Christian Doctrine FINAL life from the father

• Life FROM the Father
• Death IN the Son
• Resurrection BY the Holy Spirit

• the truth
• draws from Christian sources like scripture, tradition, worship, etc.
• dying in America

• folk religion: false beliefs carrying on from prior generations (i.e. Heaven being a bodiless place)
• Constantinianism: fusion of church and state (US no longer looks like this)
• how our culture embraces Christianity (i.e. Christmas, superstition of 13)

• if being a Christian "works" for us, we do it; if not, we stop 
• God wants us to do what is 'right' and 'good'

• Freud/Nietzsche: belief in god destroys human freedom 
• Marx: belief in god allows exploitation of the weak
• Feuerbach: god is an ideological projection of our personal values
• Durkheim: God is a symbol for our groups

• God is hidden/unknown unless He chooses to reveal Himself to us because He is so different from us 
• we can only see God on the cross--the one place we can see God is the one place we need eyes of faith to notice Him

• Definition: self-disclosure, revealing; a gift
• special revelation: what God has shown to particular people at particular times 
• tradition: Knowledge of God is to be mediated therefore there is evangelism

all of our definitions of God fall short, so we describe Him in terms of what He isn't

• every word for God is an analogy
• we speak of Him but only a way that brings Him down (he is more than notions from our world)
• ex: God is love, God is Big

names a set of relationships that show the universe to be the work of our trustworthy God

• polytheism: the universe has many causes and powers
• dualism: two opposing powers created and control the universe (light like and darkness)
• both have a violent view of creation

• Pantheism: the world is all god therefore the universe is self-caused (we are Gods), no external force
• Atheism: no god 
• believe that good and evil must be two opposites instead of a lack of one

• Platonism: God forms a pre-existing universe and respects its limits (not involved), he came after and tried to mold it but has limits
• Process Theology: both god and the universe are imperfect and as time progresses they are constructing one another to become more perfect

God caused the universe from nothing "formless and void". He spoke it into being "let it be"

• What comes from the creation of the universe. God ordered, formed, and detailed the unformed (tohu a bohu).
• i.e. we are made from something but God still made us?

God who was evil created something evil and Jesus came to repair it. Creator God is inferior to a higher God (Jesus, the savior)

• God made the overall rules of the universe but just kind of let it play out
• god wrote the laws of physics that made species. God is a designer/legislator instead of executive.

• Providence; God's continuing renewal, maintenance and care for creation
• God isn't just creator--He is redeemer, completor, sustainer, and perfector of the universe

• creation is unfree--God is simply the puppeteer
• this is not the same as predestination.
• - God completely controls our lives.

God has no sustaining relationship with creation--he merely created (like a watchmaker)

name's the purposefulness of the work of God's willed and shared creation

• creation points us towards a new future.
• If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation

• Jesus is fully human
• Jesus is fully divine
• Jesus is one person
• heresies are compromises to any of these three affirmations

• not much in the NT about Jesus as an actual human
• jesus is the last adam: sin leaving humanity through one human. redeemer
• people at first rejected bodily resurrection because they believed bodies were evil 
• Jesus is STILL human--this is how He intercedes
• Jesus' resurrection is a model for humanity's eternity- first fruit

• Surface Indicators: one line "proof texts"
• Deeper Indicators: narrative roles and acts of Jesus (walking on water, calming storm, etc)
• Deepest Indicators: Pervasive worship practices (using OT scripture in NT worship songs)

• Hypostatic Union: the word becoming flesh
• In Christ, Divinity and Humanity are: without confusion, change, division, or separation (Chalcedon's uncompromising compromise)

• metaphysical dualism: the body is two parts, soul+body and who we are is the soul. 
• reductive physicalism: we are just chemicals
• nonreductive physicalism: we are chemicals but our whole processes are what make us different from other creation (not reduced to chemical reactions)
• We have the power for reasoning and speaking
• We have bodies
• We can contemplate God and ourselves

• does society as a whole image God?
• collectivism/individualism is not how the bible says it
• we exist in relational circles: church, families, etc.
• you are who you are because of other people

• vocation: cultivators of creation
• Appointed representatives of God (shown in Israel's covenantal fellowship with God)
• Humanity enjoys unique relationships with: God, each other, creation, and ourselves

• official faculties: royal authority over creation, loves God and neighbor with all his strength
• social faculties: justice, humility, appointment of apostles, loves God and neighbor with whole heart
• Personal faculties: character (integrity, peace, insight), loving God and neighbor with all his mind

