Godology - God Part 1

I know I've kept you waiting...you're probably in suspense to find out what out last Godology lecture was about. :)

THEOLOGY PROPER - THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
I know, I know...big words.

According to Pat, we will be spending a few weeks on this topic. I'm excited. I love learning and to learn about something new is just icing on the cake. **sidenote: by "new" I mean stuff I was just expected to know, but never really learned, just acted like I did**

There are several false views of God in our world; many of which I had heard of, but was never really sure what their views were.

Atheism is the denial of God. Not knowing God and denying him...complete denial that God even exists. There are two types of Atheism, 1) absolute - absolute denial of God (with a moral twist: if there is no God, I can do whatever I want with no eternal consequences) 2)practical - denies God's existence with their actions, not verbally.
Agnosticism - not complete denial, there could be a god or there may not, just not enough proof.
Polytheism - belief in many gods (think Hinduism, Greek and Roman mythology)
Pantheism - belief that god is in everything and everything is god
Deism - acknowledges that there is a god that was the creator, but that's where it ends, denys scripture or anything supernatural, does NOT believe that the creator is also the sustainer

Many people in the world believe that "everything is relative." No absolute truth. This is agnosticism, aka: situational ethics, post-modernism

God CANNOT be proven scientifically...but neither can Lincoln's assassination or any other historical event. In order to be proven scientifically, it has to be re-created. We can't re-create history. We can, however, give reasonable evidence as to why we believe God exists. God has left his "tracks" all over this world for us to see (like deer tracks, you see them, but not the deer...you just know it was there).

There are 4 Major Arguments for the existence of God (General Revelation)
1. Cosmological - only God could have created a universe this great, too many things just right to have been left up to chance or a "big bang"
2. Teleological - everything in this world is ideal for our existence, the order and design of this universe is perfect for humans, the way all our organs and joints work together...only God
3. Ontological - our intuition and reason proves God's existence, even those who have never heard the name of God or Jesus have a need to worship something and explain how we came to exist.
4. Moral - everyone has a general idea of right and wrong and that there must be some form of justice...only God could have established that in ALL humans.

I'm excited to see where we go next in knowing who God is and how we know he truly is God.