Triune God Final Exam

List the three basic biblical commitments that underlie the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

1. There is only one true God.

2. There are three who are distinct who are identified as God in Scripture.

3. These three are co-equal and co-eternal.

What significance do the OT references to the "Angel of the LORD" have for the doctrine of the Trinity? Notes especially the importance of divine identity as well as the Sender/Sent distinction.

Though distinct from YHWH, this angel bears the same name, power, deliverance, blessing, and honor as He. There is a distinction between the Lord as sender and the angel of the lord as sent.

How does Psalm 45:6-7 indicate self-differentiation within the Godhead?

There are two who are called God.

How does Isaiah 48:12-16 (esp. v. 16) suggest that God is Triune?

The Lord YHWH has sent me, and his spirit.

Note the connection between the progress of redemption and the progressive revelation of God's inner triune life.

The disclosure of God's inner triune life is intimately bound up with the disclosure and accomplishment of his redemptive purposes.

How do the historical/redemptive "missions" of the Son and Spirit in the NT provide a sketch of the eternal relations among the persons of the Godhead?

The going forth of the Son and Spirit in redemptive history seem to indicate something of their relation to the Father as those that are eternally from the Father.

How does baptism disclose the Trinity to us (note Matt. 28:19)?

We are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equipped and blessed for life in the church by all three.

T/F All biblical references to God as "Father" specifically designate the person of the Father in distinction from the Son and Spirit.

False, even the Messiah is called "eternal father".

To what is the Father being contrasted when the NT speaks of him as the one/only true God? The Son? Idols/false gods?

The distinction made to the Father as the one true God is between the Father and the false gods of the Gentiles.

How does John 1:1-4 prove the Word's (Son's) divine identity?

The Word was with God, was God, made all things, and his life was the light of men.

According to Aquinas, what was wrong with the Arian and Sabellian understanding of the procession of the Son and Spirit?

We must distinguish between an "outward procession" which terminates in the world of creatures and an "inward procession" which terminates within the very being of God.

How does Thomas Aquinas use the analogy of intellectual activity to illumine the meaning of procession within God?

We should understand what is said of God from the quality of the highest creatures. Procession is understood by way of a comprehensive emanation, for example, the comprehensive word proceeding from God yet remains in Him.

According to Aquinas, what is the proper meaning of generation?

A change from non-existence to existence.

What does the Word receive from the Father in the act of generation? Does this place him in a position of subordination to the Father?

The Word receives from the Father all that the Father has/is as God, and therefore has the same divine self-existence.

How does Aquinas maintain divine pure actuality and simplicity, on the one hand, and real relations in God, on the other?

By observing that accidentality does not belong to the proper character of relation as such.

According to the lecture notes, what is Aquinas's truly "unique proposal" regarding real relations in God?

The personal relations in the Godhead are real relations properly predicated of God, and yet are not accidents.

T/F Divine simplicity proscribes [i.e., disallows] not only division and composition in the Godhead, but also any distinction.

False

In the Trinity, what are the distinguishing (i.e., constituting) characteristics that differentiate each of the three persons from the other two?

The three persons are distinguished by their relations:

paternity,

filiation,

and procession.

T/F There is no distinction among the divine persons at the level of being or essence.

True

According to Gilles Emery, what problem ensues if one defines the persons just by reason, or freedom, or capacity for autonomous action?

They would not be able to recognize three persons in God, but rather three gods (Tritheism)

T/F According to Gilles Emery, the spiration of the Spirit is an act of procession in God that occurs separately from the generation of the Son.

True

What is meant by the distinction between the "Ontological Trinity" and the "Economic Trinity"?

The distinction between the two is the distinction of God as he is in himself and God as he is revealed to us.

How do the various models of Social Trinitarianism attempt to use the Trinity?

They attempt to use the Trinity as a blueprint for the ideal human society.

Definition of the divine decree

God's eternal plan for all that exists or will happen in time.

According to Ephesians 1:11, what is encompassed by God's will/counsel?

All that exists and transpires.

T/F According to the lecture notes, the plurality within the world requires for its foundation a plurality of really distinct decrees in God.

False

According to the lecture note, if God decrees responses, does it follow that he must decree responsively?

No, one can affirm that God decrees responses while also denying God decrees responsively.

Does an eternal decree necessitate an eternal creature?

An eternal decree does not bring about an eternal creature.

T/F God decrees conditionals but does not decree conditionally.

True

Give a basic summary of Wilhelmus à Brakel's description of predestination.

An eternal, immutable decree that concludes all men in the state of sin, but brings some unto salvation through Christ and grace, while others are damned for their sin to the praise of God's justice.

In what sense does election differ from predestination?

Election specifically refers to those elected for salvation, being used in a stricter sense; all can be predestined, only some are elected.

Summarize Wilhelmus à Brakel's definition of election.

God's eternal, immutable decree to lead specific individuals unto salvation motivated purely by his singular and sovereign good pleasure, and grace.

Summarize Wilhelmus à Brakel's definition of reprobation.

The predestination of some to be punished by God's justice for their sin

How does Herman Bavinck explain the meaning of creation?

The act of God by which He brought the entire world out of nonbeing into a being, distinct from His own being.

According to the lecture notes, what is the chief significance of the doctrine of creation?

The chief significance is religious and ethical, positioning us in the proper relationship to God.

Identity one of the biblical texts listed in the lecture notes that testifies to the narrow sense of creation ex nihilo and indicate how that text establishes such a conception of creation.

Deut. 10:12-14 roots the demand for our obedience in God's right of possession of heaven and earth.

How does Romans 11:36 support the doctrine of creation ex nihilo?

It indicates that all things come from God and through Him.

T/F According to the lecture notes, in creation there is something new in the world and something new in God in that he begins to do what he previously did not.

False

In what sense might we say that God is eternally Creator and that he did not become a Creator?

God is not Creator because the world supplies this reality to Him, rather, the world exists because God wills from all eternity to create it.

Should we think of the absolute Creator-creature distinction as a Creator-creature separation? Why or why not?

No, this distinction would only be a separation if God belonged to the same order of being as creatures. It's because God belongs to a different order of being altogether as Creator that he's able to sustain such an intimate nearness to his creatures.

Be familiar with Louis Berkhof's definition of divine providence.

The work of God which preserves all his creatures, is active in all that transpires in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end.

What is wrong with conceiving divine providence as God's "interference" in the world?

It conceives the world more as a machine that God's put into operation rather than a vessel he pilots.

What is meant by God's providential "preservation"?

Preservation means that nothing exists unless it exists totally, from, through, and to God.

Be familiar with the meaning of providential concurrence.

The work of God by which He co-operates with all His creatures and causes them to act precisely as they do.

Is divine concurrence a cooperation of "collateral" involvement in which God does his part and humans do theirs? Do God and humans distribute the work of causality by percentages between themselves? Why or why not?

No, rather God's initiative precedes the motion of the creature stipulating the creature to a specific object, place, and time.