Short Answer Questions

Question 1

What is classical theism and why is the language classical theists use so strange?

Answer 1

God is the absolute ultimate being. God’s kind of being is different than our kind of being. The God how loves us is a Creator being, not a created being. Zeph. 3:17

Question 2

What do we mean when we speak of the “incomprehensibility” of God? What do we not mean?

Answer 2

• We mean that it is impossible for anyone to give a perfect description of God.
• BUT we can know things about God, just because imperfect does not mean they are erroneous, when directed by his word.
• We know God on an accommodated level.

Question 3

What is natural theology?

Answer 3

• Natural theology looks to external proof to support biblical truths.
• Human reason is fallen, but not to the point where we are no longer rational.
• Natural arguments for God’s existence are helpful because many suppress the knowledge God.

Question 4

What biblical and theological problems arise if we deny divine simplicity?

Answer 4

God will no longer be one, God’s attributes will be separated from His essence. God would change and God would not be God.

Question 5

Scripture affirms that God is spirit and that God is invisible. How do we reconcile this with statements in Scripture about God’s hands or His eyes?

Answer 5

• This is using anthropomorphic language. Accommodating for our meager knowledge.

Question 6

When we say that God is omnipotent, does that mean we are saying that God can create a square circle? Explain.

Answer 6

• Nope. Can God make a rock that’s so big he can’t move? Illogical.

Question 7

What is the difference between God’s necessary knowledge and His free knowledge?

Answer 7

• Necessary knowledge: the knowledge God has regarding Himself and all external possibilities.
• Free knowledge: the knowledge of all those possible things God could have decreed and actually did decree to bring into existence.

Question 8

What theological problems arise when someone talks about God “looking down the corridors of time” and making decisions based on what He sees?

Answer 8

• It means that He is dependent on creation. God’s election is conditioned on the creature.

Question 9

In the fourth century, what groups were teaching the subordination of the Son within the Trinity?

Answer 9

• Arianism
• The Counsels of Serdica - 342
• The Council of Antioch – 344
• The 1st Sirmian Creed – 351
• The 2nd Sirmian Creed – 357
• The Homoiousian Council of Ancyra – 358

Question 10

What are the six parameters of Nicene Trinitarian Orthodoxy as discussed in class?

Answer 10

1. God is One being and Three Persons
2. Consubstantiality
3. The Order of the Persons
4. Divine Simplicity
5. Inseparable Operations
6. Analogous Language

Question 11

In Trinitarian theology, what are the names of the two “processions”?

Answer 11

• Generation

- Spiration

Question 12

What are the four real relations resulting from the two processions?

Answer 12

• Paternity
• Filiation
• Spiration (Active Spiration)
• Procession (Passive Spiration

Question 13

Why does orthodox Trinitarianism assert that the ad extra works of the Trinity are undivided?

Answer 13

• Because God is one. His works or acts and activity are one. The three person do a single action.

Question 14

What is the divine decree?

Answer 14

• It is the internal work of the Triune God and the foundation for all external works.

Question 15

In the divine decree, as outlined by the Westminster Confession of Faith, does God decree whatsoever comes to pass in such a way that He is the author of sin?

Answer 15

• No, God ordains everything without being the author of sin. Establishes will of creatures.

Question 16

In the divine decree, as outlined by the Westminster Confession of Faith, does God decree whatsoever comes to pass in such a way that violence is offered to the will of the creatures?

Answer 16

• Nope. God ordains all things, but He is not the author of sin and does not offer violence to the will of creatures.

Question 17

In the divine decree, as outlined by the Westminster Confession of Faith, does God decree whatsoever comes to pass in such a way that the liberty or contingency of second causes is taken away?

Answer 17

• Nope. God ordains everything that comes to pass, but in such a way that neither liberty nor contingency of second causes are taken away.

Question 18

18. What is the fundamental difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism?

Answer 18

• Supralapsarianism says that God elected people before the fall. So God elected sinless people, without the idea of the fall. (Election – Fall)
• Infralapsarianism says that God elected people taking the into consideration the fall. God decrees the fall and then election. (Fall – Election)

Question 19

What are the two parts of predestination? Define each.

Answer 19

• Election – included in the divine decree, eternal, unconditional, and irresistible.
• Reprobation – to chose some means to not chose or reprobate others. Election is not universal.

Question 20

What does creation ex nihilo mean, and what does it not mean?

Answer 20

• It means: God eternally existed. Until and unless God creates, God alone exists. It was not created out of anything preexistent, the universe is contingent, ontologically dependent upon God.
• It does NOT mean: God created the universe out of some material called “nothing”. The universe is without a cause. God created the universe out of his own being. (the world has a different substance or nature than God).

Question 21

How are providence and creation related?

Answer 21

• Providence is the continuing act of divine power. Creation was an act of power at one time, while providence continues that in control of second causes.

Question 22

What are the three elements of providence? Briefly define each.

Answer 22

1. Preservation – act of providence maintaining the being of existence everything that he created
2. Governance – goal he has for all things. Primary cause, God upholds all things.
3. Concurrence – continuing divine causes. Causality on the level of creaturely. Second causes.