Current lecture study notes are posted below. For a printable/downloadable version for each lecture, click on the link provided next to each lecture title/date. New notes will be posted after the lecture is presented. Scroll down for the lectures in sequence.
This page was last modified on Friday, November 05, 2010
Lecture 11 - November 24, 2009 (downloadable/printable notes)
1. If Calvin maintained that human beings, not God, were the cause of evil, then when and where did evil come from? If we could somehow answer that question in this class or any other class we took we would be geniuses in doing something that so far no one has satisfactorily done. The subject of evil is the most challenging issue that Christians, and really any monotheistic faith, will have to explain, especially if you take the goodness and sovereignty of God seriously.
2. Not everyone has a problem with evil. For example, a naturalist/materialist would say there is no intentionality or design therefore the world is just as it is and nothing more.
3. In polytheism, there is no problem of evil because one god is usually good and the other is less than good and the two are fighting it out with creation as their pawns. In pantheism, evil is just an illusion, something that comes from our imperfect understanding. In panentheism, evil is a natural part of an imperfect world and is simply mistakes that must be overcome.
4. But with a monotheistic faith, such as Christianity, that maintains God is perfect, sovereign and good, worthy of our worship, then there are all sorts of problems. First of all, we believe that God’s creation is somehow designed by the Creator and somehow reflects His design. We also believe that it is possible to infer the nature of the designer from the nature of what He has created and designed (teleological argument for God, McKim for definition of term, page 276). In doing so, we hold that fairness demands and a good theodicy (see McKim, definition of term, page 279) dictates that we take all of the features of God’s creation into account, not just those that favor the nature of God’s character (like the beauty of God and His creation). This raises the question… any number of features of the world are bad or evil and how if any do they reflect the character of God without jeopardizing the appropriateness of worship.
5. In one form or another, the problem comes down to what David Hume has stated when he wrote of God: “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing: whence then is evil” (Erickson, page 437).
6. This train of thought has led some to reject ethical monotheism and put the problem of evil in the forefront of an attack of atheistic writers who are seeking to discredit Christianity.
7. Nevertheless the problem of evil is a philosophical problem that involves reconciling three general concepts about a monotheistic God and our world: The reality of evil and suffering in our world, the power of God, and the goodness of God (Erickson, page 437).
8. If suffering and evil are just illusions, as our pantheistic friends maintain, the problem is solved. Evil is not real and therefore it is just a concept in the human mind in which we are getting all worked up about. There are always people who think that someone else’s suffering is not a big deal until it gets close to home.
9. Christianity at its best is when we don’t deny or spiritualize evil and suffering but take it very seriously. As ministers and as Christians, if we don’t take suffering and therefore evil seriously, our faith is not worth the pages of paper on which the Bible is printed upon. I think the time will come when as a Christian minister you will have to put up or shut up in helping others that are suffering because of evil. *Talk about my experience with an aids person.* In saying all of this, the pain and suffering of others still sometimes goes by unnoticed, why?
10. Some also seek to solve the problem by redefining or abandoning what we mean by omnipotence. See an example of abandoning the omnipotence of God by looking at Edgar Brightman’s theology of finitism in Erickson, page 440.
11. The definition of omnipotence given by McKim is “God’s ability to do all things that do not conflict with the divine will or knowledge. God’s power is limited only by God’s own nature and not by external force (Job 42:2; Matthew 19: 26; Luke 1:37). James Hall, professor of Philosophy at Richmond University, suggests that “some redefinition of ‘omnipotent’ is necessary.” He suggests that “omnipotent cannot usefully mean “able to do anything describable” or “able to do anything that can be done.” Instead, it might be redefined to mean “able to do anything that can be done.” How does a redefinition of omnipotent affect our understanding of Matthew 19: 26 when Jesus says “with God all things are possible?”
12. The reconciling of these three areas in the context of monotheism constitutes a theodicy. We are not going to try to bring them together in this course. That will be the task of the Philosophy of Religion course next semester.
13. However, we are going to look at the progression of the understanding of Satan and evil in the Bible. To begin with, lets state that the Bible leaves the origins of evil a mystery. We desperately want to know but the Bible simply wants us to know that God is good, His creation is good. He is in control, yet sin and evil are very much a reality.
