asses whether the fall completely removed all human knowledge of God

introduction

• the fall was a pivotal moment for christians whereby many theologians such as augstine and barth claim that the imago dei and relationship between God and humainty was destroyed thus KOG has been completely removed

• on the other hand, theologians such as brunner and aquinas take a differing opinon suggesting the fall did not remove all KOG since humans were not that badly corrupted

• therefore it is clear that the fall has not removed all human knowldge of God because although humainty is corrupted, this isnt to extent that natural knowledge of God was enterily removed

para 1 → barth and brunner debate. barth supports the beleif that the fall completely removed all human KOG

A= the fall completely destroyed human imageo dei leading to the distortion of human nautre

A = no KOG through natural theology only through the bible

A= point of contact is destroyed…. human reason should not be put that of above God

C= brunner KOG can be gained naturally by humans

C = the fall hasnt completely removed all human knowledge, only the matieral imageo dei was destroyed, the formal wasnt, so we can know God on a spiritual level

C = although there is still a limit at to what humans can know, KOG of God hasnt been completely removed as by using for example natural theology of the beauty of the earth we can gain KOG

para 1 → evaluation

• overall, the fall hasnt fully removed all of human nature, so we can know to an extent

para 2 → augustine and OG sin has destoryed all human knowledge

A= the fall in gensis led to OG sin which is ‘seminally pressent in the loins of adam’

A= human nature has been to far corrupted , which has led to a full removal of God since the point of contact has been destoryed

A= kog through his grace and revaled theology

C = aquinas acknoledges that there is a limit to the KOG which can be attained due to corruption from the fall

C= however only some parts of human nature was destroyed, our rationalitly and inclination towards the good remains

C= so to some extent humainty does have knowledge of God which is intrisinic to them for example their telos to relfect God

C= does hinder human abilitly however, we musr rationally cultivate

C= only dimishes KOG as reason and knowledge of God is still attainable

para 2 → evaluation

• not compeltely removed by OG sin/ the fall just hindered

para 3 → calvin sesnsus divitus

• C= pressents how the fall has not removed all knowledge of God as we are still able to know God through an innate sense of divine within human natue

• C= so the fall has not effected human abililtly as even those from ‘remote civlisation’ have a rational based beleif in some God

• C= we can use sensus divitus to help devleop revealed theology

• C= the fall hasnt removed all human knowledge

• A = however whether our sensus divitus is relaible is questionable due to human corruption

• A = barth highlights this through idolotarty coming from the misuse of human reason from humans believing that they have the abaililty to know God E.G → nazism

• A= this arrogance of human nature to believe that natural theology is soley able to know God

• A = shows the corruption of humanity

para 3 → evlaution

• although there is some hinderance from the fall which impacts the KOG which can be gained

• however this isnt to the extent where all knowledge of God is removed, through a rational cultivation of natural knowledge, we can overcome the issues such as idolorary which set back human knowledge of God