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Explain the Christian conception of the nature of love as it is revealed in the First Letter of John. Compare the ideas in the First Letter of John with M. Scott Peck’s notion of the nature of love. Explain how these ideas about love are relevant to Christian marriages. Also explain why Peck believes that people often confuse certain types of desire with love.
Professor’s Essay Instructions.
Structure:
The main problem with most papers is that they are not well-structured. A good paper must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Many poor papers wander from one thought to the next without any attempt to organize the thoughts into a coherent conclusion or proof. Your first paragraph should identify the question or topic that you will be addressing in your paper, and explain the religious or historical context of the question. In the next few paragraphs you will be introducing evidence to try to answer the question that you identified in your first paragraph. Your concluding paragraph will build on the central arguments of your paper and use them to answer the question you posed in your introduction. Many poor papers lack a conclusion. You must write one (or suffer the consequences). A good paper will not have a grandiose conclusion in which you try to demonstrate how your topic is related to all the problems in the universe. Rather, a paper should take all the evidence presented in the paper and synthesize it into a simple, rational conclusion or reflection. You should not, however, simply restate in your conclusion what you have already said in your earlier paragraphs. Take the ideas that you have presented and make an argument with them about the development of religion through time, about how modern and ancient religions differ or are similar, about the way ritual and religious stories are related, or about something else that would be relevant to the class. The conclusion is your chance to explore not just what people do or believe, but rather the meaning of the doctrines or rituals. The point of the conclusion is that you are supposed to come up with something on your own. Be confident and make your own arguments. Although some may argue that such a rigid structure detracts from the beauty and spontaneity of a work, one may also argue that the very structure of a work contributes to the beauty of the work. As evidence of the latter, one may point to the remarkable structure present in Bach’s concertos or Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Paragraphs:
All paragraphs must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Your first sentence should introduce in a general way what that paragraph is addressing. The following sentences should introduce evidence about what it is you are attempting to demonstrate in that paragraph, and provide analysis of that evidence. Your final sentence should come to some conclusion about what you have demonstrated in that paragraph. Each paragraph should be a proof. A sentence should be linked to that which it follows and that which it precedes. By using transition devices, by varying your sentence structure, and by arguing in a logical fashion, a paragraph will cohere and also flow smoothly.