14. Sin is from a freedom of choice that comes deep within the heart of man, and the whole process is aggravated and encouraged by a tempter and adversary of man and God’s providence.
15. First off, while most preachers and some theologians might think of the serpent as being the devil, or Satan, there is no Biblical evidence to that end. Genesis 3:1 says: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord had made.” I would indeed be hard-pressed to find an animal in God’s creation that was a talking snake, this personification of the freedom of choice that mankind had to disobey God is not the devil.
16. Instead, the devil is the chief of the “fallen angels.” Demons, which were once angels who were created by God and thus were originally good; but they sinned and thus became evil. Just when this rebellion took place we don’t know, but it must have occurred between the time when God completed the creation and pronounced it all “very good,” and the temptation and fall of humans” (Erickson, page 472).
17. Yet the fall of humans from the Garden of Eden is not the same thing as the fall of Satan. If Satan, indeed, was before the fall of man then explain the following passages.
18. For example, the oldest account of Satan in the Bible is in the Book of Job. Turn to Job and explain the position of Satan in the Heavenly court. Adversary…Does nothing without God’s approval. Old Testament sees Satan working for God in some capacity…Common Wealth attorney…yet a corrupt one.
19. Another adversarial passage is Numbers 22:22, “an adversary against him.” An angel is once again an adversary to man, but not necessarily God.
20. You see a hint of what Satan comes to mean in 1 Kings 22:19-25, a “lying spirit.” What does Jesus call Satan in John 8:43-45? A murderer, a liar and the father of lies. The power of Satan lies in his ability to convince God’s creation to believe a lie.
21. Is Satan omnipresent and is he all powerful? No! It is foolish to underestimate Satan, but it is sinful to attribute to him the powers and abilities of God. No matter how powerful he is, he is not God.
22. Another very interesting scripture that, to me, illustrates how even in the Bible doctrine changes and evolves is found in 2 Samuel 24:1. Scholars believe that 2 Samuel is older than 1 Chronicles. 21:1. Read both and tell me what the difference is. The writer of 1 Chronicles does not want to ascribe to God the responsibility of misleading David.
23. Other interesting Old Testament scriptures on angels, like Job 4:18, Job 15:15-16 leads us to believe that God’s angels were not perfect, and that heaven was unclean. Do you believe in Guardian angels? See Job 33: 22-30.
24. For the fall of Lucifer (Isaiah 14), and the fall of Satan to come, also see Revelation 12:7-9.
Lecture 12 - December 1, 2009 (printable/downloadable notes)
Review:
1. The fall of Lucifer (Isaiah 14) is not the fall of Satan – the fall of Satan is to come (Revelation 12:7-9). Is there any evidence from the book of Revelation (12:7-9) that the fall of Satan is something that has already happened, and not something occurring in the context of the future to come?
2. Review our understanding of evil? For human evil, the issue is freedom and the growth of the human spirit created in the image of God. We are created to be creatures that evolve into the sons and daughters of God. Freedom (choices of good and evil) has to be part of the process to allow us to become the people that God would have us to be.
3. Natural evil – here we can learn something from the process theologians who maintain that the universe is created by God but still in the process of evolving or changing. With evolution, change, and growth there is also, at times, chaos and suffering that comes with the continued birth of God’s creation (see Romans 8:19-23). Human freedom and continuing process of God’s creating energy is behind much of what is wrong in our world.
Creation and the Doctrine of Man
4. The doctrine of creation is very important, not just because of the controversy over the issue of evolution and creationism but because of the foundation it lays for other doctrines. The doctrine that God is the creator, Lord and Master over all that He has made should influence all the major doctrines of our faith. Actually all the doctrines are the most important as we study them…see Erickson page 480.
5. Once you establish the existence of God, you need to establish what He wants and what He does, and doing so you start with His creation.
6. The beginning of a classical Christian doctrine of creation starts with ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. As Erickson says, (page 394) “we begin with the doctrine of creation by noting that it (the world, universe) is creation out of nothing, or without the use of preexisting materials.” There is not to my knowledge a scripture passage that directly and explicitly uses this phrase, but many of the Old Testament and New Testament strongly imply this meaning (see Erickson 398).
7. Furthermore, as we learn to think more like professional theologians, we begin by asking the question that without the doctrine of creation out of nothing, where does preexistence matter come from? If we maintain as the scriptures state that God is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” then what is preexistent to Him? Another god? No! Nothing!
