Triune God Midterm

Question 1

Definition of divine incomprehensibility

Answer 1

The knowledge of God cannot be contained by the mind of the creature.

Question 2

How does 1 Kings 8:27 establish the incomprehensibility of God?

Answer 2

God cannot be contained. The finite can’t contain the infite.

Question 3

In what two senses do we say God is incomprehensible?

Answer 3

God cannot be grasped in his entirety.

Fundamental difference between creature and creation.

Question 4

In reference to our understanding of God, what is the difference between ‘comprehending’ and ‘knowing’?

Answer 4

We can attain some knowledge but we can never fully comprehend God.

Question 5

Fill in the missing word from this statement by Herman Bavinck: ‘If we cannot speak of God ________________, then we cannot speak of him at all.’

Answer 5

Analogically

Question 6

If God is unknowable in himself, how and where does he make something of himself known to us?

Answer 6

Through his revelation

Question 7

Who names God? Why?

Answer 7

God names himself, for our benefit. We are unable to comprehend him so we rely on Him to name Himself.

Question 8

What means does God use in condescending to reveal himself to creatures?

Answer 8

language and imagery of creation.

Question 9

What is Archetypal knowledge?

Answer 9

The knowledge that God has of himself, his self-consciousness.

Question 10

What is Ectypal knowledge?

Answer 10

The human knowledge of God derviced from His revelation.

Question 11

What are the three ways of expressing God’s attributes?

Answer 11

Way of negation or removal
Way of eminence
Way of causality

Question 12

What is the meaning of the term ‘aseity’?

Answer 12

God is “of himself” or “from himself”.

Question 13

What is the meaning of God’s independence?

Answer 13

God neither needs nor receives anything from outside himself for the full actuality of his existence, essence, and activity.

Question 14

Does God’s aseity mean that he is self-caused? Why or why not?

Answer 14

No, by suggesting that God produces himself, it seems to require the possibility of God’s nonexistence as a kind of background to his being.

Question 15

The meaning of God’s infinity

Answer 15

Means that God is wholly unbounded in his essence and existence.

Question 16

What is the meaning of divine simplicity?

Answer 16

God is not composed of parts.

Question 17

How does the doctrine of creation ex nihilo support the doctrine of divine simplicity?

Answer 17

Requires that God himself is purely actual, He would require a mover in order to exist and operate.

Question 18

How do God’s independence and aseity support the doctrine of divine simplicity?

Answer 18

All that is God must be God. He cannot be the result of some principle.

If God was composed of parts then he would receive some actuality from another and would be dependent on both the parts and agent composing them.

Question 19

According to those who hold to God’s simplicity, why can he not be composed of parts?

Answer 19

Without the whole part, it would be different.

Question 20

How does divine simplicity support the truth that God is utterly reliable and dependable?

Answer 20

No possibility he will go to peices, He doesn’t depend for his perfection of essence on something other than himself.

Question 21

What is the meaning of God’s immutability?

Answer 21

God cannot change

Question 22

What are two biblical passages that support the doctrine of divine immutability? What do they say?

Answer 22

Malachi 3:6 - God says he doesn’t change

Romans 11:29 - the gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable.

Question 23

How does the fact of God’s pure actuality support the belief that he is immutable?

Answer 23

God as the first cause of being: that which lacks passive potency has no capacity for change.

Question 24

How would an adherent to divine immutability respond to the charge that immutability renders God uninvolved with the world and somewhat static and lifeless?

Answer 24

Perfect fullness of actuality and life that God cannot be moved.

Question 25

Definition of divine impassibility

Answer 25

Divine attribue where by God is said not to experience inner emotional changes of state..

Question 26

Impassibility is closely related to divine immutability yet has a slightly different meaning. What is the difference?

Answer 26

Immutability denies the changeableness of God. Impassibility denies susceptibility to the reception of operation in God.

Question 27

How do those holding to God’s impassibility account for the reality of his love, compassion, and hatred for sin while at the same time confessing that he is without 'passions'?

Answer 27

Words of men God cannot hate sin anymore fully. A suffering God holds no real hope for redemption.

Question 28

What is meant by God’s omnipresence?

Answer 28

God is fully present in every creature and place and yet is not locally circumcised to his presence. He fills every place but is confined by none.

Question 29

What does Jeremiah 23:23-24 say with respect to God’s omnipresence?

Answer 29

Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Question 30

List two of the ways in which Mastricht says God is not coextensive with space.

Answer 30

space is of two kinds: Vaccum or where the body exists. Infinity cannot be limited to a single place. Coexists in every location and creature.

