CLFM: tues 9.25.07

Christian World view
A personal, all powerful, creative God exists and always has

1. He is infinite and personal, transcendent and immanent, omniscientm sovereign, and good
2. God created the world ex nihilio (out of nothing) to operate with uniform cause and effect
3. Humans are created in the image of God
4. He communicated with humand through general revelations (creation) and special revelation(Jesus, the Bible)
5. Humans created good, but through the fall, the image of God became defaced
6. Death is either gate to life or eternal seperation from God
7. Ethics are transcendent and based on the character of God
8. History is linear
SOURCE OF AUTHORITY: the Bible as interpreted by the church historically, and the power of God as experienced through the church historically.

KEY QUESTION: Who is Jesus?
-Matthew 16:13-16 (adventure mountain: who do YOU say i am? You are the LORD son of the living God)

The central, audacious, core Christian belief: Jesus is fully God and fully human
-Transcendant-far away and holy God
-Immanence-the close and near God and people see him without dropping dead

Jesus' indirect claims to divinity:
1. Able to forgive sins
2. Will one day judge the world
Direct claims:
1. If you recieve him, you recieve God
2. If you see him, you've seen God

-OT stresses God's transcendence
-NT stresses God's immanence
-Have to understand transcendence to understand radial concept of immanence

Four central themes of the gospel:
1. Created
-Gen 1:26
-Implications of being in the image of God
-Created for freedom
-Called to be creative
-Called to be in community
2. Fallen: The causes of sin
-Ignorance: Ephesians 4:18
-Error: Isaiah 53:6
-Inattention: Heb 2:2-3
-Lack of Trust
-We are marked by sin (Mark 7:20-23)
-We are enslaved to sin (John 8:34)
-We expereince the consequences of sin
-Our relationships with God and other people are broken
3. Redeemed
4.Restored


Five traditional understandings of the image of God
1. Anthropomorphic
2. Prototype
3. Dominion
4. Ethical and cognative
5. Societal