SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY II -- John Franke -- Class Notes
1/13/97
I. Introductory Remarks...What this course will discuss...
A. Easy to say God is Three in One and leave it at that...But the Trinity shows diversity in unity...We're made in the image of God....Motif of community of believers...
B. God's Plan..he's not making it up as he goes along...the nature of the plan...the details....Some say every single detail is planned...others feel the level of detail is pretty small...
C. Creation and Providence....God's providential care of the world...What about losing a child in a car accident? Why trouble in the world? Where's God in all this? General oversight? Doesn't God know the future? Doesn't God directly intervene? Free will.
D. Creation of man and woman....what does created in the image of God mean?
E. The Fall...who's responsible? God? Satan? Human will?
F. Nature and the effects of sin...Calvin said original sin is "inherited depravity"....that we are first liable to God's wrath and the works of the flesh are produced....
II. Class Objectives
A. Illustrating the Theological Method...this implies certain presuppositions:
1. God exists, God reveals Himself...God is knowable...
2. We live in the 90's...Christians don't agree on a whole lot of things...Method is important...
B. Orientation to things covered in Course Description....Biblical has a Reformed (Calvinist) tradition...
C. Authority of Scriptures...we are convinced of the importance of Scripture...a "radically Biblical approach"...Not a lot of time for the "Paul was wrong" approach...
D. Importance and necessity of Systematic Theology for faith, life and ministry. These things are important...Can't really preach the Gospel without understanding the nature of sin...That's theology....We're all theologians...Will we be good ones? Very practical....Ideas matter...they have consequences...Humans are the capstone of creation...If you take God out of the picture, why is humanity important? Just a dot in the evolutionary spectrum.
E. Appreciation of Diversity....
III. Method and Means
A. Lectures...discussions...
B. Reading and discussion of texts...More straightforward reading than in Systematic Theology I.
1. Texts...Professor Franke likes Grenz's method but doesn't agree with everything he says...Read Part I for the mid-term...Along with that, read Pinnock's Openness of God, (about free will), a different perspective than Grenz....Read McGregor, which is a direct response to Pinnock, during first part of the course....
Read Part II of Grenz for the Final....
Hoekema...traditional reformed approach...Instructor has a combination of Grenz's and Hoekema's views...
Plantinga...on sin...
2. Reading schedule...Will give some sense during the course of when we'll talk about various subjects...Use Grenz as the foundation. Then read Pinnock one week and Write the next...Up to you....
C. Writing assignments...
D. Exams...essays...3 hours...2-3 questions, broad, general questions...find out what you know...
1. Grading....measure achievement, not effort....90 hours of outside the class work...Exams are not cumulative...First exam covers first part of course, 2nd exam covers last part of course....
IV. Introduction to the Theological Method...How do we do theology?
A. What is the Theological Method? Disciplined reflection on the truth of Christian revelation...we're all theologians...Will we be good ones? Reflection on the truth of the Gospel.
B. Sources? 3 fold: Scripture
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History Culture
1. Theology is a 2nd-order Discipline...an ONGOING discipline...We live in a Post-Christian culture...
2. Some have overdone culture...They've transformed the Gospel to fit the culture...EX: Paul Tillich...Barth said effective Christians do work with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other...
3. Theology is mission-oriented...
4. Our theology should be Biblically-based, historically-informed, culturally relevant...
V. The Process of doing theology...
A. Exegesis...interpretation of specific passages...Barth: "Exegesis...exegesis...exegesis"
B. Biblical Theology...done in context of particular authors, giving attention to authorial intention...
C. Historical Theology...how has the Church, as animated by the Holy Spirit, appropriated this material in its various cultural contexts...There is much that we can learn...But it is fallible...
D. Systematic Theology...Taking the Bible along with historical awareness, and communicating it into our cultural context...Topical...
No one is saved on the basis of good theology...One theologian on his deathbed said "My dogmatics cannot help me now...It's Christ that I need..."
Hermeneutical Spiral...Exegesis...Theology...
VI. The Task of Theology...Principles for doing theology....
A. Communicate the Gospel.
B. Refute false teaching...
C. Educate new believers...
D. Participate in the ministry of the Holy Spirit:
1. Promotion of truth...John 16 - Better that I should go...
2. Unity...John 17, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4...Family is not the central institution on earth, the Church is...Christ divides some families...
E. Categorize beliefs...
1. DOGMA...central for healthy Christians faith as corporately expressed for the people of God...
2. DOCTRINE....NT teaches about, important, but not essential to Christian faith or the life of the Church...EX: Calvinists debate supralapsariansism and infralapsarianism....Was the Fall decreed before or after Creation?
New Ecumenism...argues for unity around the creeds...
3. OPINION...non-essential...far less clearly taught n
Scripture...Scripture not clear on infant vs. believer baptism...
1/20/97
VII. The Doctrine of God
A. First presupposition is that the Bible assumes that God is there...He exists...No place in Scripture that argues for the existence of God....We're looking at the question from the point of view of making a defense....Gen. 1:1 - In the beginning God...Over the course of human history it has not been widely challenged...Latest Gallup Poll says 74?% still believe in God...
B. 2nd presupposition is that of revelation....God has revealed himself....If he hadn't revealed himself, we wouldn't have much to say at all...
1. This suggests that he can be KNOWN...some argue that you can't really know God...We can know those things he has chosen to reveal about himself....Some people argue he can't be known even if he wished to make himself known because he is so great....
C. 3rd presupposition: We can use human language to speak about God...God has revealed himself in Jesus himself in human language....
1. There are some limitations, of course, but we can understand much about God....We can talk about it...try to come to grips....
D. Belief in God in a contemporary world...a challenge for many people....True that most appear to live like there isn't a real God...The challenges to belief in God; What that God is like; the Trinity; How fundamental the logic of the Trinity is to the Christian faith....; How God relates himself to the world (immanence-transcendence); God's plan for the world...
1. Two significant problems that face us as we try to affirm that we believe in God...The argument from the Atheist or at least agnostic....evil in the world; scientific alternatives...
E. Arguments for the existence of God:
1. Cosmological - arguments from nature...the created order....Thomas Aquinas...used law of cause and effect....either an infinite chain of causality or an uncaused cause...Uncaused Cause is God..."God and the Astronomers", Robert Jastro...idea of a Big Bang....thinks that's where the evidence best leads....We can learn things about God (General Revelation - Romans 1, Psalm 19)....
2. Teleological - arguments from design, order....not only do we have this created order, but we have significant order in that creation, particularly on earth....God is an artist...Read in Job, "Where were you when..." God did these things and it gave him pleasure...
3. Moral arguments - very important...evidence for God in the general moral order of things...concepts of right and wrong in force all over the world from the beginning of time....Moral relativists aren't so "relative" when something is done to them...Romans 2 - Gentiles didn't have Law yet a Law written on their hearts...."No God, no good..."
4. Ontological arguments...most obscure and least helpful...arguments based on being and the idea of God....St. Anselm - because humans have this sense of a being in our minds and we can't think of a being greater than that one...Really there and really exists...It begins to get at the idea that there is a belief in a supreme Being that is pretty close to universal....Christians were persecuted in Rome and called "atheists" because they believed in only one god....Calvin talks about this in his Institutes" and observed that people have carved things out of rocks and worshipped them...sacrificed to them....The norm is for people to believe in some kind of supreme being...We are created in the image of God...imago dei...Some have no doubt utterly suppressed that....Romans 1....We shouldn't be surprised that there are false gods...According to Calvin, it's exactly what we should expect....300 years of Enlightenment rationalism hasn't been able to wipe this out....
5. Comments about these arguments -
a. These arguments don't prove absolutely there is a God...Taken together as a whole, though, they provide some evidence...Belief in God is not irrational or fanciful or an opiate....These arguments give good evidence...But you won't be able to argue an atheist into belief...That's the work of the Holy Spirit....
b. The big question in this society is "Which god?" How does the Bible respond to this? This is an age-old question....an ongoing battle of the gods throughout Scripture....Exodus story....major conflict...God demonstrates that he is the true God....Miracles in the Bible seem to cluster around the times when belief in God is at stake....1 Kings 18 - struggle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal...
