The mainstream Christian view of God, which has been so muddied and pulled out of shape in our time, came from the Bible. How then does the Bible present God?
The God of the Bible is the self-revealing Creator acting as Redeemer. The sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments find their unity in this common theme. The Bible’s history books tell how God is carrying through a great plan for the salvation of a vast international community which the New Testament calls the church. Read more
For many centuries ‘theism’ as we have described it was a relatively stable element in the Christian heritage. But today many different conceptions of God are voiced, and many people are unsure what they should believe about their Maker. What has thrown Christian belief in God into such a state of confusion and uncertainty?
In the churches, Christians have neglected the study of God. Other beliefs have been carefully taught, but belief in God is seldom spelt out. So it is no wonder that eccentricities emerge. Failure to cultivate healthy ideas makes it easy for unhealthy ones to grow. Read more
The fathers’ ways of thought and speech about God were overhauled and upgraded in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas. There are three basic principles in Thomas’s theism:
- God is essentially the act of his own existence, pure and simple. God, we might say, is in no respect a passive principle or static essence, but eternally exists as total, inexhaustible, personal energy — a living God, actively forming and ordering everything in his world.
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Confessing God
All the creeds, confessions of faith and doctrinal bases that have ever gained currency in the church have defined theism along the lines already sketched.
If we say we believe in God, we are saying something about ourselves as well: that we are creatures wholly dependent on God the Creator for our existence, our continuance, our circumstances and our destiny. Read more
The New Testament nowhere describes how Jesus was raised to life from the grave. The risen Jesus appeared to a number of people at different times — on one occasion to 500 people at once — but not to everybody. Not even the guards at the tomb saw him risen. What terrified them was seeing angels at the empty tomb. Read more
Books spell the word ‘God‘ with a capital ‘G’. Why? Because ‘God‘ is to all intents and purposes a name: the proper name of the personal Three-inone — Holy Father, Holy Son and Holy Spirit — whom Christians worship, love and serve. ‘God‘ was the English name for the Trinity long before books existed in English.
In our day, indeed for more than a century, the word ‘God‘ has been bent to suit particular Christian view-points. Books of essays have appeared with titles like My idea of God, The God I want — titles that tell their own story. It has even been claimed that God is dead—which has made some recall Mark Twain’s famous cable, ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ Read more
From the day of Pentecost onwards, the resurrection became the focal point of the apostles’ teaching. ‘Then they put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But God raised him from death three days later . . . These are the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
It is worth noting the constant. reference to Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament. Read more
Before Jesus put to his disciples the question Who do you say I am‘?’ he asked them Who do people say I am?’ and they answered One of the prophets’. That is the natural answer. To the Muslim, Jesus is one of God’s messengers. To the Hindu he is one of the jeevanmuktas, who have realized identity with Brahman in this life. To the average man in Europe or North America, where religion is an optional leisure-time activity, he is ‘one of the founders of world religions’. This is the ‘natural‘ answer, for if there is a variety of alleged revelations the natural thing to do is to assume that the truth lies somewhere between or beyond them all. This is natural, because it leaves me free to shape my idea of God as I like. Read more
‘He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.’ What exactly do these words in the Apostles’ Creed mean?
In Eastern or Roman culture, to sit on the right-hand side of the emperor was the same as sharing his political and military power. This role of co-regent was reserved for the eldest son, and his accession to the throne was celebrated as a national festival. Read more
Marxism was born at the time when Protestant theologians were busy in their search for the historical Jesus — a quest very much predetermined by the rationalistic methods and philosophical views of the time. For Karl Marx, ‘criticism of religion has been essentially completed’, and so he shows no interest in the founder of the Christian faith. Read more
