Christian beliefs about God
God as the Creator
God as Personal
A suffering God
God as Omnipotent
Issues with the doctrine of creation
The Nicene Creed opens with 'I believe in God, the Father almighty'
In the scriptures, God is said to be loving and trustworthy and to have a personal relationship with those who love him
God is perfect and unchanging, therefore cannot be affected by human suffering
The Gnostics tried to distinguish between the redeemer God of the New Testament and a lesser deity - One was a supreme god, who was the source of the spiritual world, and a lesser God, who created the physical world
God as the creator of the universe is found in Genesis - 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (Genesis 1:1)
Creation is about God's control over chaos and his ordering of the universe
Greek philosophers such as Plato viewed God as an architect, who brought order into the matter of the universe
Early Christian writers believed that God created the universe ex nihilo (from nothing)
- This is why God believed his creation was 'Good' (Genesis 1:31), but was later contaminated by sin
The Nicene Creed declared God as the 'maker of heaven and earth'
Creation itself is not divine
'God has authority over his creation and humanity plays a special part within creation' (Genesis 1:28)
Humans are stewards who hold the world in trust for God
Human beings are made in the image of God - meaning that humans are linked to God and their ultimate destiny rests in God
Augustine of Hippo - 'You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.'
Refers to a God with whom humans can have a relationship, one that reflects their relationships with each other
The idea of a personal God is an analogy - to refer to God as a person does not mean he is human, but it confirms that God has the ability and willingness to relate to his people
Philo - 'What greater impiety could there be than to suppose that the Unchangeable changes?'
We experience God as compassionate, but this does not mean that God is actually compassionate
If, as Christians believe, Jesus Christ was God incarnate, then God must have suffered in Christ
Others have argued that Christ suffered in his human nature, and not in his divine nature, therefore, God did not experience human suffering
Omnipotence means that God can do anything; anything, that is, except something that is a logical contradiction
Does this mean God can sin?
Anselm - 'To sin is to fall short of a perfect action. Hence to be able to sin is to be able to be deficient in relation to an action, which cannot be reconciled with omnipotence. It is because God is omnipotent that he cannot sin.'