The belief that God can only be described in the negative. 

Examples include Infinite, Immutable, Immortal. 

God can only be know positively through spiritual experience rather than through rational expression. 

• This refers to the Trinity in relationship to the world.  
• It looks at how God, as a tripersonal being, relates to the world. 
• This provides the biblical context for understanding how the persons of the trinity relate to each other.  

A Latin term meaning "and the son".  It was added to the description of the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed in the 6th century. 

This caused the church to split into West (Rome) and East (Others) in 1054 because previously all decisions had been made by the church collectively and this one was made by just the Pope.

This theory says that Jesus of Nazareth was born human but was then adopted by God to become his Son.  

Fails to point to Jesus' eternal relationship with the father as indicated in Scripture.  

Greek for "fellowship" "Communion" or "sharing together" 

This term refers to the community of believers participating in the life of Christ as made possible by the Spirit.  

This is the set of doctrinal formulas presenting the formal position of the Church of England. 

16th century

In response to and in the context of the key controversies of the English Reformation.

3-5th centuries

The emphasized the literal meaning of the Scriptures. 

This was a reaction to the more liberal Alexandrian school which sought a allegorical/moral meaning.  

Key Person: Chrysostom

This is an approach to interpreting the scriptures where it is believed that the modern mind cannot accept the ancient world-view of the Bible, which included belief in demons, heaven, hell and miracles.  The task of interpretation is to identify the ancient "myths" in the text and replace them with modern equivalents.  

Bultmann

20th Century

The Father of Neo-Orthodoxy 

3 Contributions:

1. Transcendence of God
2. Truth arises from clash of opposing ideas (finite with infinite, eternity with time, God with humans) 
3. Christ is at the center

20th century north american movement that wanted to keep a firm commitment to the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith.  

A direct reaction to the increasing influences of "liberal" or "modernist" theology

emphasized the historicity of the miraculous events in scripture. 

5 points:

1. Inerrancy of Scripture
2. Deity of Christ
3. Substitutionary Atonement
4. Bodily Resurrection
5. Literal second coming

The idea that God reveals something about the divine nature through creation.  

it only gives general information about God such as his existence but does not provide knowledge capable of salvation.  

Is available to all humans

18th Century

A great philosopher of the Western Tradition.

His thoughts grew out of the mindset of the enlightenment and emphasized the primacy of reason in the pursuit of knowledge.  

Human knowledge was dependent on the active mind and theology should be conducted from the foundation of our sense of being morally conditioned.  

Jesus is a personified idea of a good principle.

The attempt to summarize the religious truths of a group through an organized system of thought as carried out within a particular cultural context.  

Includes: 

• God and God's revelation
• Creation
• Sin
• Saving work through Christ
• Spirit is agent of personal salvation
• Church is redeemed community
• Christ's return and eternity

An argument that attempts to demonstrate the existence of God by appeal to observation of the world, its objects and its processes

God is the Unmoved Mover (Aquinas) 

An Argument for the existence of God based on the seemingly purposeful order of the universe that suggests the world is the work of a "Master Architect" rather than the result of change

Key person: Aquinas

Key Thinker: Krause

The belief that God's being includes and permeates the entire universe so that everything exists in God.  God's being is greater than but not exhausted by the universe.  

God is affected by events and he can change and grow. 

God is so closely entwined with creation that it's hard to say where God is not. 

The belief that God and the universe are identical. 

God = all existence

God is not distinguishable from nature. 

2nd Century

Followers have gained a special kind of spiritual enlightenment through which they attain a secret knowledge that is not accessible to outsiders.

There is a radical dualism between the spiritual and physical world. The material realm can be seen as evil.  

Latin for "Creation out of nothing" 

The belief is that God created the world without preexisting materials. 

This was in contrast to most Greek philosophers, who understood the creative act as God's ordering of eternally existing materials into the present world or universe.  

This doctrine maintains a clear distinction between God and the created order and also maintains that god alone has eternal status.