...Name Institution DOCTRINES IN THEOLOGY DOCTRINES IN THEOLOGY Doctrines can be defined as teachings that are believed in a society. The doctrines of the church are teachings of the scriptures and give answers to fundamental questions of life. “The trinity” and “The full deity and humanity of Christ” are such doctrines. The trinity basically is a belief that God exists in a trio form namely God the father, son and Holy Spirit. The full deity and humanity of Christ refers to the existence of the Son of God in two forms as human and as God. The trinity shows how the attributes of God are shown with the three forms he is. The trinity was a doctrine developed in the early church to answer the frequently asked questions about the nature of God. This was mostly in Arianism in the attempt to protect monotheism. God is believed be three persons in one essence. Theology however explains the trinity as a way of denying the oneness and uniqueness of God. The statement that there is only one God is seriously opposed in the trinity aspect. The doctrine of the trinity plays a major role amongst Christians today. Just as God is three in one, Christians are encouraged to employ the system of togetherness as no man can stand alone. It even presents a better argument that even God is three in one. This is often mistaken making understanding the trinity a hard task for believers. It involves careful concideration of the bibles analysis and faith to understand how God is both one and three...
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...on the Trinity. Robert Bowman noted in his article on Oneness Pentecostals “One’s view of Christ cannot be separated from one’s view of the Trinity. Deny the Trinity, and you will lose the biblical Christ; affirm the Christ of Scripture, the Son who was sent by the Father and who sent the Holy Spirit, and you will find that your God is the Trinity.” According to Bowman without the Trinity one cannot truly Know Christ. Bowmen claim can be supported with Scripture....
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...mysteries of God, one that intrigues the mind is the mystery of the Trinity. The Trinitarian nature of God is founded on the doctrine that there in one God and in him we have three persons. That is, God has one nature but in that one nature there inheres three persons. This makes it hard to understand the Trinitarian doctrine. James Henry Owino Kombo quoting from C. Hall says: the trinity, to use a familiar equation, is viewed as a riddle wrapped up inside a puzzle and buried in an enigma. A riddle for how can any entity be at the same time multiple (three) yet singular (one)? A puzzle for the trinity is so clearly contrary to any rational thought not to warrant a second thought from the sensible people. An enigma, for even if the Trinity could be understood, of what practical value, even what religious value, would it have for the ordinary people? To be able to answer these questions, we look at different understanding of God; in the African context, from the scriptural basis, from theological writers and even the church teaching. This will not only help us increase our understanding of the Trinity mystery, but it will also help us appreciate our faith in the Trinitarian nature of God. 1.0. The African Understanding of God African theology needs to entrench the doctrine of the trinity in its cultural milieu and use of philosophical symbols of the culture to capture the same because the doctrine of the trinity has practical value and intellectual coherence that must benefit...
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...Understanding of God ============================= Muslims and Christians believe there is only one God / Allah. The basic testimony of Islam is called the 'shahada', the first clause of which states that "la ilaha illa Allah" -- "There is no god but God." This is certainly a statement that Christians would affirm. But how Christians and Muslims conceptualize God in their respective theologies is actually quite different. The emphasis in the Islamic theology of God can be summarized by one word: 'tawhid', which means "absolute unity." Muslims insist that there is no distinction within the Godhead. God is sublimely one. Thus the Islamic polemic against Christianity has centered on the doctrine of Trinity. This is the central doctrine that causes problems for Muslims when they consider Christianity. Muslims have caricatured Christians as tritheists guilty of "shirk", that is,...
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...The nature of God and the Trinity Belief in the Trinity is a central tenet of Christianity Christians believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. In other words, God is all-knowing, all powerful and always present. Christians also believe that God is One but embodied in three persons, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit as sanctifier. Belief in the Trinity is a central tenet of Christianity. God's promise of salvation has been fulfilled through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In other words, God is revealed as the trinity. God the Father is revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, God the Son in the Christian scriptures and God the Spirit is revealed through the Church. Trinitarian doctrine This plurality in God is evident in the way Jesus calls God "abba" which means Father. Similarly early Christian practice indicates a liturgical use of this Trinitarian formula, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit". The Trinitarian doctrine states that there are three co-eternal, equal persons in one God. This doctrine was further developed and defined at the councils of Nicaea in 325 CE and Constantinople in 381 CE. The difficulty is reconciling monotheism with the notion of the three persons. The various heresies and the councils which followed reflect a process of refining the understanding of the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the fourth century there was considerable...
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...lofty philosophical discussions in Augustine's Confessions lies a treasure of theological truths and propositions. Indeed, in Augustine's monumental and crowning work, he fuses both personal anecdotes and rational paradigms to formulate masterful theological doctrines, which have vastly influenced the Christian church for well over a millennium. Thus, for Augustine, a solid philosophical framework forms the basis of theology, which individual experience thence enhances and augments. Augustine's discussion of the Holy Spirit throughout the Confessions clearly demonstrates this intricate interplay. Any analysis of the Holy Spirit in Augustine's works cannot be complete without first embarking on...