1KI 18:20 NIV So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. {21} Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." But the people said nothing. {22} Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. {23} Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. {24} Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire--he is God."
In NT, God's greatest revelation is Jesus...the Resurrection demonstrates God is who he says he is...1CO 15:12 NIV But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? {13} If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. {14} And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. {15} More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. {16} For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. {17} And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. {18} Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. {19} If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church..." Christian community life give powerful evidence that the God of the Bible is the true God....We are part of that...Sometimes the organized church, tragically, has driven people away....We need to be open to the Spirit working through us to demonstrate that the God of the Bible is God....
c. Often the issues aren't intellectual..."If I do believe, I'll have to change the way I live..."
d. "If God exists, I will have to change the way I live. I don't wish to change the way I live. Therefore God does not exist."
e. Some think any old god will do....They don't want anything that requires something of their faith....
f. We have to move from belief in God to belief in the God of the Bible...
g. "Openness of God" want to take God off the hook for all this evil...God chose not to stop the Holocaust....Other book says, "Now we don't seem to have much of a God anymore, since he doesn't know the future...etc."
h. The problem of evil is the biggest challenge in apologetics...
i. "I would rather spend eternity in hell than the God of John Calvin..." attitude...Deuteronomy says some things we won't understand....
VIII. What is this true God like?
A. Some like to divide talking about God into the Person of God and the Works of God...But how do we know who God is but by what he has done...
B. The Character of God...who He is...
1. Some talk of God as a "force"...
2. We have to start somewhere....
3. ATTRIBUTES...qualities....these attributes have been traditionally into communicable and incommunicable...
a. Communicable...things which we share...
b. Incommunicable...things which are God's alone...
4. One of the dangers...Because we all have some idea of God, we have pre-understandings based on our own conceptions...We don't want to create God in our own image....Look at the Bible and try to get out of it what He is revealing about himself in it...God is love....But what does that mean? Is judgment part of love? We must work this by letting the Bible speak to us...
C. Attributes of God...2nd Commandment demands that we get our ideas about God from him....EXO 20:4 NIV "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. {5} You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, {6} but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments....18 Qualities:
1. God is a spirit...front end of the Westminster definition...can be useful...What do we mean, God is a spirit? God is not composed of matter....He is not physical in nature....He is incorporeal...He is invisible...
DEU 4:15 NIV You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, {16} so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, {17} or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, {18} or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.
Any "image" of God is a distortion...the danger is in making God in our own image....Medieval art...people made art look like them...How does that affect those not in the majority culture? Most children's Bible's have a Jesus that is lily white...and that's no doubt not how he looked...Should this prohibition refer also to Jesus the man? Shouldn't just make Jesus look like we do....
Human beings by definition have bodies....Our heavenly existence will be bodied existence...This is not true of God...We are embodied...
We'll discuss what it means to be created in the image of God in the 2nd part of this course....God was in community for all eternity through the Trinity and he is dealing with us a community....Grenz....community and diversity part of what it is to be made in the image of God....
JOH 4:24 NIV God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
Christian church as a whole is pretty illiterate about what the Bible says....Our goal is to be good ambassadors...He takes the message sent and communicates it accurately and faithfully...Sometimes we don't understand as well as we think we do...
One of the big justifications for the slave trade was to bring them over and introduce them to the Christian God....In Roots, Kunta Kinte said he'd never be a Christian because that's what his master was....
JOH 1:18 NIV No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
Go back to the story of Moses and the rock...
JOH 4:24 NIV God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
1TI 1:17 NIV Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
1TI 6:13 NIV In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you {14} to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, {15} which God will bring about in his own time--God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, {16} who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. {17} Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
What are the consequences of this?
1. God has no limitations....Humans have bodily limitations....we get tired....
2. God is not limited to one location....He can answer many prayers at once...He's present everywhere....
3. God is not destructible. Physical matter is. The whole universe is contingent upon God. God is life. He alone has life in himself...Physical matter decays.
4. God is not to be represented by any physical likeness....Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have bad consequences...Distortions of God lead to trouble...
1JO 5:21 NIV Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
What about mental images of God? That can be trouble also...It is a struggle....
There are anthropomorphisms in the Bible...figurative language to speak about aspects of God and things that God does that we can relate to...Is it wrong to think about the finger of God carving out the 10 Commandments? We are presented with that in Scripture...
1/27/97
2. God is a person. God is a personal spirit....
M. Erickson...an individual being with self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and having a reciprocal relationship with other personal beings....
EXO 3:14 NIV God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I am has sent me to you.'"
God has a name...he is speaking...
He creates and relates to his creation...Genesis...
He can be prayed to....Matthew 6...
The consequences:
(1) We can have a relationship with him....he invites us to that;
(2) He does have a relationship with us...he relates to us...and even with folks that don't reciprocate...Contrary to New Age concepts of an ineffable mystery who can't be known and doesn't know us...;
(3) In this relationship with God, because it's personal, he's not just a means to an end...Not just there to provide what we need...He is a person....
(4) We can pray to him....
3. God is living or God is life....God exists from himself...He is the source of all life...Jer. 10:10; John 5:26; Heb. 11:6; John 1:4...All of life except God is contingent upon God; God is the only being in the universe that has life in himself...He is life....
Consequences:
(1) He is self-existent; He is uncaused.
(2) He is the source of all life...1 Timothy 6:13...
(3) He is not dependent therefore on anything or anyone....He does not need us....
(4) Therefore it's a supreme privilege to know and love him and serve him...
4. God is infinite....without limitation from outside of himself...there are not things outside of God that limit him....But are there things that God imposes on himself that limits him? Theologians talk about the "absolute power of God" and the "ordained power of God"....God can do anything he wants to (absolute power); but he has said, "I will do these things"...Bound himself to a covenant promise with Abraham" (ordained power)....This becomes important in the question of the "openness" of God....Pinnock asks, "Could God have created a world in which he had absolute power yet decided not to know the outcome?" They are not undercutting the majesty of God...They are saying he could have created such a world...Jesus limited himself in his knowledge of the truth...The question is, Did God create such a world?
Professor thinks hell is a manifestation of God's love...Infinite love responding to those who have spurned him...
Psalm 96; Isaiah 40:12-26; 1 Timothy 1:17; 6:15-16; Matthew 5:48; 1 Kings 8 - God's immensity...
Consequences:
(1) We cannot have exhaustive knowledge of God...We are always finite...there's a sense in which we will never be God; we'll always have had a beginning....We don't even understand everything that Scripture tells us about God...
(2) We can depend on God....nothing can prevent him from doing that which he said he would do; Luther's thrust was on trusting the promises of God...that God will do what he said he would do....
5. God is glorious....his perfections or character shine forth...manifest....evident to us....
Ex. 40: 34; Acts 9; Romans 1 - evident in the created order....
Consequences:
(1) Our response to his glory is to glorify him...recognize and appreciate his character and worth...
6. God is eternal....speaks specifically to the fact that God is infinite in respect to time...no beginning....no end....therefore no limitations in terms of his relationship to time....
Psalm 90:1-12; Isaiah 40:27-31; 1 Timothy 1:17...
The big question: Does this mean he is timeless or does it mean he is everlasting? This has been a debated issue to some extent...Many theologians have argued that God's eternity means that he exists timelessly....Berkhof argues, "our existence marked off by days, weeks, months, years....not so with God...elevated above all temporal divisions...one indivisible present..."
Is he beyond all succession of moments? Is he present to every moment in time right now? Some argue about praying for the dead...."For me the person is dead, but for God he is interacting with all time at once..." Berkhof wouldn't buy that...
Scriptural support for that position is slim at best...That conception comes out of Hellenistic world....
