Theology Proper

Theology Proper

What is God like? What does God do?

One's view of God affects all of one's life.

Big policeman who corrects people who stray from truth/sin.

"Acts of God" hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes...

Grandfatherly, indulgent, kindly old gentleman.

Others?

Trinity - debated at one time, have to believe to be a Xian? UPC

Transcendence, God is above all. Immanence, God is close.

Can God work through nature? (evolution)

Is God fixed and unchanging? Or does he grow and develop like the rest of the universe?

"The study of God's nature should be a means to a more accurate understanding and a closer personal relationship with him."

Not belief in the "great whatever."

Attributes

1. The characteristics of God's nature, who he is (not what he does - creating, guiding, preserving).

2. Of the entire Godhead, not "properties" of each person of the Trinity (functions, activities, acts).

3. Permanent qualities, cannot be gained or lost, intrinsic.

4. Not our conceptions projected on God, objective in nature.

5. They are his nature, not fragmentary parts. God is his love, holiness, power, etc. But these attributes are different ways at getting at who God is.

Attributes of Greatness (moral/natural attributes)

I. Spirituality - God is Spirit

1. Not matter, does not possess physical nature. John 4.24, God is spirit.

2. Not limited spatially or geographically. John 4.21, not destructible

3. Hands and feet? Anthropomorphisms - truth about God with human analogies.

4. Theophanies - temporary manifestations of God

5. Spirituality counters the idolatry and nature worship of other religions, God can't be represented with objects or likenesses.

II. Personality - God is personal, an individual being, with self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and having reciprocal relationship with other personal and social beings.

1. God has a name by which he reveals himself, "I am" or "I will be" (Yahweh / Jehovah / The Lord, Exodus 3.14).

2. Not an abstract unknowable nameless force, name used to address God.

3. Treat name respectfully (Exod 20.7), names not just to designate because its cute; chosen for their meaning.

4. God knows and communes with persons, talks to Adam & Eve, depicted as having all the capacities associated with personality: knowing, feeling, willing, acting.

5. Father, warmth, understanding, not a machine, he can be approached and spoken to, and in return he speaks.

6. God is a reciprocating being, not an object or force; not to be manipulated (can't be used or harnassed, this is magic).

7. God is an end in himself, not a means to an end; value in and of self.

III. Life - God is alive.

1. Scripture does not argue for existence, simply assumes it. Hebrews 11.6

2. Contrasted with inanimate objects, metal, stone; interacting not passive.

3. From the beginning, life is in himself (John 5.26), not created, "the uncaused one."

IV. Infinity - God is infinite.

1. Omnipresence - God is not subject to limitations of space, not that he is everywhere but that he is not limited by our understanding of space and time. Finite things are places, those descriptions are not applicable, can't plot his location.