The Nature of God

Chapters: 4, 7, 8, 9

What is the hottest controversy today about God?

Stevie Johnson:

"I praise you 24/7!!!!!! And this how you do me!!!! You expect me to learn from this??? How ???!!! I'll never forget this!! Ever!!! Thx tho ..."

• "And No I Did Not Blame God People! Seriously??!? CMon! I Simply Cried Out And Asked Why? Jus Like yal did wen sumthin went wrong n ur life!"

• "I learned A lot Within 24hrs. Saw Both Sides.(Ups&Dwns) I AM HAPPY & THANKFUL 4 YESTERDAY! w/out Sunday iWldnt have grew closer w/The Lord!!"

What is the hottest controversy today about God?

The exclusive use of the masculine pronoun.

Is God male or female?

Is God both or neither?

Can god be accurately described using language?

Does language automatically limit God?

Is God a “He”?

God is not male nor female,

God is spirit, not human,

& not limited by a physical body.

Some feminine imagery is used for God:

My burden since your birth, whom I have carried from your infancy – Isaiah 46:3

As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you - Isaiah 66:13

Is God a “He”?

The masculine pronoun has been used exclusively for God.

Masculine terms are used for two main reasons:

Biblical example

by Christ, the Bible, & the Church

Uniqueness of Judeo-Christian tradition

Judaism, Christianity, & Islam

Translation Controversies

Psalm 8:4-

New International Version (©1984)

“what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

New Living Translation (©2007)

“what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?”

1 John 4:19-21

We love because he first loved us.

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

We love each other because God loved us first.

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

And God has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.

Language at Mass

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

* PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS• Priest: Pray brothers and sisters, that our

sacrifice may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.

• People: May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of His name, for our good, and the good of all His Church.

The Nature of God

An example from Islam

In Islam there are _____ names for God.

It is common to meditate on these 99 names.

They represent different characteristics of the divine.

99

The 99 Names1. The Most Gracious

2. The Most Merciful

3. The Sovereign Lord

4. The Holy

5. The Source of Peace

6. The Guardian of Faith

7. The Protector

8. The All Mighty

9. The compeller

10. The Majestic

11. The Creator

12. The Evolver

13. The Fashioner

14. The Forgiver

15. The Subduer

16. The Bestower

17. The Provider

18. The Opener

19. The All Knowing

20. The Constrictor

21. The Expander

22. The Abaser

23. The Exalter

24. The Honorer

25. The Dishonorer

26. The All Hearing

27. The All Seeing

28. The Judge

29. The Most Just

30. The Subtle One

31. The Aware

32. The Forbearing One

33. The Great One

34. The All Forgiving

35. The Appreciative

36. The Most High

37. The Most Great

38. The Preserver

39. The Maintainer

40. The Reckoner

41. The Sublime One

42. The Generous One

43. The Watchful

44. The Responsive

45. The All Embracing

46. The All Wise

47. The Loving

48. The Most Glorious One

49. The Resurrector

50. The Witness

51. The Truth

52. The Trustee

53. The Most Strong

54. The Firm One

55. The Protecting Friend

56. The Praiseworthy

57. The Calculating

58. The Originator

59. The Restorer

60. The Giver of Life

61. The Creator of Death

62. The Alive

63. The Self-Subsisting

64. The Finder

65. The Noble

66. The Unique

67. The One

68. The Eternal

69. The Able

70. The Powerful

71. The Expediter

72. The Delayer

73. The First

74. The Last

75. The Manifest

76. The Hidden

77. The Governor

79. The Most Exalted

80. The Source of Goodness

81. The Acceptor of Repentance

82. The Avenger

83. The Pardoner

84. The Compassionate

85. The Eternal Owner of Sovereignty

86. The Lord of Majesty and Beauty

87. The Equitable

88. The Gatherer

89. The Self-Sufficient

90. The Enricher

91. The Preventer

92. The Distresser

93. The Propitious

94. The Light

95. The Guide

96. The Incomparable

97. The Everlasting

98. The Supreme Inheritor

99. The Guide to the Right Path

The Attributes of God

God exists absolutely

God is infinite

One

Spiritual

Eternal

Transcendent

Immanent

Intelligent

Omniscient

Omnipotent

Omni-benevolent

What do transcendent & immanent mean?