8. Therefore, the scriptures reject a Maricon type of dualism (see dualism, Erickson page 397-398), where a different God of superior stuff was preexistent to the God of creation.
9. Instead, all of creation is called forth out of nothing by one “Triune God” (see Erickson, page 398).
10. The purpose of creation is somehow to give glory to God (Psalm 19:1) (Erickson, 399). To what extent God wants or needs this glory is something that is tied up in the weakness of human words to adequately express. I personally believe that God wants (or needs) something from His creation or He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of making the creation and sacrificing His Son for His creation. Yet, I also believe that God is self-sufficient, perfect, and that He doesn’t need us to be blessed, content, or fulfilled.
11. Erickson brings out a good point when he says that creation could be divided into two parts. He writes on page 399 “While creation in the proper sense refers to bringing into existence all of physical reality as well as all spiritual beings other than God himself, the term also cover the subsequent origination of new entities fashioned from this previously created material.” According to Erickson, it may be “that what God did originally was merely to create matter from nothing, and then in His subsequently creative activity, he fashioned everything from the atoms he had created” (page 399). Could this process of “subsequently creative activity” still be going on? If so, how?
Some Theological meanings of the Doctrine of Creation
(see Erickson, page 400ff)
12. It is very easy to get caught up in the debate of creationism verses evolution, or some other understanding of how God did what he did. And while such a debate might be important for someone who is debating the issue of inerrancy or some other understanding of the interpretation of scripture in Genesis 1, it is not vital in talking about the many theological issues of the Doctrine of Creation as long as one affirms the fact that no matter how long it took God to do it, he did it!
13. We have already established that to God time has no meaning. That time was something that God created in order for us regulate and govern our lives, not to be a governing force in God’s existence whatsoever. 2 Peter 3: 8 clearly states this “but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
14. Let’s look at the teachings that Erickson believes are affirmed by the doctrine of creation. One, the doctrine of creation is first and rather obviously a statement that there is no ultimate reality other than God. The doctrine of creation is an affirmation that all reality is a reality that comes from God. No matter how long that really took to develop.
15. Focus on the goodness of creation [page 401-402] and responsible stewardship of God’s creation [page 402-403, Erickson page 401]; also see Implications of the Doctrine of Creation [page 410].
Doctrine of Man
16. What is the doctrine of man? According to Herschel Hobbs in The Baptist Faith and Message “Man was created by the special act of God, in His own image, and is the crowning work of His creation. In the beginning, man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his creator with freedom of choice… See the revised edition of Faith and Message (page 42).
17. The doctrine is important because mankind was the crowning work of His creation.
18. This doctrine is important because mankind alone is said to be created in the image of God. Look at Erickson page 481, “Thus, a direct clue to the nature of God ought to emerge from the study of humans.” If so, what classical argument for the existence of God should be argued from “man being made in the image of God?” Teleological argument! Therefore, what does being created in the image of God mean? Physical image!! Or something else?
19. It means something else! As we’ve discussed, John 4:24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
20. It is interesting how human beings are seen or at least afraid of being viewed. Ancient people generally have been afraid of being identified with animals and beasts. Ecclesiastes 3:18-19 “I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animals.”
21. Do you think the writer of Ecclesiastes has read Genesis 1 and 2? Yes, but in light of his understanding of death, he doesn’t see the merit and reward for being made in the image of God.
22. According the Hobbs (page 43), three things may be noted about man. His body is akin to the natural elements. His physical life is akin to the all animal life. He has a living soul or spirit that is made in God’s image and likeness.
23. Hobbs goes on to state that man has a twofold nature. He is both spirit and body. Man is not a body and has a soul, but he is a soul (a complete person) and has a body.
24. I like to put it like this: we are a soul, meaning we are a complete human being comprised of spirit and body. However, it is our spirit that will live eternally. While our complete soul (body, mind, and spirit) is saved, only our spirit lives on eternally. Can we distinguish between mind and spirit? I cannot, except that my spirit while depending on my mind and will is not the same. If I lose my mind (like Alzheimer’s disease), I don’t lose my spirit.
