- Citations
Update or expand this article!
In Edit mode, you will be able to click anywhere in the article to modify text, insert images, or add new information.
Once you are finished, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
You will be notified if your changes are approved and become part of the published article!
Link this article to other articles in Britannica!
In Link mode you can double-click any word within the article to link to another article.
Once you are finished, your link recommendations will be sent to our editors for review.
Update or expand this article!
In Edit mode, you will be able to click anywhere in the article to modify text, insert images, or add new information.
Once you are finished, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
You will be notified if your changes are approved and become part of the published article!
Link this article to other articles in Britannica!
In Link mode you can double-click any word within the article to link to another article.
Once you are finished, your link recommendations will be sent to our editors for review.
- Citations
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.
Please click the reference button in the contributor toolbar to
add citations for external websites.
You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind:
- Encyclopaedia Britannica articles are written in a neutral, objective tone for a general audience.
- You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered.
- Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources.
- At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are best.)
Christianity
Article Free Pass- Introduction
- The church and its history
- The essence and identity of Christianity
- The history of Christianity
- The primitive church
- The internal development of the early Christian Church
- Relations between Christianity and the Roman government and the Hellenistic culture
- The early liturgy, the calendar, and the arts
- The alliance between church and empire
- Theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries
- Liturgy and the arts after Constantine
- Political relations between East and West
- Literature and art of the “Dark Ages”
- Missions and monasticism
- The Photian schism and the great East–West schism
- From the schism to the Reformation
- Christianity from the 16th to the 20th century
- Contemporary Christianity
- Christian doctrine
- The nature and functions of doctrine
- Scripture and tradition: the apostolic witness
- Evangelism: the first teaching about the God of Jesus Christ
- Catechesis: instructing candidates for baptism
- Liturgy: the school and feast of faith
- Ethics: obeying the truth
- Aversion of heresy: the establishment of orthodoxy
- Apologetics: defending the faith
- Restatement: respecting language and knowledge
- Inculturation: respecting places and peoples
- Dogma: the most authoritative teaching
- Consensus: patterns of agreement
- Theology: loving God with the mind
- Symbolics: creeds and confessions
- Development: the maturation of understanding
- Schism: division over substantial matters
- Controversy: fighting over the faith
- Ecumenism: speaking the truth in love
- God the Father
- God the Son
- God the Holy Spirit
- The Holy Trinity
- Anthropology
- What it is to be human
- The human as a creature
- The human as the image of God
- Human redemption
- The problem of suffering
- The resurrection of the body
- Progressive human perfection
- The “new man”: The human being in the light of Christ
- The “reborn human”
- Human liberation
- Joy in human existence
- The charismatic believer
- Christian perfection
- Fellow humans as the present Christ
- The church
- Church tradition
- Eschatology
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in early Christianity
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the medieval and Reformation periods
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the post-Reformation period
- The role of imminent expectation in missions and emigrations
- Eschatological expectations and secularization
- Concepts of life after death
- Aspects of the Christian religion
- Christian philosophy
- Christian mysticism
- Christian myth and legend
- The Christian community and the world
- The relationships of Christianity
- Christian missions
- Ecumenism
- Christianity and world religions
- Related
- Contributors & Bibliography
- Year in Review Links
- Introduction
- The church and its history
- The essence and identity of Christianity
- The history of Christianity
- The primitive church
- The internal development of the early Christian Church
- Relations between Christianity and the Roman government and the Hellenistic culture
- The early liturgy, the calendar, and the arts
- The alliance between church and empire
- Theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries
- Liturgy and the arts after Constantine
- Political relations between East and West
- Literature and art of the “Dark Ages”
- Missions and monasticism
- The Photian schism and the great East–West schism
- From the schism to the Reformation
- Christianity from the 16th to the 20th century
- Contemporary Christianity
- Christian doctrine
- The nature and functions of doctrine
- Scripture and tradition: the apostolic witness
- Evangelism: the first teaching about the God of Jesus Christ