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...Larry D. McClain March 07, 2014 Introduction There are two distinct aspects of the doctrine of God – one being His nature that consists of things outside of Himself. During this paper, the focus will be on the God’s personality. It will solidify the importance of knowing His personal, Trinitarian subsistence and the impact it could have on your life and relationship with Him. The purpose of this paper is to identify one of the distinctive aspects of the doctrine of God – that being His personal, Trinitarian subsistence and how it could establish one’s relationship with Him. There is a need for this study because most attention is focused on God’s nature, those things outside of Himself. It is first a necessity to know God and have a relationship with Him before one can understand those things outside of Him. This subject warrants a study because some Christians don’t know what they don’t know. Historically, God is implied as to only presenting Himself to some, but in actuality His presence is availed to all. This argument will be expressed in three parts. Those parts being our knowledge of God, the nature of God, and (one) God in Trinity. Let’s first discuss our knowledge of God. Our Knowledge of God The bulk of our knowledge of God is based on our relationship with Him. Most people do not have a personal relationship with God; therefore, their knowledge of Him is very vague. The other two that are most common is His existence and immortality which establishes...
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...Bobbs Lyonga Elive Solomon Polytheism in Christianity, true or false? 11th September 2015 Word Count: 4104 Polytheistic Overtones In The Bible Man was created a worshipper. It is a proven fact that there is a universal belief in God, god or gods in every nation on the face of the earth including the most primitive societies. The reason being that after the fall of man in the Garden of Eden as the bible describes in the book of Genesis, man was separated from His creator and became spiritually dead. With a fallen spirit and a blinded mind, man who was created with an intuitive belief and knowledge of the existence of God was drawn by the religious instinct within him to worship something or someone. Unable to find his creator, man produced deities out of his own imagination to worship. Deities of stone, wood, water, fire, air, sun, moon, stars, mountains, birds, kings, emperors etc. giving birth to several religions, the majority being polytheistic and some are still today. Man missed the object of his worship, worshipping the creation rather than the creator. The bible says “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”(Romans 1:25). God none the less had an elaborate and well-designed plan for the restoration of fallen man. A plan which existed from the very beginning even before man transgressed, to show the fallibility of proponents of Deism that...
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...authority. God, The Holy Trinity God’s nature is evident in His creations. These creations are evidence of God’s existence and wisdom. McGrath explains that, though these are not the sole essence of who our Lord is, they are certainly confirmations. He writes, “It appeals to Paul's sermon preached at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17) in arguing that it is entirely reasonable to infer the existence of God from the wonders of nature and a human sense of divinity within us. These do not count as “proofs”; they are, however, confirmation or corroboration of the basic themes of faith.” But His existence is not easily summed up. In fact, the concept of God as three persons, otherwise known as the doctrine of the Trinity, is a concept not easily grasped. God is one god in three divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19). These three are “distinct yet not divided (distincti non divisi), different yet not separate of each other (discreti non separate)” (McGrath, 123). Again, this doctrine seems like another universal understanding of God. Of course, it is difficult to understand why God is seen this way, especially with so many components. As McGrath cleverly puts it, “if you can fully grasp it, it’s not God.” The concept is something that was instilled in me as a child, when taught prayer without much purpose. “In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit” was a phrase I never put much thought into. The Holy Trinity was better comprehended...
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...Elements of Religious Rona Williams REL/133 May 26, 2014 Elements of Religious Religion is significant to many who believe in the bible and so are all of their religious traditions. In describing the basic components of religious traditions and their relationship to the sacred. It offers many seculars a reason for wanting to live and a comfort of security, The knowledge or awareness’s is the driving force behind the belief of one God a higher power and for some the sacred. I will include what a religious tradition says including its teachings, texts, doctrine, stories, myths, and others, What a religious tradition does including worship, prayer, pilgrimage, ritual, and so forth, and how a religious tradition organizes including leadership, relationships among members, and so forth. Christianity and its teachings was organized Religious tradition is a custom that people of one religion do because it was done for many years by supernatural beings or idols. These traditions are different for each different religion. In studying each religion, it is noted that each has texts, stories, myths, and other traditional aspects that permits others or bible believers read about the traditions of that religion. The Hindu religion is known to be the hardest religion to study and many other texts that tell the stories of the lives of certain high gods, goddesses, and/or heroes. It also explains why we must celebrate certain holidays and how we should celebrate them. Most of...
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...Trinitarian or Arian controversy of the 4th-century Before 318, nearly all positions had been looked at concerning the status of Jesus as the Son of God, all attached to prestigious names—especially those of Tertullian and Origen—all appealing to scripture, tradition, and predecessors. That was the time when even conceptions of a “qualified divinity” of the Son were found adequate to account for the suffering of God. Some thought that no distinctions ought to be found in the Godhead (monarchianism) or that the Son was a mere man adopted by the Father (adoptionism); others thought that he was inferior to the Father (subordinationism); still others that he was fully God. Many more variations on the theme circulated. A doctrinal storm was gathering. The storm broke out in 318 when Arius, a respected Libyan presbyter in Alexandria, began to teach what many thought acceptable in view of the sufferings of Jesus: that the Logos/Son was a mere creature, made from “nonexistence” and had not always existed. Hence he was not quite equal to the Father. The controversy went through episodes of such violence, unfortunately not only verbal violence, that Emperor Constantine, badly concerned with the peace and unity of the estate, called a general council at Nicaea in 325, which he himself attended and which was presided over by his representative and messenger, Ossius, bishop of Cordova. The council proclaimed two main theses, incorporated in the so-called Nicene creed: that Christ had a...
