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21 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Agnosticism |
Literally, "no knowledge" and taken from two Greek terms. Refers to a system of belief in which personal opinion about religious statements (e.g., "God exists") is supended because it is assumed that they can be neither proven nor disproven or because such statements are seen as irrelevant. |
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Arianism |
An early heretical teaching about the identity of Jesus Christ. The central characteristic of Arian thought was that because God is one, Jesus could not have also been truly God. |
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Canon |
Literally meaning "standard" or "rule," the term is most closely associated with the Scripture that functions as the rule or standard of faith and practice in the church. |
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Catechism |
The process of teaching the basic Christian beliefs and the contents of the Scriptures either to a child who is raised in the church or to a new convert to Chrisitianity. |
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Creed |
Derived from the Latin credo (I beleive), a creed is a summary of Christian faith and beleif. |
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Trinity |
The Christian understanding of God as triune. Trinity means that the one divine nature is a unity of three persons and that God is revealed as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. |
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Equivocal |
In semantics (the study of the meanings of words) the term is used to identify words that have more than one possible meaning. This is in contrast to univocal words, which have only one possible meaning. In theology a term is said to be equivocal if it means something quite different when used of God than when referring to humans or something else in creation. |
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Fides quaerens intellectum |
Literally, "faith seeking understanding." The phrase oringinated with Anselm in his Prologion and was used to show the relationship of religious faith to human reason. |
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Gnoticism |
An early Greek religious movement of broad propotions that was particularly influential in the second-century church. Gnostics believed that devotees had gained a special kind of spiritural enlightenment, through which they had attained a secret or higher level of knowledge not accessible to the uninitiated. |
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Homoousios |
literally, "same in substance" was used by Athanasius and others to argue that the Son derives his substance from the Father and hence shares the same substance as the father. |
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Imago Dei |
A term describing the uniqueness of humans as God's creatures. Theologians differ on what the image of God actually refers to, but most agree that the image is not primarily physical. Instead the imago Dei may include the presence of will, emotions and reason; the ability to think and act creatively; or the ability to interact socially with others. |
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Immutability |
the characteristic of not experiencing change or development. Certian understanings of God posit the divine reality is incapble of change in any way. |
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Infallibility |
the characteristic of being incabaple of failing to accomplish a predetermined purpose. In Protestant infallibility applies to scripture. In Catholic it also applies to the teaching of the church (dogama, pope). |
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Modalism/ Sabellianism |
the trinitarian heresy that does not view father, son and spirit as three "persons in relation" but merely as three modes or manifestations of the one divine person of god. |
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Ontology |
the branch of metaphysics concerning with the nature of being. Essential nature. |
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Pantheism |
"Everything is God" the belief that God and the universe are essentially identical. Is the designation for the understanding of the close connection between the world and the divine reality found in certain religions, including Hinduism. Goes as the soul of the universe which is thought to be gods body. |
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Patristic |
a term pretaining to the first few centuries of the church after the NT was written or to the early church fathers or the writers of that period. |
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Sovereignty |
The bibilical concept of God's kingly, supreme and legal authority rule over the entire universe. |
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Theodicy |
a response to the problem of evil in the world that attempts logically, relevantly and consistently to define God as simutaneously omnipotent, all-loving and just despite the reality of evil. |
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Univocal |
the idea that a word carries the same meaning when applied to God as it does when predicated of something in creation. |
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Doctrine |
theology speaks about an organized set of Christian teachings. Gives us a picture of Christian faith. |
