Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Knowledge of God - Coggle Diagram
Knowledge of God
-
RT: Faith
- Why do we need faith?
- humans are flawed, we need to except ignorance and take leap of faith
- Adam and Eve: we need faith to overcome our flawed nature
- Relationship with God: having faith in God is key to relationship
-
- For Faith:
- Bible: Hebrews 11:1
- St. Paul: Romans 3:28
- Aquinas: faith = conscious choice to accept the uncertain
- WLC: faith / cornea transplant analogy
- J.I Packer: Faith = link between us and God, trusting him
- Calvin: faith comes through acceptance of Jesus as the redeemer
- Peter Donovan: faith = intuitive awareness of God but not way to set dogmas etc.
- McGrath: faith is a part of life; goes beyond not against evidence; Xianity & faith = a lens.
- Against Faith:
- Dawkins: "Faith is the great cop out
- Hume: "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence
- Relationship between faith & reason:
- Aquinas: they are two ways of knowing. Faith = from special revelation and reason = experience and logic.
- For Aq. Faith builds on reason and since they are both ways of arriving at truth and all truths must be harmonious then they are consistent with one another.
- Fides vs. Fiducia (Aquinas and H.H Farmer)
- Kierkegaard and Barth both reject supremacy of reason
NT: order of creation
The Bible:
- Psalms 19:1: "heavens declare the glory of God..."
- Romans 1:18-21 "God made it evident to them... being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" - Paul
Teleological arguments:
- Aquinas: influenced by Aristotle and empiricism. argues that NT imparts KofG and that the doctrine of creation is vital to this. All things = consequences of causal relationship between creator and creation.
- Similutido = likeness of God, leaving signature in world
Brian Davies: example of the drunk person and the chemical reaction to illustrate Aquinas' views
John Calvin: natural world is mirror/theatre for God and we have no excuse to be ignorant of it - see Romans 1:18.
- principle of accommodation: God accommodates our inferior faculties of u/s through NT
- analogies: the painter/sculptor & the mirror
Other scholars:
- Jonathan Edwards: Calvin underestimates NT, gives us more personal knowledge than just existence
- Paul D. Murray: NT is the assumption that natural order shows signs of the supernatural context in which it's situated
- William Paley: design arg. reliant on NT
- Richard Swinburne: world displays characteristics of order etc.
KNOWING GOD
Difficulties for empiricists and rationalists. God is beyond the senses and beyond the mind.
Knowing of vs. knowing - God can be known in two ways. Firstly, that he exists or what his attributes are or knowing Him personally, relationships-wise.
St. Bonaventure: 3 different ways of knowing:
- eye of contemplation
- eye of flesh
- eye of reason
-
-
NT: Evaluation
Barth: solo scriptura preferable, human reason is too faulty for NT to work. NT is idolatry and arrogant.
Strengths:
- corresponds w/ experience
- tradition
- universal consent (cicero)
- omnibenevolent God (in contact)
- awe at nature (feeling of wonder)
- Weaknesses:
- epistemic distance (hick) means no SD
- this isn't important knowledge (not personal)
- reason faulty and too subjective
- teleology = evolution
- projecting God onto nature
- contradicts God's nature (pofe)
- Hume: NT faulty because we can't u/s God
- Russell: brute fact
- Entropy: no design, world will fall into disorder
- voltaire: seeing design where it isn't e.g. spectacles
RT: God’s grace
-
- Views on grace:
- Xians: because of God's grace we are given faith & a relationship
- Augustine: human nature is flawed, achieve salvation through grace.
- Aquinas: faith justified by Grace given by HS
- Calvin: Grace heals damage and achieves salvation
Grace of God shown through:
- Gift of wisdom
- Words of prophers
- Words of scripture
- Strength of community (church)
- salvation
- ability to live Xian life
- Confidence to share XIan faith
- Gift of Faith
RT: Bible
2 Timothy 3:15-17 (letter written by Paul) “Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”
- Bible says both RT and NT are valid.
- Bultmann sees Bible as mythological (contrasts to literalists)
What knowledge in the Bible?
- tells the story of salvation / history of Xianity.
- reveals knowledge which cannot be gained otherwise, such as
- how the world was created (genesis)
- the fall
- the prophets and what God told them
- the OT (Jewish history and God's action through kings, prophets etc.)
- Jesus' life
- Wisdom Literature like Psalms/Proverbs
Acts 17:16-34 - Calvin refers to this passage, using it to argue that everyone has the capacity and disposition to believe in God. Paul speaking in marketplace to the people of Athens.
Revealed theology through Jesus:
Matthew 11:27: “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal them”
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”
John 14:9 Jesus “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?”
Barth vs. Brunner
-
Brunner – natural theology – because sparks of Glory in nature provide a point of contact with God which enables knowledge of God’s existence. [human nature is not entirely corrupted from the Fall, we can understand certain things, when we see the word sin in the Bible, we recognise in some capacity that there exist sinful behaviours. If we were fully corrupted sin would have no meaning at all, thus we have a conscience which is our point of contact with God]Brunner’s argument:
- Imago dei - on a formal level we are not corrupted we are only corrupted on a physical/material level
- God communicates through nature, which reflects his nature
- Conscience and Guilt make us aware of God’s law
- True knowledge, faith in Christ is true knowledge which surpasses general revelation
Barth – revealed theology – there is no point of contact because the Fall completely distorted human nature. [There’s no reason for God to need a point of contact. We are so removed from God that it is impossible to see God in nature – no natural theology is possible for Barth. He would also reject the sensus divinitatis – for Barth, you can only really know God through revelation]
Barth’s argument The formal self cannot inform on the material self of God’s existence The point of contact, nature, the conscience or guilt happen after and therefore there is no point of contact Order of creation - creation is not the basis of morality or salvation
RT: Church
How is knowledge of God revealed through the Church?
- The Church = the bride of Christ or Jesus’ hands
- Made up of the people of God (continuation of Israel in the Old Testament)
- Church is God’s representative on earth Inspired by the Holy Spirit
- Mission to spread God’s message
- A centre for worship Holds sacraments e.g. the Eucharist
- Responsible for safeguarding the word of God
- An authority in interpreting the word of God.
- Catholics vs. protestants
- Catholics: apostolic tradition, scripture and church necessary to know God, Church needed for interpretation and guidance.
- Protestantism: rejects CC's authority. Bible is superior source of truth. God can be revealed directly through Bible & HS. Calvin emphasised importance of Jesus on the cross.
RT: Evaluation
Strengths:
- God beyond mundane capability ( he has to reveal himself)
- NT is knowing of but RT is knowing
- Grace substantiates RT (we have ti appreciate God is greater than us and we require his gift of revelation to know Him)
- emphasises Jesus (gives him appropriate importance)
- universally accessible (God has left Bible as revelation for all to use/see)
Weaknesses:
- exclusive to believers (non-believers can't u/s it)
- suggests that God is biased (only reveals to a select few)
- lack of clarity (how should we interpret RT?)
- assumes Xianity (exclusive, why does Xianity have to be the correct revelation)
-
-
RT: Jesus
How is KofG revealed in Jesus?
- incarnation
- christ as the messiah
- the trinity
- the virgin birth
- salvation
- Jesus' moral teachings
- Jesus' miracles
Spec. questions
1) can God be known through reason alone?
2) is faith sufficient reason for belief in God's existence
3) has the Fall completely removed all natural human knowledge of God?