Quiz 3 UFDN3100

According to McGrath, "proofs" of God's existence are of little help in understanding God.

F "Proofs" such as those of Thomas are not meant to prove God's existence to an unbeliever, but rather to explain what God is like for those who already believe in God's existence. Christian belief is "faith seeking understanding," as put by Anselm, and not understanding that leads to faith.

According to McGrath, "faith" is best defined as a "weak form of knowledge."

F Especially in the wake of Enlightenment rationalism, many believe that valid knowledge is based upon that which can be proven or demonstrated using reason (sometimes called "positivism"). Faith was therefore thought of as belief in something that cannot be proven or demonstrated. But this downplayed the complexity of the biblical notion of faith, which comes closer to meaning "trust" in something. Further, more contemporary thought in many disciplines of study has posited that all knowledge, even scientific, is based upon some sort of trust, some sort of unquestioned belief, some sort of faith.

According to John Calvin, faith is believing that God exists.

F For Calvin, faith is knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, based upon the promises of God in Jesus Christ as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Knowing that God exists does not indicate faith. Scripture makes the point that even "demons" know that God exists (James 2:19).

According to Martin Luther, faith is assenting to the historical existence of Jesus Christ.

F For Luther, faith is not just intellectual acceptance of the events described in the Bible, but rather a personal connection to those events.

According to McGrath, God's existence can be proven using reason.

F God's existence lies beyond the realm of human reason and therefore cannot be described by that reason. However, while God's existence cannot be proven using reason, God's existence can be shown to be not contrary to reason, and for many the dictates of reason can certainly point to or suggest the existence of a God.

According to Pope John Paul II, the study of philosophy is useless to those who are thinking about God.

F The Pope said that philosophy is a noble task that can help us to think, though it alone cannot lead to faith. Rather, faith and reason together help us to see truth.

According to thinkers such as John Polkinghorne, though philosophical or scientific arguments cannot prove the claims of faith, they can give hints concerning those claims, and can corroborate those claims.

T Faith is not rational certainty, but it also is not "blind" faith. In other words, faith is based on knowledge and experience and reason. There are lots of things in the world that suggest God is there; see Paul's sermon on the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17). God is beyond reason, but does not contradict reason.

According to Martin Luther, faith is not just agreeing to the truth of God's existence, but also trusting God.

T For Luther, faith is not just believing the truth of God's existence, but also trusting God. You do not just believe in the existence of the chair in which you are sitting but also trust that it will hold you up. Thus the power of faith is not based upon the strength of this trust, but rather in the strength of the object of trust. The power of faith is based on how strong that faith is, but rather is based on the strength of the object of faith, namely God. Therefore, faith in God - no matter how strong or weak - has the same efficacy for all people.

According to Martin Luther, faith produces union with Christ.

T In that union, there is a "wonderful exchange" where we take on Christ's love and salvation, and Christ takes on our sin and shame. As said by Philipp Melanchthon, "To know Christ is to know his benefits." In faith, we are joined with Christ and partake of God's love.

According to McGrath, William Paley's idea that the world displays intelligent design - akin to a watch giving evidence of a watchmaker - has been challenged with alternate explanations for the complexity of the universe.

T Many, including Charles Darwin, have given alternate theories to account for the complexity of naturally occurring phenomena.

According to McGrath, thinkers have used reason to attempt answering the question of how a good God can allow evil and suffering.

T McGrath gives examples of how Irenaeus, John Hick and Alvin Plantinga have all tried to use reason to explain how both God and evil can exist. For Irenaeus and Hick, good and evil are necessary in order for humans to be formed. Plantinga believes that God has created free will because it is a moral good, and that our choice of evil is not God's responsibility. An attempt to rationally answer what is sometimes called "the problem of pain" is called a "theodicy," which means a justification of the existence of God in the face of the existence of evil.

According to Blaise Pascal, we understand God not merely with our head but also with the heart.

T Pascal said that the God of logical proofs is not the God of the Bible. God cannot be proven, or disproven. We believe in God because God answers an existential need, one "felt" or experienced, the realm of the "heart."

According to McGrath, Jürgen Moltmann and Dietrich Bonhoeffer do not try to explain why God allows suffering, but they do try to explain God's posture toward/with us in the face of suffering.

T These two theologians do not offer a theodicy per se, but rather try to help Christians know how to cope with the existence of evil and suffering. Moltmann says that a God who does not share in our suffering is deficient, and therefore God chooses to be with us in the midst of our tribulations. Bonhoeffer says that God shares in our suffering, and that the Church is the continuing suffering of Christ in history, a suffering in which we share.

According to McGrath, Thomas Aquinas used "Five Ways" to illustrate the intelligibility of God's existence.

T Thomas reasoned that since God created the world, then that world must contain many analogies of its creator. Thus he used rational observations to show the commensurability between the way the world works and the existence of God. Thomas constructed arguments - such as the "teleological argument" and the "cosmological argument" - that postulated God as the source of things like movement, causation, creation, existence, etc. While these were not proofs of God, they were "pointers."