- Catechesis: instructing candidates for baptism
- Liturgy: the school and feast of faith
- Ethics: obeying the truth
- Aversion of heresy: the establishment of orthodoxy
- Apologetics: defending the faith
- Restatement: respecting language and knowledge
- Inculturation: respecting places and peoples
- Dogma: the most authoritative teaching
- Consensus: patterns of agreement
- Theology: loving God with the mind
- Symbolics: creeds and confessions
- Development: the maturation of understanding
- Schism: division over substantial matters
- Controversy: fighting over the faith
- Ecumenism: speaking the truth in love
- God the Father
- God the Son
- God the Holy Spirit
- The Holy Trinity
- Anthropology
- What it is to be human
- The human as a creature
- The human as the image of God
- Human redemption
- The problem of suffering
- The resurrection of the body
- Progressive human perfection
- The “new man”: The human being in the light of Christ
- The “reborn human”
- Human liberation
- Joy in human existence
- The charismatic believer
- Christian perfection
- Fellow humans as the present Christ
- The church
- Church tradition
- Eschatology
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in early Christianity
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the medieval and Reformation periods
- Expectations of the Kingdom of God in the post-Reformation period
- The role of imminent expectation in missions and emigrations
- Eschatological expectations and secularization
- Concepts of life after death
- Aspects of the Christian religion
- Christian philosophy
- Christian mysticism
- Christian myth and legend
- The Christian community and the world
- The relationships of Christianity
- Christian missions
- Ecumenism
- Christianity and world religions
- Related
- Contributors & Bibliography
- Year in Review Links
The view that God is not solitary
The leaders of an 18th-century movement called Deism saw God as impersonal and unempathic—a principle of order and agent of responsibility not personal or addressable as the Christian God had been. Deism contributed to some intellectualizations of the idea of God, approaches that had sometimes appeared in the more sterile forms of medieval Scholasticism. God appeared to have been withdrawn from creation, which was pictured as a world machine; this God, at best, observed its running but never interfered.
According to the original Christian understanding of God of the early church, the Middle Ages, and the Reformation, God neither is solitary nor wishes to be alone. Instead, God is encircled with a boundless realm of angels, created in the divine image. They surround God in freely expressed love and devotion. They appear in a graduated, individuated hierarchy. These ranks of angels offer God their praise, and they appear active in the universe as messengers and executors of the divine will. From the beginning God appears as the ruler and centre in this divinely fashioned realm, and the first created of this realm are the angels. The church of the angels is the upper church; the earthly church joins with them in the “cherubic hymn,” the Trisagion (“Holy, Holy, Holy”), at the epiphany of the Lord and with the angelic choirs surrounding him in the Eucharist. The earthly church is thus viewed as a participant—co-liturgist—in the angelic liturgy. Because the angels are created as free spiritual beings in accordance with the image of God, the first fall takes place in their midst—the first misuse of freedom was in the rebellion of the highest prince of the angels, Lucifer (“Light-bearer”), against God.
According to the view of Christian thinkers from the early Fathers to the reformers of the 16th century, humans are only the second-created. The creation of human beings serves to refill the Kingdom of God with new spiritual creatures who are capable of offering to God the free love that the rebellious angels have refused to continue. In the realm of the first-created creatures, there already commences the problem of evil, which appears immediately in freedom or the misuse of freedom.
Modern views of God
If 18th- and 19th-century rationalism and scientific attacks on the idea of God were often called “the first Enlightenment” or “the first illumination,” in the 20th century a set of trends appeared that represented, to a broader public, a “second illumination.” This included a rescue of the idea of God, even if it was not always compatible with previous Christian interpretations. Some notable scientists of the 20th century, such as Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Max Born, and others, allowed—on occasion, and against the testimony of the majority of their colleagues—for an idea of God or religion in their concepts of life, the universe, and human beings.
When the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche prophesied what he called “the death of God,” many Christian thinkers agreed that a certain set of culturally conditioned and dogmatic concepts of God were inaccessible, implausible, and dying out. Some of these apologists argued that such a “death of God” was salutary, because it made room for a “God beyond the gods” of argument, or a “greater God.” The French Jesuit thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin for a time attracted a large following as he set out to graft the theory of evolution onto “greater God” proclamations.
