Paul (BC ? - AD 65?) preached that 'The baptism of the Holy Spirit' was God's grace or mercy for sinners in 'The Epistle to the Ephesians' and 'The Epistle to the Romans.' Because this concept of 'grace' was interpreted in various ways and developed into a theological debate, it became not only one of causes to split Christianity into Catholic and Protestant, but also influenced modern Western philosophies and economic and political theories.

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And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved grace, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

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The patriarch Tertullianus (AD 150/160-220?) described the grace as 'a power' or 'a gift' that humans can be given from heaven to overcome man's sinfulness. Inspired by Greek philosophy, he seems to have regarded the grace as a material with energy as an entity.

Tertullianus was born about 150 AD to a certain centurion in the service of the Roman governor in Carthage. He was a converted Berber, but under the Christian veneer, retained all the passion, all the intransigence, all the indiscipline of the Berber. It was Tertullianus who coined the word 'Trinity' to describe the nature of God, and it is estimated that he invented a total of some 982 new words altogether. (This Holy Seed By Robin Daniel)

Tertullian's teaching that the soul is material, that it is a body occupying the same space as the physical body to which it belongs and with which it is intimately united, led to the idea that there is a quasi-physical identity of all souls with Adam, for every soul is, as it were, a twig cut from the parent-stem of Adam and planted out as an independent tree. (The patristics concept of the deification of man examined in the light of contemporary notions of the transcendence of man)

It is said that this gift of grace is given through baptism, and by using that gift, believers can live without sin and eventually reach salvation.

Since Tertullianus, the grace was regarded as a gift distributed through sacraments. And the role of this gift was to overcome the fallen humanity.

The British monk Pelagius (AD 360?-418?) argued that mankind's reason and freewill given by the grace of the Creator could not be destroyed by the Fall. He thought that when human beings were newly created and came out into the world, the potential of the grace was already held inside of each person. Therefore, salvation depends on how much he or she strives and how much accomplishes to meet this 'Inherent Blessing.'

God's creation, said Pelagius, is perfect. Man is not born wicked and deserving of condemnation; he is born innocent and in need of encouragement. The sin of Adam has by no means injured his descendants: each of us starts his earthly career with the same powers and the same capacity for good which Adam himself enjoyed in Eden.

God has purposed to bless the world, not to condemn it: God's will, indeed, is for each of us to walk with him, to become perfect in love and holiness. We can certainly do his will if we desire to do it, for just as his commandments were given to all men, so all men are able to obey them. "No one knows the extent of our strength better than he who gave us that strength... He has not willed to command anything impossible, for he is righteous, and he will not condemn a man for what he could not help, for he is holy."

Pelagius said, God has given man freedom to believe or to disbelieve, to obey or disobey, and God's judgment is a response to the personal choice a man has made.

Augustinus (354-430) objected to Pelagius and argued that the grace of the God of creation had been lost by the effects of the Fall and the human reason had been darkened, the will had been distorted and the state had extended to all mankind who had been the descendants of Adam. And that men, after all, had been a fallen being, a sinner by nature, and a rebel deserving God's condemnation.

The medieval scholastic philosophy influenced by both Pelagius and Augustine divided human existence into the lower layer consisting of 'reason,' 'intelligence' and 'will' and the upper layer consisting of 'faith,' 'hope' and 'love' given by the 'grace' based on Plato's idea of theory and Aristotle's hylomorphism. They argued that the human being of this world had fallen into a state where the spiritual upper layer had been lost due to the original sin committed by Adam. Therefore, they said, "In order for human beings to be saved, it is necessary to regain the upper layers lost by the Fall. And it is the 'grace' to realize this object." They also preached that the 'grace' was given as a reward for the efforts and the achievements of men.

In response, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who is known as an Italian Dominican friar, who tried to integrate Aristotle's philosophy and Christian principles, argued that the spiritual aspects of the upper layer of human existence, such as 'faith,' 'hope' and 'love' could not be recovered through human efforts and preached that the grace of God had to be injected from outside, that is, so called 'gratia infusa.'

According to him, this injection creates a new disposition inside humans, which he called habitus. He said when one lived according to the habitus, more grace was added and his or her efforts and achievements accrued in his or her life, and eternal salvation as rewards of these achievements was finally obtained.

Martin Luther (1483-1546), who was devoted to Paul's Romans, claimed that salvation was simply received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.

He opposed combining 'God's grace' with 'good deeds' in the medieval theology but combined 'God's grace' with 'the faith.'

