Knowledge of God
- Created by: lydiageexx
- Created on: 03-03-18 19:38
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- Knowledge of God
- How do we know anything?
- A posteriori& A priori
- Bonaventure - 3 ways of seeing the world
- 1. the eye of the flesh - A posteriori and empirical
- 2. the eye of reason - A priori reasoning and truths through logic
- 3. the eye of contemplation - Spiritual understanding of God through faith
- Natural knowledge of God's existence as an innate human sense of the divine
- Cicero - All cultures had a sense of divine and held similar beliefs - we are all born with a sense for God
- Old Testament backs Cicero's idea - Genesis 1 Humans are made in the image of God, Genesis 2 God breathed his own breath into Adam
- John Calvin creates this idea of sensus divinitas/ seed of divinity. This is an awareness of divinity and this sense is with everyone
- Joseph butler and John Newman claim that the more voice of guilt is God
- John Calvin
- He claimed that the knowledge of one self was necessary for the knowledge of God
- The goodness that humans posses must come from God because a human being lives and moves because of God as we are totally dependant upon him for our existence
- Because of the fall the source of Good should come from God
- Humanity must have faith in God in order to be saved
- " we can not truly know ourselves without the knowledge of God. This is because we naturally see ourselves better than we actually are. We must therefore compare ourselves to God to Get rid of the self delusion. We can do this because we have an awareness of God= divinitis sensum
- Calvin considered conscience important in our knowledge of God and moral goodness. He argued that it is God given therefore part of our moral decisions - Response to God's will of right and wrong
- Calvin argues that many non religious people conduct themselves in vanity and pride, so although they have the seed of knowledge of God sewn within them they can become social control, many do not develop it. However, this wouldn't happen if its not already innate in humanity
- Criticisms to innate sense
- 3,Different Religions
- 2. Different forms of Gods
- 4. Evil is present
- 1. Atheism
- 5. Epistemic distance
- Natural Knowledge of God's existence as seen as the orders of creation
- Natural theology is the name given to attempts to discover truths about the existence and nature of God by using human experience and human reason
- Natural theology played an important part in forming and supporting belief
- Looking at the beauty of the world leads to the conclusion that there is a creator
- Calvin suggests nature holds up a mirror to God saying " the skilful ordering of the universe is for us a sort of a mirror in which we can contemplate God who is otherwise invisible,
- Thomas Aquinas
- it is important in demonstrating that christian belief was reasonable
- Aristotle made him question whether Christian belief could be replaced by scientific common sense thinking
- Aquinas was keen to show Christianity was not opposing common sense but that reason and observation could be employed in support of christian belief
- e.g. world in constant change due to cause and effect therefore we can work out that there must be an uncaused causer of the world. furthermore everything in the world depends on something else for it to exist therefore must be something that depends on nothing but exists necessarily
- Revealed knowledge of God's existence
- God makes himself known to individuals by revealing certain truths to them directly e.g Moses and the burning bush
- God has to reveal as sometimes humans faith and knowledge are not good enough to recognise God due to sinful and finite minds
- Distinction between natural and revealed theology was in the middle ages. Natural theology shows existence of God, existence of the human soul and free will. Revealed theology didn't depend on people having intellectual gifts, its available to everyone through faith. It confirmed findings of natural theology and uncovered truths - ones that people can find out with human reason alone
- It is important to know that believers don't reject human reason but God can be understood by human reason. To know if it is correct you see if it matches with the church teachings
- Revelation knowledge of God through the person of Jesus Christ
- Jesus is the direct propositional revelation of God to the world
- Jesus is understood as the incarnation
- According to Johns gospel Jesus' words are Gods words. His miracles are miracles of God, his nature miracles are a sign of God's omnipotence, his sacrificial actions are Gods sacrificial actions
- Catholic Catechism: You can know God by the incarnation of Jesus, Jesus is the word made flesh, meeting Jesus, people can understand God, Since the beginning, through all of the prophets, God has prepared them to be able to witness Jesus
- Jesus is an example of God's special/ Direct revelation as he is present in a particular way at a particular time. The Bible is a record of Jesus and it is a record of God's self revelation.
- Calvin had a high regard for scripture and believes that it contains everything about God which is worth knowing. Contemplating God's general revelation can never add to the wisdom revealed in the Bible because it is from "God speaking his own mouth"
- The only true revelation of God is Jesus himself. It is a form of arrogance to imagine that human reason alone can lead people into any knowledge of God. God is ultimately revealed in Jesus. Any human attempt to try and understand God without Jesus is bound to be mistaken, corrupt and wrong as Luther said
- Revealed knowledge of God's existence through faith and Gods grace
- Natural theology alone isn't able to gain God's full knowledge. To gain it, you need faith and grace.
- Faith
- Type of belief which is held in spite of a lack of conclusive evidence or even held in opposition to evidence or reason
- Reason through possibility
- You take a leap of faith
- Kierkegaard "no getting around the fact that if you have reflected on the matter of God, there will come to a point when either you take that leap of faith or don't but it does does have to be a completely blind leap of faith
- Catholic teachings - faith is not independent from reason but is a willed assent to a set of propositions
- Aquinas
- Unformed faith - you see possibility
- Formed faith - you take a leap of faith to accept
- Aquinas
- Calvin protestant teachings
- Firm and certain knowledge - only possible as revealed by Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit - Historical
- Willingness to believe - A cognitive process when a person is willing to believe in the certain knowledge of redemption and salvation of Christ - spiritual
- Grace
- Christianity emphasises faith as a means to have knowledge of God, and it does so in the context of the grace of God or God's unconditional giving to humanity
- Grace is sustained by the Holy Spirit
- Important because people can only have a full knowledge of God when God graciously chooses to give it
- The full and perfect knowledge of God is revealed in the life of the church
- In the catholic church the church and Bible are given equal authority in revealing truths about God
- In the Protestant church the Bible is given a greater authority
- The church is made up of people of God who have continued from Judaism with the acceptance of Jesus being the Messiah/Christ
- The church is continuing the work done by Jesus
- The church is central to Christian worship
- There is special revelatory function for Christians which are sacraments
- Protestant sacraments - Baptism and Eucharist
- Baptisms are the most important because it is removing original sin
- Eucharist is important as it is remembering Jesus' last supper
- Catholic sacraments - confirmation, confession, ordination, marriage, last virtues
- Roman Catholics- sacraments are in outward sign of an inward grace. internal connection between God and the individual
- By performing sacraments you are fulfilling commandment-s of Christ, demonstrating faith, receiving full knowledge of God, making yourself closer to God and enter Heaven from salvation
- Protestant sacraments - Baptism and Eucharist
- Is the Bible natural or revealed Theology
- Fundamentalists- entirely propositional revelation of God by acknowledging the Bible is the word of God
- Inspiration for each book of the Bible is divine and this is what causes the author to write the book - verbal inspiration
- The authority of the Bible derives from the fact that the Bible is a propositional revelation from God that reveals knowledge about God to people
- Romans 1:19-20 - indirect, God is being revealed through the natural laws and design of the natural world
- Matthew 18:20 - indirect, God is being revealed by the life of the church
- John 1:14 - direct, God is being revealed by the person of Jesus
- 2 Timothy 3:15-17- direct, God is being revealed by the bible itself
- The Bible reveals knowledge which people couldn't have gained in other ways. it reveals stories. It reveals the purposes of God in the person of Christ, recording words and actions, death and resurection
- Strength
- Moral decisions present fewer problems if you just accept the teachings of the Bible. e.g. on homosexuality
- Weakness
- Fails to show how God can interact with us today, right now. The Bible seems fossilised in this view
- How do we know anything?
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