and millions of people who have lived A.D.) If God loves the world (JN 3:16) and wants everyone to be saved (2TM 2:4), then He must provide an opportunity.

Paul indicates that such an opportunity is provided by means of what is called general revelation, which includes meditating on the natural world or God’s supernatural work. Paul says men are without excuse, both because God’s eternal power and divine nature (love) are manifested by creation (RM 1:20), and because a provisional or proto-gospel has been proclaimed to everyone under heaven implicitly or in pre-NT foreshadowings (CL 1:23, RM 10:13-18, GL 3:8).

Another way God is revealed and souls are judged is via conscience, a natural or “common” sense (RM 2:14-16), which manifests morality or a moral Authority in every culture. The Parable of the Talents may be interpreted as indicating that souls are saved via faith in God/ Christ as revealed (cf. 1CR 10:1-5). Truthseekers around the world in all times are pilgrims at various places along the road of life, and all true roads eventually lead to the Way to eternal life in heaven (JN 14:6, ACTS 24:14, PHP 2:10-11). All truth leads to One Way.

Following the death of Christ and His apostles including Paul, much of GW or Truth was transmitted orally as the gospels and epistles were being collected and copied. We considered how the official understanding of the Creed or GRFS compares with ours (the elaborated kerygma), but it seems unlikely that folks in the common classes had a very complete understanding of the NT, which is why by the time of Irenaeus (c.180) Christianity was commonly viewed as submission to the authority of bishops--and eventually to the bishop of Rome or Pope. Thus, NT teaching regarding salvation via personal faith in Jesus as Lord and obedience to his command for universal love was supplanted by a belief that stressed conformity to the interpretation and authority of Roman Catholicism (RC).

Again, while RC was becoming dominant in Europe, NT Christianity did not impact the rest of the world, so we must keep in mind the role of the proto-gospel in God's POS as we continue with the history of beliefs.

In 1258, the Mongols under Kublai Khan capture Baghdad, and the House of Commons was established in England, where Roger Bacon advocated for the study of theology to focus on the Bible in the original languages rather on scholastic debates. His legacy also includes an interest in scientific experiments, discoveries and inventions. In 1271, the ninth and final crusade led by Prince Edward of England was defeated by the Mamluks in Egypt.

In 1273, Thomas Aquinas (a former student of Albertus Magnus) published Summa theological, which supplanted Augustinianism as the dominant RC theology. Notable doctrines included natural revelation, analogical language, and the cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence. In 1283, the Teutonic Order subjugated Prussia. In 1295, Marco Polo returned to Italy from China.

In 1323, William of Occam published his Summa logicae, in which he espoused his “razor” principle: the simplest explanation should be used. In 1337, The Hundred Years War between France and England began. In 1341, Francesco Petrarch was honored in Rome for his poetry, and his humanism (faith that God gives all knowledge) contributed to the Renaissance.

In 1347 the Black Death (bubonic plague) devastated Europe. In Mexico, the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan in 1364, and in China, the Ming dynasty overthrew the Mongols and restored the Great Wall in 1368, but Timur (Tamerlaine) established a Mongol dictatorship in Turkestan at Samarkand.

In 1377, John Wyclif opposed RC, especially its dogma of transubstantiation, and translated the Bible (which he viewed as inerrant when interpreted correctly) into English in 1382. Byzantium lost Asia Minor to the Turks in 1390, then Timur defeated the Turks in 1401. In 1415, Jan Hus, who had tried to reform RC in Bohemia as Wyclif had in England, was burned at the stake. His disciples included the Taborites, the Bohemian Brethren and the Moravians as well as Martin Luther. About this time in Spain, Joseph Albo sought to correct the teachings of Maimonides by eliminating the doctrine of Messiah as essential to Judaism, stressing instead divine justice, even as Thomas a Kempis published The Imitation of Christ. In 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by her English captors, ostensibly for heresy, and in 1441, Portugal renewed the slave trade with Africa. About this time, the Incas subdued Peru.