Luther preached that 'the essence of the gospel' is not human efforts to build up good deeds and to approach God, but the fact that God approaches human through Christ.

The most important for Luther was the doctrine of justification — God's act of declaring a sinner righteous — by faith alone through God's grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who developed a critique of Scholastic philosophy based on Scholastic methodology, arrived at only a single first principle: "I think, therefore I am" based on his clear and distinct conception and then offered an ontological proof of a benevolent God through both the ontological argument and trademark argument.

Moreover Descartes, who also found primitive the law of inertia and the momentum conservation law, advocated a vortex theory that was described as the vortex motion of particles which had led to create the universe.

However, Blaise Pascal criticized in his book Pensee, "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob are not the God of philosophers and scientists."

When the Industrial Revolution progressed, industrial capitalists emerged, and absolute monarchy and feudalism were shaken in Europe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), a Genevan watchmaker's son, criticized social inequality that had bound human freedom. Rousseau insisted that humans have both the particular wills of egoistic individuals and the general will which serves to designate the common interest, and proposed that people should abandon one's particular will and fully submit to the authority of the general will through the social contract in order to restore the original freedom of human beings.

According to him, the "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly. The government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general will. As the result, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others, and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.

Rousseau, who had converted to Roman Catholicism early in life and returned to the austere Calvinism of his native Geneva, wrote Emile and expounded his strong endorsement of religious toleration which was interpreted as advocating indifferentism, a heresy, and led to the condemnation of the book in both Calvinist Geneva and Catholic Paris.

Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith (1723-1790), on the other hand, advocated 'laissez-faire economy' saying, "A human has both a selfishness in which one inherently tries to make personal interests and a sympathy in which one wants to care for others, and these moral feelings become'an impartial spectator' within each person. Thus, the economic activity of each person in the free market is guided by the market mechanism, that is, so called 'the invisible hand of God' and then the best interest of society, as a whole, are fulfilled."

Both Rousseau's 'Social Contract Theory' and Smith's 'Laissez-faire Economy' based on 'the invisible hand of God,' seem to have been assumed to be embodied the kingdom being established by the second coming Jesus that Paul had preached in 'Letter to the Romans.'

Speaking of 'Social Contract Theory,' it may be possible or feasible as a small community of enthusiastic Paul supporters. 'Puritan Spirit,' that people abandon one's particular will and fully obey to the authority of the general will, deserves praise. However, the representative of the community is a living person, but not Jesus of the Second Coming that is said to have appeared in Paul's vision. Nevertheless, such 'Puritan Spirit,' which implies that people fully transfer their freedom and rights to the community, has been more or less inherited as an organizational philosophy not only by the United States but also by the communist governments as well as Islamic states.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who served as a professor of philosophy at the University of Konigsberg, thought that "the best purpose of life was not happiness, but the completion of a personality worthy of happiness" and called the society where all humans respected each other's personality as the purpose "the Kingdom of Ends (German: Reich der Zwecke)."

Kant, who wrote three Critiques, that is, "the Critique of Pure Reason," "the Critique of Practical Reason" and "the Critique of Judgment" and explained as follows; Human's recognition accepts external things through each sensory organ (such as eye, ear, nose and tongue) and its form (such as color, voice, fragrance and taste) and depending on human reason's ability of understanding captures them as "phenomena," but "thing-in-itself" is unknown. Thus, the phenomenon occurs after recognition, and does not exist as thing-in-itself before recognition. This theory of Kant is said to have brought about the Copernican revolution in philosophy.

Kant categorized reason into 'theoretical reason' and 'practical reason' each of which targets scientific objects and ethical objects respectively and raised the contradictory issue that if human beings are free, inevitability does not hold, and if humans are controlled by inevitability, there is no freedom of will. Then he said, "This is a pseudo-problem that arises as a result of equating 'thing-in-itself' and 'phenomenon.' Human's will has freedom as a 'phenomenon' and can pursue the necessity as an 'thing-in-itself.' Therefore, science in 'theoretical reason' and ethics in 'practical reason' are compatible within the each boundary."

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who called God's work as an absolute before the separation of spirit and material was 'absolute spirit,' preached, "History is the process of 'absolute spirit,' which is invisible, being externalized as a visible material by self-denying. The one, who has come to realize that the essence of the world is a free and reasonable spirit, is a 'human spirit. 'Human spirit' appears as an 'ethnic spirit,' a 'era spirit' and as a subjective 'individual spirit'."

