Week 7 Glossary Flashcards
Word used to speak of God’s choosing of individuals or people to bring about God’s good purposes.
Election
A term used to refer primarily to the philosophical mood among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western intellectuals. It rejected eternal authorities as a source of knowledge and instead elevated human reasoning as the best way to bring about an understanding of the world.
Enlightenment
Philosophical inquiry into the nature, sources, limits and methods of gaining knowledge.
Epistemology
Theological study that seeks to understand the ultimate direction or purpose of history as it moves towards the future, both from an individual perspective (What happens when a person dies?) and from a corporate perspective (Where is history going, and how will it end?)
Eschatology
Argues that salvation is found only in and through Jesus Christ. Also generally argues that Christ must be believed upon and explicitly confessed in order for a person to qualify for salvation.
Exclusivism
Any philosophical system that attempts to define what it means to be human in terms of “existence” (How does a human live?) rather than in terms of “essence” (What is a human?). Persons are all uniquely defined by their free decisions and acts.
Existentialism
Refers to both intellectual belief and to relational trust or commitment.
Faith
Belief that human behavior is self-caused. Actions are ultimately chosen, even if the person choosing knows that the chosen action may bring about undesirable consequences.
Free will
Term used to declare that God reveals something about the divine nature through the created order.
General revelation
Refers to different types or varieties of literature, recognition of which is crucial for good biblical interpretation.
Genre
Early Greek religious movement particularly influential in the second-century. Believed that devotees had gained a special kind of spiritual enlightenment, through which they had attained a secret or higher level of knowledge not accessible to the uninitiated.
Gnosticism
God’s loving actions toward creation and toward humankind in particular.
Grace
Approach to biblical interpretation that seeks to understand the Bible in light of its historical and cultural backgrounds, that is, as a book arising out of a human context.
Historical criticism
Seeks to understand and delineate how the church interpreted scripture and developed doctrine throughout its history, from the time of the apostles to the present day.
Historical theology
A term describing the uniqueness of humans as God’s creatures.
Imago Dei
