‘God created mankind in his own image: male and female he created them,’ says the writer of Genesis. In Greek legend Zeus first created a sexless being. Later, in a fit of divine anger, he split this into man and woman. The division of humankind into two sexes is thus understood to be an imperfect state, a weakening of mankind’s power, because the two sexes pull in different directions. Read more
In some ways we are no different from any other species on earth. We are creatures subject to the usual conditions of space and time. But we know that human beings ’stand out’ from other beings in several ways. Some of these are plain enough; they partly explain humankind’s superiority over other creatures: our creativity, our intellectual, linguistic and cultural achievements.
But the Bible adds a further and remarkable point. People stand out not by what they do but by what they are. This is expressed right at the beginning, in the creation story of Genesis 1. God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness.’ It is a theme taken up and developed in other parts of the Bible: we are not like the other creatures; we share God’s nature in a special way. Read more
In recent years there has been a widely-reported resurgence of occultism in the West. This has coincided with a strong movement, in other parts of the world, to return to traditional religious practices. Far more people are now aware of the reality of the spirit world than a generation or two ago. And when we look at the Bible, we find that God has created a universe of which non-material beings form a very real part.
Today people would acknowledge the influence of outside forces on human beings. We are not so autonomous as we once supposed. To an extent, we can be controlled, and sometimes we are. People’s experience, in many parts of the world today, goes along with Jesus‘ teaching to suggest that personal outside forces (angels, demons, spirits) can and do influence the behaviour of human beings. Read more