Hegel, who had studied Kantian philosophy and the history of Christianity at the Tübinger Stif, a Protestant seminary attached to the University of Tübingen, thought, "Human freedom cannot be unrelated to the society or the history, it is beyond the personality of the individual, and unless the history reaches a certain stage, his or her freedom cannot be realized through individual will and desire."

Hegel was putting the finishing touches to his book 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' in Jena, as Napoleon engaged Prussian troops on 14 October 1806 on a plateau outside the city. Hegel witnessed Napoleon in the city and wrote to his friend Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer; "I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it."

Karl Marx (1818-1883), who had grown up in a Jewish rabbi family, inherited Hegel's Dialectical Philosophy which focussed on the historical developmental stage of society. He tried to prove that the economic system of Feudalism is shifted to the economic system of Capitalism through bourgeois revolution and eventually shifted to the economic system of Communism through Proletarian revolution based on his materialistic view of history, which holds that material production activities are the essence of human beings.

Marx's 'Proletarian Revolution' theory seems to have been influenced by 'Armageddon,' that is, the final war of the world written in 'The Revelation' and the faith of Jesus' second coming. By a curious coincidence, Marx, who was 25 at the time, expressed the same conclusion as Paul on the fate of the Jews in the first issue of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals) published in Paris in 1844, saying, "The Jews is no longer religious and racial classification, but a pure economic class that they have been forced into a money-lending or other similar profession by the treatment they have suffered from their neighbors. So they will be released only after other classes are released." Incidentally, the magazine was soon closed and only that one issue was published.

The Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, 34 years after Marx's death, and the world's first socialist state,'The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic' was born. There after, socialist regimes were established one after another in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Then, the world was divided into the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the US and entered the cold war era.

However, a communist state, in which all the people would be liberated from the class system and be protected their freedom and equality, as Marx prophesied, did not finally come true. The transitional socialist regime faced many contradictions and they attempted to introduce market mechanism in part. In the capitalist states too, their governments intervened in the market mechanism and attempted to avoid the cyclical economic depression. Therefore, both pure capitalist states and pure socialist states disappeared, and only pseudo capitalist states and pseudo socialist states exist now.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War structure between eastern and western blocs also disappeared, but various conflicts still remain. In any case, today, as the whole world is shifting to a managed market economy, the sources for conflicts in the economic structure seem to have declined significantly. The main contradiction facing the pseudo-capitalist and pseudo-socialist states is the delay in the superstructure reforms commensurate with the managed market economy. For example, the one-party dictatorship of the Communist Party is a transitional political system under a socialist system that aims to realize communism, and now it can no longer claim its legitimacy after the transition to the managed market economy.

During the three countries period (三国時代) of China, Liubei Xuande (劉備玄徳:161-223), a scion of the Han dynasty (漢朝), called at the farmstead of Zhuge Liang Kongming (諸葛亮孔明:181-234) with a nickname of Sleeping Dragon (臥龍) in order to recruit Kongming as his strategist.

The Han dynasty, which could be compare to the Roman Empire at the western end of the Silk Road and had boasted 400 years of prosperity in China at the eastern end, now began to decline after occurrence of the Yellow Turban Rebellion (黄巾之乱). Liubei Xuande, who had been humiliated to make and sell straw mat in spite of a royal pedigree like Jesus, took a pledge of brotherhood with Guan Yu (関羽:?-219) and Zhang Fei (張飛:?-221), two of the greatest warriors alive in China at that time, and uprose.

At that time, Kongming was still young but famous as the most accomplished strategist and was compared to Guan Zhong (管仲:725-645 BC), the chancellor of the state of Qi (齊) which had become the first powerful state of the Spring and Autumn period (春秋時代:771-476 BC) and Yue Yi (楽毅:?-?), the general of the state of Yan (燕) of the Warring States period (戦国時代:475–221 BC). Liu Bei, who had finally won Kongming's services as the Chief of the General Staff and the Prime Minister after paying three personal visits and had been presented with the latter's Longzhong Plan (隆中対), a general long-term plan outlining the takeover of Shu Han (蜀漢) Province and dividing China into three parts to counter the northern Wei (魏) and the southern Wu (呉), could successfully carve out his own realm, which at its peak spanned present-day Sichuan (四川), Chongqing (重慶), Guizhou (貴州), Hunan (湖南), and parts of Hubei (湖北) and Gansu (甘粛). Then China went into the Three Kingdoms era (三国時代), when the three countries, Wei (魏), Wu (呉) and Shu (蜀), confronted each other.

