Theology Proper Notes
BI 361 Theology 1
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How do we know God?
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Nature
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Scripture
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Rom 1:19-20, Psalm 19:1-6
Isaiah 6:1-4; Exodus 3:14, 19:9-19, 20:18-23
Son of God
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John 1:18, John 14:7, 1 John 5:20
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The Knowledge of God
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God is infinite and incomprehensible.
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God has revealed knowledge about himself.
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Our knowledge of God is partial.
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There is much in God which we do not know at all
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Job 11:7 Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto
perfection?
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The Knowledge of God
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Psalms 145:3
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Isaiah 40:28
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no searching of his understanding
Romans 11:33-36
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his greatness is unsearchable
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
1 Corinthians 2:7-12
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Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God
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The Existence of God
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Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
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Isaiah 44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared
it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
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Arguments for God’s Existence
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Thomas Aquinas (1225 –1274)
Summa Theologica - Quinque viæ -“five ways”
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Aquinas proposed “five ways” by which one could arrive at a true knowledge of God apart from
the Bible or special revelation.
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1. From motion to an “Unmoved Mover.”
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2. From a contingent being to a “Necessary Being.”
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3. From degrees of perfection to a “Most Perfect Being.”
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4. From effects to a “First Cause.”
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5. From design to a “Designer.”
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From motion to an “Unmoved Mover”
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Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
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Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.
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Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.
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Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual
and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).
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Therefore nothing can move itself.
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Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.
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The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.
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Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone
understands to be God.
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. From effects to a “First Cause”
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We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
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Nothing exists prior to itself.
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Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
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If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.
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Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
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The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be
no things existing now.
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Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of
God.
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From a contingent being to a “Necessary Being”
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We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out
of being i.e., contingent beings.
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Assume that every being is a contingent being.
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For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.
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Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.
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Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.
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Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent
beings into existence.
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Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.
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We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.
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Therefore not every being is a contingent being.
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Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from
another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as God.
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From degrees of perfection to a “Most Perfect Being”
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There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.
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Predications of degree require reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be
hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest).
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The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.
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Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being,
goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
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From design to a “Designer”
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We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.
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Most natural things lack knowledge.
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But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence
achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.
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Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and
this being we call God.
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Cosmological –Creation
(First Cause)
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The term cosmological comes from the Greek word cosmos, meaning “world”.
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The argument from Cause and Effect
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God is the First Uncaused Cause
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Teleological – Design
(Designer)
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Focuses on the evidence of harmony, order, and design in the universe, and argues that its
design gives evidence of an intelligent purpose
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The argument from Order and Design
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The sun being ninety-three million miles distant is precisely right for an
adequate climate on earth; the moon’s distance of two hundred forty thousand
miles provides tides at a proper level; the earth’s tilt provides the seasons.
God is the Principle Architect of everything
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Moral /Axiological - Perfect
Right and Wrong
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Universal sense of right and wrong and of the need for justice, argues that there must be a God
who is the source of right and wrong.
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The argument from Morality
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from a moral law to a Moral Law Giver
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God is the Supreme Moral Lawgiver of the Universe
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Rom 2:14-15
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Ontological – God
(Necessary Being)
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Begins with the idea of God, who is defined as a being “greater than which nothing can be
imagined.”
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The argument from Necessary Ideas
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God’s existence, by definition, is necessary
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It is impossible for God to not exist
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Anthropological -Life
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Based on the Greek word anthropos meaning “man”.
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Genesis 1:26-28
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Ephesians 4:24
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Colossians 3:10
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The argument from life
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Since life begets life, God is the source of all living things
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Opposition to God’s Existence
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“These arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the
entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
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“It, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big bang singularity’, or some other physical
concept as yet unknown. Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously
misleading.”
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“It is by no means clear that God provides a natural terminator to the regresses of Aquinas.”
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Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion (p. 101).
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Opposition to God’s Existence
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“There has probably never been a more devastating rout of popular belief by clever reasoning
than Charles Darwin’s destruction of the argument from design.”
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“..it is no longer true to say that nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed.
Evolution by natural selection produces an excellent simulacrum of design, mounting prodigious
heights of complexity and elegance.”
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Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion (p. 103).
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Opposition to God’s Existence
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“Most arguments of natural theology follow the same basic pattern. Each begins with a natural
phenomenon— a fact, according to the theist, that requires an explanation. But this fact, he
argues, cannot be explained in terms of other natural phenomena; therefore, we must posit the
existence of the supernatural, a realm unrestricted by natural law, as an explanation.”
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Smith, George H. Atheism: The Case Against God
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Response to opposition
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“If I say “X creates Y”, this presupposes the existence of X in the first place in order to bring Y
into existence. If I say “X creates X”, I presuppose the existence of X in order to account for the
existence of X. To presuppose the existence of the universe, to account for its existence, is
logically incoherent. What this shows is that nonsense remains nonsense even when talked by
world-famous scientists.”
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LENNOX, JOHN C. Gunning for God (p. 32).
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Response to opposition
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“Hawking has signally failed to answer the central question: why is there something rather than
nothing? He says that the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable.
But how did gravity come to exist in the first place?”
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LENNOX, JOHN C. Gunning for God (p. 32).
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Response to opposition
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Richard Dawkins
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“Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that
anything does not exist.”
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“a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus
but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of
any religion.”
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“Scientific belief is based upon publicly checkable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks
evidence;
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LENNOX, JOHN C. Gunning for God (p. 38)
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John 20:30-31 (KJV) 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.