Transcendent & Immanent

Transcendent – “to go beyond”

God is above and beyond the material universe

(in contrast to pantheism)

Immanent – “to remain within”

God is close to us and involved

(in contrast to deism)

e.g. Stevie Johnson

The Attributes of God

God exists absolutely

God is infinite

One

Spiritual

Eternal

Transcendent

Immanent

Intelligent

Omniscient

Omnipotent

Omni-benevolent

What is missing from the list?

God

Monotheistic yet a Trinity

Father

Son

Holy Spirit

Creator

Redeemer

Sanctifier

The mystery of the Trinity

Are they three gods?

Are they just three names for the one God?

Are they just three different roles for God?

No

"the central dogma of Christian theology"

God exists as three

hypostases (Greek -

persons)

but one

ousia (Greek –

being, substance, or nature)

Each of the persons is understood as having one identical being, substance or nature, not merely similar ones.

The Council of Nicaea

First Ecumenical Council

Year –

Location –

Context –

(1st of 21 Councils)

A.D. 325

Nicaea, Turkey

persecution of the Church ended, attempts to clarify the faith began.

The Council

Three important tasks:

1. Combated heresy of Arianism

denied literal sonship of Jesus

2. Created the creed (credo - I believe)

to clarify essential beliefs

3. Settled date for Easter observance

We believe in one God,   the Father, the Almighty,   maker of heaven and earth,   of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,   the only Son of God,   eternally begotten of the Father,   God from God, Light from Light,   true God from true God,   begotten, not made,      one in Being with the Father.   Through him all things were made.   For us men and for our salvation      he came down from heaven:

      by the power of the Holy Spirit      he was born of the Virgin Mary,      and became man. 

   For our sake he was crucified         under Pontius Pilate;

      he suffered, died, and was buried. 

  On the third day he rose again      in fulfillment of the Scriptures;      he ascended into heaven         and is seated at the right hand of the Father.   He will come again in glory

         to judge the living and the dead,      and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

   the Lord, the giver of life,   who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son

      he is worshiped and glorified.   He has spoken through the Prophets.   We believe in one holy catholic

      and apostolic Church.   We acknowledge one baptism

      for the forgiveness of sins.   We look for the resurrection of the dead,      and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The word “Trinity” occurs _________ times in the Bible.

Matthew 28 – the Great CommissionThe last two verses in Matthew’s Gospel:

19 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

zero

St. Paul wrote:

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

[2 Cor. 13:14]

What do these groups all have in common?

• Jehovah's Witnesses

• Christian Science

• Unification Church

• Mormons

• Many Pentecostals (Oneness)

All reject belief in the Trinity

The Trinity

While each is divine,

The Son is not the Father,

The Holy Spirit is not the Son,

The Father is not the Holy Spirit.

Three Beliefs

God is One.

Each of the persons within the Trinity is fully God.

The Trinity is eternal.

The Trinity – an analogy

The Sun

The actual sun

The sunrays

The heat on your face

God

The Father

The Son

The Holy Spirit

Other “Trinities”Time

Past

Present

Future

Space

Height

Depth

Width

Numbers

Positive

Negative

ZeroWater

Liquid

Solid

Gas

A Mystery

The trinity is a mystery.

It cannot be fully explained.

Chapter 7

Two Men

What two men most astounded their contemporaries evoking others to ask not who is he, but rather –

what is he?

Buddha & Jesus

The divinity of Christ

This is the essential belief of Christianity that sets it apart from all the other religions.

Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, Moses

did not

rise from the dead,

perform miracles by their own power

did not claim to be divine

Did Jesus actually claim to be divine?

