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THEO 201 Unit One
Notes
Theology Survey I (Liberty
University)
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Monday, May 28th
Prolegomena:
•A preliminary discussion, especially a formal essay introducing a work of
considerable length or complexity (introducing the study of theology)
•How should we figure out what’s true in theology?
oBefore the study of the Bible
oPhilosophical presupposition
▪God exists, and he has revealed himself
oHow do we prove that the bible is the word of God?
▪We believe the bible because Christ believed the Bible
oSeeing Faith = belief + trust
▪Belief bolstered by evidence, good reasons
▪Trusting that he has your best at heart
•That’s what devils lack
▪Faith isn’t reason for my belief, it is an aspect of my belief
•Need to have reasons for belief
•Romans 4 vs Hebrews 11
oBelieve in God, then shows trust in God
▪Don’t base your belief on faith, base it on the resurrection
oBelieving God exists is not faith
oFoundational to Christian theology is the resurrection of Jesus
▪1 Corinthians 15
•Resurrection proves that he was the messiah
•Epistemology—study of knowledge
•If we couldn’t know that Jesus’s death happened, then we
couldn’t trust it. The Resurrection lets us trust what
happened
(the proof)
•Faith is in vain because without resurrection how did you
know that it happened
•Connects our faith to reality
▪Acts 2:22-36
•Peter uses resurrection as a key piece of evidence
▪Acts 17:30-31
•Paul saw the resurrection as proof
▪Can we know that the resurrection actually happened?
•Be open to the idea that if God wasn’t real,
▪Antimony
•Good reasons to believe God is three
•Good reasons to believe God is one
▪12 accepted facts
•Naturalistic explanations
oSwoon
oplot
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oHallucination theory
▪Subjective
▪Psychological condition = belief, expectation
▪Variety of times, places, and personalities
▪Still be a body
▪Don’t transform lives
▪Paul shouldn’t have
▪James shouldn’t have
▪Mental illness
▪Different from visions
▪Different form Jewish tradition
oFraud
▪Disciples knew it wasn’t true but they lied about it
oLegend
▪Myth
▪Historical documents
•Conclusions: Hume’s objections fail, a historical explanation of
the resurrection phenomenon is needed. Natural explanations
fail.
•Is a supernatural explanation possible?
▪6 minimal facts
•Jesus died by Roman crucifixion
•The disciples had experiences that they thought were
actual appearances of the risen Jesus
•The disciples were thoroughly transformed, even being willing
to die for this belief
•The apostolic proclamation of the resurrection began very
early, when the church was in its infancy
•James, the brother of Jesus and a former skeptic was
converted when, he believed, he saw the risen Jesus.
•Saul, the church persecutor, became a Christian believer due
to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the
risen Jesus
o Didn’t change his name, Hebrew version of Paul is Saul
▪
•Theology is study of the nature of God and his activities
•Miracles
oHume’s lesser arguments
▪Testimonies are never absolute proof
▪There is a tendency to gossip and distort miracle claims
▪Miracle claims are most common among uneducated people
▪Conflicting religious traditions claim miracles as support
oHume’s strongest argument
▪Defines a miracle as an interruption of the laws of nature
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•Not naturally occurring anomalies
▪All ordinary experience supports belief in the stability of these laws
▪In order to be justified in believing that a miracle has occurred, we
would need greater evidence for it than we have for the laws of nature
▪For any miracle claim, we have a finite amount of evidence, whereas
for the laws of nature we have all of human experience as evidence
oCan God perform miracles for other religions?
oEvil spirits perform miracles
oEvery time god does a miracle, it is because he knows that that is the best
thing to do at that time
oOnly look at pertinent evidence instead of all of
history Tuesday, May 29
•a priori (before looking at the facts)
ohard-headed
oyou need to be open to the evidence
•a posteriori (after looking at the facts)
•a paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices, that constitutes
a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them
•does being committed to a theistic worldview rule out the possibility of
naturalistic explanations?
oIf you hold to naturalistic, all supernatural explanations are ruled out a priori
oNaturalism: the view that all that exists in the result of natural process; hence
all that occurs can be explained as a result of ordinary, naturally-occurring
causes.