"Systematic reflection on and articulation of, the fundamental beliefs we share as followers of Jesus Christ." -Stan Grenz

• Hellenistic: Souls are inherently immortal
• Traditional Position: humanity was created as able not to die
• Recent Revision: death was original to God's good plan

• what really happened in Jesus' life because His followers who wrote about Him are biased
• but, this biased way is how Jesus wanted His followers to know Him

• Stage I: up to three years, sponsorship by more experienced believers, exorcism, process of proving yourself
• Stage II: 40 days before Easter, instruction, prayer, exorcism, scrutiny
• Stage III: Holy week, triple immersion, apotaxis: turning away from false, syntaxis: turning towards good

• Life from the Father: we serve the father, not just call Him lord, praying lords prayer, keeping ten commandments and other rules for His glory
• Death in the Son: we follow the son for sake of Father, through worship, contemplation, mission, discipleship
• Resurrection By the spirit: we abide in the Spirit, spiritual disciplines, cardinal v. theological virtues, etc., draw life from remaining in the spirit

• Antiochian
• compromise divinity

• Alexandrian
• compromise humanity

• Jesus is just another special prophet, chosen by God to benefit from his Grace.
• Other practices: Islam, Unitariaism
• Functional: Churches which over emphasize Jesus as teacher

• Jesus becomes divine at baptism
• Mormons
• sonship is reduced to obedience
• Functional: churches who are overly legalistic bc like adoptionism it shows you have to gain divinity/salvation

• Mary only mothered the human part of Jesus
• If Mary didn't bear God then neither did the cross
• Eastern Churches are Nestorianists
• no division just distinction in two natures
• consequences: we only have a relationship with jesus as a human. can lead to adoptionism.

• (Docetism=disguise)
• the body of Christ wasn't real but merely an appearance (poser)
• Gnosticsm, Jesus is like Clark Kent
• Functional: churches who refuse to talk about the awkward parts of Jesus' humanity (aka He had a sex drive), only focus on divinity.
• consequence: excludes Jesus' commonality with us

• Jesus is fused together as divine and human and becomes a new creation (competitive natures) (less humanity than divinity)
• This doesn't work because infinity plus finity is one and divinity would compromise humanity
• Sufism or Buddhism
• People who are 'spiritualistic' can be monophystists

• Divine mind planted in a human body
• did Jesus die or just his body? what does our resurrection look like?
• churches where Jesus couldn't have had any unsinful flaws are apollonarianists (aka people who think Jesus must be able to run a .1 minute mile)

• Jesus is the first creation
• Jesus mediates as a "third party"- not a member of either
• God the father was uncreated and God the son was created and then adopted.
• That makes jesus lower than the father
• Jehovah's Witnesses

• Jesus before 30: obscure life should give us faith that it is ok to not have crazy things happen right away, the ocean changes but people don't notice right away
• Jesus' baptism is the remission of everyone's sins

• Adoptionism: this is where jesus becomes divine
• classical christology: baptism is simply revelation and nothing more 
• spirit christology: a new human relationship with the holy spirit begins here

• empower of Jesus' baptized followers
• The father is God who sends, receives, guides
• The Son is God's heir
• The Spirit is the fire of God

• Father: Jesus calls God the father, Jesus does His will
• The Son: Jesus calls Himself the only son, the heir, believers confess Jesus is Lord
• Holy Spirit: proceed from father, conceives Jesus,

• God is one: being, substance, essence
• God is three: persons, subsistence, way of being
• God is NOT: one person, form, part, beings, members, people, entities, forms

• Modalists have God as one source with three roles (creator, redeemer, sanctifier) 
• personhood describes a role
• roles are only a response to sin which negates the trinity

• three mirrors turned in on one another
• you see the others in terms of each other

• filoque: double procession
• the spirit is from the father and the son
• persons' distinction is relational

God is not triune it is just how he chose to act

God is not involved on the cross

Israel already understood the spirit that is why it isn't talked about as much

• Giver of Life: Spirit before us (gives us life in conception,new creation, baptism)
• Lord: stands over us (allows us to bless people, perform miracles, heal)
• Spoke through the prophets: rests upon us (anoints certain people for certain tasks)
• Proceeds from the Father: dwells in us (gives us contemplation, discernment)
• From the son: spirit flows into and through us (we receive the spirit for new life but also pass it along)