It appears that the Bible feels free to speak of God being involved in the temporal world....We can think of physics time and we can think of it as a succession of events unfolding...Two events in existence of God pointing to his being "in time"....the Creation and the Incarnation....There was a time when God was only in relationship with himself...he was not in relationship to a created order, but creation wasn't....
The second person of the Trinity was joined with a human nature (not eternal)...Jesus becomes a human being...takes on a body...that doesn't end...Since human natures are immortal (so argues the prof), he is linked with human nature for all time....
A fundamental change in the consciousness of the 2nd person of the Trinity...after the Incarnation has human nature....He is "in time"...
We need to look at the Pinnock thesis carefully and ask if it's right....you wrestle with it...Both the views (open and traditional) have some flaws...Classic undergirding of the traditional view is the idea of the impassibility of God....that God has no passion....Large numbers say that doesn't square with what the Bible says about God....
God really is touched by his creation....
Consequences:
(1) He has no beginning or end...doesn't age or get old...
(2) He is not limited by space....
(3) Not limited from outside of himself by time...He can choose to do things that change that situation....EX: 2nd person of Trinity....limited knowledge of future, etc. God can impose limitations on himself....
(4) He can be trusted in the future....
7. God is omnipresent...He is everywhere...Psalm 139:7-12; 1 Kings 8:27...; Jer. 23:23-24....Acts 17:27-28...
Simply saying there's no place we can go where God isn't....If you're in distress on the moon, God is there...In the belly of a fish...on the Titanic....Also means you can't run from God....No place we can go to get away from him...
If God is everywhere, can God be in hell? Yes...hell is not the absence of any presence of God since it a continuing manifestation of God's love...In one sense, hell is the absence of God's special manifest presence....God's wrath is a manifestation of his love....
Don't get bothered when people say things that might not be exactly theologically accurate...EX: God be with him...God is ever present...we're asking that God be more specially evident....
Consequence:
(1) God is not contained by the universe....unfathomable to think about when you think of the expanding universe....
(2) This doctrine is a source of comfort to believers and can be disconcerting to unbelievers...you can't escape God...No matter where you are, God can comfort you....
8. God is all-powerful and sovereign....Omnipotent....God is able to do all things which are consistent with his nature and will....God is the king who plans and guides all things to his end...God is in control....
Psalm 29:10, Psalm 33:6-11; Daniel 4:28; Eph. 1:18-23...
As you read Pinnock you must ask, "In what sense is a God who doesn't know the future and doesn't intervene in human will a sovereign, omnipotent God?" That's the gist of MacGregor's response...
Pinnock says we don't have free will if God knows the future...
Is it theoretically possible that people could just choose against God against his will? Is he in control at all? Pinnock's view seems to suggest God doesn't have much control....
There is so much scripture speaking of God intervening and causing things to happen in history....
Consequences:
(1) God has unlimited power over nature, human life and the course of history...He is in control...
(2) His will cannot ultimately be frustrated; nothing can happen that is out of his control....Even Pinnock would acknowledge that God could intervene if he wished to do so....
(3) He empowers his people to do his will...Isaiah 40:29-31....
(4) We submit to God's providence....Prof. not excited about the way the Westminster says "from all eternity in past, God has ordained everything..." Heidelberg Confession: "By providence...I trust whatever to happen comes by God's benevolent hand...and I receive them as such, even when they are hard and difficult..."
Calvin argues that God ordained by name the people who would be saved and damned...Bullinger (Zurich tradition) rebelled against that....they said salvation is of God but that perdition is the decision of human beings...didn't affirm "double predestination"....They say it is a mystery but that God is not responsible for evil....
Pinnock seems to radicalize God "changing his mind" while MacGregor seems to sweep it under the table....
These are not easy questions...We don't have all the answers....Prof. has Reformed viewpoint ala Zurich, Bullinger, etc.
9. God is all wise....omniscient...God knows everything that can be known...He is inexhaustible, infinite in knowledge and understanding...
Psa. 139; Romans 11:33-36; Proverbs 15:3
Consequences:
(1) He knows past, present and future....
(2) His wisdom is unquestionable and unsearchable...
(3) This knowledge is a source of comfort for believers....Psalm 139; Matt. 10....God guides and directs as someone who knows...
(4) We seek wisdom from him...James 5:1-8; Proverbs 2:6
(5) We bow before God in humility and trust....Job 41-42...
10. God is immutable or unchanging....his character, his being, his promises do not change; however this category is dynamic, not static...It's not the static way of the Hellenists (impassibility)...God is joyful when someone comes to faith....When a believer goes off and sins, he's grieved....
Malachi 3:6-7; Psalm 102:26-7; James 1:17
Consequences:
(1) We can rely on God's character...he keeps his promises...
(2) He doesn't alter his promises...they are a solid foundation....
(3) This doctrine gives us confidence in salvation...
11. God is faithful....consistent and reliable....
Deut. 7 - He keeps his covenant; Joshua 21:43; 1 Thes. 5:23-4.
Consequences:
(1) We can fully trust God and his word in all circumstances....
(2) We can have assurance of salvation....
(3) Because he is faithful, he helps us when we are tempted...
12. God is truthful...God speaks the truth...faithful when he speaks...does what he says...
Psalm 119:151-160; Titus 1:2 - God, who cannot lie...
Consequences:
(1) We can take him at his word.
(2) He will fulfil his promises....also a warning....
(3) His word is the standard of truth....
13. God is holy...God is free of all moral impurity or imperfection; God is separate...he is not us....he is holy...We believe a day will come when we too will share in moral purity; but we will never be holy in the sense of separate and above....(transcendence)....
Psalm 99; Isa.6:1-7; 1Pet.1:14-17...
Consequences:
(1) God hates sin...
Assurance of salvation comes as a result of a walk with God....Some, who don't hate sin, use "assurance of salvation" as a loophole for sin....Divorce isn't the unpardonable sin, but we've made it too easy for people and we never say anything about it for fear of offending them. We need to manifest a hate for sin....God's love cannot embrace what his holiness condemns...
(2) He is the standard for our conduct....The conscience that is the proper guide is the conscience instructed by the word of God....
(3) His holiness produces in us an awareness of sin....
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14. God is just/righteous...His holiness applied in his relationships.......The standard...his law, his will, the things he's called us to do...
Psalm 145:17; Daniel 9:1-19; 2 Thes. 1:5-10; Romans 3:21-24.
If God gave us all what we deserved apart from Christ, we'd all be in trouble...Luther had a problem with this...."no matter how much good I do, how do I ever get ahead, if everything I do is only what God requires..." He went through a period of time when he hated God...
No body will be condemned because they didn't believe, they will be condemned because they sinned...Romans 1 - General revelation tells us we come up short...
Consequences:
(1) God is the lawgiver...he defines good and evil...there's a standard....
(2) God is a judge...and he must punish sin....he can't wink at it...In this sense, the last judgment is good, and a manifestation of his justice...
(3) Because he is just, he is concerned for the oppressed and downtrodden (Amos, James)....Church must be repentant of ways we've been oppressors....Liberation theology at its root ideas is right...the problem is in the ways they work that out...Use of violence, etc....The gospel is liberating....Jesus in the first century liberated women....the poor....
(4) It's the righteousness of God which brings us salvation....God becomes the basis through Christ of our salvation...
15. God is gracious...good will...cares for his people and his good will or unmerited favor is manifested in the forgiveness of sin...In spite of our sinfulness, God cares for us....This idea goes back into the OT...
Exodus 34:6-7, Psalm 103:8-18; Ephesians 1:5-8; Ephesians 2:4-10; 1 John 4:7-12; 1 John 4:16-21...
We could also say it's God's love...God really does care...
Consequences:
(1) God's grace is the reason for our salvation...
(2) His love is a source of security for us...
16. God is merciful...not only does he forgive our sins, but he also withholds the punishment that our sins deserve....He relieves the misery caused by sin....This has implications for us: Are we as Christians merciful? "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.." If we really understand who God is and how his sense of righteousness transcends ours, we'd be quicker to forgive....