In 1453, the Hundred Years War concluded, and the Turks captured Constantinople (ending the Byzantine Empire), then took Athens, Bosnia and Herzegovina by 1467. The exodus of Byzantine scholars to Italy, the patronage of Cosimo Medici, the humanism of Marsilio Ficino (director of a Platonist Academy founded by Medici in 1439), and Gutenberg’s printing press (1450) combined to promote a Renaissance centered in Florence. In 1479, Ferdinand and Isabella unified Spain and cooperated with the RC Inquisition, and in 1480, Ivan III became Czar of Russia. In 1492, Spain expelled the Jews and conquered Granada, while Columbus sailed to the Bahamas in America. The next year, the Turks invaded Croatia and encroached upon Italy. Meanwhile, Leonardo da Vinci worked in Florence as an inventor and painter, and the Portuguese explored ever further along the west coast of Africa, finding a sea route to India in 1498.

 

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In 1501, a papal bull ordered the burning of books that undermined RC authority, and Erasmus published The Handbook of the Christian Soldier, calling for reformation by reading the Scriptures. However, he tried to remain neutral in the Reformation, and his fellow humanist, Thomas More (author of Utopia in 1516), actively opposed Lutheranism and apparently approved of the torture and burning of heretics. Other events of interest during this period included Michelangelo‘s David sculpture in 1504, Copernicus’ discovery of the heliocentric solar system in 1512, and Portuguese explorers’ reaching China by sea in 1514.

In 1517, Machiavelli wrote Il Principe, and Martin Luther protested the sale of indulgences by nailing 95 theses on a church door, beginning the Protestant Reformation in Germany. At this time the world had four main ideologies: Christianity in Europe, Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, atheist Buddhism and Confucianism in the Far East, and polytheism in the rest of the world.

In 1520, Thomas Muntzer went beyond Luther’s reforms and began the Anabaptist movement when he rejected infant baptism, and he was beheaded after leading a peasant’s revolt in 1525, trying to establish a communistic theocracy. In 1528, Balthasar Hubmaier was burned at the stake in Vienna for preaching adult baptism, so his wife drowned herself in the Danube River.

In Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli followed Luther’s lead, including rejection of Anabaptists, but he was killed in a battle with Swiss Catholic cantons in 1531. In that year, Henry VIII became head of the Church of England so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. Henry had Thomas More and William Tyndale murdered for opposing him, and Anne Boleyn for not bearing him children.

In 1535, John Calvin fled France to Switzerland, where he began his lifelong work on Institutes of the Christian Religion, which rejected infant baptism but adopted a deterministic view of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. His followers in France were called the Huguenots.

Although the focus of this summary is on the history of beliefs or ideology, science is now included with political events, because these domains affected human beliefs (and information about the arts is added for spice). The advent of the printing press caused the recording of more details, so that our summary becomes more complex .

[Regarding political events: the migrations of the Middle Ages were replaced by almost continual warfare as various rulers sought to expand and defend their territories. The Turks captured Egypt and Arabia in 1517, Belgrade in 1521, and Hungary in 1541 under Sultan Suleiman I. Magellan began the circumnavigation of the globe in 1519, Cortes conquered the Aztecs in Mexico in 1521, and Pizarro conquered the Incas in Peru in 1533. Babar founded the Mogul dynasty in India in 1526.]

{Regarding the arts and sciences: Renaissance artists included Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Lotto in Italy, and Durer in Nuremburg. Music included Lutheran hymns, Forster’s secular songs, madrigals and lute playing. Coffee, chocolate, and turkeys were introduced to Europe, while horses were taken to America. Spectacles were invented, bowling began in England, spinning wheels became common, lunatic asylums were established, and the first Christmas tree appeared (at the Strasbourg Cathedral). Spanish explored America, and Portuguese reached Japan. Halley’s comet made a reappearance in 1531.}

 

[GWH]

This review of the KISSed history of God's POS has noted that the basis of salvation/judgment has been GW revealed via creation & conscience (C&C) for most souls in most regions of earth, because they were/are unfamiliar with GRFS per the teachings of Moses during the OT era or/and of Jesus and the Apostles as the NT became available. We have learned that Paul viewed C&C and the OT as serving as a provisional or proto gospel for those having no opportunity to learn the full Gospel of Christ. Jesus (in MT 7:7) indicated that souls who sought God found Him through one or more of these three modes of revelation, which implies that those who did not believe or accept what they found did not qualify for salvation.

