Part Two: Main Points from Readings, Class lectures, and Discussions Flashcards
Be prepared to provide a 3-5 sentence answer to each of the questions listed below (23 cards)
What does Anselm mean, when he says that the supreme nature “is simple?”
The supreme nature is simple in such a way that all things that can be said of its essence are one and the same in it: and nothing can be said of its substance except in terms of what it is. Therefore, nothing that is truly said of the supreme being is accepted in terms of quality or quantity, but only in terms of what it is. For, whatever it is in terms of either quality or quantity would constitute still another element, in terms of what it is; hence, it would not be simple, but composite.
What does Lewis Ford mean by divine “persuasive” power? How does this contrast with divine “coercive” power?
Persuasive power operates indirectly, for it effective in determining the outcome only to the extent that the process appropriates and reaffirms for itself the aims envisioned in the persuasion. Coercive power directly influences the outcome, since the process must conform to its control. Thus the measure of control introduced differs; coercive power and control are commensurate, while persuasive power introduces the additional variable of acceptance by the process in actualization. That God’s control is in fact limited by the existence of evil would signify a limited coercive power, but it is compatible with unlimited persuasive power.
Briefly describe any two of McFague’s five models for understanding God’s relation to the world. What– according to McFague–are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these two models?
3) Monarchical (King)–dominant model, most Christians in N. America uses this model, really shook up McFague and Karl Barth to take Jesus as master adv: built in way of talking about vocation–serious responsibility dis: concentrates power in person of king–paternalistic though has been unkind to planet
5) Organic (World as God’s body)–God as world/body. This model of God sees God’s body in all things (pantheism.) While this image acknowledges God’s presence in the world and calls humans to better stewardship of creation, it removes the boundaries between creator and creation and blurs lines between Christian orthodoxy and spirituality.
Other models:
1) Deistic (Watchmaker)– adv: allowed science to do its thing dis: contact is sporadic, technical, removed
2) Dialogic (Thou)–sees this as rooted in Hebrew Scriptures adv: constant conversation, plugged in dis: distrustful of personal walk and about our personal sins
4) Agential (Agent in History)–process theology fits well adv: doesn’t have disadvantages of monarchical–inside process
How does Benedict Spinoza argue the claim that God is not affected by joy or sadness?
God is without passions, nor is he affected with any experience of joy or sadness. God cannot pass to a higher or lower perfection: and therefore he is affected with no emotion of joy or sadness. God, strictly speaking, loves no one nor hates any one. For God is affected with no emotion of joy or sadness, and consequently loves no one nor hates any one.
- Spinoza reasons that any passion on the part of God involves a change in his being. Either he moves to a greater perfection, or to a lesser. In either case, the perfection of God is compromised, in that God either becomes more or less perfect - signifying that god was not perfect from the start or could cease to be perfect. As a result, it is not possible to speak of God loving anyone, as this proves to be inconsistent with the idea of a perfect God.*
- He argues that God is entirely perfect as God is. To be subject to passions or emotions would open God to the possibility of being moved to a greater or lesser perfection, which is against God’s nature. In his understanding, God neither loves nor hates anyone, thus removing God’s self from passions implicit in those connections.*
In what way–according to Moltmann – does God suffer? How is this different from the way that creatures suffer?
God suffers through active suffering, which is the suffering of love, a voluntary openness to the possibly of being affected by outside influence. If God were really incapable of suffering, he would also be as incapable of loving as the God of Aristotle, who was loved by all, but could not love. God is open to suffering that love brings with it, although he is always able to surmount that suffering because of love. God does not suffer, like his creature, because his being is incomplete. He loves from the fullness of his being and suffers because of his full and free love.
Briefly describe what Eiesland calls “liberatory realism.”
Liberatory realism maintains a clear recognition of the limits of our bodies and an acceptance of limits as the truth of being human. It calls for a realization of the necessity of a social and interpersonal transformation that does not surrender to cynicism and defeatism any more than the limits of our bodies suggest that we should do nothing. It locates hope in justice and mutuality in a justice that removes the barriers that constrain the bodies of people with disabilities. It situates hope in the reality of our existence as ones with dignity and integrity. Hope is the recollections and projection that nonconventional bodies are worth the living.
What–according to Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg–would it mean for God to have “perichoretic unity?”
Periochoresis was a term that originated in the East to emphasize the divine unity in light of the distinction of persons. Today, many trinitarians use it to underscore the volitional ties of life and love shared by the persons, their unity of purpose, fellowship and love. In the divine communion, the three persons mutually and intimately indwell one another. Therefore beyond being members of the same class of divine persons (essential divine unity), and beyond being members of the same family (quasi-genetic unity), Father, Son, and Spirit are also united in purpose fellowship, and love (periochoretic unity).
It goes beyond their shared identity and expresses their mutual love and affection.
How does Gregory of Nyssa describe the unity of God’s overseeing activity?