Exodus 3:7; Psalm 103:10-13; Matthew 9:36; Titus 3:5
Consequences:
(1) His mercy is the source of our salvation....
(2) He showed mercy even while we were in sin...mercy doesn't ignore sin...yet he's merciful to us anyway....
(3) We are to be merciful too....Matthew 18:21-35....an unforgiving Christian is a contradiction....Film "The Scarlet and the Black..." about an Irish priest who is engaged in hiding prisoners of war who have gotten to the Vatican...focused on a ruthless Gestapo agents efforts to stop him...You get to hating the guy....Gestapo desperate at the end and tries to have the priest take his family out of Rome...Priest reacts normally at first....but gets family out...
17. God is generous or benevolent or good....God deals with us generously...not stingy...doesn't hold back...
Psalm 145:7-16; Matthew 6:25-34; James 1:16-18
Consequences:
(1) He bestows natural blessings on all...the common grace...food, air, family life...
(2) It is therefore wrong to doubt his goodness...He wants the best for us and we can trust in his goodness...We can rest and trust in that, even when it's tough for us...
18. God is longsuffering....God restrains his righteous wrath and judgment in the face of rebellion and sin....he is forbearing...slow to anger....patient...
Exodus 34:6; Psalm 86:15; 1 Peter 3:20
Consequences:
(1) He is slow to anger...
(2) He doesn't always immediately punish sin....
(3) He is patient with us in our weakness...
Some interpret his as a lack of intent to punish sin...The wicked sometimes prosper...God gives us a chance to repent....We overestimate what God will do next week, next month, next year, and underestimate what he will do in 10 years or 20 years....We shouldn't presume upon God or take his grace for granted....
SUMMARY: There is one definition of God given in the Bible which is paramount: 1JO 4:8 NIV Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1JO 4:16 NIV And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
What is love? Commitment, caring, unconditional, expressive...It is RELATIONAL, not something we just talk about without considering others....It's a verb...active, expressive, self-giving....What happens when the person we have an active, self-giving, love relationship and someone outside tries to tear it apart...Or if a spouse has an affair, etc. How do we feel? Jealous, angry....
Wrath is the dark side of God's love, as Grenz says: "love is not a soupy sentimentality....God is characterized by tough love...it has a dark side...a holy love....in reflecting on God's holiness, we ought not separate his love and his wrath...Instead, wrath is the best description we have for the way God's love encounters sin...."
God is trying to promote community between his creation, us, and himself...When that's rejected, we finally see the dark side of his love...Two sides of the same coin....Hell is a manifestation of his love as it expresses itself towards those who spurn the "lover"....
IX. The Trinity...
[Three components in paper...views set forth...comparison...same/different...My voice...8 pages.....]
Most difficult and challenging doctrine of the Christian faith...
A. How did the doctrine originate? Many have wanted to get rid of the doctrine...We got it because people denied central elements we get from the Bible...They said, "Jesus was not God..." Arius...a time when the Son was not...Church responded, "If Christ isn't God, we have a problem here..." It's in the context of challenges to Biblical teaching that the doctrine of the Trinity is developed....
Having developed it, it is central to Christianity...the Trinity bears on all sorts of theological questions...An inner logic in the Trinity without which it is hard to make sense of the Gospel...
It flows out from everything else...Perhaps should be taught last...after we look at who God is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is...But if we did that we might miss how the Trinity holds other doctrines together....
Trinity shows us that the God of the Muslims and Jews and Christians is not all the same God....
More evidence will be provided as we go through the theology courses....
B. What the church was committed to from Scripture that caused the development of the doctrine of the Trinity...
C. Doctrine developed out of crisis..."heresy spawns orthodoxy"....
D. Four Summary Statements that the Church is committed to, implied by Scripture:
1. There is one God...Monotheism...Deuteronomy 6:4-5.....The battle cry of the Jews contra all other near-Eastern religion (polytheism)....The NT picks this up....James 2:19...God is one....1 Timothy 2:5-6...one God and one mediator....Fundamental...Christianity is MONOTHEISTIC...one God....Tri-theism is wrong...there is one God....This tries to outlaw a couple of early heresies:
2. There are three who are God....Three persons, individuals, in NT who are spoken of as God....
3. These three individuals, persons...are [separate and] distinct persons....Matthew 3:16-17 - Jesus, Spirit, voice of Father....by this Modalism is excluded (Modalistic Monarchianism...one God and three names or manifestations....)
4. Scripture joins these three together in unity and equality....Matthew 28:19-20....In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...
Church has said there is one essence (ousia) and three (centers of consciousness) hypostases (independent realities)...Church trying to come to terms with these four statements....
When the Scriptures equate Jesus or the Spirit with God, that is significant, especially since they were written by Jews....
Someone came along and said Jesus wasn't God, even though the Scriptures clearly say he was....That's why it came up...defending important truths...
Erickson: "Deny it you will lose your soul...try to explain it, you'll lose your mind...
Central to the gospel....
E. While this is crucial and true, we can see where some people come from...It is difficult...we need the grace of God to understand it....
F. Elaboration of 2nd Statement: there are three who are God...
1. God the Father is God....
2. The Son is God....since God the Son, Jesus, became a man, he had two natures....God-Man....Focusing on Jesus deity here.
a. Jesus has the nature of God...Phil. 2:5-11; COL 1:15 NIV He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Arius said, there was when the son was not...
Col. 1:19 - Fullness of deity dwells in Christ bodily...Col. 2:9.
Hebrews 1:1-3 - Son....radiance of his glory...exact representation of his nature....upholds all things....These are Jews who are writing...their fellow Jews knew exactly what they were saying when they wrote this....That's why they were hostile, calling them idolaters and blasphemers...The early church knew the intent of these words...
As Christianity became Hellenized, new questions popped up in
dealing with texts that may not have anything to do with the subjects
the texts talk about....
2/10/97
Next week, some discussion on Grenz, Pinnock and Wright....
Dorothy Sayers, talking about the Trinity...says the Father is ineffable, the Son is ineffable....everything inexplicable...We are studying it because of our commitment to Scripture....
b. Jesus has the titles of God in Scripture....one of the questions here is "What are the authors of Scriptures trying to tell us about Jesus?" These are first Century Jews trying to tell us something. What? How was this understood in that early context...Important....The gospel accounts show the Jews furious at Jesus' claims...
(1) Lord....MAR 12:35 NIV While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? {36} David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' {37} David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?" The large crowd listened to him with delight. {38} As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces,
PHI 2:9 NIV Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
{10} that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, {11} and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. {12} Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
ROM 10:9 NIV That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Words have meaning in relationship to CONTEXT...
(1) The Son of Man...a title ascribed to the Messiah by the Jews...divine implications....
MAT 26:57 NIV Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of the law and the elders had assembled. {58} But Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest. He entered and sat down with the guards to see the outcome. {59} The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. {60} But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward {61} and declared, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.'" {62} Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" {63} But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." {64} "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." {65} Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.
Christ taking this title for himself...High Priest said he blasphemed....
(3) God...Scripture calls Jesus God....
JOH 1:1 NIV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. {2} He was with God in the beginning. {3} Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
JWs tell you about the article which precedes theos...they interpret it as "a" God...in this context that the article is simply there with the noun...The standard grammars of Biblical and Classical Greek, some of which written by non-believers, will say that it's clear the article shouldn't be translated....Even if they don't believe that, there are plenty of other passages....
Why did John write his gospel? JOH 20:30 NIV Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. {31} But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
JOH 1:14 NIV The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. {15} John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" {16} From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. {17} For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. {18} No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
JOH 20:28 NIV Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
No tricky Greek here! Thomas is a Jew! "You are GOD!"
HEB 1:1 NIV In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, {2} but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. {3} The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. {4} So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. {5} For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father " ? Or again, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son" ? {6} And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him." {7} In speaking of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire." {8} But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. {9} You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."
God is calling the Son "God."
(4) The Son of God...a divine title in OT...idea of Messiah...
