Trinitarianism

1. Which of the three positions concerning God’s sovereignty do you think best represent God? Explain.

How does God’s sovereignty relate to the fall of Adam and Eve? Do you think that He planned the fall or simply allowed it to occur?

2. How is the cross a demonstration of God’s righteousness (see Rom. 3:25)?

Romans 3:25

Romans 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;

3. Do you think that the Gospel can be accurately communicated with a presentation of God’s love without reference to His righteousness?

4. Why do you think that it has become less and less common to teach about God’s righteousness?

5. How does it comfort you to understand that God’s goodness, love, and grace are part of His immutable character? Explain.

6. What do we have to do to make God act lovingly and graciously toward us? How does the understanding that we were created in the image of God help you to answer this?

7. In what ways would it disturb you if you thought that God did not know the future? Explain.

8. In what way would it comfort you if you thought that God did not know the future?

9. Further discuss how Open Theology might be a reactionary theology attempting to answer the question, “Why does God allow evil?”

Discuss the danger of all theology that is constructed as reactionary.

10. How was your thinking most challenged by this lesson?

1. Do you agree with the assertion that immutability is an essential attribute that is a corollary of eternality? Explain.

2. In what way does God’s immutability trouble you?

3. In what way does it comfort you?

4. What is the difference in saying that God can be present in a spatial location and saying that He exists in a spatial location?

5. Is there a difference in saying that God is ontologically present everywhere and saying that God is relationally present everywhere? Explain.

6. How does the doctrine of God’s immutability help you to trust God more for things that He has promised? Give examples.

7. Considering the intimate way that God related to people in the OT (e.g., Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah), how does understanding God’s immutability help you to gain confidence in your intimacy with God? Explain.

8. The doctrine of God’s aseity teaches that God is in need of nothing, not even your love and worship. How can this positively affect your view of Him?

9. How was your thinking challenged most by this lesson?

1. An attribute is a property of some entity that to some degree defines what that entity is. In other words, philosophically speaking, an entity is the sum total of its attributes.

For example, God is the sum total of His attributes. An essential attribute is that property which exists necessarily in the entity, and without it, the entity would not be what it is.

For example, God would not be God if He was not timeless (an essential attribute that makes God, God). A non-essential attribute is a property of an entity which it possesses subjectively, but is not necessary for the ontological make up of the entity.

For example, God’s mercy is a non-essential attribute of His character. In other  word’s God does not need to have the attribute of mercy to be God. It is conceivable for God to be unmerciful and still meet the criteria of “goodness.”

Discuss the validity of this last statement. How should this make us praise God more?

2. What non-essential attributes do you personally possess? In other words, what attributes do you possess that are not necessary attributes shared by all mankind?

3. What essential attributes do you possess by virtue of belonging to the category of mankind?

4. Further discuss the validity of saying that God must be eternal (timeless) in order to be God.

5. How does this concept of essential attributes help you understand the Christian view, that God must exist “above the arch” and must have created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing)?

6. How does this same concept help you understand that all other views of God (pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, etc.) are self-defeating, since they do not ascribe to God the essential attributes of “that which is above the arch”?

7. Further discuss the validity of saying that God must be simple in order to be God.

8. Since God does not experience time in the way we do, do you think that this limits His ability to relate to us? Explain.

9. How was your thinking challenged most by this lesson?

1. Further discuss the reasons why you often doubt God’s existence.

Read 1 Pet. 1:8. How does this verse help with regard to this issue?

1 Peter 1:8

1 Peter 1:8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,

2. Further discuss the reasons why you are confident about God’s existence.

3. Further discuss the validity of the “Why is there something rather than

nothing?” question. Do you think that it is possible to just ignore this question?

4. The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is an argument from beginnings. It basically says that there cannot be an infinite series of moment in the past or we would never have come to the present. Further discuss the validity of this argument.

5. The Moral Argument for the existence of God is an argument from the inherent morality and sense of right and wrong within all people. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this argument.

6. Read Ps. 19:1–4 and Rom.1:20–21. The Teleological Argument for the

existence of God is an argument from design. What ways has this argument

been influential in your life?

Psalm 19: 1-4

Psalm 19:1The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.

3There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world In them He has placed a tent for the sun

Romans 1:20-21

20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

7. How have you experienced the sensus divinitatus in your own life? Explain.

8. How was your thinking most challenged by the lesson? Explain.

1. Considering God’s incomprehensibility, what would you say to someone who says, “Who is to say that when we get to heaven we will have a parallel understanding of truth that we have today?” 

2. Would you like to know God exhaustively? Why or why not? 

3. Is there a difference in knowing about God and knowing God? If so, what is it? 

4. How does the Reformers’ definition of faith, help you to understand what true faith is? 

5. Explain what belief without fiducia looks like. Give examples. 

6. Explain what belief without assensus looks like. Give examples. 

7. Explain what belief without notitia looks like. Give examples. 

8. Which element of faith do you struggle with most? Explain. 

9. How was your thinking most challenged by the lesson? Explain.

1. A worldview was defined as the sum total of one’s answers to life’s most important questions. Does everyone have a worldview? Explain. 

2. If a person’s worldview affects so many different areas in life, how important is it that one’s worldview be both well thought out and consistent? 

3. Give an example of an inconsistent worldview. 

4. Theism is the belief that God is transcendent above creation, yet He interacts with creation. Why is it necessary, according to Theists, that God exist outside of time? What is the inconsistency with all worldviews in which God only exists in time? 

