knowledge of God's existence Flashcards
foundations
natural theology
-use of reason and observation of the world to come to a knowledge of God
revealed theology
-the idea that God reveals what we need to know about him to us in different ways
-example, through Bible or person of Jesus
how can God be known?
-understood as being unavailable to our five senses, God isn’t physical
-beyond the realms of reason and sense experience
Bonaventura - Franciscan Monk, 13th century
-considered these issues in his book ‘The Mind’s Road to God’
-referred to analogy of the eye
-‘eye of flesh’– knowing through sense perception, empiricism of science, the physical world
-‘eye of reason’ – knowing that lets us work out mathematical and philosophical
truths
-‘eye of contemplation’ – knowledge of God beyond senses and reason = through faith
John Polkinghorne - Cambridge physicist and Anglican Priest
-influened by Bonaventura’s metaphor of different eyes = ‘binocular vision’
-science is one eye – physical world, laws and processes
-spiritual truths is the other eye – purpose and context of creation in relation to God
-both eyes need to work together to give a complex picture
-foolish for some religious people to ignore scientific discoveries and equally foolish for scientists to turn away from idea of God
-need to be open minded
Natural theology
-use of reason and observation of the world to come to a knowledge of God
-forms and supports belief, example, beauty of world indicates creator
-St Paul wrote of how humans have made God angry by ignoring his obvious signs of existence
-Aquinas, show that Christianity worked well with science and observation, example, by looking at the world and cause and effect cycle = uncaused causer
-Swinburne agrees that the world shows order and regularity – an intelligent being who is the author of the universe
Natural theology: innate human sense of the Divine
-born with a sense – many thinkers (roman philosophers - Cicero) throughout history and time, people have a belief in an infinite being
-made in the image – the spark of Divinity could imply that there is something in humans which is designed to seek and respond to God
-seed of divinity (sensus divinitas) - Calvin proposed that we have a sense of God – “there is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness o divinity” - no excuse to ignore God
-epistemic distance - God is deliberately making himself obscure to preserve freewill, however, Calvin believes it is us to create the epistemic distance by ignoring God
-aesthetic argument - we appreciate beauty and goodness
-innate sense of morality - knowing what is right and wrong, Butler, Newman and C.S Lewis - claim we feel guilt when we do something wrong, this is our connection with God
revealed theology
-God chooses to reveal himself to humans directly
-example, revelation or scripture
-knowledge that could not have been worked out by human reason alone
-faith not intellect
-confirms natural theology but also uncovers truths, example, the Trinity, Jesus and the afterlife
-revelation comes from latin word - ‘revelatio’ – taken from Greek of the new testament of ‘apocalypses’, means: unveiling, uncovering or making clear something that was hidden
immediate revelation
-god makes himself directly known to people
-exact words of God
-example, Adam and Eve in Genesis, Abraham or Moses
mediate revelation
-people learn about God and gain knowledge about him less directly
-example, those that listen to Moses, or the Pope
-Bible is considered mediate revelation of God by most Christians, where those who had immediate revelation have written it down for others
revelation through faith
-faith is a belief when there is limited evidence or even goes against evidence/reason
-bridge the gap to where sense experience cannot reach (leap of faith)
-Aquinas, you cannot have faith and science on the same thing, faith is about the things we aren’t certain of whereas science is about things we can test
-Aquinas makes clear that it isn’t just an opinion, as opinions can change whereas faith has commitment and deep understanding
-Catholic Church teaches that faith and reason should work together as both are gifts from God
revelation through God’s grace
-giving full knowledge of himself through Holy spirit
-God’s undying love
-we can gain knowledge of God through faith because of God’s grace
-faith is a gift, which is sustained and strengthen through the Holy Spirit
-God as the Holy Spirit is believed too give
1. Prophets of the OT the right words
2. people wisdom to understand revelation
3.faith to believe in the Christian message
4. confidence to share Christian faith
5. guidance to writers of scripture
6. ability to live Christian lives
7. strength to the Church
8. opportunity for salvation
Acts 17 (new testament)
-looks at natural and revealed theology
-“the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and doesn’t live in temples built by human hands”
-“in the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent”
-these passages reference St Paul’s journey to Athens, wanted to present the Christian message to an audience of philosophical backgrounds
-through reason Paul hoped his listeners would gain new knowledge of God (NT) and recognise that God cannot captured by humans in statues but through God’s grace (RT)
problems with Natural theology
- Christians natural theology and revealed theology work together
-for others, revealed theology is understood to be the only means by which God can be known
-Barth, argued that natural theology was idolatry, where people worship false ideas
-argues people are incapable (limited) of working out right and wrong by themselves and need God’s commandments as revealed in the Bible
-God is revealed in Christ
-only Christ breaks through the barrier of human sin to reveal God = any attempt to understand God, without Christ, was bound to be corrupt and wrong
problems with theology
-faith is actually harmful, encouraging people to be lazy in their thinking and avoid trying to reach any kind of certainty
-Dawkins likens belief in God to belief in the tooth fairy or a teapot orbiting Mars - these beliefs cannot be conclusively disproved but no evidence to support them, no good reason to commit to them
-“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence” - Dawkins
-Hume claimed “A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence”
