Biblical Studies/Christianity/God the father

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God is[edit | edit source]

God is the higher power, worshiped by the majority of people in the world. The Christian God is an infinite and absolute being; a perfect spirit—eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good, the true and righteous Almighty Creator God the Father. Fully addressed as Father in the sense of the doctrine of the Trinity which declares the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as Three Persons and One God. The term persons is not applied in Scripture to the Trinity, but something analogous to the conception of personality seems to be implied in the apostolic statements of the New Testament epistles.

The arguments for the existence of God have been divided into the ontological, the psychological, the cosmological, the teleological and the moral. The ontological argument starts from the idea of God itself and professes to demonstrate the existence of God as a necessary consequence from that idea. The manner in which it was stated by Anselm, in the eleventh century, is this: "God must be thought of as that being than whom none can be thought greater; but this being, the highest and most perfect that we can conceive, may be thought as existing in actuality as well as in thought—that is to say, may be thought as something still greater; therefore God, or what is thought as greatest, must exist not only in thought but in fact." This argument has been presented in other forms. Descartes, while refuting Anselm’s form of the ontological argument, revived it himself in another form. Applying the test of truth which he derived from his celebrated formula—"I think, therefore I am"—that whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to the true and unalterable nature of a thing may be predicated of it, he found on investigating God that existence belongs to his true and unalterable nature and therefore may legitimately be affirmed of God because he is the living one.

Another argument, called the psychological, was adduced by Descartes to prove the existence of God, which, although not the same as the ontological argument, appears to resemble it. It starts from the idea of a supreme and perfect being, but it does not assert the objective existence of that being as implied in its idea, but infers such objective existence on the ground that we could have acquired the idea only from the being which corresponds to it.

The cosmological argument starts not from an idea, but from a contingent existence, and infers from it an absolutely necessary being as its cause. The argument is: Every new thing and every change in a previously existing thing must have a cause sufficient and pre-existing. The universe consists of a system of changes. Therefore the universe must have a cause outside of and before itself.

The argument called teleological is that which is commonly known as the argument from design and has been fully illustrated by Paley in his Natural Theology. It is simply this, that in nature there are unmistakable evidences of the adaptation of means to ends, which lead us inevitably to the idea of some intelligence that planned this adaptation, that is, of God.

The moral argument is derived from the constitution and history of man and his relations to the universe, being based on such considerations as our recognition of good and evil, right and wrong, the cautions received of conscience and the fact that a moral government of the world may be observed. Another argument is based on the alleged fact that a belief in the existence of a supreme being is everywhere found to be implanted in the human breast. This argument is used by Cicero among others, and many thinkers are inclined to give a good deal of weight to it; still it is pronounced by others to be at best only a probable argument, if it may be accepted as valid to prove anything at all. Others argue the existence of God from the manifestations which he has made of himself to mankind, but these, as well as miracles, it is admitted even by Christian theists, may only be accepted as real by such as previously believed in the divine existence, still, the facts of religious history speak of just such divine providence in human affairs as to define the very God in question.

Epistemology: How we know God[edit | edit source]

  • The Names of God


     GOD IN  51  LANGUAGES
Elohim or Eloah               Hebrew Dios                               Spanish Bung                             Polacca
Elah                             Chaldean Deos                         Portuguese Jubinal                               Lapp
Ellah                             Assyrian Diyos                             Tagalog Jumala                           Finnish
Alah               Syriac and Turkish Diet                         Old German As                                    Runic
Alla                                  Malay Dio                                   Italian Istu                            Pannonian
Allah                                Arabic Diou                            Provençal Fetizo                          Zemblian
Orsi           Language of the Magi Doue                         Low Breton Rain                        Hindostanee
Teut                       Old Egyptian Die                                     Irish Brama                     Coromandel
Teuti                            Armorian Gott               German and Swiss Magatal                             Tartar
Tenn                 Modern Egyptian Goed                             Flemish Sire                                Persian
Theos                               Greek Godt                                 Dutch Pussa                           Chinese
Thios                               Cretan God          English and Old Saxon Goezur                        Japanese
Ilos                   Æolian and Doric Goth                             Teutonic Hananim                         Korean
Deus                                  Latin Gut              Danish and Swedish Ginoó                            Visayan
Diex                            Low Latin Gud                           Norwegian Zannar                     Madagascar
Diu              Celtic and Old Gallic Bog                                  Polish Chihowa                       Choctaw
Dieu                                French Buch                                 Slavic Puchocamæ                 Peruvian




God − The SonThe Holy Spirit



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