Lectures in Systematic Theology

Henry C. Thiessen

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781467465939
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología sistemática y ética

Originally published in 1949 and then revised in 1979, this comprehensive introduction to systematic theology has well served countless students and pastors for more than half a century. In this paperback edition it will continue to instruct serious students of the Bible and theology.Following two introductory chapters delineating the nature, necessity, possibility, and divisions of theology, Henry Clarence Thiessen systematically address a wide range of subjects in eight major sections -- Theism, Bibliology, Theology, Anthropology, Soteriology, Ecclesiology, Angelology, and Eschatology. Also included are two specialized indexes for further study -- an Index of Subjects and an Index of Scriptural References that includes over 4, 000 entries.

PART I

THEISM

The term “theism” is used in four different senses. Although only the last of these is really satisfactory, we do well to note briefly each of them.

1. The belief in a supernatural power or supernatural powers, in a spiritual agent or spiritual agents, in one or many gods. This view includes all the various beliefs in a god or gods, whatever their kind or number, and is opposed only to atheism.

2. The belief in the existence of but one God, whether personal or impersonal, whether at present active in the universe or not. This view includes monotheism, pantheism, and deism, and is opposed to atheism, polytheism, and henotheism.

3. The belief in a personal God who is both transcendent and immanent and exists in only one person. This is the Jewish, Mohammedan, and Unitarian conception of God, and is opposed to atheism, polytheism, pantheism, and deism.

4. The belief in one personal God, both immanent and transcendent, who exists in three personal distinctions, known respectively as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the position of Christian theism, and it is opposed to all the other conceptions named. It is a form of monotheism, yet not of the unitarian, but of the trinitarian type. The Christian holds that since all the other beliefs mentioned have a false conception of God, this view is the only true theistic view. This interpretation of the term is the one adopted in this book.

We have shown in the preceding chapter that God has revealed himself and that man is capable of apprehending this revelation. These two facts provide the foundations for theological study. The next two chapters are further clarification and establishment of the theistic world-view.

CHAPTER III

The Definition and Existence of God

In this chapter we shall seek to formulate the definition of God and to advance the significant arguments for the existence of God. Both these subjects are worthy of exhaustive consideration because they are fundamental to all other theological study, but we can only briefly touch on the more important conceptions of God and the more significant aspects of the proofs of his existence.

I. THE DEFINITION OF GOD

Language, too, has its rights, and terms that have been long used to convey a certain specific meaning cannot rightly be appropriated to express an entirely different meaning. Nevertheless, this has very often been done in theological discussion. The term “God” has in recent times been so misused that we need to restore to it its original meaning in the Christian system. Let us look at a few of these misuses, list the biblical names for God, and set forth the theological formulation of the Christian conception of God.

A. THE ERRONEOUS USES OF THE TERM

Both philosophical and theological writers are guilty at this point. For Plato, God is the eternal mind, the cause of good in nature. Aristotle considered him to be “the first ground of all being.” Spinoza defined God as “the absolute, universal Substance, the real Cause of all and every existence; and not only the Cause of all being, but itself all being, of which every special existence is only a modification.” Leibniz says that the final reason of things is called God. Kant defined God as a being who, by his understanding and will, is the cause of nature; a being who has all rights and no duties; the moral author of the world. For Fichte, God was the moral order of the universe, actually operative in life. Hegel considered God the absolute spirit, yet a spirit without consciousness until it becomes conscious in the reason and thoughts of man. Strauss identified God with the Universum; Comte, with humanity; and Matthew Arnold, with the “Stream of Tendency that Makes for Righteousness.”

Let us note also a few more recent abuses of the term. Kirtly F. Mather, a geologist, says God is a spiritual power, immanent in the universe, who is involved in the hazard of his creation. Henry Sloane Coffin says, “God is to me that creative Force, behind and in the universe, who manifests himself as energy, as life, as order, as beauty, as thought, as conscience, as love.” He prefers to say that God has personal relations with us to saying that he is personal. For Edward Ames, God is “the idea of the personalized, idealized whole of reality.” He thinks of God as growing and as finite. So much for non-biblical conceptions of God; we must now turn to the true concept of God.

