God Theology Proper

Introduction

      Suggested breakdowns

            1.   Communicable and incommunicable: attributes that can or cannot be

The sense in which Father, Son, and Spirit are three

and the senses in which they are one

at the same time to the exclusion of all optons

Distinctness within the One Deity

            God’s reasons for creating us are summarized under divine self-fulfillment (delight), goodness (grace), glory and betterment. Of these four reasons the first and last are personal while the other two are interpersonal. The first two are the reasons for people; the third is the purpose of people beyond themselves. If we speak strictly about the purpose of people, we focus attention on God’s goodness and on what grow out of it, particularly dominion and commission. Self-fulfillment highlights the unnecessitated satisfaction that moves persons to express themselves. Goodness roughly corresponds with God-to-man action; glory corresponds with man-to-God re-action. We say “roughly” because we cannot draw a sharp line between these aspects, which is exactly what we expect in the highly complex, reciprocating, transacting activity that interpersonal process involves.

            Scripture consistently characterizes God in masculine terms. At the grammatical level, that pattern expresses itself in Hebrew masculine pronouns, adjectives, and verbs. “She” never designates the God Yahveh in any book of either testament.

יהוה אלהינו יהוה אהד

“Yahveh our God is one Yahveh.”

 I. Methodology

            A.  Investigate the activities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (as well as statements about them) in passages where they are mentioned together, thus observing interaction in real circumstances.

Introduction

 ANTILOGISM

TRINITY THOUGHTS

Letter to a friend

I took the opportunity presented by your question Sunday to assemble some thoughts that can also be part of the internet ministry effort I am working on. There is probably enough here to founder a good-sized horse, but that is the risk you take when you raise a good question that is at the same time complex and controversial. The first attachment I wrote up new as a second-level treatment of the trinity issue as I have come to see it. The other two attachments are more elaborate because they are lifted from my notes on Christian Doctrine, a course I taught at Manhattan Christian College for many years.

            God/god refers to ultimate reality. Christianity views God as eternal, ethical interpersonality with certain other knowable attributes. In contrast, the ancient nations around Israel as well as peoples living in modern times have concepts of deity that are incompatible with the biblical understanding.