A Definition of “Attribute” “The Characteristics of God which distinguish Him as God” “Whatever God has in anyway revealed as being true about Himself” “It is also something that we can conceive as being true of Him.” “An attribute, as we can know it, is a mental concept, an intellectual response to God's self-Revelation”

Some Definitions . . . “Spirit” = Incorporeal and personal Incommunicable – Those Characteristics of God that are unique to Him. Communicable – Those Characteristics of God that are reflected in his creatures. Transcendence – God is completely separate from all creation Immanence – God is fully present and involved in all creation

God is a Spirit . . . In His . . . “a self-conscious and self determining, living and active Spirit” “personal and non corporeal” “simplicity” – without parts

Larger Catechism #7 God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Shorter Catechism #4 “God's Glory is the sum total of all of his attributes as well as any of his attributes.” “What ever God is He is completely and simultaneously.” The chief end of man is to Glorify God and enjoy Him forever

The “Glory” of God What God is in His essential being or nature. That is to say, God's glory is simply the inescapable”weight” of the sheer intrinsic Godness of God, inherent in the attributes essential to Him as Deity. Kābôd : "honor; glory; great quantity; multitude; wealth; reputation [majesty]; splendor." When applied to God, the word represents a quality corresponding to Him and by which He is recognized.

The “Glory” of God Original Word: doxa “glory" primarily signifies an opinion, estimate, and hence, the honor resulting from a good opinion. It is used of the nature and acts of God in self-manifestation, i.e., what He essentially is and does, and particularly in the person of Christ, in whom essentially His "glory" has ever shone forth and ever will do Verb doxazo "to magnify, extol, praise", especially of "glorifying;" God, i.e., ascribing honor to Him, acknowledging Him as to His being, attributes and acts, i.e., His glory (b) "to do honor to, to make glorious

The “Glory” of God How did Christ's work bring glory to God? It did so by revealing God himself clearly. Glorifying God means “to acknowledge God's attributes” or “to make God's attributes known.” God's attributes are best seen at the cross of Christ. There above all other places God's sovereignty, justice, righteousness, wisdom and love are abundantly and unmistakably displayed.

What has mankind done with God? "What have you done with God? That is the question that here burns our lips. Does there lurk behind this staggering piety a secret flight from God? Has man here assaulted God and gradually, but certainly, transformed him into a fonmless "It"? And is perhaps the deepest motive in all his seeking and thought the shuddering before the responsibility of life, the being afraid of going through life with God? Has man here in a refined manner pushed God away from himself by letting himself be swallowed up in God?

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

What have We done with God? We have frequently pointed out that the various tendencies in the history of religion repeatedly occurred and still occur. To make it more concrete; the four tendencies we have discussed are to be found within ourselves each day. It is not easy to have real fellowship with God. We can much more easily bury him under a concept, shove him away to an endless distance, dissolve him in all sorts of secular realities and make him into a nice fairy tale of boundless beauty. Anyone who knows himself to any extent knows the finesse with which a man can escape from God, and wrestle free from his grasp.

Spiritism and Polytheism Thousands of Religions Ancestor Worship Nature Worship The world is populated by spirit beings who govern what goes on. The “gods” and demons are the real reason behind "natural" events. Material things are real, but they have spirits associated with them and, therefore, can be interpreted spiritually.

Pantheism Hinduism; Taoism; Buddhism; Confucianism and much New Age Consciousness Only the spiritual dimension exists. All else is illusion, maya. Spiritual reality, Brahman, is eternal, impersonal, and unknowable. It is possible to say that everything is a part of God, or that God is in everything and everyone.

Theism Christianity; Judaism; Islam An infinite, personal God exists. He created a finite, material world. He has established moral standards. Reality is both material and spiritual. The universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end.

Naturalism Postmodernism Atheism; Agnosticism; Existentialism The material universe is all that exists. Reality is "one-dimensional." There is no such thing as a soul or a spirit. Everything can be explained on the basis of natural law. Postmodernism Reality must be interpreted through our language and cultural paradigm." Therefore, reality is "socially Constructed."

