Prolegomena McGraw Class

Question 1

What is Prolegomena? Why is it important?

Answer 1

• Prolegomena is the study of first principles. It deals with the nature of theology and the nature of the theologian.
• It lays the groundwork for systematics.

Question 2

What the two principia of Reformed theology?

Answer 2

a. Principium essendi (principle of Being: ontology, the Triune God himself)
b. principium cognoscendi (principle of knowing: epistemology, how we come to know God)

Question 3

What does it mean the Bible is self-authenticating and self-attesting?

Answer 3

• Self attesting: testifies to itself. Book of Mormon does this.
• Self authenticating: proves its character. Book of Mormon does not do this.

Question 4

To what does the perspicuity of Scripture refer?

Answer 4

Perspecuity is the clarity of Scripture. It teaches that Scripture is clear, or more narrowly, it is clear in everything we need to know for salvation. It is not equally clear to all, and it is not clear to the unregenerate. It includes the use of means. Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Question 5

To what does the sufficiency of Scripture refer?

Answer 5

The sufficiency of scripture is the doctrine that Scripture has everything we need to instruct us for all things concerning faith and practice. 2 Timothy 3:16

Question 6

How do the image of God and divine revelation relate to divine knowability?

Answer 6

Man is made in the image of God and thus has an innate capacity to know God (Rom 1).

Question 7

What is apophatic theology?

Answer 7

The divine essence is unknowable. So he is only known by mystical experience. Not Scriptural because the Bible speaks much of knowing God, Jer. 9, “understands and knows me.”

Question 8

What is Theosis?

Answer 8

• Theosis means “deification.” According to this view you do not become the divine essence but we become part of the divine energies.
• Peter argues we are partakers of the divine nature. In western salvation redemption from sin is central. But from eastern view, the central problem is ontological (redemption from creatureliness).

Question 9

What is the Neo-orthodox view of the knowledge of God?

Answer 9

Humans meet God through an experiential encounter with Jesus Christ usually mediated through scripture.

Question 10

To what to does the oneness of God refer?

Answer 10

• Numerical
• Simplicity

Question 11

List and explain 3 divine names that are compounded with El.

Answer 11

El-Shaddai – God almighty
El-Elyon – God most High
El-Olam – Everlasting God

Question 12

What is divine simplicity?

Answer 12

God is without parts of passions

Question 13

What is the Aseity of God?

Answer 13

God’s self-existence

Question 14

Emet and chesed in theology?

Answer 14

God is true and living.

Question 15

Decretive and preceptive wills

Answer 15

Duet 29:29

Question 16

How does God’s sovereign will relate to the use of means?

Answer 16

• He uses means to accomplish His ends.
• Acts 2, “This man, delivered over by the predeterminate plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

Question 17

Prove the Trinity from scripture.

Answer 17

1. FATHER: John 17:3, Jesus praying to the Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God.” The Father represents the majesty of the entire Godhead.
2. SON: Direct statements (John 20, Thomas says to him, “My Lord and my God!”). Attributes (John 1, eternality: “He was in the beginning with him”), works ( Col 1, “by Him all things were created.”), and worship (Phil. 2, “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.”)
3. SPIRIT: Direct statements (Acts 5, “Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…you have not lied to men but to God.”), attributes (omnipresence, Psalm 139, “where can I go from your spirit?”), works (Gen 1, creation, Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters”), worship ( Matthew 28:19, baptized into the name of all three persons.

Question 18

62. Explain the use of the terms persona, hypostasis, essentia, and substantia

Answer 18

Persona (LATIN): incommunicable quality, what is NOT common to Father/Son/Spirit. The Son is all that the Father is, except Father; the Spirit is all that the Father and the Son are, except Father and Son.

Hypostasis (GREEK): half the church spoke latin, half spoke Greek. Eventually hypostasis and persona meant same thing in terms of quality.

Essentia: referring to what is common to Father/Son/Spirit.

Subsistentia: When here subsistance, largely coincides with what is unique to the person.

Question 19

What does perichoresis/circumincessio mean?

Answer 19

(Greek) Perichoresis = (Latin) circumincessio. Refers to the mutual indwelling or interpenetration of the persons. That’s a way of saying they are inseparable.

Question 20

opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt

Answer 20

Whatever God acts upon creation, all three persons are involved. Works ad intra are unique to each of the persons.

Question 21

What are the vestigia trintatis?

Answer 21

Dim reflections of the trinity in our world.

Question 22

To what does the filioque refer?

Answer 22

It is a Latin word meaning “also the son.” Spirit proceeds from the father and the Son. This phrase was later added to the Nicene Creed at the council of Toledo in the 6th century but rejected by the Eastern Church. The Western Church recognized the unity of the Father and the Son and the work of the Spirit.

The Orthodox church rejected the filioque clause in part because 1) it wasn’t part of the original creed in 325 or 381, and 2) because they emphasize the threeness of the Godhead, while the western church emphasized the oneness of the Godhead. 3) the eastern church also saw it as an imposition of papal authority.

The filioque is biblical because the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Rom 8:9-11. “Spirit of God dwells in you… if not have the Spirit of Christ.”

Recognizing the procession of the Spirit from both Father and the Son preserves the unity of the work and the role of the Spirit in illuminating the work of Christ, the Word.

Question 23

66. What was Calvin’s view of the Aseity of the Son? What was the standard Reformed view?

Answer 23

Calvin believed the Father was the “fons trinitatis,” or the fount of the Trinity. Most other western theologians shied away from the language of causation in the Godhead.

Reformed orthodoxy believed the Son possessed aseity by eternal communication of essence from the Father. His deity has no origin or cause.

We must preserve the full essential sameness between the persons and stay away from language of causation.

Question 24

What do the terms election and predestination mean?

Answer 24

Election – the positive part of predestination, where God chooses in Christ those who will be His for all eternity. Ephesians 1, we are “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.”

Predestination – the prior appointing of a thing to the specific end. It is used in Scripture positively for those whom God loves. Emphasis in scripture is on predestination not reprobation. Romans 8, those whom God foreknew, he predestined.

Question 25

Proof text for reprobation

Answer 25

Romans 9 “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated”

Question 26

What is Hypothetical Universalism?

Answer 26

Also known as Amyraldianism. It is a third view distinct from Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism. 1) God decrees to create man and allow him to fall. 2) God decrees to send Christ to redeem sinners. 3) God decrees to elect men to salvation. 4) God decrees for spirit to apply benefits to the elect.

Breaks apart the Trinity. Father love particularly, Spirit apply particularly, Son for everybody.