YesDid Jesus ever say:

“I am God!”

NOWhat did he say about his divinity?

Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." (John 8:58)

And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me,

but in Him who sent Me.

And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me.” (John 12:44-45)

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." (John 14:6-7)

"I and the Father are one."

The Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?"

They answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because

You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God." (John 10:30-33)

Matthew 25“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the

angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

The Trilemma

Jesus must have been one of the following:

LiarLunatic

orLord

Was Jesus just a good man?

Many nonbelievers like to say that Jesus was a “good man” and nothing further.

If Jesus claimed to be divine then he was either telling the truth or lying.

If Jesus was lying then he was not a good man.

Just being a good man is not an option

Was Jesus a Liar?

Examine every other claim of Jesus,† was he in the habit of lying?† was he considered trustworthy?† is there any evidence of a single lie?

Were the Apostles Liars?

If Jesus didn’t lie maybe the Apostles did?

Perhaps the all the stories of Jesus were made up after the fact?

† Why did they suffer torture & death to protect a lie?

† What motivation could they have for such a lie?† Why did no one break the silence?

Was Jesus a Lunatic?

Examine all of his behavior,† was he in the habit of doing irrational things?† is there any evidence of his insanity?† did his behavior match someone who suffers

from insanity?

The Quintilemma

Jesus must have been one of the following:

Lord Liar Lunatic Myth

or Guru

Was Jesus a Guru?

guru (Sanskrit: गु�रु - (Gu=darkness, Ru=light)

Perhaps Jesus’ claim of divinity was just an example for all of us to follow.

† Jesus is the Jewish Messiah not an eastern mystic.† The theological differences between eastern &

western religions is enormous.† is there any evidence of this in his preaching, that

divinity is equally found in all of us?

Was the Jesus story a myth?

In other words,

Is the New Testament reliable?

Perhaps the story of a divine Jesus is a product of the 2nd Century, or emperor Constantine, or later religious/political leaders.

Evidence

† Dead Sea Scrolls† # of N.T. Manuscripts † Early Church Fathers† Non-Christian Writers

The earliest NT writings were by _______.

He clearly affirms the divinity of Jesus.

Paul

The Dead Sea Scrolls

•Written between 150 B.C. to A.D. 70

•Discovered in 1947 by a young Bedouin goat herdsman.

•They include passages from almost every book in the Old Testament & provide context for the events of the New Testament.

Historical Evidence

New Testament Copies

More than 4,000 different ancient Greek manuscripts containing all or portions of the New Testament have survived to our time.

Historical Evidence

•The oldest Bible is the Codex Vaticanus, which dates from the first half of the fourth Century (early 300s).

•There are older fragments of the Bible -- the oldest being part of the Gospel of John dating back to the early 2nd Century (125).

How Old is the Oldest Bible?

Author Date Oldest Copy Interval Copies

Aristophanes 400 BC AD 900 1,300 years 45

Aristotle 340 BC AD 1100 1,450 years 5

Demosthenes 300 BC AD 1100 1,400 years 200

Julius Caesar 50 BC AD 900 950 years 10

Herodotus 435 BC AD 900 1,350 years 8

Homer 800 BC AD 100 900 years 643

Plato 360 BC AD 800 1,150 years 15

Sophocles 415 BC AD 1000 1,400 years 7

Thucydides 410 BC AD 900 1,300 years 8

Old Testament 1500 BC – 500 BC

200 BC 200-400 years

1,000s

New Testament AD 50-90 AD 125 50 years 1,000s

Textual Evidence for Ancient Manuscripts

Church Fathers –

If all of the New Testament manuscripts were to disappear overnight, it would still be possible to reconstruct the entire New Testament with quotes from the Church Fathers

Historical Evidence

Non-Christian AccountsThe wealth of materials for the New Testament becomes even larger when we compare it with other ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish documents.