It was also noted that after Paul established numerous small churches in Asia Minor and Greece, NT Christianity percolated during a period of persecution until the conversion of Constantine, and then there was a period of problematic perversion of NT Christianity in Europe as it gained political power and became dominated by RC, while it failed to make much of an impact in the rest of the world, which gave Islam the opportunity to fill the spiritual void with an anti-Christian form of monotheism. However, in the 16th century the invention of the printing press made copies of the biblical canon available to many more people, while the colonizing of new regions made NT teaching more widespread, although not yet worldwide. And so the review continues:

(1545-1602) [The Turks continued to expand, taking Moldavia in 1546, part of Persia in 1548, Tripoli in 1551, Cyprus in 1571, Tunis in 1574, and skirmishing with Austria-Hungary in the 1590s. Ivan IV became Czar in Russia in 1547. The Elizabethan age (1558-1603) began in England. Spain occupied the Philippines in 1564, captured Haarlem in the Netherlands in 1573, and assassinated William of Orange in 1584, but its naval armada was defeated when it attempted to invade England in 1588 (that was authorized as a crusade by the Pope). In 1572, French Catholics massacred thousands of Huguenots, beginning in Paris on St. Bartholemew’s day, and in 1576 the Catholic League was formed for the purpose of exterminating them. The Moguls under Akbar I conquered Afghanistan in 1581, and the Russians expanded into Siberia. Japan’s dictator, Hideyoshi, banned Portuguese missionaries in 1587. The slave trade between Africa and America began.]

From 1545-63, the Council of Trent met in 25 sessions under three popes to counter Protestant reforms. It affirmed the deutero-canonical books, church tradition, seven sacraments, purgatory, celibacy, Jerome’s Vulgate and papal authority. Nostradamus began making his astrological predictions in 1547. Calvin approved of the execution of Michael Servetus for “heresy” in 1553. John Knox led a presbyterian reform movement that established the Church of Scotland in 1560.

(1603-1647) [The Tokugawa dynasty re-established the shogunate in Japan at modern Tokyo in 1603. The Spanish founded Santa Fe in 1605, the English founded Jamestown in 1607, and the Jesuits founded Paraguay in 1608. Michael Romanov became Czar in Russia in 1613, and the English, Dutch and Portuguese skirmished in India in 1615. The Thirty Years’ War in central Europe began in 1618, which pitted RC against Protestant and Bourbon France against Hapsburg Spain, Flanders and the Holy Roman Empire (Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, etc.). Lutheran Denmark and then Sweden also participated in order to gain territory in northern Germany along the Baltic Sea, opposed by the German Catholic League. Korea began paying tribute to China in 1627, which began the Manchu Ch’ing Dynasty in 1636. In 1635, the Dutch occupied Formosa, the English settled the Virgin Islands, and the French took Martinique. Turkey recovered Baghdad from Persia and Swedes settled on the Delaware River in 1638, Russian Cossacks advanced from the Urals to the Pacific in 1639, and England occupied the Bahamas in 1646.]

In 1610, followers of Jacob Arminius (called Remonstrants) published a document objecting to Calvin’s deterministic doctrine of predestination. The King James Bible was produced in 1611. Galileo was arrested by the RC Inquisition and prohibited from scientific work in 1616. The Synod of Dort condemned Arminianism in 1619. Pilgrims seeking separation from the Church of England founded a colony at Plymouth in 1620, governed by the Mayflower Compact. In 1621 Johann Kepler’s work was banned by RC. In 1624, Jacob Boehme published three books that influenced subsequent theosophists. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by Puritans who wanted to cleanse the Anglican Church from vestiges of RC. In 1637, Rene Descartes published Discourse on Method, containing his famous maxim, “I think, therefore I am.” Foreign religions were prohibited in Japan in 1637. In 1638, Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Colony, but her church was invited to settle in Rhode Island by its founder, Roger Williams, who first used the term “wall of separation” to describe the relation between religion and government and whose colony was the first to establish religious liberty.