5. Deism is the belief that God simply created all things and then left them to their own demise. Job recognizes God’s apparent lack of activity in Job 21:7–26 and Job 24:1–25  

Job 21: 7-26 Job 21:7 “Why do the wicked still live, Continue on, also become very powerful? 8″Their descendants are established with them in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes, 9Their houses are safe from fear, And the rod of God is not on them.  

10″His ox mates without fail; His cow calves and does not abort. 11″They send forth their little ones like the flock, And their children skip about. 12″They sing to the timbrel and harp And rejoice at the sound of the flute. 13″They spend their days in prosperity, And suddenly they go down to Sheol.14″They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways. 15′Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, And what would we gain if we entreat Him?’ 16″Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand; The counsel of the wicked is far from me.  

17″How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, Or does their calamity fall on them? Does God apportion destruction in His anger? 18″Are they as straw before the wind, And like chaff which the storm carries away?  

19″You say, ‘God stores away a man’s iniquity for his sons.’ Let God repay him so that he may know it. 20″Let his own eyes see his decay, And let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21″For what does he care for his household after him, When the number of his months is cut off? 22″Can anyone teach God knowledge, In that He judges those on high?  

23″One dies in his full strength, Being wholly at ease and satisfied; 24His sides are filled out with fat, And the marrow of his bones is moist, 25While another dies with a bitter soul, Never even tasting anything good. 26″Together they lie down in the dust, And worms cover them. 

Job 24:1–25Job 24:1″Why are times not stored up by the Almighty, And why do those who know Him not see His days? 2″Some remove the landmarks; They seize and devour flocks. 3″They drive away the donkeys of the orphans; They take the widow’s ox for a pledge. 4″They push the needy aside from the road; The poor of the land are made to hide themselves altogether.  

5″Behold, as wild donkeys in the wilderness They go forth seeking food in their activity, As bread for their children in the desert. 6″They harvest their fodder in the field and glean the vineyard of the wicked. 7″They spend the night naked, without clothing, And have no covering against the cold.  

8″They are wet with the mountain rains And hug the rock for want of a shelter. 9″Others snatch the orphan from the breast, And against the poor they take a pledge. 10″They cause the poor to go about naked without clothing, And they take away the sheaves from the hungry.  

11″Within the walls they produce oil; They tread wine presses but thirst. 12″From the city men groan, And the souls of the wounded cry out; Yet God does not pay attention to folly. 13″Others have been with those who rebel against the light; They do not want to know its ways Nor abide in its paths. 14″The murderer arises at dawn; He kills the poor and the needy, And at night he is as a thief. 15″The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ And he disguises his face. 16″In the dark they dig into houses, They shut themselves up by day; They do not know the light. 17″For the morning is the same to him as thick darkness, For he is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness. 18″They are insignificant on the surface of the water; Their portion is cursed on the earth They do not turn toward the vineyards. 19″Drought and heat consume the snow waters, So does Sheol those who have sinned.  

20″A mother will forget him; The worm feeds sweetly till he is no longer remembered And wickedness will be broken like a tree. 21″He wrongs the barren woman And does no good for the widow. 22″But He drags off the valiant by His power; He rises, but no one has assurance of life.  

23″He provides them with security, and they are supported; And His eyes are on their ways. 24″They are exalted a little while, then they are gone; Moreover, they are brought low and like everything gathered up; Even like the heads of grain they are cut off. 

25″Now if it is not so, who can prove me a liar, And make my speech worthless?”

Job 24:23

Job 24:23 “He provides them with security, and they are supported; And His eyes are on their ways.

Job’s basic thesis is that from the looks of things, there is no ultimate judge intervening in the affairs of men. The wicked prosper, and the righteous and poor are taken advantage of. Job, it seems, comes dangerously  close to deism at times, but then his conclusion is that God knows the ways of the wicked (Job 24:23).  

The theme of the apparent apathy of God toward the wicked is continually seen throughout Scripture. The defense that is always given is that while the wicked may seem to prosper in this life in spite of their wickedness, they will eventually die, face judgment, and then be forgotten.  

(Read Jer. 12:1–4; Ps. 37:1–2; 35–36; 92:7; Ecc. 7:15). In what ways have you taken a deistic worldview, thinking that God is not really involved? Explain. 

Jer. 12:1-4Jer.12:1 Righteous are You, O LORD, that I would plead my case with You; Indeed I would discuss matters of justice with You: Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal in treachery at ease? 2You have planted them, they have also taken root; They grow, they have even produced fruit You are near to their lips But far from their mind.  

3But You know me, O LORD; You see me; And You examine my heart’s attitude toward You Drag them off like sheep for the slaughter And set them apart for a day of carnage!  

4.How long is the land to mourn And the vegetation of the countryside to wither? For the wickedness of those who dwell in it, Animals and birds have been snatched away, Because men have said, “He will not see our latter ending.”

Psalm 37:1 -2Psalm 37:1 Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. 2For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb. __________________________________________________Psalm 37: 35-36

Psalm 37:35 I have seen a wicked, violent man Spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found

Psalm 92:7

Psalm 92:7 That when the wicked sprouted up like grass And all who did iniquity flourished, It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore.

Ecc. 7:15 Ecc. 7:15 I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. 

6. Examine Naturalism. Further discuss the deficiencies that it has in answering the worldview questions. 

7. Examine Pluralism. Further discuss the deficiencies that it has in answering the worldview questions. 

8. Why do you think Pluralism is so prevalent in the twenty-first century as a worldview? Why do you think that people ignore the inconsistencies? 

9. How was your thinking most challenged by the lesson? Explain.