It issues from the Father, as from a spring. It is actualized by the Son; and its grace is perfected by the power of the Holy Spirit. No activity is distinguished among the persons, as if it were brought to completion individually by each of them or separately apart form their joint supervision. Rather is all providence, care and direction of everything whether in the sensible creation or of heavenly nature, one and not three. Apart from God nothing comes into being; and again, this source of goodness issues from the Father’s will.
Using the example of beholding, Gregory does not choose to speak of the trinity in terms of God’s nature, but in terms of God’s operations. We cannot speak of God’s nature, but we can speak of God’s actions. He gives scriptural evidence that each of the three persons beholds and perceives. Instead of the three persons acting independently, their operations originate in the Father, proceed through the Son and manifest in the Spirit. No operation is independent to any person, and none of the three could see any operation to completion without the other two.
What are the three ways of talking about the Trinity’s unity, according to Tanner?
One can talk about this unity in terms of a unity of essence or substance; in terms of co-inherence of substance and Persons; and in terms of indivisibility in action
1) Unity of essence or substance means that the three Persons of the Trinity are the very same thing or concrete substance in three modes or forms of presentation. They are repetitions of each other and yet are individually identified.
2) The three therefore co-inhere, they are in one another, in virtue of this same essence or substance reappearing in them in different modes of existence.
3) The three are united, in an indivisible action together, both in relation to one another as a living dynamism and in relation to the world. This means the three persons are always united in action. Father is source, Son is power and Spirit is conveying completion.
In what sense–according to Cheng–is the doctrine of the Trinity a “manifestation of God’s radical love?”
It is a manifestation of God’s radical love because it is an internal community of radical love. That is, the Trinity breaks down a number of categories, including the self and the other. By being both three and one, a Trinitarian understanding of God dissolves a number of boundaries: the self and the other, public and private relationship, pair-bonded relationship and fragmented identities.
What–according to Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg – do Christian theologians mean, by the claim that “creatures are dependent, yet real and good?”
That creatures are good is the obvious implication of being created by a good God. We are not God or an essential part of God, but creatures of God. There is indeed one ultimate principle, God, but God is not the only ‘real’ thing. Our creatureliness is not illusory and something to be overcome. The fact that creatures are finite and individuated celebrates the diversity and beauty of God’s creation. Each and every creature are dependent upon God and possesses an intrinsic goodness and worth, a discrete existence that glorifies the Creator.
What “poetic value and truth” does Baker-Fletcher find in the traditional claim that God created something out of nothing?
The poor and the frugal around the globe know what is means to live with a scarcity of resources, a kind of nothingness, and make something out of it. For those people, using the word “nothing” figuratively comes naturally. One can conclude that what looks like nothing to us is something to God. The very power of renewing life, individually and collectively, is a divine gift received from a God of courage and grace.
It is a story of hope for those with “nothing,” knowing God can make something out of that.
What is the distinction that Irenaeus makes, between the image of God and the likeness of God (as reported by Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg)?
According to Irenaeus, the image of God concerns humanity’s natural capacities and primarily involves the immortal soul’s rationality and freedom. This image remained in humanity after the fall into sin. Likeness to Do, on the other hand, concerns humanity’s original righteousness and special relationship with God. This supernatural endowment was lost as a result of the fall into sin and stands in need of restoration, which takes place through the incarnation of the Logos (Christ thus truly reveals both the image and the likeness of God).
In what three ways is the image of God present in humanity, according to Aquinas (as reported by Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg)?
Aquinas claims that the image of God is chiefly in intellectual creatures, who most image God when they reflect the divine self-understanding and love. First, by natural all human beings have a capacity–found in the mind–for understanding and loving God that is unaffected by sin. Second, by grace some human beings (“the just’) do in fact know and love God to some degree, the degree to which they are being restored in the image through Christ. Third, those human beings who have gone to glory (“the blessed’) know and love God perfectly by virtue of their participation in the beatific vision.
Name and briefly describe the particular ethic that McFague derives from the metaphor of God as Mother.
The ethic of God as Mother is justice. The ethic of justice in a holistic, nuclear world implies an ethic of care, for with the shift of power from nature to human beings there is no way we can deal justly with other orders of being, either in recognition of their intrinsic worth or as the necessary support for our existence, unless we become caretakers. It is here that the model of parent becomes especially relevant as a way to envision human behavior that is concerned to bring about justice through care. If we see ourselves as universal parents, as profoundly desiring not our own lives to go on forever but the lives of others to come into being, we would have the model highly appropriate to our time.
This ethic would allow us to see the world differently and become a lens through which we looked out on the world. We would no longer see a world we named and ruled or, like the artist God, made. Our positive role in creation is as preservers, those who pass life along and who care for all forms of life so they may prosper - a peculiar human calling implied in the model of God as mother.
Name and briefly describe four of the major biblical models for sin.
