Incommunicable Attributes - What's In A Name?
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Attributes
Attributes
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
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God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
What is the difference between communicable and incommunicable attributes?
How does the revelation of the divine names throughout inform us about God?
Why is understanding the attributes of God important for Christians?
What is the best strategy to ensure that people are uninformed about the God who exists?
How do you respond to someone who claims that the supposed orthodox understanding of the incommunicable attributes of God are the products of Hellenistic philosophy?
Divine Simplicity
Divine Simplicity
Describe this attribute
An infinite spirit, God is not made up of different parts; his attributes are identical with his being.
How do the many versions of modern Christian corrupt this doctrine?
How should we think of texts in the Bible that appear to have God changing?
God is the sum total of his attributes: True or False
Analyze this statement: God is Love. Whatever else God is, God is first and foremost, love.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Provide a biblical text that proves divine simplicity
Divine Aseity
Divine Aseity
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Describe this attribute
Describe this attribute
Latin: a (from) se (self)
Self-existence
Ex
While aseity only expresses God’s self-sufficiency in his existence, independence has a broader sense and implies that God is independent in everything: existence, perfections, decrees, and works.
Name one theological system, when taken to its logical extreme, contradicts this doctrine.
Analyze this statement: God created us so that he could have fellowship with us.
How does causative faith compromise God’s independence?
Analyze: Pilate could have released Jesus and refused to crucify him.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Provide a biblical text that proves divine aseity
Immutability
Immutability
The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
How do you respond when someone uses this text to argue that God changes and even does not know the future?
“Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. “But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end.
Isn’t this an obvious and clear contradiction?
How does dispensationalism, if taken to its logical extreme, compromise or contradict the doctrine of divine immutability?
How do you pray for the non-elect if God’s decree is immutable?
Define process theology and analyze it in light of divine immutability
Your friend who is a young Christian tells you that he thinks God changes his mind about things and will move to answer our prayers if we really believe. How would you respond?
Provide a biblical text that proves immutability
Impassibility
Impassibility
Define the doctrine of divine impassibility
Incapacity for being overwhelmed by suffering.
The idea is that God cannot suffer.
Are God’s energies the best way to describe God’s actions? Such as God was angry?
But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.
I prefer to say it this way: God’s dispositions or attitudes do not change. To shift from God’s favor to God’s anger is not a shift in God but a shift in us. God’s attitude never changed. Our behavior shift us to a different divine attitude.
How does evangelical Marxism compromise divine impassibility?
Analyze this statement: God suffers with us. God needs our help to overcome the oppressors. God hurts when we hurt…he suffers with us.
Provide a biblical text that proves impassibility
Eternity and Omnipresence
Eternity and Omnipresence
Define eternal
Isa 41
“Who has performed and accomplished it, Calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’ ”
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him; The number of His years is unsearchable.
What is time?
Time is best understood as a mode of existence.
Provide a biblical text that proves eternity
Omnipresence
Omnipresence
Describe the doctrine of omnipresence
Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?
“However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says:
How does deism contradict omnipresence?
2 Chron.
“But who is able to build a house for Him, for the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? So who am I, that I should build a house for Him, except to burn incense before Him?
Who should we understand being cast out from the presence of God?
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
How could Arminianism compromise divine omnipresence?
Explain how the Son of God exists today in relation to divine omnipresence
Provide a biblical text that proves omnipresence