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The N ew York Messianic W itness/lnc. (formerly New York Jewish Evange lization Society) — has carried on a faithful testimony for Christ to the 2 */2 million Jews of New York City. Jew sd o h ear the Gospel. Many are secret believers. One of them, a young Rabbi, said: "I know it is the truth, but do not have the strength to come out in the open. I have a wife and two little children. What will be come of them?" Another one, also a Rabbi, was beaten up by one of his relatives, because it became known that he was turning to Christ. Some others of our recent contacts: A Jewish young man accepted Christ after one of our Saturday night gospel services. A week later he brought a friend who wanted to know about the Lord. Another one, coming from Israel, is taking instruction for baptism. A Jewish doctor and his wife invited us to conduct a Bible class for Jews in their home. Please pray that our testi mony be enlarged. Pray for more workers. Write for our bi-monthly magazine, "The Messianic Witness". Address: NEW YORK MESSIANIC WITNESS, Inc, SOLOMON BIRNBAUM, Director Dept. M, Hermon House P.O. Box 144, Cooper Sta., N.Y. 3, N.Y. * 1 9 5 4 * SUMMER SESSION W e s tm o n t C o l le g e June 21 - July 30 ☆ COLLEGE CREDITS GIVEN ☆ MORNING CLASSES ONLY ☆ DAILY CHAPEL SERVICE -fr SPACIOUS DORMITORIES ft 4 MILES TO BLUE PACIFIC For further information write immediately to REGISTRAR, SUMMER SESSION W e s tm o n t C o l le g e 955-K La Paz Road Santa Barbara, California Pastors. . . Laymen ! « F R E E A S S O R T M E N T O F S A M P L E T R A C T S Write today for free sample as sortment of 17 outstanding Fam ily Altar tracts and q u a r t e r l y Family Altar pa per, ''The Family A l t a r Crusader." THE FAMILY ALTAR LEAGUE 108 N. Dearborn • Chicago 2, III.
Paul M. Aijian. Ph.D. r*rof. of Apologetics, Talbot Theological „eminary St. Augustine
period at its beginning, the school men carried the implications of this conflict to their conclusion. By de fining her position clearly the church said, in effect, that she was. not in terested in philosophy as a means for reaching truth. Philosophy was to be the explanation of the' dogma only. For all practical purposes phi losophy and theology became syn onymous. As most historians indi cate there were two grèat periods in Scholasticism: (1) the Platonic period mediate through Augustine, and (2) the Aristotlian period which gradually shifted in its emphasis from a concern with universal ideas and categories to that of a concern for particular things and values. Scotus Erigena, who lived in the ninth century, was the first of the great schoolmen. His philosophy re produced the Neo-Platonic doctrines in a Christian form. He possessed wonderful powers, speculative imag ination which marked him as a man who was above the average. The universe is set off from God not as the body is set off from the soul, but as one side of a shield differs from the other side. This pantheism makes every aspect of the world of experi ence one of the many manifestations of deity. In common with most scale- of-being systems evil is the absence of the good life. This is to say that there can be no complete evil. Since the deprivation of the good is synony mous with the negation of the being, a completely evil thing could not exist at all. From the practical or value side of the system one’s greatest reward for living a good life is the immediate knowledge of God. This alone is the basic reason for human effort and concern. Whatever may be the criticism leveled against the doctrines of this schoolman, he es tablished a pattern of thought which, in its essence, continued to challenge the mind refusing to let it be con tent with issues any less significant than those encompassed by the term metaphysics. END.
t the close of the last great period of Greek development, philosophy came under the influence of the Church of the Middle Ages. Because of this the ordinary philosophical considerations so current in classic thought were subordinated to the controlling interest of Roman The ology as it developed in the Western world. As indicated in an earlier col umn, the mind of even so tremen dous a figure as Augustine found it impossible to pursue his philosophi cal speculations apart from the rea sons which his religion imposed upon him. Indeed, it probably is closer to the actualities of the case to con clude that Churchmen did not want to continue an adventure in philoso phy alone. They were more con cerned to render their religious ex perience reasonable in so far as pos sible; and then they were happy to rest the case in the theology of Church dogma. The man whom we now know as St. Augustine endeavored to restate his Christian theory in essentially Platonic language. The human soul as a passive receptive thing simply receives its moral and spiritual no tions. These arise in the inner life due to the inner light which forms the environment of the soul. Through this light the human mind knows the true reality not in the passing phe nomenon but in the unchanging es sences of things. If Augustine had carried out the logic of this notion alone, he would have rested his case in Platonic philosophy only. How ever, even though he felt a certain inner necessity in the incarnation, the fact that sin had obscured the light in the soul made a “ word in the flesh” the best way to communicate (through the senses) the truth which inner reason could no longer give man. Augustine, as a churchman, subordinated the entire content of religious history and value to the w ill of God. If Augustine exemplified the strug gle between the classical and church
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