Theology

Question 1

Does Aquinas consider God to be self-evident?

Answer 1

Aquinas says that since we cannot fully grasp the essence of God, his existence needs to be shown to us in other ways.

i.e. creation

Question 2

What are Aquinas’s Five Ways?

Answer 2

1. Proof from Motion
2. Proof from causality
3. Proof from the contingency of the World.
4. Proof from grades or perfection.
5. Proof from final causes.

Question 3

Describe Aquinas’ “Proof from Motion.”

Answer 3

This argues that change occurs as something comes to be what it was not before.

Nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality except by something in the state of actuality.

Question 4

Describe Aquina’s “Proof from Causality”

Answer 4

This argument deals with the “effectual cause,” the agent that caused the change.

Question 5

Describe Aquinas’ “Proof from the Contingency of the World.”

Answer 5

It is possible for us not to exist. we are not necessary beings.

• There was a time when we did not exist.
• If everything was a contingent being then nothing would exist now. (an infinite series of generated contingent beings cannot exist.)

Question 6

Describe Aquinas’ “Proof from grades of perfection.”

Answer 6

There are degrees of perfection in various things.

The effects must have a cause that is sufficient to bring it.

Question 7

Describe Aquinas’ “Proof from final Causes.”

Answer 7

Some things act in the world for the sake of an end.
- i.e. an acorn is to germinate and become a tree. The acorn does not have a mind, therefore there must be something that creates this goal in the acorn.

Question 8

What is Anselm’s Ontological argument?

Answer 8

That, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone.

For, if it exists in the understanding alone, then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

Question 9

What is a theistic proof?

Answer 9

A theistic proof is any argument for the existence of God.

Question 10

What is “change”

Answer 10

Change is the actualization of a potential.

Change requires a changer.

Pure act - the first cause cannot be derivative by nature, and definition.

Question 11

What is a contemporary argument for the existence of God from change?

Answer 11

Any object you choose is not a necessary being and therefore must not have always existed.

Question 12

What is univocal language?

Answer 12

Univocal - when a word is used in the exact same sense toward two different things.

These would be words that cannot be used in any other sense such as drill bit. It’s very specific to one thing.

Question 13

What is equivocal language?

Answer 13

Using the same word in a different way.

(A baseball bat and a flying bat are not the same thing but use the same language)

Question 14

What is analogical language?

Answer 14

Words that are using similarities.

Goodness of God and the goodness of man are not the same thing.

See analogia

Question 15

What are the three types of relationships we can conceive of?

Answer 15

1.) Logical in both terms of the relation.
- this relationship exists only in the mind.
- it’s a distinction that makes logical sense.

2.) is real in both terms.
- a relationship that exists among things that are in the same order of being.

3.) mixed relation- the relation is real in one term and logical in the other.
- it is not imaginary. It exists in reality.
- the thing is real, but also exists in the mind.

Question 16

Give an example of a relationship that is “real” in both terms.

Answer 16

A relationship that is real exists among things on the same order of being.
They are dependent on one another.

Such as:

A Father is only a father in relation to a son or daughter.

One thing is big/tall and another is small/short.

Question 17

Describe a relationship that is mixed. That is, real in one term and logical in another.

Answer 17

This relationship is not imaginary. It does exist.

Knowledge of something is an example.
- the thing is real but also exists in the mind.

Unlike real relationships the thing you have knowledge of (like a book) is not dependent on your knowledge but your knowledge must depend on it.

Question 18

Describe the hypostatic Union in terms of relations. Is it logical? Real? Mixed?

Answer 18

We can better understand how the divine nature entered into a relationship with the human nature through a mixed relation.

The human nature underwent change without changing the term of the other (divine) nature.

The human nature came into existence causing a change in the relationship.

The divine term does not change but the relationship does.

Question 19

What are “affections” and”passions” in humans?

Answer 19

Affections are those things that are external to us that affect humans.

Passions are a subsection of affections.

Question 20

Why do we say God is without passions? Does that mean God does not love?

Answer 20

Impassibility is the term that means without passions.

