Biblical Heritage (Acts 1-17)
In order to awaken faith by showing the successful progress of Jesus' word delivered by the disciples through the world and to help avoid the perception of the Christians from being destructive to the empire and the Jewish institutions, Luke begins our church history in Acts. He is a historian at heart, a Christian in spirit, and seeks to help readers understand the truthfulness of the Christian faith. Namely, it is the charge that Lord has sent his disciples in Acts 1:8 that they shall be His witnesses from Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Most of this is done through the Holy Spirit, speaking and directing the Good News. This first half is about Peter's evangelical efforts. First they are halted by the definition of the "kingdom" that God promises, where Peter puts the deliverance of this kingdom in reference to Jesus' resurrection and redemptive qualities. This obviously is not the kingdom that the Jews expected. Peter's first sermon reveals the Pentecost, the Spirit-caused tongues as fulfillment of Scripture and a sign that the “last days” had begun and people can be saved (2:16-21). This sermon and the next one Peter gives of healing and repentance are responded to with enthusiasm and acceptance by the crown of Jews, setting off a successful streak of evangelism that would soon be tested and meet with much harder to convince audiences. The Sanhedrin trials are evidence of this as the Sadducees attempt to not only jail but kill the disciples for their miracles. Salvation from this fate comes in a Pharisee that convinces that if their activities are of the world, it will fail- but if they are of God, nothing the Sanhedrin does can stop them (5:38). This is an interesting intersection of the two faiths as they both recognize the supremacy of the same God, but time and time again the Jews didn't listen to His prophets that foretold Jesus' coming. Stephen's scathing sermon that accused the Jews of this became his end, beginning a history of martyrdom in the Christian world.
Social World I (Nicomachean Ethics 1-4)
When I came home from college during Christmas Break, I was greeted with many relatives curious to see how my first semester went and many stories from my friends about their's. The first question they always asked was simply: How was it? And I always answered just as simply: I'm happy. You'd think that would suffice but contentment didn't fit nor did it do the last 4 months justice. I had a lot of troubles academically and socially; it was not easy; it was not always fun; it was certainly not always happy. It was exhausting, but I was fulfilled, or at least on the right track. Much like Aristotle's eudaimōn, happy does not begin to cover it. It involves a flourishing of self, formative in character and actions, not coincidentally, but by your own efforts. His Nichomachean Ethics introduces this term to answer the question: What's the supreme good, our telos, and what are the means to that end? By well being and well doing, through physical and moral health, we can accomplish this through the guidance of virtues. Of the two kinds of virtue, the intellectual is taught and the moral is habituated. In Dr. Hibb's lecture, three perspectives are brought to light in which we can read philosophy. Khan's universability, that necessitates an obligation of moral consistency with the rest of the world, then utilitarianism, that aims to calculates and maximize the greatest good, and then Aristotle's, that looks neither at calculating consequences or universal applicability. Rather, he focuses on individual choice within the context of a universal rule has to be applied to the individual in a unique way. To understand how this works, we are called to examine the individuals we admire and what it is about them we admire. Aristotle claims we admire people because of virtues and the opposite due to vices. The notion of virtues and vices fits the universal ticket, where virtue is the correct fulfillment of a moral obligation and specifically the intentions behind it. It is important to note that you can do virtuous things, yet not be a virtuous person. We think about how to have a good human life through virtues and we stray from that with vices. If we strive for these virtues, happiness is a side effect of doing these successfully. This is a challenge to Socrates' view, where a virtuous person is not necessarily happy but is completely dependent on circumstance. Aristotle gives the individual some power over fate; setting virtue as the goal, we can ideally overcome any obstacle.
Social World I (Nicomachean Ethics 1-4)
When I came home from college during Christmas Break, I was greeted with many relatives curious to see how my first semester went and many stories from my friends about their's. The first question they always asked was simply: How was it? And I always answered just as simply: I'm happy. You'd think that would suffice but contentment didn't fit nor did it do the last 4 months justice. I had a lot of troubles academically and socially; it was not easy; it was not always fun; it was certainly not always happy. It was exhausting, but I was fulfilled, or at least on the right track. Much like Aristotle's eudaimōn, happy does not begin to cover it. It involves a flourishing of self, formative in character and actions, not coincidentally, but by your own efforts. His Nichomachean Ethics introduces this term to answer the question: What's the supreme good, our telos, and what are the means to that end? By well being and well doing, through physical and moral health, we can accomplish this through the guidance of virtues. Of the two kinds of virtue, the intellectual is taught and the moral is habituated. In Dr. Hibb's lecture, three perspectives are brought to light in which we can read philosophy. Khan's universability, that necessitates an obligation of moral consistency with the rest of the world, then utilitarianism, that aims to calculates and maximize the greatest good, and then Aristotle's, that looks neither at calculating consequences or universal applicability. Rather, he focuses on individual choice within the context of a universal rule has to be applied to the individual in a unique way. To understand how this works, we are called to examine the individuals we admire and what it is about them we admire. Aristotle claims we admire people because of virtues and the opposite due to vices. The notion of virtues and vices fits the universal ticket, where virtue is the correct fulfillment of a moral obligation and specifically the intentions behind it. It is important to note that you can do virtuous things, yet not be a virtuous person. We think about how to have a good human life through virtues and we stray from that with vices. If we strive for these virtues, happiness is a side effect of doing these successfully. This is a challenge to Socrates' view, where a virtuous person is not necessarily happy but is completely dependent on circumstance. Aristotle gives the individual some power over fate; setting virtue as the goal, we can ideally overcome any obstacle.
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