JOH 5:18 NIV For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. {19} Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. {20} For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. {21} For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. {22} Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, {23} that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. {24} "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. {25} I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. {26} For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
Some will say "Maybe John did think he was God, but he really wasn't." But what does the text say?
c. Jesus has the attributes of God...
(1) Grace, truth and glory ascribed...John 1:14-17
(2) Eternity...Col. 1:17 - before all things...
(3) Immutability...Heb. 1:11-12 - thou art the same...
d. Jesus does the works of God....
(1) Creation....John 1:3 - all things came into being by him....Col. 1:16 - all things were created by him....Heb. 1:2, 10
(2) Providence...Col. 1:17 - sustaining; Hebrews 1:3....
(3) Redemption...John 1:12 - gave right to become children of God...Col. 1:14, 20 - in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins...reconcile all things to himself...Heb. 1:3 -
(4) Consummation...Col. 1:16; Hebrews 1:2
e. Receives the worship due God...
(1) Angels worship at birth...
(2) Blindman...John 9
(3) Thomas...
(4) All will bow down in the eschaton...Phil. 2:10-11
In the extra-Biblical literature available, it's clear that the
Jews knew what the Christians believed about Christ but rejected
it....They felt they were blasphemers....Justin Martyr's dialogue
with Tryphon (a Jew)....The intention of the Biblical authors was to
assert that Jesus was God...
3. The Holy Spirit is God...the Holy Spirit is a person.
a. Personal qualities...intelligence and knowledge...John 14:26 - teach them and remind them of Jesus' words...John 16:13 - guide into truth, speak....John 15:26-27 - Spirit will testify about Jesus...1 Cor. 2:10-11 -Spirit knows and reveals God's ideas....
b. Spirit has a will....1 Cor. 12:11 - bestows gifts as HE, the Spirit, determines....
c. Spirit has emotions...Eph. 4:30 - grieve the Holy Spirit....
d. The Spirit can be known...John 14:17
e. Performs personal ministries....Romans 8:26 - prayer....John 16:8 - convicting world of sin...John 14:16 -takes the place of Jesus...1 John 2:1 - Jesus is called the Paraclete, (helper)
f. Scripture presents the Holy Spirit as a divine person different from yet equal to the others persons...
g. Interchangeability between Spirit and God...Acts 5:3-4...lying to Holy Spirit same as lying to God...1 Cor. 3:16-16, 1 Cor. 6:19-21 - believers are corporately said to be the Temple of God and the Holy Spirit lives in them....1 Corinthians later - each individual believer is a Temple for the Holy Spirit....
h. Spirit has divine qualities: knowledge - 1 Cor. 2:10-11 - searches all things...knows thoughts of God; John 16:13-14; power - Luke 1:35; Acts 1:8 ; Romans 15:19 - preaching Christ to the Gentiles...accomplished through the power of the Spirit....; eternal - Hebrews 9:14 - through the eternal Spirit....
i. Spirit does the works that God does....Creation - Psalm 104:30; Job 33:4; Giving Scripture - 2 Peter 1:21; Salvation - Titus 3:5 - regeneration; 1 Peter 1:2 - Sanctification; Romans 8:11 - Resurrection of our bodies....
j. Association of the Holy Spirit with the Father and Son in ways in which only God could be - Matthew 28:19 ; 2 Corinthians 13:14 - benediction...grace, love, fellowship....1 Peter 1:2 - Father fore-loves, Spirit sets apart, Son who sprinkles with his blood....Ephesians 1 - role of Spirit and God and the Son in the process of salvation....
4. They are joined together in unity and equality....
5. How is this pulled together?
Most scholars in early church speak of a divine triad...No effort to talk about it in Trinitarian language at first...First time TRINITY used was in middle of third C. by Tertullian...
Arius comes along...theologian from Alexandria, northern Africa...concludes Jesus special, but says he's not quite the same as God....Looking at "begotten" etc., and concludes there was when the Son was not...Triggers major debate....Alexandrian church meets...Alexander leads discussion...condemns Arius.
Arius refuses to repent...is banished...Three other synods held, one supports Alexander, two support Arius, urging reinstatement...
Constantine becomes a Christian, makes it the official religion...sees problem brewing....In order to deal with it, he calls first ecumenical church council...Nicea, 325 AD, to deal with the question...Unitedly affirm that Jesus is God and that he is "co-eternal" and "co-equal"...only 2-3 disagree....
The idea of "begotten" and "first-born of creation" had to be dealt with....How do we say it? Two groups: One group says we shouldn't use any language not found in the Bible....they quickly realize that they have been fighting over that very language; Decided to use terminology that would best enable the church to explain these concepts...Single OUSIA...one essence, in three independent realities or HYPOSTASES....
Rightly understood in Hebrew context that the use of "firstborn" was a term of honor...something very significant....
The eternal generation of the Son....the Son is generated in an eternal act by the Father...In the trinity, there is this act by which the Son is generated by the Father...subordination in order...Father generates...Son is generated...Spirit proceeds....by an eternal act...
A distinction later made about two ways of speaking of the Trinity: Immanent trinity; Economic trinity....
Immanent trinity - God as he exists in himself...Church is saying that when we speak of our understanding of the Trinity, this has been revealed...but before that was revealed that was the way it was....This is who God is...Three co-eternal, co-equal persons...
Economic trinity - deals with how God reveals himself to us...Father, who generates, seen as the originator...primary in origination...Son is generated...the one who REVEALS..the revealer...Spirit proceeds...the COMPLETER...the One who completes God's program....
Father
/ /
/ /
/ /
Son - - - - - -> Spirit
<------------------
Augustinian analogy...psychological analogy...the lover, the loved, the love that exists....Grenz picks up on this analogy...The mind loving and knowing...This analogy has been criticized in the history of the church....
In some sense, the Father begets the Son....Spirit comes from the Son and the Father (after the Son is gone)...Spirit bears witness to the Son...Son turns all back to the Father....Everything flows out of God the Father and back to him....
The meaning of the doctrine is the Scripture that we have, not the other way around...We're trying to use the doctrine to understand what God has given us...
Another analogy....the social analogy...Grenz likes this...First expressed by Richard of St. Victor, 12th C. monk...argued that God is perfect love...love implies a relationship...Perfect love needs and object...it couldn't be simply creation..."The highest kind of love is mutual love...necessary both one who loves and one who returns love....plurality of persons cannot be lacking..."
"What was God doing before the Creation, especially if God doesn't change in his attributes?" Richard argues that two persons in mutual love still don't encompass perfect love...if you were deeply involved in a mutual love it would still be imperfect if you weren't willing to share it...."perfection of loves requires a third person..."
We can't say WHY he created, but we can think about the purpose of the creation....we are created for community...Grenz....part of what it means to be in the image of God...God's point in creation is not redemption but community...final goal is to be in community with the God that created us....Redemption of great importance...central...but a mean to an end, community....called to be in community with God and all creation....
Father the originator, Son the revealer, Spirit, the completer...the DIVERSITY....but also a UNITY....mutual involvement in everything the Trinity does....
The Father acts through the Son by the agency of the Holy Spirit....all are involved...UNITY....Tri-Theism blurs the unity of the Godhead...If you go Modalistic, you blur the distinctions in the Godhead...
Fileoque Controversy....discussion between eastern and western churches...Nicene Creed as originally formulated didn't talk about Spirit proceeding from both Father and Son...East felt that emphasizing both detracted from the unity...West felt that to do that detracted from the divinity of the Son....inserted "Ex Patre Filioque"....from the father and son....Political issue...1054...West and East excommunicate each other....East says EX PATRE was agreed upon by the whole church....Pope added the FILIOQUE...East said, "You don't have the right to do that..."
Both sides concerned about diversity and unity...In large measure, a political issue...Where does authority derive in the Church? East willing to consider bishop of Rome first among equals....
Compromise language: Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son....
Some have argued that the economic trinity is how God reveals himself but not how he really is....Economic trinity is rooted, though, in how God really is, the immanent trinity....not mutually exclusive, but inextricably bound...