-
People
-
(German theologian and church historian)"/>
(German theologian and church historian)"/> Adolf von Harnack (German theologian and church historian)
-
al-Ḥākim (Fāṭimid caliph)
-
(Flemish theologian)"/>
(Flemish theologian)"/> Cornelius Otto Jansen (Flemish theologian)
-
(king of Scotland)"/>
(king of Scotland)"/> David I (king of Scotland)
-
(Dutch humanist and scholar)"/>
(Dutch humanist and scholar)"/> Desiderius Erasmus (Dutch humanist and scholar)
-
Elaine Pagels (American scholar)
-
(German theologian)"/>
(German theologian)"/> Ernst Troeltsch (German theologian)
-
(German theologian)"/>
(German theologian)"/> Ferdinand Christian Baur (German theologian)
-
(king of Denmark)"/>
(king of Denmark)"/> Harald I (king of Denmark)
-
(Bohemian religious leader)"/>
(Bohemian religious leader)"/> Jan Hus (Bohemian religious leader)
-
(Czech philosopher)"/>
(Czech philosopher)"/> Jerome Of Prague (Czech philosopher)
-
Jesus Christ
-
(English philosopher)"/>
(English philosopher)"/> John Locke (English philosopher)
-
John Toland (British author)
-
(Mohawk chief)"/>
(Mohawk chief)"/> Joseph Brant (Mohawk chief)
-
(Spanish architect)"/>
(Spanish architect)"/> Juan de Herrera (Spanish architect)
-
Keshab Chunder Sen (Hindu philosopher and social reformer)
-
(German religious philosopher)"/>
(German religious philosopher)"/> Martin Buber (German religious philosopher)
-
Martin E. Marty (American historian of religion)
-
(mother of Jesus)"/>
(mother of Jesus)"/> Mary (mother of Jesus)
-
Mary Hannah Fulton (American physician and missionary)
-
Matthias Flacius Illyricus (European religious reformer)
-
Michael Psellus (Byzantine philosopher, theologian, and statesman)
-
(Italian artist)"/>
(Italian artist)"/> Michelozzo (Italian artist)
-
Mieszko I (duke and prince of Poland)
-
Minh Mang (emperor of Vietnam)
-
(Danish bishop and poet)"/>
(Danish bishop and poet)"/> N.F.S. Grundtvig (Danish bishop and poet)
-
(German religious leader)"/>
(German religious leader)"/> Nikolaus Ludwig, count von Zinzendorf (German religious leader)
-
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev (Russian philosopher)
-
Olaf I Tryggvason (king of Norway)
-
Olaf II Haraldsson (king of Norway)
-
Pelagius (Christian theologian)
-
(American theologian)"/>
(American theologian)"/> Philip Schaff (American theologian)
-
(French philosopher)"/>
(French philosopher)"/> Pierre Bayle (French philosopher)
-
Pseudo-Dionysius The Areopagite (Syrian author)
-
(German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)"/>
(German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)"/> Saint Albertus Magnus (German theologian, scientist, and philosopher)
-
(Russian painter)"/>
(Russian painter)"/> Saint Andrey Rublyov (Russian painter)
-
(Christian bishop and theologian)"/>
(Christian bishop and theologian)"/> Saint Augustine (Christian bishop and theologian)
-
(Anglo-Saxon historian)"/>
(Anglo-Saxon historian)"/> Saint Bede the Venerable (Anglo-Saxon historian)
-
(Christian Apostle)"/>
(Christian Apostle)"/> Saint Paul, the Apostle (Christian Apostle)
-
Saint Theophilus of Alexandria (Egyptian theologian)
-
Sir Sigmund Sternberg (British philanthropist and entrepreneur)
-
(Danish philosopher)"/>
(Danish philosopher)"/> Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher)
-
(king of Hungary)"/>
(king of Hungary)"/> Stephen I (king of Hungary)
-
(American missionary and educator)"/>
(American missionary and educator)"/> Susan Lincoln Tolman Mills (American missionary and educator)
-
Theōdūrus Abū Qurrah (Syrian bishop)
-
Tu Duc (emperor of Vietnam)
-
(grand prince of Kiev)"/>