Question 31

How does Boethius define God’s eternity? (short answer)

Answer 31

The whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of boundless life.

Question 32

How do passages such as Jude 25, Titus 1:2, and 2 Timothy 1:9 support the notion that God is not a temporal being? In other words, what does each of these affirm about God vis-à-vis time?

Answer 32

God is before time

Question 33

Give two additional doctrinal arguments for understanding God as atemporal (i.e., non-temporal).

Answer 33

God must manifest himself under the cloak of temporality. If he could not speak to us at all. Scripture that speaks of God in a way that is impossible to be temporal (Gen. 1:1, Jude 25, Titus 1:2, 2 Tim. 1:9)

Question 34

Definition of divine knowledge

Answer 34

The perfection by which God, in an entirely unique manner, knows himself and all things possible and actual is one simple and eternal act.

Question 35

In God’s self-knowledge, or 'natural knowledge,' what does he know?

Answer 35

It is coterminous with His infinite being. Necessary, His natural knowledge knows both himself and all things.

Question 36

According to God’s 'free knowledge' what does he know?

Answer 36

God knows only those things that he has freely willed to bring into distiction.

Question 37

Missing words – According to the Westminster Confession (2.2) God’s 'knowledge is ________, __________, and ____________ upon the creature; so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain.'

Answer 37

infinite, infallible, and independent.

Question 38

Meaning of divine foreknowledge

Answer 38

The absolute priority and initiative of knowledge that lies with God.

Question 39

According to Bavinck and the class notes, what is the problem with Middle Knowledge?

Answer 39

locates possibility outside of God. What is possible God must discover, making him dependent on the free will of humans.

Question 40

Meaning of divine goodness

Answer 40

The perfection of God's nature by which he is worthy of his own self-love and self-satisfaction. perfection of his nature by which he is the only proper object of man's ultimate desire and the source of his highest satisfaction.

Question 41

God’s goodness and his perfect self-satisfaction

Answer 41

Nothing perfective of his being that must be acquired outside himself.

Question 42

What does Psalm 16:2, 5–6 indicate about God’s goodness for us?

Answer 42

God himself is our good.

Question 43

Meaning of divine holiness

Answer 43

His absolute purity by which he is set apart from all things common and corrupt.

Question 44

Definition of divine righteousness

Answer 44

Perfection by which God maintains himself over against every violation of his holiness and goodness, and shows himself to be the standard of what is right.

Question 45

Definition of the divine will

Answer 45

The singular act of God in which he necessarily delights in himself as his own good and goal; and freely chooses to bring about and order all creation toward that same goal.

Question 46

Briefly explain what is meant by God’s 'self-will'?

Answer 46

Is not a striving for what he doesn't possess, but the perfect enjoyment and rest that God has in Himself.

Question 47

Is God’s self-will an efficacious will? Why or why not?

Answer 47

No, efficacious will in which he causes his being in some sense. God is not an effect, a product, or the result of his will. Would be in the process of becoming something.

Question 48

Besides himself, what else does God will?

Answer 48

The will of God is "God willing" He wills all things besides himself.

Question 49

What is God’s end in willing creatures? How does this relate to the end of his self-will?

Answer 49

Doesn't suggest he has multiple ends. End in willing creature is the same as his end in willing himself--his enjoyment of his own glory.

Question 50

What is meant by the decretive will of God and preceptive will of God? How do these differ?

Answer 50

Decretive will - the will that God wills. His eternal purpose and plan Perceptive will - will that he reveals that we should do. The decrees He gives to humans.

Question 51

What does Turretin say the power of God is? (know the statement)

Answer 51

The power of God (executing principle of the divine operation) is nothing other than the divine essence itself productive outwardly (through which he is conceived as able to do whatever he wills or can will).

Question 52

What are two things Scripture says are impossible for God?

Answer 52

Contradict his nature 1. grow weary or tired 2. cannot do any of those things unique to bodily existence.

Question 53

Why do such impossibilities not count as proof against his omnipotence?

Answer 53

God can do what is naturally and spiritually impossible for us; but he cannot do what is supernaturally and morally impossible for his own nature. We can sin--he can't.

Question 54

Possible Extra Credit Essay: Summarize in 4 to 6 sentences Thomas Aquinas’s argument from motion for God’s existence as both the Unmoved Mover and as purely actual in being.

Answer 54

A thing can't be a mover and moved. The chain of movers can't be infinite, the first mover must be "pure act". being that is utterly self-sufficient and independent.