Subordination issue....in Christology class and Theology III....We want to affirm ontological equality - inherent worth, eternality, etc....There is in the pages of Scripture a functional subordination that occurs....comes into play in the Incarnation...takes on human nature, lives among us....Son subordinates himself in that way...emptied himself...didn't consider equality a thing to be grasped...no one knows time, except the Father....etc....Key is that it is not a subordination demanded by the ontological equality...something voluntary....Key issue in roles of husband and wives in marriage, things going on in the church...If scripture speaks of roles in marriage, some have argued that women are somehow inferior....ontological equality but functional subordination....
2/17/97
Exam next week...must notify in advance if not able to take it at the appointed time...EXT. 160....No class the following week...March 3...Missions Conference...Spring Banquet at Family Heritage Restaurant...
Essay exam....2 or 3 essays....2 hours, 45 minutes...
Discuss the attributes of God....
Discuss the idea of the Trinity....where does this doctrine come
from? Biblical texts? Explain....What contributions do Pinnock and
Grenz make to this discussion...Won't ask "what four arguments
does Pinnock make...? Adequate summary...demonstrate you've done the
reading...Papers are a nice review....Bring paper...
X. The way in which God relates to us...A lot of controversy on it...
A. Immanence...refers to God's presence in the created order....The degree to which God is in the created order....
1. Panentheism...all is God...God is everything...this stresses immanence....Theologies that believe this tend to deny that God is transcendent....EX: New Age thinking...they talk about God being everywhere...you're God, I'm God; EX: Eastern religions....Pocahontas...Related to process theology...
2. Pantheism...
B. Transcendence...EX: Deism....says there is a God and he's way out there...he created everything and now lets it go...Watchmaker analogy...sets laws in motion...watches it run...Some of early American founding fathers were Deists...Thomas Jefferson.....
Both sides say God is there but both are on the extreme...A lot of Americans believe in God, but not the God of the Bible...
C. The job in Christian theology is to balance Immanence and Transcendence....
D. Immanence...refers to God's presence and activity within the created order including nature, the lives of humans, and all of history....
Both Pinnock and Wright trying to be faithful to the Bible...but Pinnock overemphasizes immanence...Wright overemphasizes transcendence...
Jeremiah 23:24 - God is present everywhere in the created order....Acts 17:27-28...Mars Hill....live and move and have our being...Isaiah 63:11; Micah 3:8; Haggai 2:5 - God's Spirit dwelling amongst his people...Genesis 1 -2 - God's involvement with creation....The incarnation...2nd Person becomes a human and lives and dwells amongst us...God's presence at the Temple....Manifestations of the angel of the Lord...
Implications:
1. We can talk about God in ways that really bear some connection to who he really is...Through the Holy Spirit we have the Bible in human language...Deut. 29:29 - secret things belong to God...things revealed belong to us....
2. God really is in relationship with us...(One of the positive things about the Pinnock book...) God really does react to us...
3. The more immanence is over-stressed, the more one drifts into panentheism, pantheism or process theology....Pantheism says God and the created order are the same...Process theology says God is growing and learning and maturing...
Modern theologies that have emphasized immanence:
a) 19th C. Classical liberal theology - misnomer in evangelical world about what liberal means ("anyone that disagrees with me...") Speaks to a specific school of theology that stressed God's immanence...they said we DO the gospel when we relieve human suffering, etc. Conservatives pulled back from social ministry in reaction....Trolsch, Hermann
b) 20th C. The idea that there is no transcendent truth....Paul Tillich a good example of classical liberalism...says that God is not "a" being, but rather "being itself" or the "ground of being..." The idea of an impersonal force...."live and move and have our being..."
E. Transcendence...that God is separate from and independent of nature and humanity....If all the created order ceased to exist, God would still exist....Transcendence under attack more in culture today...
Scriptures: {ISA 55:8 NIV} "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. {9} "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
{ISA 6:1 NIV} In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. {2} Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. {3} And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." {4} At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. {5} "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
{ISA 57:15 NIV} For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
{PSA 123:1 NIV} I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven.
{JOH 8:23 NIV} But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
Implications:
a) God can speak to all of us...everyone....transcendently...We sometimes gum up his word, but it continues to work and eventually manifests itself...The Gospel of God is a METANARRATIVE....PostModernism denies a metanarrative that is true for all people...There is TRANSCENDENT TRUTH...(No one's view is purely objective...we all have our own presuppositions)...Modernity: "There are balls and strikes and I call the balls and strikes where they are" PostModern: "There are balls and strikes but they are nothing until I call them." Mediating view: "There are balls and strikes and I call them as I see them." (Epistemology...how we know truth)...
b) In some sense, God is in control...whether we want to suggest a deterministic God or a Pinnock-type God...Both sides are saying God is in control, but in different ways....Best book on concepts of immanence and transcendence...20th Century Theology, Grenz and Olson...they look at the ebbs and flows in theology in the 20th Century in light of immanence and transcendence....Try to show that evangelical and classical Christian theologies are trying to balance these things...
XI. Discussion on the reading...
These books show the two poles of the discussion...Pinnock defines about as far as one can go on the one end...the left most pole...the less traditional view....Wright book gives the most conservative, traditional view....not sure his view is what most Christians believe....Both books intend to do justice to Scripture....Pinnock book has been regularly reviewed by evangelicals...one positive...one negative...one middle ground...they've been the subject of discussions at Evangelical Theological Society...they agree that his views are not process theology....
Pinnock view...tried to say God is relational...
Just because someone says something doesn't necessarily mean it is so...Westminster Confession says that from all eternity, God ordained every single thing that came to pass....but then it goes on to say in such away in which God is not the author of sin....
We don't always have to have an alternative to say that something is wrong...We know God is not the author of sin...but we might not have an adequate way of saying it....
Narrative approach to the Bible....
Responsibility
Has a bone to pick with Calvinism...known to be out and out inflammatory...The illegitimacy of ad hominem attacks....Pinnock tries to make out the traditional view being cold and aloof...Not fair....
Starts with premise God doesn't know the future and almost never intervene...God dealing in the present....God as the master games man....
Problem with simple foreknowledge (Arminian view...) Pinnock has said simple foreknowledge is simply not workable....Too close to a form of fatalism...They've challenged that....
Wright...methodological methods different....
Wright uses scholastic approach...more driven by a logical approach...piecing things together...assumption you can use logic and verses and work back into what happened....Cause and effect....mitigates against human autonomy....
Responsibility
Starts in the eternal past...uncaused cause...cause and effect....
God has exhaustive knowledge of future...decided how it would be....Did God know everything he decreed before he decreed it...an important question....
Grenz
Responsibility
Future...Standing ahead of us, calling us and drawing us to the end he had in mind from creation....
Nobody denies God is all-powerful...but what does that mean? Early Christians picked up Greek philosophy and idea of impassibility...We must get our idea from the Bible....God is touched by the created order....Pinnock opens that up and runs with it....The danger of letting theology become primary or central...What about the narratives about God hardening Pharaoh's heart....
Both immanence and transcendence must inform us....
Three different starting points....Wright view God from the eternal past....Pinnock, the present, Grenz, the future....
16th C. reformed creed....Heidelberg Catechism....question 5...can you keep Law perfectly? No...Question 6...did God created man evil and perverse? No...good and in his image...7..where does corruption come from? the Fall...8..So perverted that we're unable to do good? Yes...9...Isn't God unjust creating man so that he couldn't do it? No....
As the Zurich side maintains, God stands behind that which is good in the world...When people are condemned, that's not of God...that's the result of human sin...Left it right there...No double predestination....
Wright is not a universal representation of the reformed view....
Heidelberg on providence....upholds...rules...not by chance but by his fatherly hand....Leaves it right there...God's in control but we don't have to work out everything from all eternity, thus making God the author of all these evils....But Basinger doesn't square with the truth when he says God doesn't intervene...
Grenz...community....future reflection...fall has disrupted...God now working directly to draw us back to that goal...
