THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
Text Chapter Four
AGENDA
Romans 1:18-32
Preliminary thoughts on “Moralistic Therapeutic Deisim”
Entrance Exam Questions
“What happened in 325 AD?”
“What does AD mean?”
The Doctrine of God
MORALISTIC THERAPEUTIC DEISM
Two sociologists have given us the category “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” which, they say, largely dominates
the religious life of American young people from a wide variety of religious affiliations. I suspect that MTD, as it
is called, captures a much wider span of ages than youth alone. The five tenets of MTD are:
(1)
A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
(2)
God wants people to be good, nice, fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world
religions.
(3)
The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
(4)
God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a
problem.
(5)
Good people go to heaven when they die.
D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 2012), 114.
I. Explanation and Scriptural Basis
A. The Existence of God
1. Humanity’s inner sense of God
2. Believing the Evidence in Scripture and nature
3. Traditional “proofs” for the existence of God
4. Only God Can Overcome Our Sin and Enable Us to Be Persuaded of His Existence
B. The Knowability of God
1. We can never fully understand God
2. Yet we can know God Truly
C. Introduction to the Study of God’s Character: God’s Attributes
1. Classifying God’s Attributes
2. Names of God in Scripture
3. Balanced Definitions of God’s Incommunicable Attributes
D. The Incommunicable Attributes of God
1. Independence
2. Unchangeableness
a. Evidence in Scripture
b. Does God sometimes change His mind?
c. The question of God’s impassibility
The challenge of Process Theology
d. God is both infinite and personal
e. The importance of God’s unchangeableness
3. Eternity
a.
b.
c.
d.
God is timeless in His own being
God sees all time equally vividly
God sees events in time and acts in time.
We will always exist in time
4. Omnipresence
a. God is present everywhere
b. God does not have spatial dimensions
c. God can be present to punish, to sustain, or to bless
5. Unity
THE CHARACTER OF GOD:
SIMPLICITY
Unity is not a
Collection of
Attributes
THE CHARACTER OF GOD:
SIMPLICITY
Unity is not a
series of
Additions to God
THE CHARACTER OF JESUS
God’s Love and
Justice
THE CHARACTER OF GOD IN
CHRIST
God’s Love,
Justice, Holiness
and Wisdom
THE COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES
OF GOD
I. Explanation and Scriptural Basis
A. Attributes describing God’s Being
1. Spirituality
2. Invisibility
B. Mental Attributes
1. Knowledge (or Omniscience)
2. Wisdom
3. Truthfulness (including Faithfulness)
THE COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES
OF GOD
B. Moral Attributes
1. Goodness (including Mercy, Grace)
2. Love
Mercy (Grace, Patience)
3. Holiness
Peace (or order)
4. Righteousness (or Justice)
5. Jealousy
6. Wrath
THE COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES
OF GOD
D. Attributes of Purpose
1.Will (including Freedom)
Freedom
2. Omnipotence (or Power, including
Sovereignty)
E. “Summary” Attributes
1.Perfection
2.Blessedness
3.Beauty
Glory
THE TRINITY: COUNCIL OF NICEA:
325 AND 381
• For extra reading, see Nicea, Council of, in Elwell
• Also, see article by Bojidar Marinov, The Filioque Cause: Why
the West is West and the East is East.
• The Threat of Arianism
• Filioque Controversy
THE TRINITY: THE NICENE CREED
I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and
invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with
the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from
heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified
also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according
to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall
come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who
with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And one
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look
for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
TRINITY
I. Explanation and Scriptural Basis
A. The Doctrine of the Trinity is Progressively Revealed in Scripture.
1. Partial Revelation in the Old Testament
2. More Complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament
B. Three Statements Summarise the Biblical Teaching
1. God is Three Persons
2. Each Person is Fully God
3. There is One God
4. Simplistic Solutions Must All Deny One Strand of Biblical
Teaching
5. All Analogies have Shortcomings
God Eternally and Necessarily Exists as the Trinity
TRINITY
C. Errors Have Come By Denying Any of the Three Statements
Summarizing the Biblical Teaching
1. Modalism Claims That There Is One Person Who
Appears to Us in Three Different Forms (or “Modes”)
2. Arianism Denies the Full Deity of the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
a.
b.
c.
d.
The Arian Controversy
Subordinationism
Adoptionism
The Filioque Clause
THE FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY
Issues: Subordinationism,
spirit-nature dualism.
“Latin” church is the
Western Church.
TRINITY
3. Tritheism Denies that there is only One
God
4. The Importance of the Doctrine of the
Trinity
TRINITY
D. What are the Distinctions Between the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit?
1. The Persons of the Trinity have Different Primary Functions in
Relating to the World
2. The Persons of the Trinity Existed Eternally as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit
3. What is the Relationship between the Three Persons and the
Being of God?
ERRONEOUS UNDERSTANDINGS
OF THE TRINITY
A HELPFUL ILLUSTRATION
GOD & CREATION
GOD, CREATION, AND US