When Liu Bei Xuande first visited Kongming's farmstead, he happened to meet Kongming's friend Cui Zhouping (崔州平) on the way and asked him the way to rule the turbulence.

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Xuande: Could you be Sleeping Dragon (臥龍), Master?

Zhouping: I'm not Kongming (孔明), but a friend of his, Cui Zhouping (崔州平) of Boling (博陵).

Xuande: Your name has long been known to me. This is really a meeting arranged by fortune. I would like to benefit from your instruction if you could find the time.

The two men sat on some rocks in the woods, Guan Yu (関羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) stood to either side.

Zhouping: For what reason, General, do you want to see Kongming?

Xuande: There is such disorder in the Empire. I would seek of Kongming the strategy to secure and stabilize the government and the country.

Zhouping: It is a great will for you to calm down this world. But you seem not to understand the reason for this world to move from order to disorder or the other way round.

Xuande: It might be so. Could you let me know the reason for order and disorder in this world?

Zhouping responded with a smile: A mountain rustic like me is hardly fit to discuss the affairs of empire. However, if you don't get angry, let me say a word. Since ancient times periods, disorder and civic order have come and gone unpredictably. This is the law of the development of history. It is said: adapted to heaven and enjoy ease; oppose it and toil in vain. You cannot change the trend of the history. When the Supreme Ancestor (高祖) of the Dynasty slew the white serpent and embarked on the rising that destroyed the despotic Qin (秦), that interval, which led to the founding of the Han (漢), was a time of transition from discord to civil order. Two hundred years of peace and prosperity followed. Then, in the time of the Emperors Ai (哀) and Ping (平), Wang Mang (王莽) usurped the throne and brought the again from order to disorder. But Guang Wu (光武) revived the dynasty and brought us out of discord and back to civil order. Now after anothe two hundred years, during which the population has enjoyed peace and contentment, we find sword and shield around us.

Xuande: That's right. It's been more than 20 years since the turbulence started.

Zhouping: For the perspective of a person's life, twenty years may seem long, but for a permanent history, it is only a moment. It's just a breeze before the typhoon.

Xuande: There is great insight in your words. But I am the scion of the Han. It's my duty to maintain the dynasty's rule. So I cannot leave the task to fate. So looking for a sage, and trying to prevent the disaster of the people, or to make it the smallest and the shortest, I believe, is my mission.

Zhouping: How benevolent your intentions are. However, It is said, 'Adapt to Heaven and enjoy ease; oppose it and toil in vain.' It is also said, 'None can deduct from the reckoning, or force what is fated.' If you want Kongming to turn the universe or to repair the heaven and earth, it is not easy to eliminate the war from this world. Moreover Kongming is only an ordinary person with limited life.

Xuande, who had reverently listened to the end of what Zhouping talked, thanked him deeply after finishing his words, saying "I really appreciate your brilliant teaching." (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)

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Though Shu (蜀) became powerful by Kongmingi's 'Longzhong Plan,' all of the Three Kingdoms, that is, Wei (魏), Wu (呉) and Shu (蜀), were eventually destroyed, and Cui Zhouping's theory, that is, for this world to move from order to disorder or the other way round, came true. Although the grandson of Sima Yi Zhongda (司馬懿仲達:179-251), Wei (魏)'s general and strategist, established the Xijin (西晋) Dynasty and united the whole China, its unified nation did not last long and was replaced by the Sui (隋) and Tang (唐) Dynasties. Since then, the rise and fall of different dynasties has continued until today. It seems that 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国志演義)' written in the Ming (明) Dynasty (1368-1644) of China is permeated with the theory of 'Yixing Revolution (易姓革命)' — the theory that Era change due to the change of dynasty's surname according to The Heaven's Will (天命) causes the rise and fall of different dynasties. This theory is also very similar to Hegel's so-called 'Era Spirit.'

It is written in 'Bai Hu Tongyi (白虎通義)' composed by Ban Gu (班固) in the era of Eastern Han (東漢) Dynasty that a king who is heavenly appointed and changes the surname of dynasty must go up to Mount Taishan (泰山) and perform a ritual of Feng (封) to thank the heaven. And in Shiji (史記), the history book compiled by Sima Qian (司馬遷) in the Western Han (西漢) Dynasty era, it is also witten that the ancient emperors such as the first emperor of Qin Dynasty and Emperor Wu (武帝) of Han Dynasty performed rituals of Feng (封) to thank the Heaven and Chan (禅) to thank the Earth at Taishan. It is said that the ritual of FengChan (封禅) has been performed since the myth of Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (三皇五帝) era.