3/10/97
XII. God as Creator...biggest controversy over whether earth is old or new...Old earth view...days figurative...referring to period of time...."yom"...the word day needn't be construed as 24 hour day....becomes a scientific question...tied in with apologetics course....
A. Some texts...
GEN 1:1 NIV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
God the only being in the universe that has life in himself....Created by his word...
NEH 9:5 NIV And the Levites--Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah--said: "Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting. " "Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. {6} You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
All that is was created by God...
PSA 33:6 NIV By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
PSA 90:2 NIV Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
God is eternal, the universe, the created order is not....Concept of creation ex nihilo....God created the matter that makes up the universe....out of nothing....
No co-eternal substance that God used to create the universe...
PRO 3:19 NIV By wisdom the Lord laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;
ISA 44:24 NIV "This is what the Lord says-- your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,
God's power to redeem presupposes his power to create....
JER 32:17 NIV "Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
Talking in context about the restoration of Israel, bringing them out of exile....From a human perspective, that would have been impossible, as scattered as they were...
JOH 1:3 NIV Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
COL 1:16 NIV For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Grenz spends some time on the other created beings...
HEB 1:2 NIV but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
HEB 11:3 NIV By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Idea of creation ex nihilo...most straightforward text on this subject....
REV 4:11 NIV "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
Call to worship involved here...We're absolutely dependent on God....
God is not some sort of "cosmic policemen", but tells us what is good for us....
XIII. Human Beings...in the midst of this creation, we have humans come onto the scene...God created them in his own image...what does that mean...What about the Fall? What is sin all about? What are the consequences? Who are we in regards to the sin question? What about free will? These are the great questions of theology...who is God? who are these people around me? how do we relate to one another?
If we're going to understand who God is, we need to understand something about ourselves...Calvin says true understanding comes from knowing God and knowing our selves...If we think we are good, that will have implications when we say "God is good..." The things we've said about God impacts how we see and understand ourselves...
We'll see in comparison to God, we're not really very high....
16th C. Heidelberg Catechism...My only comfort in life and death is that I know I belong totally to Jesus Christ, who will spare no effort to secure my salvation...What things must you know? 1) My sin and wretchedness; 2) The Nature of the Reconciliation...what God has done to reconcile us to him; 3) What gratitude we owe to God for that redemption....
A. How do human beings come from the hand of God...the original state...
1. In his own image and likeness....intellect, feeling, will...includes idea of dominion over lower creation....Creates them as morally responsible agents...
GEN 1:26 NIV Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." {27} So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Nature of that image? Scripture doesn't exactly say...We don't get an explicit definition....Some clues, but not a full biblical definition....Must be careful....Hoekema does the rational side of what it means to be in the image of God....EX: retarded, deformed child...Is that the image of God? This kind of thinking could lead to rationalization about abortion...
Be cautious about saying merely rationalism is what it means to be made in the image of God....
God has given humans certain tasks...rulership...dominion over the earth....
GEN 2:8 NIV Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. {9} And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. {10} A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. {11} The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. {12} (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) {13} The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. {14} The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. {15} The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
God didn't create man to do nothing....
God made us to work....
What race are Adam and Eve? We must be careful about making assumptions about that....In 18th and 19th Century question raised about a Garden being planted in the East...Western European theologians went to great lengths to prove the garden was somewhere in Western Europe...They had assumptions about which race was best...
Christ probably looked Middle Eastern, not lily white....Racism needs to be worked on in the Church....We need to take on the battle in the church...It's easy to talk about abortion...A bit more ticklish to talk about racism....
GEN 9:6 NIV "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
Image of God basis for capital punishment...
PSA 8:3 NIV When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, {4} what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? {5} You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. {6} You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
Humans have the dignity that surpasses even the cosmos...
They have dominion over the things even God has made....Stewardship....
ECC 7:29 NIV This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."
The moral devolution of humans should not be blamed on God....God made them upright....Humans responsible for going their own way....
ACT 17:26 NIV From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
All races had common human heritage...all descendants of Adam....
What about the historicity of Adam and Eve? We affirm inerrancy....Romans 5 - portrayal of Christ as the 2nd Adam...parallel drawn between sin of Adam and righteousness of Christ...If you pull the rug out from under the first couple of chapters of Genesis...it begins to have a ripple effect on your belief system...Professor believes there was a real Adam and Eve...We take seriously the historical accuracy of Scripture....
ROM 2:14 NIV (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, {15} since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
Moral argument for existence of God...
As made in God's image, there is a divine imprint on all human beings....While that image is distorted after the Fall, it is not completely effaced....All societies know that murder is wrong....There's something deep inside that sees some things as being wrong....IMAGO DEI...
JAM 3:9 NIV With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. {10} Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.
Disrespect for any person is inconsistent with being made in the image of God....All humans are made in the image of God and worthy of respect...Be careful in how you speak about people....Bill Clinton is made in the image of God...Professor thinks things in his heart about him...and catches himself....Some on the Christian Right get out of hand in their statements....Be really careful....There are some people that would even argue that he's a Christian...We can critique behavior and policy in such a way that we still respect them as a human being....
2. Summary:
a. Human beings are created by God...Some issues get raised..."Theistic evolution"...claim that God started with another species....wants to affirm scientific theory of evolution by saying that's how God decided to do it....But does that what the Bible teaches? No....Theistic evolution tries to harmonize....The evolution scheme can't be fit into Scripture...Theory of evolution has some major scientific holes....maintained even by those not trying to "grind" the Christian axe....
(1) We are completely and utterly dependent upon God....for life and for our continued existence....In him we live and move and have our being...."No God, no good"....
(2) We find our origin solely in God....ultimately we owe allegiance to him above all other earthly powers....
(3) Human beings are valuable because they are valued by God...the inherent worth of human beings rests in who we are in God...
PSA 8:1 NIV O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. {2} From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. {3} When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, {4} what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? {5} You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. {6} You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: {7} all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, {8} the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
God is mindful of them because he made them....God gives them their status...crowns them with glory and majesty...
b. Enlightenment....Protestants said Catholic church had "deformed" Christian faith...they differed on "Tradition"...Catholics looked at it as a second stream of revelation on a part with Scripture...Protestants said, "Sola Scriptura"...New tradition formed that affirmed right of private interpretation...
Unfortunately, when they ripped themselves away from Catholic authority, that caused some problems with interpretation....Catholics said they'd have people running every which way...Much of the 16th C. is the history of the problems of Protestantism...the Darkside of the Reformation....Who decides what's true? Led to princes adopting Luther's position, etc....In England, the Anglican tradition develops...Got pretty ugly...
People get sick of "doctrine"...these doctrinal differences produced wars...One of the great wars was the 30 Years War...ended in 1648...Peace of Westphalia...half the population of Germany was killed in that war...Fought between Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic princes....What happened in the Enlightenment, significant groups of Protestants said the Scriptures were no longer authoritative..."We will know on the authority of autonomous human reasoning..."
As a result, there was an attack on Christianity...Initially Catholicism is insulated from this attack because they still had the authority of the Church....Deism finds its roots in the Enlightenment....
Consequences of all this:
(a) God's moved off into the margins...
(b) Human beings autonomous....
Psalmist answers, because God is the King, humans have special worth....But when God is moved out of the scene, when people look into the vastness of the universe, they don't know why the are special....
As this happens, people begin to lose their special status...the implications take a while to come around....We're now eating the bitter fruits of the Enlightenment....EX: Racism....concept of the value of humans gone....EX: Abortion....big issue is that the fetus is a human being....if that's a human being, it matters...In a sense, though, the issue isn't simply that it's a human a being...the abortionists are saying the woman has a right to do with her body as she pleases...The foundation of the pro-life position is that humans are made in the image of God...EX: Poverty....exacerbated in our own time...economic system and social policy that takes no account of humans as made in the image of God...Gets easy to slough off troublesome people off to the side....Enlightenment put God out of the picture....
Human beings are inherently valuable because God says they are...he made them....Ideas of consequences....Secularism is killing us....
