THEOLOGY

Chapter One

1.1 ChristianityTheistic (Theism) – belief in the existence of a supernatural God

2 Foundations:1. Special Revelation (The Bible) – God’s specific communications

(His Word) and manifestations (Jesus and the Holy Spirit)

2. General Revelation (Creation) – Psalm 19 - God reveals himself in His Creation, it is an insufficient means for providing knowledge about Him and His character.

*It is better to begin with God to explain the universe than to begin with the universe to explain God.

Destiny – to be saved and to face judgment

Special Revelation

God’s Word – The Bible, to be constantly studied to grow in our relationship with the Lord

*Divinely inspired

*God “breathed” – II Tim. 3:16 - 17

*Unified in its teaching, despite being written by multiple authors over several generations

*Contains consistent moral truth *Introduces us to Jesus, God’s Word in the flesh. The intersection of special and general revelation.

2 Timothy 3:16-17New International Version (NIV)

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

General Revelation

It encourages us to recognize the ultimate truths set down in Scripture and embodied in Jesus Christ.

It brings us to a general knowledge of God – awareness of His existence. (Hebrews 1:10)

Argument from design – the complexity of Creation points to a designer.

C.E.M. Joad – noted that human nature indicates the existence of moral law.

C.S. Lewis observed that if there is no designer, why do we think? (See quote on page 46)

What does Revelation tell us about God?

1. He is knowable – he relates, has personality2. He has sensibilities – sorrow, anger, compassion, and jealousy3. He is personal4. He is self-determining – sovereign in regard to His will5. He is moral – distinguishing between good and evil

Trinitarian TheismThree coexistent, coeternal persons in one:• God the Father• God the Son (Jesus)• God the Holy Spirit

God is moving the world to its purposeful end -He has a sovereign and holy plan to redeem mankind and bring about a new Heaven and New Earth – everything restored to the way God intended.

Genesis 6:6 New International Version (NIV)6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

Deuteronomy 1:37New International Version (NIV)37 Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.

Psalm 111:4 New International Version (NIV)4 He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate. Exodus 20:5 New International Version (NIV)

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

Genesis 1:4New International Version (NIV)4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

God as Judge• His holiness necessitates that He is also judge, His holiness is

antithetical to sin• God is always fair and right – according to His holiness and His

Word• He is truly interested in good winning over evil• He does not take pleasure in judging the wicked.

God as Redeemer• God is merciful – He will judge the wicked according to His Word,

Jesus is the Word, who died for us! That is ultimate mercy – the very one who is the judge also provided a means of escape.

*His love is universal *His love is sacrificial *His love is beneficial

1.2 Islam

The Qur’an (Koran) – the Holy Book of Islam, the literal word of God as given to Muhammad.

From the verb qara’a “to read” or “to recite”

The Hadith – the teachings, rulings and actions of Muhammad as told by his associates. They lack uniformity and different Muslim groups following different teachings.

Unitarian Theism – Literally one singular God, rejecting the deity of Jesus, denies the trinity. God is sovereign over humanity • Shirk, the unforgivable sin – to believe in more than one God

Muslims believe that Islam is the original faith, despite Judaism being older and that Jesus was a Jew.

Denounce the Trinity, calling it blasphemy (Qur’an 4:171) p. 55

Deny the deity of Jesus (Qur’an 5:75 – 75, 5:119) p. 55

Deny that Jesus was crucified (Sura 4: 157 – 158)) p. 55

Highly critical of various groups that branch off from Islam as well as Christians and Jews (Qur’an 3:85) p. 55

Only Muslims are accepted by Allah

Angels• Gabriel is the head of the angels• Two angels attend every human – one records our good deeds

and one records our bad deeds• Jinn – mischievous angels made of fire

Prophets• Muhammad is the last and greatest, above Moses, David and

Jesus.• Only the Qur’an given to Muhammad is the infallible Word of

God

Judgment Day• Every human being will have his good and bad deeds weighed

out, if your good deeds outweigh your bad, then you will enter paradise.

