Essay Questions

Question 1

How important is the Creator-creature distinction for right thinking about God? Explain.**

Answer 1

• The creator/creature distinction is crucial to understanding God. We are not God.

Question 2

In what ways is Thomas Aquinas helpful as we do Reformed theology? In what ways is he unhelpful or dangerous?**

Answer 2

• Helpful: reformation was reforming, not starting from scratch. Van Mastricht (and other reformed theologians) carried Aquinas’ Trinitarian doctrine forward. Aquinas takes Anselm’s ontological argument and proves the existence of God.
• Unhelpful: Aquinas gets off on the Doctrine of Man leading to a drastic shift in soteriology.

Question 3

Summarize the theistic proof that is based on the argument from the existence of change in the world. **

Answer 3

• Change occurs. If change is real, then an unchangeable changer must exist.

Question 4

When we speak of God, is our language univocal, equivocal, or analogical? Explain.**

Answer 4

• Analogical: relationship and similarities but also differences.
  
  • Analogy of attribution
  • Analogy of proportionality

Question 5

When we say that God is immutable, are we saying that God is a static inert thing like a piece of granite? Explain.**

Answer 5

• No, we mean rather that God is free from all mutation of being and from physical and ethical change.

Question 6

At the creaturely level, we can conceive of three kinds of relations: 1). One in which the relation is logical in both terms, 2) One in which the relation is real in both terms, or 3) One in which the relation is real in one term and logical in the other (a mixed relation). Which of these relations can help us when we apply it analogously to God’s relation with His creatures? Explain.**

Answer 6

Three.

Two terms don’t have the same order of being. A knower and the thing that is known. Not a mutually dependent relationship.
God doesn’t change in our relationship, but we do.

Question 7

What are affections and passions in human creatures, and why is it important to understand this when we affirm that God is impassible?**

Answer 7

• Affections and passions are disruptions/perturbations in human souls. For God, He is unchangeable in His love. Love is a passion for us; a perfection for God.

Question 8

What are the five biblical propositions that provide the foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity? Give biblical evidence for each of the five propositions. **

Answer 8

• There is one God
  o Deut. 4:35; Rom. 3:29-30; Exodus 8:10
• The Father is God
  o John 6:27; Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3
• The Son is God
  o John 1:1, 1:14, 1:18, John 20:28, Rom. 9:5; 2 Peter 1:1, Heb. 1:10
• The Holy Spirit is God
  o Acts 5:3-4, 28:25-27; Ps. 95:7-11; Heb. 9:14
• The Father is not the Son or Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.
  o Rom. 1:7; John 8:16, 3:35; 11:41-42; 1 John 2:1

Question 9

In what ways does the doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son conflict with the biblical doctrine of the Trinity as explained by the Nicene Creed and the pro-Nicene theologians?**

Answer 9

• Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages.
• Begotten from eternity past, the Son is eternally the one divine essence in an eternally begotten (eternally spiriating) manner of subsistence.

Question 10

How would you demonstrate that the Reformed doctrine of predestination is grounded in Scripture?**

Answer 10

• It becomes quite clear in reading the Bible that predestination is woven throughout.
• OT: Gen. 25; Rom. 9
• NT: John 10, 15, 17
• Acts 13, 18, Romans, Col. 3:12

Question 11

Does providence take away human liberty according to the early Reformed theologians? Explain.**

Answer 11

• Freedom is primarily understood as the freedom of the will to choose the good.
• No; understand second causes.