Domenic Marbaniang

Cross and Atonement – A Theological Perspective Written in December 2017 Forthcoming in March issue of REVIVE Magazine “Atonement”, in biblical terms, means bringing God and man at-one-ment. Sin is an infinitely unscalable wall that separates man from God. But, on the cross of Christ, this wall is broken and man is brought into an acceptable relationship with God. In the Bible, terms such as “propitiation” (appeasement of God), “expiation” (removal of sins), “redemption” (buying out with a price), “substitution” (taking the sinner’s place), “reconciliation” (making peace between God and man), and “covering” explain the meaning of atonement. The central message is that we were enemies of God because of our sins, but Jesus, taking our place as our substitute on the Cross, covered us by coming between us and God, and took the flames of God’s justified wrath on His own body, thus putting an end to our sins and redeeming us from the condemnation and curse of the Law, as a result ...

Structural anthropologists have been investigating the grammar of culture for the past few decades. Prominent among these is the name of Claude Levi-Strauss whose work on the universal grammar of culture is well known. (Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, Sherry B. Ortner, Culture/power/history: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (Princeton University Press, 1993) p.380) Some philosophers have recently been trying to interpret culture as grammar. For instance, Chengyang Li in Philosophy East and West proposed an interpretation of Li in Confucius’ Analects as “cultural grammar”, metaphorically speaking. He writes, “a culture is analogous to a language, a person in general observance of li in a culture is analogous to someone who follows the grammar of a language that he or she speaks....” (Li, Chenyang. “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation between Li and Ren in Confucius' ‘Analects.’” Philosophy East and West, vol. 57, no. 3, 2007, pp. 317. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/...

The sources of knowledge have been traditionally limited to at least four: sense-perception, inference, memory, and testimony. Epistemological approaches involve the inductive (empirical), the inferential (rational), the intuitive (mystical), the indefinitive (skeptical), the informative (revelatory), the interpretive (hermeneutical), and the integrative (synthetical). Note Two dispositions that either aid or hamper the quest of knowledge are faith and doubt. Two opposite views in this regard are: Integrationalism : The view that faith and the epistemic quest are integral to each other. Segregationalism : The view that faith and the epistemic quest are opposed to each other. (c) Domenic Marbaniang, 2018