1 / 11

Doctrine of God

Doctrine of God. Classical theism & the divine attributes. What is classical theism?. A working definition Classical theism refers to post-biblical developments of the Christine doctrine of God Church Fathers and the use of philosophical tools Nascent ideas can be found in New Testament

tod
Download Presentation

Doctrine of God

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Doctrine of God Classical theism & the divine attributes

  2. What is classical theism? • A working definition • Classical theism refers to post-biblical developments of the Christine doctrine of God • Church Fathers and the use of philosophical tools • Nascent ideas can be found in New Testament • E.g. I Tim. 1.17

  3. Influence of Hellenistic philosophy • Especially Plato and Aristotle • Philo • Some cautions

  4. Scholastic approach • Millard Erickson speaks of three methods that the Scholastics used to deduce their attributes of God: • Causality • Negation • Eminence

  5. Attributes of God • The following attributes are characteristic but not exhaustive of those found in classical theism (see also Thomas Aquinas) • Pure actuality - related is the idea of “perfection”, meaning that there is no potentiality or development in God (see immutability below) • Immutability – God cannot change • Impassibility – God cannot suffer • Timelessness/Eternal – God has no beginning or end • Simplicity/Unity –god cannot be divided into parts; no division in God or composition • Necessity • Omnipotence- God is all powerful • Related is the idea of “infinity”- There are no limits to God regarding space, time or power • Omniscience- God knows everything • Omnipresence –God is everywhere at all times • Goodness – Which is identical to God’s being

  6. Classifications of attributes • Communicable and incommunicable • For future discussion, Grenz classifies the attributes as: eternality and goodness • Marks a shift towards relational understanding of attributes

  7. attributes • God of Aristotle or God of the gospels? • God in a box? • Reaction to Classical Theism • Schleiermacher -immamence • Barth: we are going about the discussion in the wrong way

  8. Attributes of god in contemporary thought • Moving from more static, substantialist to a dynamic relational understanding • Importance of the doxological aspect of the discussion of attributes

  9. reflections • A Trintiarian approach • Need to make a closer connection between God’s acts and God’s being (economic and immanent Trinity) • The trinitarian God’s actions in the world are mediated actions • Son and Spirit as the hands of God (Irenaeus) • Importance of the incarnation

  10. Critics of classical theism • 20th century theology • especially in regards to God’s ability to suffer and respond to the world • We will be looking at this further when we examine open theism, process theology, JurgenMoltmann, WolfhartPannenberg and others.

  11. A final caution • That we should be careful about projection our concept of deity onto God. As Colin Gunton warns with such an approach, “There is no end to the demons which can be let loose.”

More Related