1) disobedience–like Michelangelo’s visual of the Genesis story, doing what someone told you not to do 2) violation of covenant–based on political treaty model that powerful ruler makes with others, a set of terms (God–I will be your God and you will be my people, Israel.) that God unilaterally drew up both sides a pledge, like marital covenant 3) spiritual faithlessness/adultery– in prophets, the prophet talks to people about unfaithfulness like in an intimate relationship (Israel as the female lover) not keeping faith, hurt 4) breach of natural law–Paul’s letter to Romans–some things natural to know God through reason/philosophical argument patterns instilled by God in the way life on this planet unfolds, sin as veering away from the pattern only human creatures have this capacity 5) disbelief–Johanian belief–Jesus does amazing things, we just don’t believe connected to wisdom tradition (Jesus as new Wisdom) close to divine wisdom and we reject belief 6) missing the mark–shooting at the target and miss it Julian of Norwich–servant well intentioned but falls and can’t get up very different than others Aquinas sees us as capable of making mark but we are not consistent, can’t sustain it
Briefly describe Schleiermacher’s use of the categories of history and society to explain the doctrine of original sin (as reported by Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg).
Schleiermacher is compelled to give some account of “original sin” but wants to avoid the problems of the traditional Augustinian model so he locates the transmission of original sin in the social and historical dynamics of human life. Since the interrelated systems, institutions, and cultures of human society have been permeated by sin (whose ultimate origins are mysterious), all those born into that social history are conditioned by these very same sinful forces. Up to the point of the actualization of original sin, it is best regarded as “originated original sin” because it a sinfulness that is inevitably acquired by human beings as they develop as members of a sin-infected human society. But when a person actualizes that original sin, that is, actually sins, it becomes “originating original sin,” for his sinful actions beget even more sin and corruption both in the individual self and in others around him.
What– according to Baker-Fletcher –is the primary sin of women and men? And what (on her view) is the good news of the story of Job?
The primary sin of women and men has been the presumption of sufficient wisdom to handle like God the knowledge we have sought to possess.The good news of the story is simply that divine creativity is greater than any other power in its capacity to create. It is also greater in its capacity to instruct human beings in wisdom.
What are Epicurus’ three propositions that– taken together–express the formal problem of evil’ (as reported by Plantinga, Thompson, and Lundberg)?
Epicurus held that is was impossible to hold these three propositions together: 1) God is all-powerful. 2) God is all-good. 3) Evil exists.
These questions, when put together, create the issue of theodicy. If God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does God not allow “ungood” suffering to occur. Hume proposed, with these in mind, that either God is not all-powerful to fix evil or that God is not all-good. Or God does not exist.
What–according to Robert M. Adams–are the four main approaches to theodicy in Christian theology?
1) Evils are logically necessary for greater good so that even an omnipotent being would have a morally sufficient reason to cause or permit evils in order to obtain the goods. 2) Some or all evils can be traced to sinful free actions (or free will) of humans or other beings (such as angels) created by God. 3) Abandoning the view that God is omnipotent, God does not have the kind of power required to rule out all evils as God works toward good outcomes. 4) Shift focus from the question “Why evil?” to the question “What will God do about it?” This fourth approach can be combined with one of the first three and also might appeal to those who think that we will never, ever be able to understand God’s reasons for permitting evil.
What theological interpretation does Baker-Fletcher give, to the term “hate crime?”
When appealing to a higher power than any the world offers, there is one race–the human race. In this respect, any violent crime against another human being is a hate crime borne out of racialized loathing.
Such violence is always violence of kin against kin and kin against God in the eyes of God. Hate crime is a form of active han in which woundedness emerges as active animosity and open bitterness to the point of physical violence. Because the image of God is present in every human being, no matter how corrupted and distorted, when we violate a fellow human being we violate God.
What–according to Baker-Fletcher–is forgiveness?
It is a lifelong spiritual discipline in which the sanctifying power of God makes it possible. It is a matter of freeing one’s own heart from the corrosive embittering effects of hatred. It is the act of praying for another’s salvation rather than for their everlasting damnation. It is the act of desiring divine overcoming of evil while also desiring the salvation of those who have been seduced by it. It is a God-given grace that frees the sinned against to pray for the salvation of the sinners to free the world from further hatred, violence and desecration.
Forgiveness is a grace and love by which the sinned against move from active and passive han into a stance of love and non-hate. It is the movement of praying for both God to overcome the powers of evil in the world and for the redemption of sinners. It is a desire whose goal is to work towards the redemptive love in the world over and above the continued cycle of hate. It is an internal condition that is not reliant on interaction with the sinner. Randy Byrd is a great example.
In what sense–according to Barbara Brown Taylor–is our relationship to God “not simply a matter of what we think or how we feel?”
It is more comprehensive than what we think or how we feel, and more profound. It is a full-bodied relationship in which mind and heart, spirit and flesh, are converted to a new way of experiencing and responding to the world. It is the surrender of one set of images and acceptance of another. It is a matter of learning to see the world, each other, and ourselves as God sees us, and to live as if God’s reality were the only one that mattered.
