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The Problem of Christianity; Lectures Delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston, and at Manchester College, Oxford
The Problem of Christianity Lectures Delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston and at Manchester College Oxford Author:Josiah Royce General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1916 Original Publisher: Macmillan Subjects: Christianity Philosophy and religion Philosophy / Religious Religion / Christianity / Catholic Religion / Christianity / History Religion / Philosophy Religion / Christian Theology / General Religion / Christian Th... more »eology / Systematic Religion / Christianity / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The Christian ideas depend upon acknowledging what we have called the distinction between the two levels of human existence, and upon defining the highest good of man in terms of a transformation of our individual nature. A loving union of the individual with a level of existence which is essentially above his own grade of being is what the Christian doctrine of life defines as the way that leads towards the highest good. The whole of Christianity, as we have seen, grows out of this doctrine of the two levels. But, from the very nature of the case, the vista which this doctrine of the two levels opens before us is at once human and illimitable. Man the individual is essentially insufficient to win the goal of his own existence. Man the community is the source of salvation. And by man the community I mean, not the collective biological entity called the human race, and not the merely natural community which gives to us, as social animals, our ordinary moral training. Nor by man the community do I mean the series of misadventures and tragedies whereof the merely external history of what is called humanity consists. By man the community I mean man in the sense in which Paul conceived Christ's beloved and universal Church to be a community, -- man viewed as one conscious spiritual whole of life....« less