THL-1050 – Professor Ruscil
04/01/2009 – 16:30
Test (Mon – 20 Questions - 10 T/F & 10 Mult Choice + Bonus):
Foundational myth handout, all the *tologies (There is a lot of material in this category!)
- Reforming our imagination
- Science and Original Sin
- Evolution Evil & Original Sin (something like that)
Dualism
- Christians in the know
Panentheism
- Mystery of Suffering Evil
- Thinking about God
Dead Sea Scrolls, Q Document, Gospel of Thomas
Redaction criticism, “what is unique about the document in comparison to others?”
source criticism
Resources & Authors, introductions to gospels, introductions to the new testament, dictionaries of the bible, etc.
See the back of the 1-pg handout for a list of authors to check out, make sure the dates are as late as possible, since many of the sources from the ‘50s and ‘60s are outdate now.
Panentheism
Traditional Approach
· Since the Enlightenment, miracles are based on causality –
· Criteria: cause and effect (all unexplainable events must be a miracle, wherever science can’t give an explanation, it must be miraculous).
Critiques:
· Based on causality; knowledge of science
1. Sets up an either/or scenario – God becomes little more than a physical cause – God’s direct intervention
2. An unexplained event does not/shouldn’t warrant the conclusion of God’s intervention (Creates a “God of the Gaps”)
3. Miraculous cannot be statements of fact but rather statements of faith
Contemporary Approach:
Panentheism – God is omnipresent
· Miraculous events are concrete, historical manifestations of the self-giving of God, which is always already intrinsic to the world
· Miracles are like getting a very minor glimpse of what God’s already doing, kind of analogous to radio waves which are always there, but not heard until a radio tunes into them
· The criteria for a miracle: Not about the empirical, is more about the religious meaning of an event
· God’s actions are always mediated (I can only work through you) – God’s actions take place through people, through events, even through things. The physical is permeated with the transcendent
· Rather than either/or scenario, this sets up a both/and scenario – God works through the natural, physical processes
· Two simultaneous causes
1. God is always primary cause
2. But works through secondary causality (what we refer to as the laws of nature, physics)
· God’s actions are going to have the appearance, on the empirical level, of common, ordinary events.