25. If God is spirit then the true image of God in man is spiritual in nature. The complete nature of all the attributes of God represent the spiritual nature of man, at least in the smallest and best degree of that nature. But if you could pick one attribute of God that would come closest to reflect the meaning of being created in the image of God, it would be love. We are the closest to being created in the image of God when we love as unselfishly as He does.
26. What are human beings defined as of today? Science seems to be leaning more and more toward determinism. DNA and genetics are being seen as the primary reason behind our behaviors and shortcomings. Consequently, we are scared of being determined, machine like (see Erickson, page 486).
Lecture 13 - December 7, 2009 (printable/downloadable notes)
1. Before we get into the doctrine of sin, it is necessary to talk a little about the origin of mankind and then the fall. According to Erickson, origin is better than beginnings because it carries the connotation of purpose rather just something simply starting up and beginning (page 497). Along those lines Erickson states and I wholeheartedly agree that theology does not ask merely how humans came to be on the face of the earth, but why, or what purpose lies behind our presence here. According to Erickson “the biblical picture of humanity’s origin is that of an all-wise, all-powerful, and good God created the human race to love and serve him, and to enjoy a relationship with him.”
2. The book of creations itself contains two accounts of God creating human beings. The first is Gen. 1: 26-27 and simply records God’s decision to make human beings in His own image and likeness, and “God’s action implementing this decision” (Erickson, 498). Nothing is said about the materials or the method that God used. According to verses 26-28 they are to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth and everything in the earth. (What do you think dominion means to most Christians today?)
3. The second account of creation of man is Genesis 2:7. Some believe that 2: 4 ff is evidence of a second earth creation, or what we’ve seen as the gap theory. Instead, a more reasonable theory (at least to most scholars) would be that the writer of Genesis at this point (at least) a complier or editor of two similar but different accounts of creation. He knows both accounts (both add more detail as we shall see to the story of creation) and chooses to preserve them both for present day reader.
4. The second account of the creation of man is not just simply saying that God but how God did it, he: “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man being a living being.” It is interesting that the phrase “a living being” is the N.T. equivalent of a living soul (KJV).
5. Let’s turn to Erickson chapter 25, page 538-546 where he discusses the basic views of Human constitution, in other words what human beings are made up of. There are three that he considers: trichotomism, dichotomism, and monism.
6. In summation I believe were created as “living souls” not just something that has a soul, but that everything we are body, mind, and spirit is “a living being” or a living soul. (But what does our understanding about the human constitution say about the relationship between the human mind and human spirit in diseases like Alzheimers? See book “What about the Soul?: Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology” edited by Joel B. Green)
7. In further summation our purpose as a human being is to worship, love, and serve our God with all of our being, everything that we are and all that we hope to be.
8. If you are a Christian and you are talking about the origins of mankind, you have to talk about Adam and Eve. When the topic of Adam and Eve comes up there is a shape disagreement about whether they are historical figures or just merely symbolic. Some say it is important and others say it is not. Let’s look at what Erickson states (498 and following).
University of Humanity (Chapter 26, Erickson)
9. Gender- page 563.
10. Unborn- page 570.
The Nature of Sin (page 579)
11. Like all the doctrines the doctrine of sin is very important and is connected directly or indirectly to our other doctrines. (Erickson, page 580)
Terms for Sin (page 583) Ignorance, etc.
Lecture 14 - December 15, 2009 (printable/downloadable notes)
1. According to Theology Today (Vol. 50, number 2, July 1993) in article entitled Whatever happened to the Doctrine of Sin by David H. Kelsey:
Culture in general aside, by century's end, people concerned specifically about the health of Christian systematic theology…are entitled to suspect that the doctrine of sin was somehow evaporating from formal theology…. After all, by mid-century the clearest line dividing the older, beleaguered Protestant "liberalism" from the newer, unhelpfully labeled "neo-orthodoxy" had been the distinction between the "optimistic" view that human nature was progressively improving beyond sin and the "pessimistic" view that human nature is inherently and structurally "estranged." The last quarter of the century, however, has been dominated by discussions of theologies of "critical correlation" with general human experience, theologies of "liberation" and theologies of "hope." The doctrine of sin may no longer seem prominent in the conversation. If this suspicion were true, it would be of profound importance for the social as well as the intellectual history of Christianity, because the doctrine of sin is one of those doctrines in which Christian life-forming is held closest to Christian truth-claiming, practical theology closest to dogmatic theology. What has happened to the doctrine of sin?
