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Christian beliefs about God - Coggle Diagram
Christian beliefs about God
God as the Creator
Issues with the doctrine of creation
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.
'
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
'
God as Personal
In the scriptures, God is said to be loving and trustworthy and to have a
personal relationship with those who love him
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
A suffering God
God is
perfect and unchanging
, therefore cannot be affected by human suffering
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
God as Omnipotent
The Nicene Creed opens with '
I believe in God, the Father almighty
'
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.
'