Slide 5 God-Attributes Flashcards
Describe “Classical Theism” upheld by the church in the patristic period and Middle Ages.
– God does not exist in the same time and space-bound realm as creatures do. He is outside the cause and effect network of creation
– God is self-sufficient and perfect in himself, and does not need anything from creatures
– God cannot be affected or changed by his creatures in any manner
– This does not mean that God is not involved in our world: He freely chose to create, to love his creatures and to enter into relationships with them
– God’s love is best understood as “benevolence”: The love offered by someone in a superior position, who does not need anything in return from the object of his love
Who first challenged the consensus on the impassibility of God during the Radical Reformation?
Menno Simons (1496 - 1561) affirmed that God the Son suffered in his divine (as well as human) nature
He saw the mechanism of shielding the divine nature from suffering as producing “two sons”
Who is the philosopher who claimed that the basic structure of reality is dynamic and moves according to the sequence of ‘Thesis’ meeting ‘Antithesis’ resulting in Synthesis?
G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831)
According to Hegel, This dynamic reality encompasses everything, even God. God is also on a journey towards higher states of self-acutalisation
What were the theories which rest on a dynamic sense of progression that Hegel’s thought provided a foundation for?
- Marxism
- Darwinism
- Modern notions of progress
Describe Panentheism, the new paradigm of the God-world relationship pioneered by Hegel.
- Postulates a mutual dependence between God and the world in which each is profoundly affected by the other; Hegel: “Without the world, God is not God.”
- This became a formidable challenge to the traditional paradigm of “classical theism”
Who were the theologians, mentioned in the slides, that proposed a “new consensus” regarding the impassibility of God
R. Goetz
M. Sarot
J. Moltmann
What were the reasons for the “new consensus” mentioned in the slides?
1) Our perception of reality
2) Shift in our understanding of God’s love
3) A revised understanding of the incarnation
4) The value for theodicy
Regarding our perception of reality, what are the differences between Pre-modern theologians and our modern age?
Pre-modern Theologians:
- The distinction between creatures and God is the distinction between a world of change, flux and decay and a perfect world of unchanging static perfection.
- Creatures in a world of becoming aspire to rise to the world of being
Our modern age:
- The influence of biological sciences and evolutionary theory: We see the world more as “a living organism, a community of relationships in the process of growth and development”
- Change and development carry a positive rather than negative connotation
- God is not seen to be separated from this world, but works inside it, journeying together with it towards the goal he has set
- God has an “ethical” rather than “ontological” immutability: His character and love does not change. God allows himself to be affected by our world in order to be true to himself
Regarding shift in our understanding of God’s love, what are the differences between Pre-modern theologians and our modern age?
Pre-modern Theologians:
- God’s benevolent love is an attitude and an act of the will, and has nothing to do with feelings
- Seeing God as passible would undermine; the altruism of God’s love; and the ability of God to realise the goal of his love
Our modern age:
- Genuine personal love most involve suffering alongside the one loved
- Against Hegel, God’s transcendence can be preserved by seeing his suffering as an outcome of his free decision to create
- God’s suffering is thus not to be seen as an inevitable weakness but a profound act of sovereign love. It is “active” rather than “passive” suffering
Regarding a revised understanding of the incarnation, what are the differences between Pre-modern theologians and our contemporary theology?
Pre-modern Theologians:
- The incarnate Son Jesus truly suffered, but only in his human nature and not his divine nature
- There is an element of paradox and mystery. cyril of Alexandria: the Logos “suffered impassibly”
Contemporary Theology:
- If Jesus is the Logos become human, the affirmation that Jesus suffered must mean the person of the Logos suffered => God Suffered
- Any attempt to shield God from the human suffering of Jesus is an effective denial of the incarnation
What are the different aspects of God’s suffering identified by those who affirm divine impassibility?
1) God’s general empathetic suffering with his creatures and grief at their rebellion
2) God’s specific suffering in the incarnation and the cross: The purely human suffering experienced by Jesus the Son; and the suffering experienced by God the Father in allowing his Son to suffer and die
What are the key ideas of ‘Open Theism’?
- God, in his grace, has granted human beings real and significant freedom to either cooperate or work against God’s will in their lives
- For creaturely freedom to be meaningful, there must be a genuine notion of God’s response to us
- For there to be genuine response from God, he must not know the future. He therefore responds based on what he knows at the current time
- Affirming God’s foreknowledge destroys human freedom: The future is effectively settled and our decisions do not make any difference
- So, at creation, God graciously surrenders significant aspects of his power to allow for genuine creaturely freedom: Including his own entry into time-bound existence
- God is still omniscient: He knows everything there is to know. But because God has willed the future to be contingent - it is not knowable to any being
- God sets goals for his creation: e.g. the establishment of a new heaven and new earth
- But God does not know exactly how his goals are going to be accomplished: God invites his creatures to bring the future into being together with him
According to Open Theism, how does God ensure his goals are realised?
- Open theist argue that God, even though he does not know for sure what will happen, knows of every possible outcome of events
- God is endlessly resourceful and will be able to effectively respond to any circumstances that arise
- At certain times, God in his wisdom will override human freedom and intervene directly in our world
According to Open Theism, what are the limits of divine intervention?
- There is a point up to which God can directly intervene without compromising the freedom of his creatures
- Because of the complexity of the forces of cause and effect in our world, no human beings knows where this point is
- But God knows and intervenes up to this point and no further
How does Open Theism revise the notion of god’s sovereignty?
- Not absolute control but the power to respond and adapt to the infinite possibilities of the unexpected
- This is sovereignty consistent with love: Love leads God to make himself “vulnerable” and allow himself to be genuinely affected by the decisions of creatures
- Analogy of the praiseworthy chess master
