Triune God Final

Question 1

1. List the three basic biblical commitments that underlie the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. (Notes 14)

Answer 1

1. There’s only one true God.
2. There are three who are distinct who are identified as God in Scripture.
3. There are three co-equal and co-eternal.

Question 2

2. What significance do the OT references to the “Angel of the LORD” have for the doctrine of the Trinity? Notes especially the importance of divine identity as well as the Sender/Sent distinction. (Notes 14)

Answer 2

Though distinct from YHWH, it bears the same name, exercises the same power, brings the same deliverance, dispenses the same blessings, receives the same donation and honor.

real divine identity and some sort of distinction between the LORD as sender and the angel of the LORD as sent.

Question 3

3. How does Psalm 45:6-7 indicate self-differentiation within the Godhead? (Notes 14)

Answer 3

There are two who are called God

Question 4

4. How does Isaiah 48:12-16 (esp. v. 16) suggest that God is Triune? (Notes 14)

Answer 4

If the speaker is the same as the one who began in verse 12, then the speaker is the creator.

Question 5

5. Note the connection between the progress of redemption and the progressive revelation of God’s inner triune life. (Notes 15)

Answer 5

intimately bound up with the disclosure and accomplishment of his redemptive purposes.

Question 6

6. How do the historical/redemptive “missions” of the Son and Spirit in the NT provide a sketch of the eternal relations among the persons of the Godhead? (Notes 15)

Answer 6

The Son’s historical as the human “second Adam”
1. accomplishes the work of God
2. sent by the Father
3. Identifies himself by the absolute name “the son”
4. is the object of worship

The Holy Spirit
1. The Holy Spirit is a person
2. He is distinct from the Father and Son.
3. He accomplishes the work of God as only one who is driven can do and receives the same worship as the Father and Son.

Question 7

7. How does baptism disclose the Trinity to us (note Matt. 28:19)? (Notes 15)

Answer 7

Baptized in the name of all three .

Question 8

8. T/F All biblical references to God as “Father” specifically designate the person of the Father in distinction from the Son and Spirit. (Notes 15)

Answer 8

False

Question 9

9. To what is the Father being contrasted when the NT speaks of him as the one/only true God? The Son? Idols/false gods? (Notes 15)

Answer 9

Idols/false gods

Question 10

10. How does John 1:1-4 prove the Word’s (Son’s) divine identity? (Notes 15)

Answer 10

Word was God, and with God

Question 11

11. According to Aquinas, what was wrong with the Arian and Sabellian understanding of the procession of the Son and Spirit? (Notes 19)

Answer 11

must distinguish between outward procession and inward procession, the former terminates in the world of creatures, while the latter terminates within the being of God.

Question 12

12. How does Thomas Aquinas use the analogy of intellectual activity to illumine the meaning of procession within God? (Notes 19)

Answer 12

Creation is an action proceeding outward; action proceeds inward and remains in the agent.

two types of immanent action in God, of the intelligence and the of will of God. Former the generation of the son, latter the procession of the Spirit.

Question 13

13. According to Aquinas, what is the proper meaning of generation? (Notes 19)

Answer 13

Not properly a begining of existence.

1. Generation indicates a change from non-existence to existence
2. procession exists in God according to an intelligible mode
3. That which is generated receives its existence from another

Question 14

14. What does the Word receive from the Father in the act of generation? Does this place him in a position of subordination to the Father? (Notes 19)

Answer 14

The essence and dignity of the Father and the Son are the same; in the Father, we have the relation of the giver, in the Son, the relation of the receiver.

Question 15

15. How does Aquinas maintain divine pure actuality and simplicity, on the one hand, and real relations in God, on the other? (Notes 20)

Answer 15

By observing that acciddentality, is marked by inherence in a subject, does not belong to the proper character of relation as such.

Question 16

16. According to the lecture notes, what is Aquinas’s truly “unique proposal” regarding real relations in God? (Notes 20)

Answer 16

relations don’t exist in as much as they only exist in the minds of knowers.

Question 17

17. T/F Divine simplicity proscribes [i.e., disallows] not only division and composition in the Godhead, but also any distinction. (Notes 20)

Answer 17

True: Divine simplicity has long insisted that simplicity only proscribes division a nd composition in the Godhead, no distinction.

Question 18

18. In the Trinity, what are the distinguishing (i.e., constituting) characteristics that differentiate each of the three persons from the other two? (Notes 21)

Answer 18

Paternity, filiation, procession

Father
1. paternity
2. unbegottenness
3. active inspiration

Son
1. eternal filiation
2. word of the father
3. image of the invisible God

Holy Spirit
1. procession of the Holy spirit
from the father and the son

Question 19

19. T/F There is no distinction among the divine persons at the level of being or essence. (Notes 21)

Answer 19

TRUE

Question 20

20. According to Gilles Emery, what problem ensues if one defines the persons just by reason, or freedom, or capacity for autonomous action? (Notes 21)

Answer 20

would mean three persons

Question 21

21. T/F According to Gilles Emery, the spiration of the Spirit is an act of procession in God that occurs separately from the generation of the Son. (Notes 21)

Answer 21

False

Question 22

22. What is meant by the distinction between the “Ontological Trinity” and the “Economic Trinity”? (Notes 22)

Answer 22

God as he is in himself

God as he is revealed to us

Question 23

23. How do the various models of Social Trinitarianism attempt to use the Trinity? (Notes 22)

Answer 23

use as a blueprint for the ideal human society

1. those who understand divine relations in a strongly subordinationist manner can use the Trintiy as a model for political monarchy
2. Those who stress the real ontological equality might attempt to use the Trinity as a model for some form of societal egalitarianism.