(grand prince of Kiev)"/> Vladimir I (grand prince of Kiev)
-
(prince of Bohemia)"/>
(prince of Bohemia)"/> Wenceslas I (prince of Bohemia)
-
(British missionary)"/>
(British missionary)"/> William Carey (British missionary)
-
-
Places
-
Armageddon (biblical place)
-
(ancient city, Israel)"/>
(ancient city, Israel)"/> Caesarea (ancient city, Israel)
-
(Ireland)"/>
(Ireland)"/> Clonmacnoise (Ireland)
-
(Spain)"/>
(Spain)"/> El Escorial (Spain)
-
Le Temple (prison, Paris, France)
-
(monasteries, Greece)"/>
(monasteries, Greece)"/> Metéora (monasteries, Greece)
-
(mosque, Córdoba, Spain)"/>
(mosque, Córdoba, Spain)"/> Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba (mosque, Córdoba, Spain)
-
(mountain, Greece)"/>
(mountain, Greece)"/> Mount Athos (mountain, Greece)
-
(ridge, Jerusalem)"/>
(ridge, Jerusalem)"/> Mount of Olives (ridge, Jerusalem)
-
(Italy)"/>
(Italy)"/> Rome (Italy)
-
(monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)"/>
(monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)"/> San Francesco (monastery and church, Assisi, Italy)
-
School of Alexandria (institution, Alexandria, Egypt)
-
(ecclesiastical state, Europe)"/>
(ecclesiastical state, Europe)"/> Vatican City (ecclesiastical state, Europe)
-
(Scotland, United Kingdom)"/>
(Scotland, United Kingdom)"/> Whithorn (Scotland, United Kingdom)
-
-
Topics
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Annunciation (Christianity)
-
apocrypha (biblical literature)
-
apologetics (Christianity)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Apostle (Christianity)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Ascension (Christianity)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Assumption (Christianity)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> baptism (Christianity)
-
(denomination)"/>
(denomination)"/> Baptist (denomination)
-
(biblical literature)"/>
(biblical literature)"/> Beatitude (biblical literature)
-
(sacred text)"/>
(sacred text)"/> Bible (sacred text)
-
biblical literature
-
canon law (religion)
-
catechism (religious manual)
-
(liturgical vessel)"/>
(liturgical vessel)"/> chalice (liturgical vessel)
-
(doctrine of Christ)"/>
(doctrine of Christ)"/> Christology (doctrine of Christ)
-
church (Christianity)
-
Church Father (Christianity)
-
church year (Christianity)
-
city mission (Christianity)
-
confirmation (Christianity)
-
creationism
-
(religious symbol)"/>
(religious symbol)"/> cross (religious symbol)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> ecumenism (Christianity)
-
gospel music
-
heresy
-
(Jesus Christ)"/>
(Jesus Christ)"/> Incarnation (Jesus Christ)
-
justification (Christianity)
-
kerygma and catechesis (Christian theology)
-
Kingdom of God (Christianity)
-
Kirishitan (religion)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Last Supper (Christianity)
-
(philosophy and theology)"/>
(philosophy and theology)"/> logos (philosophy and theology)
-
Lord’s Prayer (Christianity)
-
(theology)"/>
(theology)"/> Mariology (theology)
-
ministry (Christianity)
-
moral theology
-
(biblical literature)"/>
(biblical literature)"/> New Testament (biblical literature)
-
oratorio (music)
-
(religion)"/>
(religion)"/> ordination (religion)
-
original sin (theology)
-
Passion music (vocal music)
-
patristic literature (Christianity)
-
(Christianity)"/>
(Christianity)"/> Protestantism (Christianity)
-
Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (biblical criticism)
-
Roman Catholicism
-
Second Coming (Christianity)
-
Sunday school
-
theological liberalism (religion)
-
tithe (almsgiving)
-
What made you want to look up "Christianity"? Please share what surprised you most...