Christiany Beliefs and Practices

• Omnibenevolent


  Totally loving and just in all his deeds
• Christians believe there is only one God, but he has revealed himself as three persons (the Trinity)
• It is important for Christians to believe in a powerful and loving God because only such a God is worthy of worship
• A being who is anything less than all-powerful and all-loving is not worthy of worship, and could not be the God Christians believe in
• Jesus: '"With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."'
• Monotheism


  The belief that there is only one God
• The Trinity


  • The Father
  • The Son
  • The Holy Spirit
• The belief that God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent


  Raises problems because of the evil and suffering in the world
• When they see suffering, some Christians wonder why God created a world with so much potential for suffering and why he doesn't stop it
• This threatens ideas of God as omnibenevolent and omnipotent
• This can even lead to a loss of faith for some Christian believers
• Natural evil


  Suffering seen as 'natural' such as disease and earthquakes
• Moral evil


  Suffering that is the evil action of human beings, such as violence and injustice
• Moral evil is the result of human free will, which God has given to all human beings
• Without free will humans would not be able to have a freely chosen relationship with God
• Christians believe that God created the universe and everything that is in it, including animals and human beings
• Interpretations of the Bible accounts of creation

  • Literal
  • Metaphorical
• Roman Catholicism teaches that the accounts of creation do not conflict with a scientific understanding of the processes of creation, such as the Big Bang, or evolution
• The Trinity


  Indicated in the process of creation in Genesis 1:1-3 and John 1:1-3
• Jesus: '"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."'
• Resurrection

  Christians believe they have an immaterial soul, and it is the soul that continues to live eternally
• Heaven

  Where God lives and is a place of eternal happiness
• Hell

  Where the devil lives, and is a place of eternal punishment
• Belief in the afterlife encourages Christians to live a good life and having a relationship with God in the hope of going to Heaven
• Belief in the afterlife helps make sense of Jesus' death and his resurrection as an act of atonement and as proof of life after death
• Without the belief in the afterlife, many Christians feel life has no purpose
• Some Christians worry that the belief in the afterlife encourages them to do good actions in the hope of reward, like children
• Some people say that Christians have a problem believing in an all-loving God, while also believing in hell as a place of unending punishment