 

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(1648-1689) [In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War despite the Pope’s bull, and the English Parliament won a war with King Charles I. Also in 1648, George Fox founded the Society of Friends (Quakers), who valued inner light over dogmatism and creedalism. In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan, in which he argued that it is in peoples’ rational self-interest to make a “social contract”, ceding personal liberty to an absolute sovereign for the sake of civil peace. In 1654, Blaise Pascal formulated theories of probability, later applying this to theology in his Pensees as “Pascal’s Wager”. In that year, Baruch Spinoza completed his Ethics, in which he espoused pantheism, determinism and Stoicism. In 1655, the first Northern War began, involving Sweden against Poland and Brandenburg against Prussia and then Sweden (until 1661).

The Dutch settled in S. Africa in 1660. In 1664, a protracted war between eastern European powers and Turkey began with a victory by the HRE, and Britain took New Amsterdam from the Dutch. Portugal won independence from Spain in 1665, and Poland ceded Kiev to Russia in 1667. Also in 1667, European warfare erupted again involving France, England, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, then Austria in 1673, Denmark in 1675 and Russia in 1678. Poland defeated the Turks in 1673 and allied itself with France in 1675.

In 1682, La Salle claimed the Louisianna Territory for France. In 1684, the HRE and Poland formed a league against Turkey, and in 1686 Russia also declared war on Turkey. In 1681, William Penn obtained a royal charter for Pennsylvania, where he guaranteed freedom of religion and elected government. In 1684, John Bunyan completed Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian allegory. In 1689, John Locke published Two Treatises, the first rejecting the divine right of kings, and the second advocating for natural rights and consent of the governed, which influenced the English Parliament to issue a Declaration of Rights and crown William and Mary, establishing a constitutional monarchy (while Peter the Great became Czar of Russia).

 

[GWH]

In this KISSed history of God's POS it has been revealed that God/GW was revealed via creation & conscience (C&C) for most souls in most regions of earth (serving with the OT as a provisional or proto-gospel per Paul and MT 7:7), because they were/are unfamiliar with GRFS per the teachings of Moses during the OT era or/and of Jesus and the Apostles as the NT became available.

It was also noted that after Paul established numerous small churches in Asia Minor and Greece, NT Christianity percolated during a period of persecution until the conversion of Constantine, and then there was a period of problematic perversion of NT Christianity in Europe as it gained political power and became dominated by RC, while it failed to make much of an impact in the rest of the world, which gave Islam the opportunity to fill the spiritual void with an anti-Christian form of monotheism. However, in the 16th century the invention of the printing press made copies of the biblical canon available to many more people, while the colonizing of new regions made NT teaching more widespread, although not yet worldwide.

During the centuries following the Protestant Reformation, Christianity became identified with nations, but in the British colonies denominations proliferated, although most of them differed merely on didachaic doctrines. England took Gibraltar in 1704 and Barcelona in 1705, and it united with Scotland to form Great Britain in 1707. The European wars continued to evolve with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and the Quadruple Alliance of 1718, indicating shifts in attempts to resolve territorial disputes and balance power. The Turkish wars also continued: with Russia in 1711, with Sweden in 1713, and with the HRE Prince Eugene (a military commander for 60 years under three emperors) in 1716-18. In 1720, Spain occupied Texas, China administered Tibet, and Ireland had joined Great Britain. Russia began sending prisoners to populate Siberia.