Nationalism is one of the greatest sins in the history of the Church....Our fundamental allegiance is to God and other Christians...that solidarity trumps everything else....
Kids today want to "belong"....Generation X wants to know, "How do I belong? Where do I find value for myself?" The church can be such a powerful institution in helping them understand on who they are in God...How many sermons do you hear on what it means to be made in the image of God????
Kids get converted to community first, to belong, then they find Christ...A very valuable form of evangelism...Communal model of evangelism...the Work of the Church as community...without throwing out evangelism for conversion....
Church has a credibility gap...We need to practice what we preach...
3/17/97
On exams, 70-80% in B range...standard work for grad school...Cs not bad, but there are things that could be added...D range...come and chat....A is exceptional...really well covers the things he would expect to see....B is where most people end up on tests and papers...Number grade...exam worth 30%, papers, 20%...96-100 = A, etc.
Summoned to defend his thesis on April 7, the last day of class...no class that night....We're in good shape, though, here....shouldn't impinge on our ability to get through the material....Papers due on April 7, but you can turn them in when you take the final or before then....
Last time, involved in discussion of human identity...what it means to be created in the image of God...valuable because God values us.....Tonight, the question, What does it mean to say that humans are made in the image of God...
B. What does it mean to be made in the IMAGE OF GOD?
GEN 1:26 NIV Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." {27} So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. {28} God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
1. The FACT of being created in the image of God...v. 26.
2. The rule of humans over creation is a result of being made in the image of God...Some say the imago dei involves this dominion...Theologians have differed what it means...But the level of "dominion" gives us a clue....God made man to be rulers over the rest of the created order....
GEN 5:1 NIV This is the written account of Adam's line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. {2} He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man. "
GEN 9:6 NIV "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man
shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
3. Genesis doesn't give us cognitive information about what it means to be made in the image of God...
4. The fall has distorted but not totally effaced the image of God...
5. New Testament Passages
COL 3:9 NIV Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices {10} and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Believers union with Christ in the work of Christ...life, death, resurrection of Christ...key to understanding what salvation is all about...
Lordship controversy...Calvin usefully brought in concept of union of Christ being what holds it all together...
Before there is salvation, the Colossian Christians had committed the sins mentioned in verses 5 - 7....told to put away other sins in v. 8...Because they've taken off the old nature and its sinful practices...
Further reason for not returning to old life found in v. 10 - PUT ON the new man...not just getting rid of something....renewed in knowledge according to the IMAGE of the one who created him....
Colossians had a change of clothing...taken off old, put on new....
Christians are told to put away old, but in doing so, begin to live a holy life....
Sense of Greek here (Louw, Semantics of NT Greek)...we have something that has happened yet has impact on the future...an ongoing process here....Remaking of a believer into the image of Christ...the Pauline theme of creation....
Certainly a cognitive aspect here....renewed in knowledge...
The IMAGE is Christ....Christ is the one who is in the image of God in a way that has not been compromised by sin...Christ is the 2nd Adam...
This renewal affects the way a person thinks...renewed in
KNOWLEDGE...
A Christian is one being renewed in the image of God....Peter O'Brien, Word Commentary on Colossians: should read, "since you have put on the new man who is being renewed according..." If this is correct, the renewal is according to the image of God in knowledge....focus on the cognitive element....
Protestant tradition says that justification is all done by God...In sanctification, we are to participate in that process....salvation an event and a process....Professor would emphasize the process side....We have been saved and we are being saved...growing in the knowledge and image of Christ....
Creation in the image....Fall...(Disintegration of the image)...through the work of Christ there is Reintegration...a process...ultimately not completed until the eschaton....
Since the renewal is a renovation in knowledge, knowledge must have been an element in the original imago dei...But be careful not to load that with only pure cognition...Knowledge in context is the ability to recognize God's will and commands (O'Brien)...
Lohsa - knowledge here is knowledge of God's will....not pure cognition, rather the ability to think, put to the service of God....
After the Fall, the reason of humans is darkened...Colossians talks a great deal about the use of the mind to engage in sins....When one savingly united with Christ, he begins life long process of growing in the image....Romans 12...
Cognition not the whole story...some say, "Lord, Lord..."
Elements of the image dealing with who we are, who we are in relationship, and what we do....J.I. Packer..."Knowing God..." You can read the book and master its contents, but still not have a relationship with God....
EPH 4:22 NIV You were taught, with regard to your former
way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by
its deceitful desires; {23} to be made new in the attitude of your
minds; {24} and to put on the new self, created to be like God in
true righteousness and holiness.
Not just cognitive, but how we live in serving God....
6. Newman, "Some Perspectives on the Image of God..." Consider how God describes himself as analogies of how man relates to other men and to the created order...
a. Potter and Clay....Isaiah 64, Isaiah 29...man, the creature, mirrors God when they work with clay....Human creativity is a picture of God's great work of creation....related...purpose and design...potter conceives in mind, brings it into mind...Sovereignty...Romans 9...potter exercises real control over the clay...God can raise up and put down men and nations....Creativity...Planning....Sovereignty....
b. Plants...gardener or farmer and plants...farmer watches over trees to keep them healthy...God has purpose for man's life....Mirror of God's response to righteous and wicked...Caring, Planning, Blessing, Judging....
c. Animals...Shepherd and Sheep....finds lost sheep...leads flock....feeds sheep...finds them pasture....protects flock....will die for sheep...A shepherd experiences a little bit of what it's like to be God....Judgment....separation....
d. Human society....King-Subject...monarchy....King has prestige...Honor king....King rules...protects...rules in righteousness...
e. Family....Father-Child, Husband-Wife...Parents beget or adopt children...God does both....He creates and adopts into his family...1 Peter 1:3..Gal. 4:4-7....Believers to show family resemblance to their father...1 John 3:1-10...Mat. 5:43-48....God provides...We mirror God by having children, caring for them, showing a godly family resemblance, providing for our children...Husband-Wife relationships shows dynamic relationship between God and his people...Wife's submission to husband mirrors our obedience for God...Husbands love for wife pictures Christ's love for the church....Pictures intimacy between God and his people....Joy of marriage...Joy God has with his people...Human beings in RELATION....
7. Grenz develops idea that being involved in the image of God involves SPECIAL STANDING, recipients of his special love, special worth (Mat. 6:26 - birds of the air...), having special responsibility (idea of dominion...we're to be stewards...Genesis 1:26, Psalm 8)...Grenz also mentions that the divine image involves a future goal...we're made for something....We are elect for being formed for the image of Christ corporately....we have a special future goal to be conformed to God's image...being like God...growing in community....Involves fellowship and community...the church corporately is part of what it means to be in the image of God...We were made to be individuals in community...that mirrors the Trinity....
8. Historically, three concepts of the image of God....
a. Substantive View...has been dominant throughout history of theology....image of God identified as some definite characteristic or quality within the make-up of human beings...something human beings are....Some talk about the structure of the human body....an ontological view....REASON....Differing degrees of emphasis on this...HOMO SAPIENS = Thinking Being....Platonism dominant in early church history...abstract contemplation....Medieval Period...the ability to engage in scientific reasoning....In this cognitive and cerebral aspect, humans most like God...
b. Relational View....common in modern theology....don't conceive it as resident in the ontological make-up of human beings....they don't ordinarily ask what man is...They think of the image of God as the human capacity to experience relationships...They argue that being in relationship is the image of God...Point to God before creation of world in relationship (Trinity)....Karl Barth...Emil Brunner....They argue it is relational and not substantive...
c. Functional View...not something in the makeup of human beings,
not in relationship (too nebulous for them), but it's in what humans
DO...a function that they perform....Exercise of dominion...over
creation....Most commonly found in the "cultural mandate..."
Just as Jesus and the apostles went into the world, God sent his
highest creatures, and commissioned them to rule over it...must learn
about the whole of creation...control it for the good....Reformed
Cultural Mandate folks say that this is not optional but required as
part of the image of God....
d. Professor likes elements of all three...