2. Published some twenty years ago, Karl Menninger's popular book, Whatever Became of Sin?, gave voice to a widespread suspicion that the concept of "sin" was steadily evaporating from everyday life.
3. But along with the concept of sin, the doctrine of sin is also rapidly becoming a thing of the past in a lot of people’s thinking as we’ve seen in the article by David Kelsey.
4. However, like all the doctrines that we’ve studied thus far, the doctrine of sin is very important and is connected directly or indirectly to our other doctrines (Erickson, page 580).
5. What is the doctrine of sin? See Erickson page 596, and handout 52 “Theories on the Nature of sin.”
6. Look at handout 49 “Theories of Original Righteousness.”
7. Look at handout 50 “Theories of Original Sin” also see page 684ff of Erickson. Also continue with chapter 28 page 600 Erickson.
8. Look at handout 51.
9. See terms for sin (page 583 of Erickson.) Ignorance, etc.
Lecture 15 - January 26, 2010 (printable/downloadable notes)
(Continuation of doctrine of sin and beginning of doctrine of incarnation)
1. See Erickson Chapter 29, page 618. Erickson has entitled this chapter, The Results of Sin. As we know, God created everything good. However, the goodness of God’s creation was premature because of the fall of mankind. Mankind was created good. In a sense, mankind was perfect. Now perfection does not mean that it was divine in nature, only God is that, but it simply means that morally, physically, and spiritually Adam was complete or perfect. Not until Christ did the world ever see another perfect human being; in fact Jesus Christ is the new Adam.
2. Yet sin corrupted or tainted God’s creation, and what was perfect and good quickly became flawed or incomplete. The sin along with a flawed and sin-infected world that mankind lived in resulted in (1) mankind being pushed further from the source of the One Good—namely God (symbolically kicked out of the Garden). (Genesis 3:8)
3. (2) It resulted in the infection of sin growing and mutating into new forms of rebellion. (3) Greater self-centeredness and increasing ignorance of what is right and good, and (4) a greater need for the mercy and forgiveness of God or He would destroy mankind and begin over again (like He almost did in Noah’s flood).
4. As Erickson says, the results of sin are: Divine disfavor, guilt, punishment, and death in general. Specifically enslavement, flight from reality, denial of sin, self-deceit, rejection of authority, inability to love and more (See Erickson page 619 and following).
Doctrine of Christology
The Person of Jesus Christ
5. Historical Jesus! The quest for the historical Jesus and his biblical teachings is one that every preacher and dedicated layperson wants to know more about. The person of Jesus Christ and what are his teaching, not to mention how do we follow Him, is the heart and soul of every disciple of Christ.
6. However, the quest of the historical Jesus was based ideas and beliefs as early as the 17th century Deists, which state that Christianity rests upon fraudulent foundations which assumed that the Jesus of the Christian church and the Jesus of history was one and the same person. Of course some in joining this particular quest sought to disprove the faith, like Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) by maintaining the real Jesus of history was concealed from us by the apostolic church, which somehow substituted a fictitious Christ of faith for the real historical Jesus(Christian Theology: An Introduction by Alister E. McGrath, page 311).
7. A more subtle version of this approach is linked with rise of liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth century. The assumption according McGrath underlying this “life of Jesus movement in the later 19th century was that the remarkable religious personality of Jesus, whose shape could be determined by conscientious historical inquiry, would provide a solid historical foundation for faith”(page 312). Of course, the conclusions raised from this inquiry turned out to be radically subjective so that their understanding of Jesus was based on their 19th century standards.
8. According to Erickson (page 680), one of two writings which spelled the end of the liberal quest for Jesus was Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus (see quote on page 681).
9. All of this is to give you a small inkling of how the life of Jesus has been poked, prodded, and studied in recent times. Sometimes the life of Jesus has been scrutinized and studied from the perspective of faith and reason, and sometimes it has not. Either way, Jesus Christ is the most controversial and scrutinized person in history of the world.
10. Now look at the two basic approaches to studying Jesus. “Christology from Above” (Erickson, page 682-683) and “Christology from Below” (Erickson, page 684- ).
Deity of Jesus (see Erickson page 700)