Classical Theism (Part 4 – ‘Ehyeh, the Trinity and the Incarnation) 1 Special: Classical Theism (4) – ‘Ehyeh, the Simplicity of God, The Trinity, and the Incarnation Bible Doctrines (The True-Good-Beautiful ) T/G/B What defines winners and losers in the spiritual life? Winners, Psalm 73:21-26. Losers, Gen. 28:20-21. Eschatology Preparation for the Word of God and the unbiblical conduit view of confession of sin, Matt. 5:1-13. Thanatology 3 Parts to Bible Class: The need, blessings, and blessings of classical theism and classical Christianity. Ecclesiology Part I: Spiritual basics: Analogous God-talk and God’s love. Israelology Part II: Philosophical foundations. POL: Frege, father of analytical philosophy. Dispensationalism Part III: Doctrinal development: Special – Classical theism 4: The Trinity; classical theism. Doxology Part I: Basics: Spiritual foundations: God-talk and love (1 Cor. 13; Gal 5:13-15; 22-23). Hodology 1. Because all human talk about God (God-talk) is always tied to earthly reference points, and God really is the wholly Soteriology other, the only tenable view of language in light of Scripture is analogical. Hamartiology 2. Attempts to use univocal language of God causes serious problems. How could His love be univocal? Natural Law 3. Analogical God-talk with reference to His love means that His love is like and unlike man’s love. Anthropology 4. There are only two ways to understand God’s attributes. Angelology a. Natural theology through philosophy of nature, Rom. 1:20, ‘the invisible attributes of God are seen through Pneumatology visible creation.’ Philosophy of nature, not physical science, is the means since it is a higher science. We see Christology the Cause in the effects. This also has application to passages which say that God gets angry. Literally, He Paterology does not get angry or upset. However, the effects of justice appear as if He is angry. To be sure, God is not Trinitarianism happy at one moment and then the next moment get upset, angry, or experiences any hate whatsoever. Cosmology b. Special revelation: Philosophical reflection on ‘Ehyeh of Exodus 3:14. Theology Proper 5. God’s love: God does not get “emotional,” which by nature involves a corporeal movement. However, He does have Bibliology affections but He never gets His feelings hurt when people do not love Him. Natural Theology a. God’s love is the source of all creation and it is important to remember that good is convertible with being. b. God’s love is similar to man’s love in that it is about the good. However, God creates the good whereas man 5: Hermeneutics is drawn to the good. Man is moved by external good, and thus is vulnerable. God’s love is not that way. God 4: Language-84 produces the good in all things. After creating all things, He said “and it was good.” Love is all about good and the perfection of natures. God really is love (cf., simplicity), man is not. God is not like us, we are like Him. 3: Epistemology 32 - Existence 50 c. God does not get jealous, angry, or hate. Note the utter failure of the exegetical approach here. - History 50 d. God’s love is proportional to good in the creation that He creates. So, the greater the good (the perfections) something has, the greater the good. So he loves rocks, but plants more, and animals even more, and 2:Metaphysics 32 humans even more- each has more good. This has application to statements about loving Jacob more than - Trans. 50 Esau or loving some more due to the greater good in them, which always comes from Him. Degrees of love is 1: Reality related to degrees of perfection. - Logic 32, e. God’s love for us means that He seeks our good, which is always deeper union with Him. - Truth 32 f. God’s love for you means that God is committed to your good forever. P.R. - 32 3 Part 2: Philosophy of Language (84) Outline Introduction What is philosophy of language? 1. It is ironic that if I were to debate Cratylus, Saussure, or Frege about Theories of meaning Plato’s Cratylus the true nature of language, the Bible, and reality, each could eaily - Hermogenes point to the movement I grew up in as evidence for their anti- - Cratylus - Socrates metaphysical, naturalistic, and linguistic community approach to Aristotle (384-322 BC) Transition to modern language. philosophy of language Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) 2. Covering the basics of these various views on how language maps on Bertrand Russell reality enables us to get out of the Cave and think like realists, to think (1872-1970) Ludwig Wittgenstein like a sound believer instead of a neo-theist. (1889-1951). Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). 3. We simply must regain our classical Christian heritage to understand W. V. O. Quine (1908-2000). Noam Chomsky (1928-) God, the Bible, the spiritual life, and defend the faith against atheists Realist view of meaning. and the anti-intellectualism of neo-Christianity. Recovery of classical Foundation of meaning. Christianity is essential to sound doctrine, to having biblical view of Communication of meaning. God, all of which is essential to a healthy growing life in God. Elements of language. Function of language Meaningful God-talk. Analytic Philosophy Conclusion. Analogy. Metaphysical analogy. 4 4. As far as philosophy of language, it can be argued that Frege’s most important contribution is found in his distinction between sense and reference. We will cover this later. 5. For Frege, identity is predicated not of objects, but of names expressing senses. Also, existence is predicated not of objects, but of concepts. Modern theories of Meaning: Recall that in realism concepts are not the Gottlob Frege direct object of knowledge. Concepts are the 1848-1925 means whereby we know things. 6. Frege’s most important legacy is his influence on mathematical logic: predicate calculus, which is the logic of quantification and predication. 7. Frege was a mathematician and his goal was to establish the foundation of 5 mathematics in logic. He believed that mathematics could be demonstrated solely from the laws of logic—and in non-circular manner, not assuming number. 8. Frege is one of the fathers of the birth and development of analytic philosophy. This has major implications for modern philosophy, including Christian philosophy. Analytic approach starts with concepts whereas classical realist starts with reality. 9. Frege wanted to develop a formal language because the linguistic signs of the natural language are ambiguous. We know that words have meaning only in context. Yet even in context sometimes words are still ambiguous. So, what he wants to do is to develop a language in which a sign represents one thing. That way he can communicate the nature of mathematics. 10. Frege developed what is called the Begriffsschrift, “the concept script.” Recovering the Classical God of Christianity: 6 John 1:1-18: The Trinity, the incarnation, grace, truth, and classical theology. 1. 3 Important distinctions regarding Truth and Faith. a. Natural theology/pre-ambles of the Faith. We get natural theology and all of the classical attributes of God from philosophy of nature, which is a higher science than natural science. Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, b. Articles of faith/sacred doctrine. 1) Trinity. 2) Incarnation. 3) Hebrews 11. c. Divine Mysteries. Truths that go beyond philosophical reasoning. 7 2. More principles on the Trinity a. Overview: There is one God. God the Father is God, God the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. They are all distinct from each other. But there is no distinction in the divine essence. We have 3 whos and 1 what. b. The Trinity is an article of faith, sacred doctrine, which no Bible believer has the right to challenge. Why do we believe it? Because of God’s authority. All we can do is put all of the Scripture data together. 8 c. The Trinity cannot be known by philosophical reasoning. All the philosophical reasoning can do is enable us to avoid heresy by noting analogical nature of all of the terms (Father, Son, HS, generation, procession, spiration). d. The Trinity is the foundation of Christianity. We do not have license to tamper with what God tells us. We believe it because God said it. We have faith seeking understanding. We believe it because it is true! 9 e. The Trinity is a mystery in that we do not have direct access to the inner workings in the life of God. God gives us a peak into His inner life, but He does not tell us how it all works. f. You can no more prove the Trinity to an unbeliever than you can prove that Jesus is God. The unbeliever will have to first that the Bible is the Word of God. The one who believes in Christ believes that Christ is God and the one who believes that Christ is God must believe in the Trinity. g. It is our job to believe it and to defend it as we are to defend all truths of revelation—this requires the tools of philosophical realism. We can show that all logical objections to the Trinity fail. 10 h. We are not to be fideists with regard to the Trinity in the manner of Tertullian and Soren Kierkegaard. i. It is God Himself who gives us the power to believe in sacred mysteries.