Like philosophy, Christianity also creates a picture of the world, but this picture is religious, not philosophical. The peculiarity of the religious picture is that it is dominated by gods or God, and these gods or Gods are endowed with the most important personality traits (desire and unwillingness, anger and mercy) and have free will.
A God who is devoid of personality traits and free will is called a “philosophical God” and belongs to philosophy, not religion. The philosophical God and the religious God only have a name in common. The philosophical God cannot act as he pleases, cannot do as he wishes. Moreover, he cannot wish at all, much less arbitrarily (i.e., voluntarily) follow his will.
As a consequence, the philosophical God is not subject to a cult. A cult presupposes that God can be influenced (by sacrifices, prayers, other rites), but an impersonal God cannot be influenced. The cult of the philosophical God makes no sense: what is the point of praying and asking God for forgiveness if he will not hear anyway, if he cannot hear or respond to our pleas at all? In antiquity, Aristotle’s God and Plotinus’ God were philosophical.
Unlike ancient philosophy, Christianity does not boast of diversity. Throughout its history, it has created one single picture of the world, although it cannot be said that this picture is the same for all Christian thinkers. The uniqueness of the Christian picture is certainly not a drawback. Christianity is a religion, not a philosophy, and it would be ridiculous if it changed its picture like a glove.
Christian doctrine is the product of a long historical development. Even if we accept that it is already contained in the sacred books of Christians (the Holy Scriptures), it took a great deal of effort and time before it was brought to light and found a more or less coherent form. And the multitude of Christian heresies proves that Scripture allows for different and often contradictory interpretations, so it cannot be said that Christian teaching derives unambiguously from its primary sources.
Sacred Scripture is also called the Bible (Greek: Books) and consists of the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Christians inherited the books of the Old Testament from the Jews; the books of the New Testament were written by themselves. The main content of the Old Testament is the creation of the world and the history of the Jewish people, the main content of the New Testament is the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. In its fullest form, the life and teachings of Christ are set forth in books called the Gospels (translated from the Greek as “good news”). The composition of the New Testament was not formed immediately, but in the course of a long and careful selection, which was completed only by the end of the second century. The books included in the New Testament are called “canonical” (from the Greek “canon” – rule, model), all other works of early Christians are “apocryphal” (from the Greek “apocryphos” – secret).
