test #1 Flashcards
(29 cards)
Adoni
“master, lord, Lord” lit. “my lords” less evident than Elohim, Adonai likewise suggest divine plurality. However, the very unusual construction seems to be 1. a constricted form of the plural “lords” 2. together with the contradictory singular possessive of suffix “my”
Apophatic Theology
Sometimes termed negative theology or the via negative, apophatic theology defines God by what he is not; human lanuage is said to be incapable of describing the infinity wonder of God, thus he is in-finite, I’m-mutable, etc.
Augustinian Theodicy
He could not remove the possibility of sin with- out removing their free will. The liberty that God gave is good in itself and man is responsible for his own choices. free will is granted by a good, all-powerful, hence the source of evil in the universe.
Carson’s 5 Biblical Aspects of the Divine Love
(1) The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father.
(2) God’s providential love over all that he has made.
(3) God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world.
(4) God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect.
(5) Finally, God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way - conditioned, that is, on obedience.
Deism
Until 17th century synonymous with theism, the term Deism came to distinguish a view that affirms that a Supreme Being created the world but has little or no direct involvement in that creation; knowledge of this God comes though natural reason as opposed to divine revelation. Nevertheless humankind has obligation to worship, live ethically, and repent of sin in light of eventual divine judgement.
Divine Impassibility
The idea that god has no emotions and cannot be moved to emotions.
Because the self-revelation of God is authentic to who he is, we deduce that God’s emotions are both similar and different from our own. The Triune God reflects a fullness of balanced emotions, without caprice or uncontrolled passions. At the same time, “God is not subject to compulsion by what is not divine” (Moltmann). Whereas the Triune God is independent of creation, complete and fulfilled in himself, he chooses to enter the created arena of personal and emotive relationships, showing forth caring, yearning, sadness, anger and joy—emotions consistent with his entire nature.
Divine Omniscience
God knows all past, present and future, together with the trillions of possibilities and contingencies. If there are things that “catch God by sur- prise,” then chance, not God, is at the back of the universe.
Divine Presence: Aspects of God’s Presence, Transcendence, Immanence
God exists instantaneously inside and outside the dimensions of finite existence. Transcendence means that God is distinct, above and separate from all earthly and heavenly creation, unknowable apart from his graceful self-revelation. Immanence signifies that God is everywhere present within creation, sustaining it by his presence and power, yet unconfused with it.
Divine Simplicity, Divine oneness
Each of the three persons shares precisely the same charac- teristics because, together, they constitute the one infinite God. That is, there is full unity of na- ture. For example, the Son is not especially loving, nor the Father especially wrathful, nor the Spirit especially gracious. All that the Triune God does is in the fullness and harmony of the divine attributes.
Elohim
“God, gods”; lit. “the powerful ones” or “most high ones” Elohim is usually considered a “plural of majesty”. thus, Elohim stands fairly consistently as a parallel title for HYWH
Eternality (2 understandings)
Everlastingness. One might say that God flows through history with us. This is unmistakable in the whole of Scripture.
Outside of time. God also exists outside the dimension of time. While entering into time and relat- ing personally with us, God also stands above all history instantly, seeing all time as present
Feminist Theism: 3 categories
Rejectionist (Post-Christian)- This pole rejects Scripture and historic Christianity as promoting an oppressive patriarchal structure.
Reformist (or Liberation)- For the same reason that the perception of God was expressed as male in ancient patriarchal societies, so today we can rightly speak of a plurality of models of God—images relevant to human diversity: God as Mother, Lover and Friend
Loyalist- The conservative pole of the debate refuses to deny what appears to be the objective
teaching of Scripture and finds in it little if any oppressive sexism.
Illustrations of the Trinity
egg, water, humans (insufficient in human terms)
Mormon view of God
Modern Mormons will often say they believe in the Trinity like classical Christians. What is not said is that they believe in innumerable hierarchies of gods inhabiting the galaxies, each god (as earth’s God the Father) seeking a following and reproducing spirit children who then are made to become gods through physical conception and some religious process. Polytheistic
Names of God: the significance of name
hebrew significance of a name
Nicene Creed
The difinitive standard of Trinitarian faith set forth at the Nicene Council that declares the consubstantiality (homoousios) of the Son with the Father, while condemning the views of Arius.
Ontological argument
A view that the trinity centers in and of itself as present only to itself - a view occasionally expressed in Scripture (Jn 1:1-2,18); thus it focuses on the internal relations between the Father, Son, and HS.
Open/Free will theism
Open theists see God as a God of change, flexible and ev- erlastingly working within time. Unlike process theology, Open theology acknowledges that God is not dependent upon the world and, while he usually limits his intervention in the world by choice, God can occasionally act unilaterally against moral creature’s free will. The Open view emphasizes that God has chosen to enter into dynamic personal relation with creation and mankind. God lacks knowledge of the future because the future does not yet exist. Hence, he takes risks, changes his mind, and works creatively amidst the choices of humanity. Paramount among the divine attributes is love, by which God relates to man as a partner and friend, thereby granting each person genuine freedom.
Pascal’s Wager
French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) argued in his classic Pensées that—given
the options of belief in the Christian God with a life of obedience versus disbelief in God with a life of pleasure—the reasonable choice would be obedient belief in God. basically you loose nothing by choosing God but everything if you don’t and he exists.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of God
Teilhard understood God as the divine force of evolution drawing the material universe
through three states: (1) biological life (biogenesis); (2) human self-conscious thought (noogenesis); and (3) spiritual oneness with God (Christogenesis). Jesus Christ is seen as God’s promise of the end, the eschaton, when God will become incarnate not only in all humanity but also in all mat- ter (“cosmic convergence”). This Omega Point of history, then, will be a complete hypostatic un- ion of God with all creation; the universe will become God’s body.
The problem of Evil
if God exists and cannot do anything for evil he is impotent. If he exists and does nothing about evil he is evil.
2 kinds of evil: Moral and Natural. I disobey so I am spanked. My bottom stings is natural, my not obeying is moral.
Process Theism
process thought conceives of God as creatively active in history in a way that is directly and essentially related to the responsiveness of the world. God does not control history. Divine influence is persuasive, not coercive.
Teleological Argument
The apparent purpose, order and design in the uni- verse would necessitate an intelligent Creator. Whereas the cosmological argument is based on existence, the teleological argument centers on intelligent design. The astoundingly intricate order, both micro and macroscopically, implies a Designer; this is the primary argument from natural thoelogy.
Tetragrammaton
The 4 character word for God YHWH. Jews would not read it aloud but say it in their minds and read Adonai.
