1. According to Athanasius, God's purpose for creating humanity was so that we could know him. Through our being in God's image, we can be made to understand him, and know him.
2. Humanity turned from God by defiling their own souls. They created idols that they loved instead of God. This happened to the effect that we did not know who God was anymore, and we did not know his word.
3. Three ways God makes himself know to us are through nature, through other men, and through the law. I think God has made himself known to me most through nature. I've known that my personality scores show that I am an E.S.F.P. for a while, but I had never really looked at what this showed. E.S.F.P.'s have an acute love for beauty. It can vary between people, but for me I find it in music and nature. I think God has used this affinity of mine to bring me closer to him, because it impacts me more deeply than other things. It's pretty neat.
4. The one way God can restore humanity is through renewing the image of mankind. He has done this by doing away with death and corruption by sending his son to take on our flesh, and to take our sins from us.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Monday, January 25, 2016
Schmemann Free Response
Schmemann has an underlying theme of food throughout this excerpt that brings a visualization that is easy to relate to for us humans. It is very interesting to see how many themes in the bible have to do with food, and I never made the connection between them. Eating and drinking are vital parts of our lives, and I think that is why many themes in the bible have been personified, or shown through food. We can automatically relate to food, and it connects to us because it has been an integral part of our lives. That is why the term "spiritual food" can make such an impact on us. Because we know how much we need (and love) food, so when we relate that feeling to the spirit, it can impact us more deeply, and give us a more clear image.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Chesterton
1. I think that here Chesterton is saying that the universe is not monotonous and boring where everything has an explanation as most modern thinkers believe, but on the contrary, the universe is monotonous because God is strong enough to love repetition, while we are too weak, though we think we are mature. He is also saying that life is not something to be taken as granted, but something that we should be thankful for. We should be thankful for everything in life.
2. The fact that God says every day to the sun when it sets and rises, "Do it again," is something very significant in out understanding of science. We believe that when we age we get more mature, however, this shows that when we no longer enjoy monotony, we are not more mature, but it is a sign of our brokenness. It also shows that the sun is not obligated to rise and set on its own, but that God is the driving force behind it, and if he doesn't want the sun to rise, it won't.
3. I understand the statement that God is younger than we, and we have grown old in our sin is completely accurate to our lives. I think we have set artificial standards in our sinfulness of what it means to be mature, but when we are children, and we have no knowledge of these artificial boundaries, we can find joy in monotony just like God does, so in a sense he is younger in his spirit than us.
4. Chesterton's view of the world is a point of view that I have never really thought about. It is so easy to slip into the worldview of our society today and say that there are no supernatural forces, and that everything happens according to its own will. I never thought about the fact that God every day repeats the same functions and never tires of it. If we all trained ourselves to think like Chesterton does, I think we would all be much more grateful for every day, and all the blessings in life.
2. The fact that God says every day to the sun when it sets and rises, "Do it again," is something very significant in out understanding of science. We believe that when we age we get more mature, however, this shows that when we no longer enjoy monotony, we are not more mature, but it is a sign of our brokenness. It also shows that the sun is not obligated to rise and set on its own, but that God is the driving force behind it, and if he doesn't want the sun to rise, it won't.
3. I understand the statement that God is younger than we, and we have grown old in our sin is completely accurate to our lives. I think we have set artificial standards in our sinfulness of what it means to be mature, but when we are children, and we have no knowledge of these artificial boundaries, we can find joy in monotony just like God does, so in a sense he is younger in his spirit than us.
4. Chesterton's view of the world is a point of view that I have never really thought about. It is so easy to slip into the worldview of our society today and say that there are no supernatural forces, and that everything happens according to its own will. I never thought about the fact that God every day repeats the same functions and never tires of it. If we all trained ourselves to think like Chesterton does, I think we would all be much more grateful for every day, and all the blessings in life.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Incarnation
For Jesus to become incarnate means that he lowered himself from his supernatural essence to human flesh. He became human. I think that this means that God has very strong affection for us (his creation) to let his son enter into our flesh, suffer with us, and take our sins from us. It is a true display of his love. This means that humanity is a race of beings that is very loved by God. He loves us so much that he would send his own offspring to be our savior. The fact that he saves us to begin with is a great extent of love, but that he uses his son shows how much he cares for humanity.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Tozer Ch. 22 & 23
1. I think that Tozer links God's sovereignty to his freedom to say that He is sovereign because of his freedom. God being free means that he can do anything he pleases at any time, and it will be perfect. That is the embodiment of his sovereignty because to be completely sovereign, he must have complete freedom. We are not sovereign because we are nowhere near completely free, so anything we try and put into action is immediately potentially subject to imperfection.
2. The analogy of the ocean liner is very helpful to me to understand our free will in relation to God's sovereignty. It is almost like there are different levels on which things are happening. To us, our lives seem like all there is (which would be the crew on board), and we are free to go about our lives as we please. However, what we cannot see is that we are aboard God's ship, and we cannot change its course or action, but we can still live our own lives on a smaller level.
3. I agree with Tozer on all of the points that he displayed in this chapter. Many of the ideas he stated are parts of the creeds that we recite at church and in chapel. Many of them are held truths of the church. I think that the most necessary point he makes is that there must be an utter committal of the whole life to Christ in faith. This is one of the biggest steps we must make in our spiritual journey, and I think that this is a condition that is something to be striven after our whole lives. As Jesus commands us, we are to "take up our cross and follow him."
2. The analogy of the ocean liner is very helpful to me to understand our free will in relation to God's sovereignty. It is almost like there are different levels on which things are happening. To us, our lives seem like all there is (which would be the crew on board), and we are free to go about our lives as we please. However, what we cannot see is that we are aboard God's ship, and we cannot change its course or action, but we can still live our own lives on a smaller level.
3. I agree with Tozer on all of the points that he displayed in this chapter. Many of the ideas he stated are parts of the creeds that we recite at church and in chapel. Many of them are held truths of the church. I think that the most necessary point he makes is that there must be an utter committal of the whole life to Christ in faith. This is one of the biggest steps we must make in our spiritual journey, and I think that this is a condition that is something to be striven after our whole lives. As Jesus commands us, we are to "take up our cross and follow him."
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