oSupernaturalism: The view that one or more supernatural force exists and is
the ultimate cause of everything else that exists
▪Theism is a form of supernaturalism: A supernatural God exists and is
the ultimate cause of everything else that exists
▪Supernaturalism is the preferable paradigm
▪Since we have independent reasons to believe that a god exists, and
independent reason to believe a resurrection occurred, it makes
sense
that the two are connected
•Anthony fl
•A historical event has occurred
•After investigating the data, all naturalistic explanations of
that event seem improbable
•The data seems to contravene a natural law
oTo do otherwise is to demonstrate an a priori prejudice
that will interfere with an objective search for the truth
oAncient evidence(s) for the life of Jesus
•Chapter one: the resurrection is a well-documented historical fact
•Chapter two the best explanation for the data is that the resurrection was a
miraculous occurrence
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•Chapter Three: the historical, miraculous resurrection indicates divine approval of
Jesus’ message that he was God
•Chapter ten: Since Jesus is God, his approval of the scriptures validates their authority
•Jesus called himself the Son of God
oPredicted the resurrection
oJesus is making himself the messiah
•Jesus called himself the Son of Man
oReference from Daniel
▪Comes from heaven
▪To the father
▪Dominion, glory, kingdom
▪Claiming to be the messiah
•Jesus claims to be the savior
oNot merely the function, but the essence
By raising Jesus from the dead, God placed His stamp of approval on Jesus’s entire message,
both concerning himself and his other teachings, because God would not have raised a heretic
from the dead
•Merism--refer to the whole of something by listing some of its parts
•Jesus’s Teachings on the Old Testament
oJesus’s use of the OT
▪He used it to prove correct doctrine (Mk 12:26-27)
▪He used it to ward off temptation (Matt 4:4, 7, 10)
▪He viewed individual words and letters as significant (Mark 12:26-
27; Matt 5:18)
oWhat he says about them
▪Commands and words of God (Mark 7: 9-13)
▪Inspired by the holy ghost (Mark 12:36)
▪It will endure until completely fulfilled (Matt 5:17-18)
▪the source of correct doctrine
•Because Jesus is God and believed in the truthfulness of the bible, we know that
the bible is true.
•Therefore, we are secure in basing our beliefs on the Bible
•Furthermore, Jesus gave us the example using the Bible as a guide to right action as
well as right belief
•Therefore, we should study the Bible seriously in order to arrive at true belifs and
correct practices. This class will focus on true beliefs, but it assumes that what
you believe will affect what you do
Wednesday, May 30
Bibliology: General Revelation
•Revelation: God’s self-disclosure to humanity
oGod has revealed himself in many ways other than the Bible
oGeneral Revelation: God’s self-disclosure that is available to all
▪Big, intelligent, powerful
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▪Doesn’t reveal trinity, all-knowing
▪Came before the Bible and still exists today
▪Natural theology: theology based upon general revelation
•Theology someone can develop without looking at the Bible
•Thomas Aquinas, it works
oPaul
oGod can justly hold them accountable for unbelief
oCosmological argument:
▪Either the world was created or it is part of
an infinite series of causes and effects
▪An infinite series of causes and effects is
not rational
•Possible, but we can’t imagine it
•Therefore, it is not rational
▪Therefore, the world was created
•A creator of the universe is rational
•A being able to create something this
big must be beyond our scope
•If god is small enough for me to
understand, then he isn’t big enough
oTeleological argument:
▪The universe exhibits design or purpose
▪Design requires a designer
▪Therefore, the universe has a designer
▪Michael Behee
•Things could not have come into
existence through any natural process
oDifficult to explain how an eye
could evolve
oOntological Argument (St. Anshelm of Canterbury)
▪Either god exists in reality or it is possible
to conceive of something greater than God
▪It is not possible to conceive of something
greater than God
▪Therefore, God exists in reality
▪God is that being that is greater than anything
else in existence
oMoral (anthropological) argument (Immanuel Kant)
▪Ethics requires that here be accountability for
right and wrong action
▪Such accountability is often not realized on earth
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•Verses:
▪Therefore, there must be some kind of future,
otherworldly accountability. This implies the
existence of an afterlife, heaven, and God the
judge
oPsalms 19:1-4
oRomans 1:18-20
oRomans 10:13-18
oFaith is the prerequisite to salvation
•Barth, it doesn’t
•Calvin, compromise
oIf the fall prevents the human mind from understanding
general revelation, why doesn’t it hinder us from learning
from special revelation?