This period also saw a marked increase in rationalist or philosophies. In 1690, Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he established empiricism, according to which the mind begins as a blank slate and develops knowledge from experiences. In 1692-93, witchcraft trials were held in Salem, and 25 people were killed. In 1696, John Toland founded deism, stating in Christianity not Mysterious that reason is superior to revelation and what contradicts reason is not revelation. In 1710, George Berkeley published a treatise in which he argued that “to be means to be perceived”, which means that we know ideas, not objects (subjectivism).

In 1710, Gottfried Leibniz published Theodicee, in which he espoused optimism, that God would create the best possible world. He also postulated the existence of metaphysical monads as the ultimate essence of the universe. In 1716, Christianity was banned from China (like Japan in 1637). The first freemason Grand Lodge was formed in London in 1717. Freemasonry used the stonemasonry square and compass as symbols of virtue, and promoted service to the Great Architect, but prohibited discussion of politics and religion. (It was condemned by the Pope in 1736.)

In 1722, Count Zinzendorf founded a Moravian settlement called Herrnhut, stressing that “there can be no Christianity without community” (communalism). In 1730, John and Charles Wesley founded Methodism, seeking to revive the Church of England. In 1736, John Wesley (an Arminian) and George Whitefield (a Calvinist) led the “First Great Awakening” spiritual revival in the British colonies in America (revivalism), which encouraged living in accordance with New Testament teachings. In 1740, Frederick II allows freedom of worship and of the press in Prussia. In 1741, Jonathan Edwards delivered a famous sermon in Massachusetts, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, which popularized Calvinist theology.

 

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The increased rationalist philosophical activity that began in the previous period continued during this and succeeding ones, becoming increasingly deist and atheist, even though in far regions of the globe unreached by Scripture GW was revealed via creation & conscience (serving with the OT as a provisional or proto-gospel per Paul in CL 1:23, RM 10:13-18 & GL 3:8) until GRFS per the teachings of Moses Jesus and the Apostles in the NT became available.

In 1748, David Hume published A Treatise of Human Nature, which advocated skepticism–atheism and influenced Immanuel Kant. Hume discussed the problem of inductive reasoning and the uniformity of natural operations, saying that we are instinctually/necessarily compelled to believe things behave in a regular manner (in the absence of verified miracles) or have objective existence or are moral. Also in 1748, Emanuel Swedenborg claimed to have a spiritual awakening and a commission from God to reform Christianity. He published Heaven and Hell in 1758, saying that both faith and charity are necessary for salvation.

In 1749, Gotthold Lessing published The Freethinker, advocating freedom of thought and the sufficiency of human reason. In France, Voltaire, a deist, criticized the government and RC Church and devalued the Bible as an outdated human work, although saying, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” His most popular writing was Candide (1759), which satirized the optimism of Leibniz. A contemporary, J.J. Rousseau, was exiled from France after he published Emile, or On Education in 1762, which espoused Unitarianism and religious equivalence, while rejecting sin and divine revelation. His valuing of the simple rural life or natural man over corrupt urban political society in his first book, New Heloise, influenced romanticism. In The Social Contract (1762), he advocated Locke’s view on government checked by the general will of its populace. In 1777, Lessing published a work advocating tolerance of all religions.

In 1781, Immanuel Kant published Critique of Pure Reason, which is viewed as a philosophical watershed. He posited that the mind is not a blank slate, but rather it contains innate categories that shape experience, which was a sort of compromise or synthesis of the rationalist and empiricist positions. He also distinguished analytic propositions, which are tautological definitions, from synthetic propositions, which add a predicate concept that needs verification by experience.

Joseph Priestley published A History of the Corruptions of Christianity in 1782, which influenced Thomas Jefferson’s ideology. He followed Spinoza in affirming materialism (no mind-body dualism) and determinism. He had assisted Theophilus Lindsey in founding the Unitarian denomination in 1774. In 1776, Moses Mendelssohn published Phadon or On the Immortality of Souls, after which he was compared to both Plato and Moses and later called the father of the Jewish Enlightenment for affirming religious tolerance and the priority of reason over revelation.