Historical Evidence

- Historical evidence of Jesus’ existence from both Roman and Jewish independent sources include writings from:

• Tacitus

• Suetonius

• Pliny the Younger

• Josephus

Historical Evidence

How you get to Heaven?

by being a good person

by being baptized

by doing what you are told (following all the rules)

by going to church

by not sinning

by being a loving person

NO

You are redeemed in Christ by the grace of

God

Romans 3:21-25• But now the righteousness of God has been

manifested apart from the law, though testified to by the law and the prophets,

• the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction;

• all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. • They are justified freely by his grace through the

redemption in Christ Jesus, • whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by

his blood.

The Resurrection of Jesus

Is it necessary to believe that the crucifixion and resurrection actually

happened? Rudolf Bultmann:

“if the bones of Jesus were found tomorrow in a Palestinian tomb, all the essentials of Christianity would remain unchanged.”

(1884 – 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian & professor of New Testament. He defined an almost complete split between history and faith.

IF CHRIST WAS NOT RAISED

OUR FAITH IS IN VAIN... (1 Co 15:14)

THE APOSTLES WERE FALSE WITNESSES... (1 Co 15:15)

WE ARE STILL IN OUR SINS... (1 Co 15:17)

BELIEVERS PERISH AT DEATH... (1 Co 15:18)

CHRISTIANS ARE TO BE PITIED... (1 Co 15:19)

What is the significance of the Resurrection?

The resurrection affirms: • Jesus’ divinity (his uniqueness)• Jesus’ role as Messiah • Jesus’ victory over sin & death• The possibility of our own resurrection• Love is stronger than hatred, life is

stronger than death.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter

Sunday can account for the data?

Jesus died

Jesus rose

*Christianity

Jesus didn't die  

*Swoon

Jesus died

Jesus didn't rise

apostles were deceived

*Hallucination

apostles were myth-makers

*Myth

apostles were deceivers

*Conspiracy

Which of these five is the most popular and hardest to refute?

Myth

How can it be refuted?

Time

There was not enough time for myth to develop

Eyewitness accounts of disciples that have remained essentially the same over time.

How can it be refuted?

2 Peter 1:15-16

I shall also make every effort to enable you always to remember these things after my departure.

We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.

The Bible: Myth or History?

The Problem with the word “myth”

Etymology mythos (Greek) means

sacred story

Popular usage refers to something that is false.

Fundamentalist vs. Modernist

Fundamentalist

Fundamentalism is commonly used as a pejorative term

Synonyms

Hyperorthodoxy, inflexibility, literalism,

rigidity, stiff-neckedness, stubbornness.

"five fundamentals"Niagara Bible Conference (1878–1897)

1. The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture.

2. The virgin birth of Christ.

3. The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.

4. The bodily resurrection of Christ.

5. The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

By the late 1910s, theological conservatives in Protestantism rallying around the Five Fundamentals came to be known as "fundamentalists."

Fundamentalism

An assertion that everything in Scripture is meant to be understood as literal history.

Apologetics can only be done from the authority of Scripture.

(Reason, Christian Tradition, & non Christian sources are of no help.)

Modernist Extreme

Assert that Scripture cannot be historically accurate.

Miracles, objective truth, authoritative teaching all run counter to modern standards of academic thought.

Modernists attempt to redefine Christianity to make it “acceptable” to the modern world.

Do Catholics take the Bible literally?

Yes.

All Scripture has both a literal sense & a spiritual sense.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the actual words of Scripture

• Read for the author’s intended meaning

• Interpret a book according to its genre

How do we know when a passage is meant to be taken

as literal history.

“He rested on the seventh day” (Genesis 2:2)

“I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5)

“This is my Body”(Mt 26:26; Mk14:22; Lk 22:19; 1Cor11:24)

Catechism 112-113

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture".

2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church".

John 6:48-56

"How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

If a passage is not literal history,

what are the other possibilities?

Three possibilities

1. Literal history

2. Non-literal history

3. Fiction

The fall of man in the Garden is: ______• 390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses

figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.

2