Prolegomena McGraw reading Flashcards
According to Warfield, why is Systematic Theology indispensable to the preacher?
It is the truth that saves the sinner. Therefore, the man preaching must so hold the truth that is flows out of his preaching. Orthodoxy is what gives power to preaching.
What is the foundation of Systematic Theology?
Revelation made know to us by Word and Spirit.
John 4:24; 2 Tim 3:16
How does Systematic Theology relate to the history of the church?
The Church has a pedagogical role in theology, but the Scriptures are the alone foundation of theology.
What does it mean that “the knowledge of God is the only dogma?” (Bavinck)
- All theology is about God.
- When it speaks of other matters, it sees them in the light of the knowledge of God.
Why do negative statements about God and his attributes give us positive knowledge of God?
Negative statements give us positive knowledge of God’s being by analogy.
How does divine incomprehensibility make our knowledge of God possible?
Difference between absolute knowledge and relative knowledge of God as absolute. We know God as far as he reveals Himself to us.
Are any of God’s attributes “totally incommunicable?”
In a sense all are. The fullness of his attributes is not communicated, but they are communicable as we are in His image.
What are the four incommunicable attributes?
Immutability
Eternality
Omnipresence
Simplicity
What is Middle Knowledge?
- God knows all possible free choices in any giver possible world.
- It is middle because it stands after Necessary knowledge and before knowledge of vision.
What is holiness?
- being set apart
- ethical purity
How does Bavinck counsel Christians to address the “problem of evil?”
a. God wills different things in different ways, evil is under God’s control, but he does not will evil in the same way as he wills good. God often brings to pass his good will through man’s sinful deeds.
Why is the confession of the Trinity “the heartbeat of the Christian religion?”
Without the trinity we would only have a sterile, unbiblical conception of God. Also, we know God through the Son by the Holy Spirit.
What are some of the tendencies of Eastern views of the Trinity? How does this relate to Soteriology?
They reject that the spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and say that the Spirit only proceeds from the father. This makes a conception of the trinity that destroys the relationships between the three, the son doesn’t reveal the Father, and the Spirit is not the interworking party between. They couldn’t well say that the Father sent the Son to accomplish what the Spirit applies because of these disunities.
How does the knowledge of God relate to man being made in the image of God?
Man being made in the image of God has the light of nature in him and has a predisposition that the true God exists. To deny God is to deny one’s self being made in the image of God.
What does it mean that theology is “the queen of sciences?”
- Is a science in that it takes evidences and draws conclusions.
- But it is above all other sciences in that it has higher more foundational criteria that other sciences.