B. THE BIBLICAL NAMES FOR GOD

The biblical names of persons and places often carry great significance. This is true of the names for deity. One of the most widely used terms for deity is El, with its derivations Elim, Elohim, and Eloah. It is similar to the Greek theos, the Latin Deus, and the English God. It is a general word to indicate deity, and is used to include all members of the class of deity. The plural Elohim is used regularly by the Old Testament writers with singular verbs and adjectives to denote a singular idea. Though it usually refers to God, it can also be used of pagan deities or gods. The compound El-Elyon designates him as the highest, the most high (Ps. 78:35), and El-Shaddai as the Almighty God (Gen. 17:1).

Jehovah or Yahweh is the personal name par excellence of Israel’s God. The term is connected with the Hebrew verb “to be,” and means the “self-existent one,” or the “one who causes to be” (Exod. 6:2f.; cf. 3:13–16). This name is often translated into the English versions by the word “Lord,” often using upper case letters. This name occurs in a number of significant combinations: Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide (Gen. 22:14); Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that heals (Exod. 15:26); Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord our banner (Exod. 17:15); Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord our peace (Judg. 6:24); Jehovah-Raah, the Lord my shepherd (Ps. 23:1); Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness (Jer. 23:6); and Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is present (Ezek. 48:35).

Adonai, my Lord, is a title that appears frequently in the prophets, expressing dependence and submission, as of a servant to his master, or of a wife to her husband. The title, Lord of hosts, appears frequently in the prophetical and post-exilic literature (Isa. 1:9; 6:3). Some take the term to refer to God’s presence with the armies of Israel in the times of the monarchy (1 Sam. 4:4; 17:45; 2 Sam. 6:2), but a more probable meaning is God’s presence with the hosts of heaven, the angels (Ps. 89:6–8; cf. James 5:4).

In the New Testament the term theos takes the place of El, Elohim, and Elyon. The names Shaddai and El-Shaddai are rendered pantokrator, the almighty, and theos pantokrator, God almighty. Sometimes the Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8), who is and who was and who is to come (Rev. 1:4), the first and the last (Rev. 2:8), and the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6).

C. THE THEOLOGICAL FORMULATION OF THE DEFINITION

Because God is infinite, a comprehensive definition giving a complete and exhaustive portrayal of God is impossible. However, we can give a definition of God insofar as we know him and know about him. We certainly can set forth the attributes of God as revealed to man. And further, we can say that God is a being, and then indicate the ways in which he is different from other beings. What are some definitions of God?

Buswell writes, “The best summary of the doctrine of God as taught in the Bible is found in answer to question four of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, ‘What is God? God is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.’”¹ Hoeksema states, “God is the one, simple, absolute, purely spiritual, personal Being of infinite perfections, wholly immanent in all the world, yet essentially transcendent in relation to all things!”² Berkhof defines him in this manner, “God is one, absolute, unchangeable and infinite in His knowledge and wisdom, His goodness and love, His grace and mercy, His righteousness and holiness.”³ For a short and comprehensive definition of God, Strong’s is probably the best: “God is the infinite and perfect Spirit in whom all things have their source, support, and end.”⁴

II. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

It has been shown that God has revealed himself and that man has the ability to apprehend this revelation. We move now to the arguments for the existence of God. They fall into three broad groups.

A. THE BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS INTUITIVE

It is a first truth, being logically prior to the belief in the Bible. A belief is intuitive if it is universal and necessary. Paul writes, “That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Rom. 1:19). He goes on to say, “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen” (v. 20). This information leaves unbelievers “without excuse” (v. 20). Even the most depraved know that those who live in sin are “worthy of death” (Rom. 1:32) and that all men have “the work of the Law written in their hearts” (Rom. 2:15).

