Theism

Theism, God and the Bible: How It All Fits A quick search on the terms theology and theism show a large number of differing definitions and views. There are many other “isms” found alongside theism. Google found terms such as classical theism, open theism, monotheism, process theism, pantheism, and panentheism, along with several others. It does not take long to discover there are many different theories and beliefs involving God. Theism is the belief of the God of the Bible or “belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world” (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, n.d.). Christians, especially in today’s modern world full of competing views, must understand…

Difficulty I was told that this paper should be the easiest paper of my entire college career…I hope to God that this assertion is incorrect. My worldview is a jumbled mess with U-turns and right angles. It does not have a name and it does not really fit into a group, but if I had to call it something, it would be historical Christian Theism. While I do believe in God, I do not have many practices, and I may do things that others would consider contradictory because I do what makes me happy at…

the very nature of God. This essay endeavours to look at the two opposing views and outline the main issues that are being debated. I will then look at why the issues being discussed are important for how we approach theology and Christian living. The two sides of the debate that we will be discussing are made up of those supporting ‘classical’ theism and those supporting ‘free will’ or ‘open’ theism. Classical theism, which has been the chief view held by Christians for many years, states that…

no objective morality, its all opinion. This makes us responsible, we as a society make the judgements. His next heading was Atheism: real learning. He went back to all of the things listed above and gave the atheistic point of view. He says that, “I don’t know” is a valid answer to the first cause question. He says that in the design there is no evidence of supernatural of intelligent in the design of the Universe. Lastly, there is no objective morality, morality is fluid. Next he talks about…

that religion, but mainly a theistic religion gives purpose and meaning to life. Pojman feels that, since people cannot prove that theism is true or not true, then therefore, people should live like theism is true. A world with theism, living life following a higher being would be a better world than living a life of self-governing, autonomy. Lastly, Pojman believes that living in autonomy is not really affected by having a religion or faith but instead religion may help everyone’s autonomy…

Deism is the belief that God created the universe but remains apart from it and that He permits His creation to administer itself through natural laws. (dictionary.com) In other words, God created the universe and then just decided to step back. Deist have many strengths and weaknesses to their belief system; first we are going to evaluate the strengths of deism and then discuss deism 's weaknesses; closing with how deism relates to Christian theism. The first strength of Deism is that they…

approaches that can explain faith and how we view evil. Nash asserts there is moral evil and natural evil and both are found in deductive and inductive forms. The deductive form tends to cause from a Christian point of view, Christians are said to believe a set of propositions that are internally self-contradictory. (Nash, 180). Nash explores Mackey claim “Evil is a problem for the theist in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil, on the one hand, and the belief in the omnipotence…

In the “Roundtable Discussion on the Problem of Evil”, Meghan Sullivan, Trent Dougherty, and Sam Newlands discuss the Problem of Evil for theism. All three people do not take the side of a theist or an atheist, but instead discuss the problem from a mostly objective view. The Problem of Evil is also discussed by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and William Craig in God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, where Sinnott-Armstrong argues from the atheist’s point of view and Craig argues from the…

Foreman states that when approaching theism one should not look at proofs but at an argument with the best explanation (Foreman). This approach agrees with McCloskey in that proofs should not be a basis for our thesis. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the existence of God cannot be proved completely. Additionally, Foreman states that Christians understand that their opinion is defeasible, showing that it is possible their viewpoint could be wrong. It is almost impossible to definitively say…

In the reading McCloakey talks about proofs. He believes that three proofs move ordinary theist their theism. The first proof that he speaks about is cosmological, which is the chain that every created thing is being caused right now. There is a slight argument over the creation, who is God, having a cause in the beginning. It is believed that if the proofs fail from an observational perspective; then the proof is proven false. How can something that does not need to be given existence…