Question 24

24. Definition of the divine decree (Notes 23)

Answer 24

The decree of God is his eternal plan for all that exists or will happen in time.

Question 25

25. According to Ephesians 1:11, what is encompassed by God’s will/counsel? (Notes 23)

Answer 25

Encompasses all that exists and transpires

Question 26

26. T/F According to the lecture notes the plurality within the world requires for its foundation a plurality of really distinct decrees in God. (Notes 23)

Answer 26

FALSE

Question 27

27. According to the lecture notes, if God decrees responses, does it follow that he must decree responsively? (Notes 24)

Answer 27

If he decree responsively then he would exist in time

Question 28

28. Does an eternal decree necessitate an eternal creature? (Notes 24)

Answer 28

1. in God there is one simple and eternal act of his will 2. good and evil successively doesn't imply two successive decrees 3. God's revealed dispensation, but decree itself not An eternal decree doesn't beget an eternal creature.

Question 29

29. T/F God decrees conditionals but does not decree conditionally. (Notes 24)

Answer 29

TRUE

Question 30

30. Give a basic summary of Wilhelmus à Brakel’s description of predestination. (Notes 25)

Answer 30

An eternal, violation, and immutable decree of God, some men are brought unto salvation, also some men are damned for their sin.

Question 31

31. In what sense does election differ from predestination? (Notes 25)

Answer 31

election is the predestination of the saints strickter

Question 32

32. Summarize Wilhelmus à Brakel’s definition of election. (Notes 25)

Answer 32

the foreordination of God where by he eternalluy, certainly, and immutable decreed to lead specific individual to eternal salvation. Not by foreseen faith or good works, but by his soverign good pleasure.

Question 33

33. Summarize Wilhelmus à Brakel’s definition of reprobation. (Notes 25)

Answer 33

predestination of a specific individual, out of the sovereign good, pleases to manifest God's justice by punishing them for their sin.

Question 34

34. How does Herman Bavinck explain the meaning of creation? (Notes 26)

Answer 34

The act of God, by his sovereign will, brought the entire world out of nonbeing into a being distinct from his own.

Question 35

35. According to the lecture notes what is the chief significance of the doctrine of creation? (Notes 26)

Answer 35

religious and ethical

Question 36

36. Identity one of the biblical texts listed in the lecture notes that testifies to the narrow sense of creation ex nihilo and indicate how that text establishes such a conception of creation. (Notes 26)

Answer 36

John 1:3 Without God, nothing has been made

Question 37

37. How does Romans 11:36 support the doctrine of creation ex nihilo? (Notes 26)

Answer 37

indicates all things come from God and through him

Question 38

38. T/F According to the lecture notes, in creation there is something new in the world and something new in God in that he begins to do what he previously did not. (Notes 28)

Answer 38

false

Question 39

39. In what sense might we say that God is eternally Creator and that he did not become a Creator? (Notes 28)

Answer 39

eternity and time act different His will to create is from all eternity

Question 40

40. Should we think of the absolute Creator-creature distinction as a Creator-creature separation? Why or why not? (Notes 28)

Answer 40

Creation dependent on God is is wholly independent No, distinction not separation, the distinction would only be a separation or entail some sense of divine "remoteness" if God belong to same order as creatures

Question 41

41. Be familiar with Louis Berkhof’s definition of divine providence. (Notes 29)

Answer 41

The work of God by which He preserves all His creatures is active in all that transpires in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end.

Question 42

42. What is wrong with conceiving divine providence as God’s “interference” in the world? (Notes 29)

Answer 42

1. conceives the world more as a machine that God puts into operation rather than a vessel he pilots 2. it may be that we find echoes of this "interventionist" account of providence we we attribute only certain blessings in our lives to God's providence - at those moments when we experience an unexpected blessing.

Question 43

43. What is meant by God’s providential “preservation”? (Notes 29)

Answer 43

1. Doesn't mean that God continues to create ex nihilo 2. acknowledges that while the world has a distinct existence in itself that is not identical with God's existence, it nevertheless finds the ground of it continuance in existence in God and not in itself

Question 44

44. Be familiar with the meaning of providential concurrence. (Notes 30)

Answer 44

work of God by which he co-operates with all His creatures and causes them to act precisely as they do. All creatures have received an independent and unique existence from God

Question 45

45. Is divine concurrence a cooperation of “collateral” involvement in which God does his part and humans do theirs? Do God and humans distribute the work of causality by percentages between themselves? Why or why not? (Notes 30)

Answer 45

It is not a cooperation of "collateral" involvement. 1. divine an creature's action not each performing a percentage 2. This would mean God merely joins himself to the activity of the moving creature; God's initiative precedes the motion of the creature.