History shows that the religious element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one. Religion or a belief system is categorized as one of the universals in culture.⁵ There are in man’s belief everywhere, various forms of religious phenomena and awareness of the supernatural. It may be an abstract form of supernatural power called “mana,” or the true belief in a personal God. Often man’s religion has degenerated because of unbelief. Paul writes that when men rejected God, “they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (Rom. 1:21–23).

The belief in the existence of God is also necessary. It is necessary in the sense that we cannot deny his existence without doing violence to the very laws of our nature. If we do deny it, the denial is forced and can only be temporary. Just as the pendulum of a clock can be pushed off center by an internal or external force, so a man can be pushed off his normal belief in the existence of God. But just as the pendulum returns to its original position when the pressure is removed, so a man returns to his normal belief in God when he is not consciously under the influence of a false philosophy. Hodge says:

Under the control of a metaphysical theory, a man may deny the existence of the external world, or the obligation of the moral law; and his disbelief may be sincere, and for a time persistent; but the moment the speculative reasons for his disbelief are absent from his mind, it of necessity reverts to its original and normal convictions. It is also possible that a man’s hand may be so hardened or cauterized as to lose the sense of touch. But that would not prove that the hand in man is not normally the great organ of touch.⁶

This universal and necessary belief is intuitive. It cannot be explained as the necessary deduction of reason on the ground that the evidence for his existence is so obvious that the mind is constrained to accept it; for only the educated person is capable of this type of generalization, and both agnosticism and atheism are found more frequently among the so-called educated than among the uneducated, who have no training in the art of reasoning. Nor can it be explained as due to tradition simply. We admit that the earlier revelations of God have been handed down from generation to generation, but we do not believe that this is the whole explanation of the belief, for the Bible declares that the law of God is written on the heart of man (Rom. 2:14–16). We also feel that the theory does not account for the strength of the belief in man.

B. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS ASSUMED BY THE SCRIPTURES

We have already shown several times that the Bible regards all men as believing in the existence of God. Because of this, it does not attempt to prove his existence. Throughout the Bible, the existence of God is taken for granted. The Scriptures begin with the majestic statement, “In the beginning God” (Gen. 1:1), and they continue throughout to take his existence for granted. Such texts as Ps. 94:9f. and Isa. 40:12–31 are not proofs of God’s existence, but rather analytical accounts of all that is involved in the idea of God, and admonitions to recognize him in his character of deity.

Not only so, but the Scriptures also do not argue nor prove that God may be known, nor yet do they speculate how the knowledge of God has arisen in man’s mind. Man’s consciousness is aware of the existence of God, and the writers of Scripture had minds filled and aglow with the thoughts and knowledge of him. They wrote with certitude concerning the existence of God to readers who were likewise assured of his existence.

C. THE BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS CORROBORATED BY ARGUMENTS

In approaching the study of the arguments used for the existence of God, the following must be borne in mind: (1) that they are not independent proofs of the existence of God, but rather corroborations and expositions of our innate conviction of his existence; (2) that, since God is a spirit, we must not insist on the same type of proof that we demand for the existence of material things, but only on such evidence as is suitable to the object of proof; and (3) that the evidence is cumulative, a single argument for the existence of God being inadequate, but a number of them together being sufficient to bind the conscience and compel belief. We, therefore, now turn to a brief study of these arguments.

1. The cosmological argument. This argument may be stated thus: “Everything begun must have an adequate cause. The universe was begun; therefore, the universe must have an adequate cause for its production.” The argument is implied in Heb. 3:4: “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” This argument can also be stated as Buswell states it: “If something now exists, (1) something must be eternal unless (2) something comes from nothing.”⁷

That the universe is eternal or that it has been eternally created is held by some. But astronomy shows that there have been great changes in the heavens, and geology that there have been great changes in the earth. All this shows that the present order is not eternal. Furthermore, the existence of the world is contingent, or dependent. Every part of it is dependent upon the other parts and stands in a definite relation to them. Can the whole be self-existent when the several parts that make up the whole are dependent? There is also a succession in the effects. Causes produce effects, but the causes are themselves the effects of something else. There must, therefore, be a first caus...