Who is God (Sunday lesson notes)

Faith and Philosophy, 2023

The question of whether or not God exists matters a great deal to billions of people. The question is taken to be an important question. Theists and atheists agree on this. And the question generates much heat. Much is thought to turn on it. But there is a puzzle about why this should be. First, I clarify the question at issue, distinguishing it from various other issues. Then I reject a number of familiar ideas for addressing this question. Having cleared the ground, I offer a positive suggestion according to which theism is committed to shared essences between human beings and God, plus a dependence relation between those essences. The debate turns out to be one about human nature, in such a way as to make sense of heat generated. After that, a familiar Aristotelian theist view is contrasted with Platonist shared essentialism to the advantage of the latter. Lastly, I consider some religious consequences of the shared essentialism.

P. Antes, A.W. Geertz, m. Rothstein (eds.), Contemporary Views on Comparative Religion in Celebration of Tim Jensen's 65th Birthday (Sheffield: Equinox 2016), 365–374.

International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy., 2016

Christianity is a diverse phenomenon and is more accurately understood not just as a religion that uses communication, but as a mediated phenomenon in which communication is integral to and constitutive of its character. One of the distinctive aspects of Christian communication theory is the proposition that there is a divine being who communicates its character and purposes with humans, and whom humans can in turn communicate to and exercise some influence on. Within this context, the variety of hermeneutical processes discerning the presence and meanings of divine-human and human-divine communication in speech, text, and visual and material media are explored.

This article begins by clarifying the subject in hand. In the Christian tradition, God is publicly identified and named as the triune God. This trinitarian identity of the Christian God is not a matter of speculation but of communal, historical, and linguistic fact. Christians are baptized in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; they worship God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in their creeds they publicly and officially confess that they believe in the Trinity; in their lives they seek to imitate the Son who has brought them to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Identifying God as the triune God clearly narrows the options. The article asks why one should confess and affirm that this God exists. It discusses Trinity and truth; sensus divinitatis and knowledge of God; revisionary natural theology; canonical commitment and epistemology; and divine revelation.

2019

This course examines the religious dimension of human experience; that is, some of the "big questions" that many do not want or even dare to ask before they absolutely have to. It focuses on the issues of God's existence, possibility of knowing and saying anything about God, compatibility of the notions of a loving God and evil in the world, and the understanding of God in major world religions. Course Goals: By the end of this course students should be motivated to think about the God-question with the seriousness it deserves, express their convictions clearly, fairly, and astutely, and respect those who have a different understanding of God.

International journal for philosophy of religion, 1999

In this paper I examine aspects of the personhood of God that emerge in contemporary trinitarian theology. The characteristics of God’s personhood that I assess include the weaving of immanence and economy, freedom and nature, and distinctiveness and community in God’s relational life. The purpose of the discussion is to survey, and critically assess, a broad sweep of approaches to the personhood of God with respect to these woven threads. The breadth of input results both in new insights on these liminal paradoxes and in overarching observations about the wider factors that influence theological discourse. I take note of the importance of postmodernity in undercutting claims to objectivity in theological talk about God and in raising awareness and acceptance of the impact of personal, philosophical and socio-cultural context on our theological stories and claims. This context also encourages a welcoming of the liminal and ambiguous as at the heart of theological experience and discourse.

The Heythrop Journal, 2000

Ever since the Enlightenment, the church has fought a rearguard battle defending Scholasticism. The battle has been lost … The collapse of Scholasticism means that the church today does not have an adequate basis for developing a contemporary systematic and moral theology. 1

2015

A comprehensive, yet concise treatment of the philosophical, theological, and biblical issues related to the nature of God. The essence, existence, and tri-unity of God are set forth in an understandable and clear manner. The book is arranged around the term logos, corresponding to epistemology, ontology, and hermeneutics. Applied to the doctrine of God, logos signifies, "the knowledge of God," "the being of God," and "the communication/ disclosure of God." These principles correspond to St. Thomas Aquinas's three-fold approach to the question of God: "what is God" (we define God by negation, what He is not); "how do we know God" (we know him by His effects); "how do we communicate or explain God" (God is communicated to us by His names, that is, His attributes). The book sets forth two historic arguments for the existence of God: "the Existential Argument," (from the notion of being itself) and the "Ego Sum Argument" (from the knowledge of personal existence).

New Blackfriars, 2013

This article raises the question whether Christianity might itself, at least in part, be responsible for the modern waning of belief in God because of its New Testament teaching, unlike that of the Old Testament, that God is 'love.' After examining whether the Bible does in fact present two incompatible views of God, the article looks at some signs of how the traditional Western view of God might be changing, in response to modern sensibilities. It concludes by considering how it might still be possible to speak about the God of Christianity despite the new cultural conditions of today.