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...The Divinity and Mortality of Jesus One of the important ideas introduced during the course was one that described the divine characteristics of God. Specifically, at least In Christianity, God is noted to have three aspects: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. By having each of those, God is viewed as an all-powerful, all knowing, and all good being. What I want to focus on is God’s son, Jesus. The doctrine in Christianity known as the trinity describes God as being one with Jesus, as well as the Holy Spirit. This union means that Jesus must be a divine being – Jesus is God. Clearly, however, Jesus is also depicted and described as one who is human as well. How can Jesus be both God and a man? How is it that Jesus is seen as having the divine characteristics that are fitting of God, yet has all the characteristics of a mortal? These are the questions I want to focus on and hopefully make some sense out of. Christian theology employs the idea of the Hypostatic union between God and Jesus which means that Christ is in fact one person with two fully complete natures. Jesus is completely human and completely God at the same time. There is no dilution or separation of these qualities. Jesus is simply both with the two distinct natures existing concurrently. However, I find issue with this idea. Is it not contradictory? Jesus obviously takes on the form of a mortal man as evidenced by certain passages in the scriptures. Luke 2:52 says “And Jesus grew in in wisdom and...
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...LIBERTY UNIVERSITY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY The Life of Michael Servetus A Research Paper A Paper Submitted to Dr. Jerry Sutton In Partial Fulfillments Of The Requirements For The Course CHHI-525 History of The Christian Church II BY Andrea Gearing Cumming, Georgia August 17, 2012 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 MICHAEL SERVETUS EARLY LIFE-------------------------------------------------------3 BRIEF SUMMARY OF MICHAEL SERVETUS WORKS-------------------------------6 THE TRINITY AND MODERN SCHOLARSHIP-----------------------------------------9 MICHAEL SERVETUS THEOLOGY------------------------------------------------------10 CONCLUSION---------------------------------------------------------------------------------14 BIBLIOGRAPHY------------------------------------------------------------------------------17 INTRODUCTION The first time I was introduced to Michael Servetus, I was a student at Liberty University. I had never heard of this important figure in History. At any rate, I had begun to find ways to learn more about him. It was on a Wednesday night, one week before the night of my church Bible study that I had to submit a discussion board question of Michael Servetus in church history. I arrived at Bible study with Michael Servetus in my spirit. When I arrived at church my pastors opening statement was: "In 1553, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake for what I am going to...
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...The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical (worldwide) council held by the church, is best known for its creation of the Nicene Creed, the earliest assertive statement of Christian orthodoxy. The council was convened in 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in an attempt to settle the controversy which was raised by Arianism over the nature of the Trinity. It is important to note that Constantine had converted to Christianity and had “called the council together because he clearly had hoped for Christian support in holding his fragile empire together.”1 Held in Nicaea (which is now modern day Turkey), over 300 bishops and non-episcopal Christian thinkers were brought together for the event.2 The council’s major controversy was about determining whether Christ was both human and divine. “The crucial debate centered on the statement that the Son was “of the same substance” (homoousios) with the Father.”3 The predominant idea of Arianism is the unique and superior nature of the singular divine being. At the center of the controversy was a presbyter in Alexandria named Arius. His belief (centered around Proverbs 8:22 which states The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old.) was that the Son was not of the same essence as the Father, that the Son was created by the Father. From this line of thought, he argued that there would be more than one God. Therefore, the Son must be deemed a creature that has been given life from nothing and has had...
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...a heretic . The main root of his unorthodoxy lay in his private rejection of the Holy Trinity, a doctrine essentially every major church accepted at the time. Newton’s deist antitrinitarian thoughts were not unique, however, and he probably did not develop this opinion on his own. Doctor Stephen D. Snobelen discusses the Socinians (or Polish Brethren) in a few of his historiographical articles. They were a Biblicist, antitrinitarian movement in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were viewed in Newton’s time as even more radical than the Arians of the early Christian world. The latter simply, but controversially, believed that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God, but instead of being equal to Him He was subordinate. Socinians spread their beliefs via printed books and pamphlets that spawned from the printing revolution rooted in Europe, and of course Newton acquired some of this reading material, even referencing them in some of his own personal writing . Historians often use Newton’s General Scholium as evidence to display his antitrinitarianism, as he wrote it in response to some critics to the antitrinitarian movement. But that aside it is probably one of top two works credited to him. Newton in this says that he "recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father who created him." He even goes so far as to say that the Holy Trinity is an apostasy and that worshipping Christ as God was idolatry. Obviously this would be...
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