This does not mean God is without love , mercy, joy, etc.

God is not affected by externality. He does not have human emotions and affections but rather perfections.

Question 21

Why is it important to understand the impassibility of God?

Answer 21

God is without passions. That is he is not affected by externalities.

The Bible describes God with human emotions. However, the Bible also describes him as someone who does not change his mind (Numbers 23:19).

Texts that tell us of God’s being take priority over texts that talk about his actions.

The Bible uses figurative language when describing God.

Question 22

If God is omnipotent does that mean that he can create a square circle?

Answer 22

God is all powerful.

But he isn’t a God of contradictions.

Question 23

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

Answer 23

God knows all things. He is omniscient.

He knows what actually occurs (facts) as well as the counter factuals which is what would have occurred.
- this is part of his necessary knowledge - “all things.”

Gods free knowledge is a subcategory of necessary knowledge.
- it is God’s knowledge of what he did freely will to decree and create.

Question 24

What is Natural Theology?

Answer 24

Orthodox teaching suggests there is natural theology that is partly innate, derived from the conscience, and partly acquired, as Turretin puts it “drawn from the book of creatures.”

Question 25

Why do we describe God using negative terms?

Answer 25

God is infinite. We cannot fully comprehend what infinity or eternality is but we understand finite things.
As such we describe attributes of God negatively as being the opposite of what we do understand. This is analogical language.
(See simplicity)

Question 26

What does eminence mean?

Answer 26

Eminence is an analogical term where we take a creaturely attribute and exhalt it to an infinite degree.

e.g. we have knowledge, we say that God has all knowledge.
we have power, God is all powerful (omnipotent)

Question 27

Describe the simplicity of God.

Answer 27

Divine simplicity is a negative attribute.

We are negating a creaturely attribute when we say God is simple.
* God has no parts
*God is not matter or substance

Question 28

Scripture describes God as Spirit. How do we reconcile this with statements about physical attributes of God?

Answer 28

Incorporeality - this means that God is spirit and therefore does not have a body, and is not composed of matter.

References to God’s physical attributes are anthropomorphic figurative language and not literal language.

Question 29

Describe what it means that God is immutable.

Answer 29

God is understood as free from all mutation of being, attributes, place, or will and from all physical and ethical change.

Immutability is a negative attribute. We are describing an attribute from a perspective of what God is not.

Question 30

What theological problems arise when we talk about God “looking down the corridors of time”?

Answer 30

This view makes God dependent on the corridors of time. That God looks down the corridors of time to see what each individual will freely do and then elect on that basis.

It is basically knowledge of counterfactuals. The claim is that this is God’s knowledge of events which depend not upon God’s decree but solely on the liberty of the free creature.

Question 30

What do we not mean when we say God is immutable?

Answer 30

We don’t want to add any creaturely-relative immutability into God.

There are some things in creation that appear to be immutable relative to other things.
e.g. a block of granite that appears to not change.

This gives us the false concept that God is a static, impersonal thing that is just there, like the block of granite.

Question 30

Summarize the Arian doctrine of the Trinity.

Answer 30

a. God was not always Father, he was once in a situation in which he was simply God and not Father.”

b. The Logos or Son is a creature. God made him out of non-existence.

**This subordinates the Son to the Father.

Question 31

What are the three elements of providence?

Answer 31

i. Conservation

ii. Concurrence

iii. Governance

Question 32

What is Conservation?

Answer 32

Conservation (or sustenance or preservation) – providence includes conservation. It is the maintenance of the being of contingent things.

• God upholds us in our contingent being.

Question 33

What is Concurrence?

Answer 33

Concurrence – The continuing divine support of the operation, the activity or action of all secondary causes whether free, contingent, or necessary.

For any contingent being to act in a free, contingent or necessary manner the divine will, which supports all contingent being, must concur in its act.

Question 34

What is Governance?

Answer 34

Governance – is the aspect of providence where God is governing or directing all things toward his predetermined decree, end or goal.

Question 35

What are the characteristics of election?

Answer 35

Election is immutable, from eternity, unconditional, irresistible and it is not unjust.