Background
Osborn, Eric Francis was born on December 9, 1922 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Son of William Francis and Hilda Pearl (Gamlen) Osborn.
(In so-called Christian countries an increasing number of ...)
In so-called Christian countries an increasing number of people openly reject Christian morality. It is a commonplace that they do this for values that can be shown to be Christian. How did this state of affairs come about? An examination of the beginning of Christian ethical thought shows that, within great personal variety, certain patterns or concepts remain constant. Righteousness, discipleship, faith and love are traced in this book from the New Testament through to Augustine. There is a necessary tension between high ideals and practical performance, or between perfection and contingency. When this tension is lost, Christian ethics can easily go wrong. The amoral perfectionism of second-century Gnostics is remarkably similar to the mysticism of communal movements; the opposite threat of legalism has always been present in conservative forms of Christianity. Dr Osborn is concerned to explain rather than to defend, to look at the way conclusions are reached, and to show the rich diversity of early Christian thought. Successive chapters deal with the New Testament, Clement of Alexandria, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom and Augustine.
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(There are special times of movement in the history of ide...)
There are special times of movement in the history of ideas, and one such time - as the author of this study shows - was the second half of the second century, when Christian thought showed fresh vigour. By concentrating on five seminal Christian thinkers of the second century (Justin, Athenegoras, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian), Eric Osborn illustrates how it was that Christianity made monotheism axiomatic to its central doctrinal claims while adapting, too, to the peculiar circumstances in which it developed. The stimulus for new thought came from the objections of the state, philosophers, Jews, Gnostics, and Marcion, who in different ways denied the Christian claim to faith in one God. In response, Christian thinkers argued for one God who was the first principle of being, goodness, and truth. In its presentation of the lively beginning which brought Christianity and classical thought together, this book casts light on the growth of the European intellectual tradition.
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(The problems which Christians faced in the second-century...)
The problems which Christians faced in the second-century world, with its variety of religious beliefs, have a close relation to those which confront them today. The new religion was presented with a range of external threats and criticism which evoked a vigourous, fundamental and imaginative response. The arguments of this most creative period of Christian thought were of a more general and philosophical kind than the discussions of dogmatic issues in the fourth and fifth centuries, and are properly regarded as the beginning of Christian philosophy, though this does not of course imply the emergence of a 'system' or a uniformly philosophical level of writing. Professor Osborn's method in this book, derived from analytic philosophy, is to elucidate specific questions which occupied four major writers from different centres of early Christianity: Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. Is there one God and can one speak of him? Is man free and has he any link with God? Why has a good God made a world in which evil is so evident? Has history a meaning? Who is Jesus Christ?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521231795/?tag=2022091-20
(There are special times of movement in the history of ide...)
There are special times of movement in the history of ideas, and one such time - as the author of this study shows - was the second half of the second century, when Christian thought showed fresh vigour. By concentrating on five seminal Christian thinkers of the second century (Justin, Athenegoras, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian), Eric Osborn illustrates how it was that Christianity made monotheism axiomatic to its central doctrinal claims while adapting, too, to the peculiar circumstances in which it developed. The stimulus for new thought came from the objections of the state, philosophers, Jews, Gnostics, and Marcion, who in different ways denied the Christian claim to faith in one God. In response, Christian thinkers argued for one God who was the first principle of being, goodness, and truth. In its presentation of the lively beginning which brought Christianity and classical thought together, this book casts light on the growth of the European intellectual tradition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521022320/?tag=2022091-20
Osborn, Eric Francis was born on December 9, 1922 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Son of William Francis and Hilda Pearl (Gamlen) Osborn.
Master of Arts, U. Melbourne, Australia, 1948; Doctor of Philosophy, U. Cambridge, England, 1954; Bachelor's Degree, U. Cambridge, England, 1971; Doctor of Divinity, U. Cambridge, England, 1977; Doctor of Divinity (honorary), College of Divinity, Melbourne, 1987.
Minister in country parishes 1948-1951, 1954-1957. Research student, Cambridge 1952-1954. Professor, of New Testament and Early Church History, Queen"s College University of Melbourne 1958-1987, President United Faculty of Theology 1987.
Guest Professor University of Strasbourg 1981-1982, Visiting Professor Louisiana Trobe University 1990.
(There are special times of movement in the history of ide...)
(There are special times of movement in the history of ide...)
(The problems which Christians faced in the second-century...)
(In so-called Christian countries an increasing number of ...)
Served with Australian Army, 1941-1944.
Married Lorna Grace Grierson, December 20, 1946. Children: Robert Stanley, Eric Peter.