Christian Beliefs

• Immortal, invisible, God only wise


  Reminder that it is impossible to fully convey the nature of God because God is beyond human understanding
• Anthropomorphism


  • Using human images to picture God
  • Can be helpful in making God comprehensible
  • Can also limit God, present God in an outdated way, or present God as simply the best version of what humans can imagine
• Thinking and writing about God is open to misunderstanding
• Contrasting beliefs about the nature of God

  • Personal
  • Impersonal
  • Immanent
  • Transcendent
• Personal


  Individuals can have a relationship with God, who has human emotions and characteristics, and supports and cares for individuals in their daily lives
• Immanent


  God is in the world and the universe, acting in human history, the present, and the future
• Impersonal


  God is not like a person or a friend, but an idea such as infinity, immortality, or a force such as gravity or magnetism, or a more conceptual idea like 'goodness' or 'light inaccessible'
• Transcendent


  God is outside and beyond the world and the universe, not limited by time and space, does not act in time or space, and is set apart from human existence
• Christians emphasise one belief rather than another at different times, and try to hold all of them together
• God


  That than which nothing greater can be conceived
• God


  • Omnipotent
  • All-powerful
• Creation of the universe

  In 6 days God creates the universe
• God's power over nature and human life

  • The Ten Plagues of Egypt
  • Parting of the Red Sea
• God is omni-benevolent (all-loving)
• Psalm 86:15: 'God is merciful and rich in love'
• John 3:16: 'God sent Jesus to earth out of love'
• Romans 8:37-39: 'God's love is more powerful than anything else'
• Christian beliefs about God

  • Personal
  • Impersonal
  • Immanent
  • Transcendent
• Trinity


  • God the Father (transcendent)
  • God the Son (immanent and personal)
  • God the Holy Spirit (immanent yet impersonal)
• Christians are monotheists who believe in one God with three persons
• For some non-Christians, the Trinity can seem like polytheism with belief in three gods
• A detailed explanation of the Trinity is not found in the Bible
• Key passages in the Bible lead Christians to the belief in the Trinity
• Jesus: 'I and the Father are one'
• Jesus: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have known me, you will also know my Father. From now on you know him and have seen him.'
• The complexity of trying to understand the Trinity means that many Christians refer to the Mystery of the Trinity
• Persons of the Trinity

  • Father
  • Son
  • Holy Spirit
• God is one and is Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• Each person of the Trinity is separate and yet at the same time each person is God
• A person can be mother, sister and daughter at the same time

  These are different relationships and roles, but the same person
• Ice, water and steam


  The same substance in three different forms
• The problem of evil and suffering in the world is not one that only concerns Christians
• Epicurus: 'Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?'
• The Father is not the Son
• Theodicy


  A way of maintaining the existence and righteousness of God when there is evil and suffering in the world
• Theodicies we considered


  • God is the God of deism and not theism
  • God is not omnipotent and shares the suffering that people experience
  • God punishes through natural disasters
  • God rewards those who have suffered from evil with heaven
  • As Irenaeus/Hick argued, evil and suffering are necessary for 'soul-making'
  • As Augustine argued, choices made through human free will cause of evil and suffering
  • Evil and suffering are a test from God
• Job


  A faithful and religious man who fears God and shuns evil, the greatest man in the land of Uz with seven sons and three daughters, great wealth and thousands of sheep and cattle
• Satan challenges God about Job

  1. Satan questions whether Job fears God for nothing

  2. Satan suggests God has surrounded Job with a fence and blessed everything he does

  3. Satan says if God strikes everything Job owns, he will curse God
• Pre-lapsarian creation


  Creation before the Fall
• Post-lapsarian world


  The world after the Fall