Incidentally it is written that "What Heaven has conferred (天命) is called the Nature (性:xing); an accordance with this nature is called the Path (道) of duty; the regulation of this path is called Instruction (教)." in the book 'Zhongyong (中庸: Doctrine of the Mean),' which is considered to be the work of Zisi(子思:483 - 402 BC), the grandson of Confucius (孔子: 552-479BC), a philosopher in the Spring and Autumn Era (春秋時代) of China. As it means that Heaven's Will (天命) is inherent in each human's personality and the Confucianism is a teaching letting us find and fulfill this Heaven's Will in his or her personality as one's own mission.

In addition, at the beginning of Daxue (大学: The Great Learning), which is said to be the work of Zeng Shen (曾参: 505 - 434 BC), a Confucius' disciple, it is explained as follows;

"The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue (明明徳: ming mingde) throughout the world (天下), first ordered well their own states (国). Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families (家). Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons (身). Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts (心). Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts (意). Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge (知). Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things (物). Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole world was made tranquil and happy."

'Mingde (明徳)' is synonymous with 'Xing (性),' which was described in 'Zhongyong' as "What Heaven has conferred (天命) is called the Nature (性: xing)," that is, a virtue conferred by Heaven which is already held inside of each person when he or she is born. It means that the ultimate goal of personality formation is realization of world peace and this goal can be reach through illustrating illustrious virtue at each level of individual, home, nation and global respectively. This ethical theory of Confucianism, that perfectly integrate national governance with personality formation, is reminiscent of Kant's 'Kingdom of Ends' and the educational theory described in Rousseau's 'Emile.'

Zhaozhou Congshen (趙州従諗778-897), one of the great Chan (Zen:禅) masters during the later period of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) in China, served as the abbot of a temple called Guanyin-yuan (観音院), located in a small town of Hubei (河北省), one day said from the podium, "I have a magic crystal ball (明珠) in my palm. When a barbarian comes, the barbarian will appear on it and when a Chinese comes, a Chinese will appear on it before the visitor goes through the gate. So I can use a grass as a body of 6 feet Golden Buddha and can use a body of 6 feet Golden Buddha as a grass. Because Buddha is trouble, trouble is Buddha."

At that time, a monk asked him, "I don't know whose trouble Buddha is?"

Zhaozhou replied "He troubles whole humanity."

"How can we get rid of it?" he asked again.

Zhaozhou said, "Why should you get rid of it?" (Wudeng Huì yuan Third Volume:五灯会元第三巻)

Incidentally, Ikkyu Sojun (一休宗純:1394-1481), a distinguished Zen priest who lived in the late Muromachi (室町) period of Japan and is said to have been the illegitimate child of Emperor Gokomatsu (後小松天皇), composed a comic tanka poem, saying, "釈迦といふ いたづらものが世にいでて おほくの人をまよはすかな(The Buddha is mischievous, come to this world to lead many people astray)," "南無釈迦じゃ 娑婆じゃ地獄じゃ 苦じゃ楽じゃ どうじゃこうじゃと いうが愚かじゃ(Amen Sakyamuni Buddha! Oh corrupt this world! Hell! Pain! Happy! It was dumb of you to say this or that)." ＜To be continued＞

One day, Zhaozhou said from the podium, "I have a magic crystal ball in my palm. When a barbarian comes, the barbarian will appear on it. When a Chinese comes, a Chinese will appear on it. So I can use a grass as a body of 6 feet Golden Buddha and can use a body of 6 feet Golden Buddha as a grass. Because Buddha is trouble, trouble is Buddha."

At that time, a monk asked him, "I don't know whose trouble Buddha is?"

Zhaozhou replied "He troubles everyone."

"How can we get rid of it?" he asked again.

Zhaozhou said, "Why should you get rid of it?"

According to the dialectic of the Gospel of John,

【Thesis】"A man can possess eternal life through accepting testimony of the Son of man and being baptized by him." (John 5:24)

【Anti-thesis】But "The one who comes from the earth cannot accept the testimony by one from heaven." (John 3:32)

How then can a man possess eternal life?

【Synthesis】"If you want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, you can just go back to the word which was with God in the beginning (John 1:1) and certify that God is truthful. (John 3:33)"

When he said, "You are Huichao," Zen Master Fayan thrusted vivid Self in Huichao in front of his eyes.