oSpecial revelation: God’s disclosure of specific truths to specific people
▪Transcendence: the quality of lying beyond ordinary experience and
the material universe
▪Depravity: the quality of being corrupted by the influence of sin
▪Personal
▪Sometimes propositional
▪Relational
•The goal of revelation is to restore our relationship with God
▪Progressive
•Later revelations build on and expand what was said earlier
•henotheist (many god’s, but only serve one) to a monotheist
(only one true God)
▪anthropic
•God communicates himself to us in a way that humans
can understand
•Uses our words and concepts
•Anthropos (humanity)
▪Analogical
•How can we use ordinary language to describe God
•How can we use the human word love to describe perfect love
•When we use human language to define divine
concepts (analogical predication; Thomas Aquinas)
▪Metaphorical
•We use on thing to represent another, but there’s no
similarity between the two
▪Modes
•Historical events
•Divine speech
oVocalizations
oDirect, verbal, non-vocal
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•Inspiration
oStatements through the prophets
oConcursive inspiration
▪Inspiration and revelation
•Dreams: asleep
•Visions: awake
•Miracles
•The Bible
•The incarnation
oBest revelation of god that we ever had
▪How does god speak without a voice box?
oRevelation
oSpecial revelation
oInspiration: the holy spirit’s influence on the authors of Scripture that
caused their writings to be special revelation
▪Not everything about Christianity or revealed is inspired
oThe intuition Theory
▪Great literature, not inspired word of God
oThe illumination Theory
▪God granted special wisdom to the authors of Scripture, illuminating
their hearts and minds
▪Spiritual insight
oThe Dynamic Theory
▪God inspired them as they were writing, using their personalities to
bring out truths
▪God doesn’t override the personalities of the authors of scripture
•You really do see different personalities in the different books
oThe Verbal Theory
▪God uses the personalities of the authors but inspires their word
choices so that what they write is exactly the message he wants them
to deliver
▪Recognizes the differences, but every word is a word that God wants
in the text
▪Personalities
•Elements that are not theologically significant are personalities
•God made sure they included theologically significant
•Dynamic says the authors produced what is on the page,
dictation says God produced what was on the page
•God supervised the development of their personalities
oThey grew up to be the kind of person who God need to
write each book
oThe Dictation Theory
▪God used the authors of the Bible as secretaries to dictate what
they were to record
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▪Every word is exactly as God wants it
▪All authors should write the same.
•Inerrancy: the doctrine that the Bible is without error and therefore is true in all
it teaches
oGod inspired even the words of the Bible suggest that everything recorded in
the Bible is true
▪The Bible contains no errors
▪Not EVERYTHING in the Bible is true
•False, but accurately recorded
▪Everything taught in the Bible is true, not everything
oAbsolutely inerrancy: The Bible is completely true in all it states, even when
statements seem to contradict the findings of science, mathematics, or other
cognitive disciplines
▪“four corners of the eart h”
oFull inerrancy: The Bible is true in all it affirms and accurate in all it records, but I
accurately records untruths such as false statements and phenomenal
descriptions that report how things appear to the viewer rather than how they
are in reality
oLimited inerrancy: The Bible is true in all that it teaches relevant to the
purpose for which God created it, which purpose is the salvation of God’s
people.
▪Primary purpose is to restore our relationship with God
oIs Inerrancy Important?
▪Theologically important
•The inerrancy of the Bible is a reflection of the God who
revealed it and inspired the authors
▪Historically important
•First doctrine that people abandon as they move away
from orthodox doctrine
•Once you abandon the inerrancy of scripture you start
sliding down a slippery slope
▪Epistemologically important
•Bible is foundation of our theology
•Needs to be accurate in everything it teaches
▪