The Practice of Islam:

6 Pillars of Islam1. Confession of Faith (Monotheistic) “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet”2. Prayer 5x per day, facing Mecca3. Fasting During Ramadan, no food, etc… during daylight hours4. Almsgiving Give 2.5 percent of income to the poor5. Pilgrimage Travel to Mecca at least once during their life6. Jihad Battle against temptation and sin (self-control), battle against those who oppose Islam

Revelation

Through the prophets – especially Muhammad

Through the Qur’an – the infallible, incomparable and final revelation from Allah

Through the Hadith

Contrast

Jesus death – Islam teaches that God would not allow one of His Prophets to die that way, yet the Qur’an teaches that Muslims often faced persecution and death.

Islam fulfilled Christianity as Christianity fulfilled the Old Testament:1. All the prophets taught Islam, however, there is no

continuity between Islam and the Bible, they do NOT teach the same things

2. Muslims deny the infallibility of the Bible, yet claim it teaches Islam. (See p. 57)

Muslims cannot explain how Islam has been “erased” from the Bible when we have original manuscripts dating to and before the first century that are identical to the Bible we use today.

So how can it have been “corrupted”? - It can’t.

1.3 Secular Humanism

Fundamental Principles:

All forms of the supernatural are a myth

Nature is everything, there is no supernatural

The universe is self-existing and not created.

Paul Kurtz, a leading Humanist states that “God himself is man deified”.

Secular Humanism ignores the obvious

2 Key Terms:

Deity – one exalted or revered as supreme, God or Goddess, divinity

Incarnation - invested with bodily and especially human nature and form, made manifest or comprehensible

1 BIG Difference:

To the Christian, God became man (Deity, incarnation)

To the Secular Humanist, man became God (also deity or incarnation)

John Dewey

Distinguished between religion and religious:• Religion is the supernatural, he rejects the supernatural and God• Religious is the world of the natural, human relations, welfare and progress, that nature evolves

He believed that democracy and Christianity were incompatible:1. Christianity teaches that there are those that are saved and those

who are lost2. He felt that because some were saved that they were better,

creating an aristocracy or elite class (not democratic)3. He believed that if the church was truly democratic it must

include both believers and unbelievers

Confusing

He also believed that science has discredited most of the Bible

Geology – has displaced the Creation myth

Biology - revolutionized the concepts of soul and mind

Anthropology, History and Literary Criticism - have created a different version of history and people upon which Christianity was built.

Psychology – explains things in the natural world that were once explained in the supernatural world

Basically what he is saying is that humans have explained away God, or at least tried to. What he fails to acknowledge is that all of these efforts serve to prove God exists rather than disprove His existence.

1.4 Marxism-Leninism

Atheism:• God – does not, cannot and must not exist

• God is an impediment, an enemy of the scientific, materialistic and socialistic outlook

• Man is the highest being for man

• Humanity is God thus we must seize control of reality and shape it to our specifications , even by force(Karl Marx)

• Religion is an anti-depressant for the working class

To be a good Marxist:

1. Be an atheist, strive to eradicate religion

2. Be a propagator (promoter) of atheism

3. Believe that atheism is part of the scientific, materialistic and socialistic outlook

1.5 Cosmic Humanism

• Embraces neither theism nor atheism

• It does not embrace any special revelation as superior to another – it sees them all equally, thus the Bible, the Qur’an, Confucius, Buddha, and etc… are all the same

• Christ is seen as an example of man achieving perfection thus we are all gods like Him

• Everyone is part of God, we are all “God”

• Each of us has our own special revelation and we don’t need to rely on a “holy book”

• Pantheism – everything is God and God is everything

1.6 Postmodernism

There is no God, no supernatural Creator, no Divine moral lawgiver, no ultimate judge

God has become unbelievable

Friedrich Nietzsche – “God is dead, we have killed Him.” Meaning that belief in God was no longer necessary. However he also knew that this meant that man had signed his death warrant.

Deconstruction

There is no ultimate reality or eternal truth

An author’s meaning can be deconstructed or altered by the reader. The meaning is no longer what the author intended, but rather whatever the reader thinks.

The Bible becomes meaningless, locked up by the author’s culture, experience and language

Religious Pluralism – the belief that one must be tolerant of all religious beliefs because no one religion can be true.

Pluralism causes people to pick and choose what they want to believe based on what appeals to them or not.

Influence on Christianity:1. Denial of the Bible’s inerrancy (that it is the infallible

Word of God)2. Skeptical of foundational knowledge (History)3. An orthodoxy that is too generous – it is too lenient

(easy), it compromises

Conclusions: Our preferences and opinions do not alter or change reality. Reality is what it is, not what we think it is.