Discussion Sheets

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.

The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is - in itself a monstrous sin - and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges. A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them. Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character.

So necessary to the Church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.

Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a God we can in some measure control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like, and what He is like is of course a composite of all the religious pictures we have seen, all the best people we have known or heard about, and all the sublime ideas we have entertained. The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the gods of Greece and Rome, if indeed He is not actually inferior to them in that He is weak and helpless while they at least had power.

I think it might be demonstrated that almost every heresy that has afflicted the church through the years has arisen from believing about God things that are not true, or from overemphasizing certain true things so as to obscure other things equally true. To magnify any attribute to the exclusion of another is to head straight for one of the dismal swamps of theology; and yet we are all constantly tempted to do just that. But the God we must see is not the utilitarian God who is having such a run of popularity today, whose chief claim to men’s attention is His ability to bring them success in their various undertakings and who for that reason is being cajoled and flattered by everyone who wants a favor.

The Five Magnetic Points The Church between Temple and Mosque by J. H The Five Magnetic Points The Church between Temple and Mosque by J. H. Bavinck Man by virtue of his place in the world, must always and everywhere give answers to the same questions. He has to struggle with the basic problems which his existence itself entails. He is afflicted by grief and misfortune; he meets both adverse and prosperous conditions; deep in his heart he has a vague feeling of responsibility; he has to adapt himself to the course of nature; he is aware he only a small being in the immeasurable greatness of the universe; and he knows very well that sooner or later death will knock at his door.

The Five Magnetic Tensions They are just questions with which man is confronted through the mere fact that he exists and that he finds himself in a world full of riddles and mysteries. These five questions keep him busy whether he likes it or not. The answer which he gives to these questions determines his entire conduct and his attitude to life. That is why we find these five focus points in every religion and in every human life, even in that of the so called nonreligious man.

An integral part of natural world The first focus point could be called the sense of cosmic relationship. It means that man feels a relationship with the cosmos. He is but a particle, an atom in the whole of the universe, but he knows that he is akin to the world in which he lives and to which he belongs, and that his life is in intimate relationship with the life of nature. He senses that there is not distance between himself and his environment. But he feels a spiritual distance from it. Body Physical existence An integral part of natural world I and The Cosmos Soul Spiritual existence A sense of apartness from nature

The second point is the religious norm with which man is confronted. There is something in his inmost being that warns him not to follow his own desires. He has a vague sense that there are certain rules which he must obey. Moral Order Do’s, Don’ts, Oughts Community concerns I and The Norm Individual desires Wants, Wont’s, Why’s Self concerns

I and the Riddle of Existence In the third place, man comes face to face with the riddle of his existence. He is conscious that he is an active being -- he does things; he is always busy. But on the other hand, he is sometimes overtaken by the strange idea that he is the victim of that indefinable something which he is inclined to call his fate or destiny. He stands between these two - between action and destiny, and he does not know his exact place. Destiny or Fate Another’s purposes A puppet or pawn No Control of my life I and the Riddle of Existence Responsible Acts Meaningful acts Free choices In control of my life

The fourth point is man’s craving for salvation. There seems to be something in man that compels him to believe that the reality with which he has to do every day is not as it should be. There is something wrong with the world. Nature is full of disastrous powers. Man himself, is not as he ought to be. There is something wrong in his own existence. There is a dark and heartbreaking groaning for salvation through all the ages of man’s history. He dreams of a better world in which life will be healthy and safe. Things aren’t right I’m flawed, messed up God is angry with me I and Salvation Things will be better I need change, fixing Need for appeasement

The fifth point is that of the reality behind reality. There is a certain veil that conceals the deepest grounds of reality. Behind the curtain of this phenomenal world there must be an invisible counterpart, a world of spiritual beings -- demons or gods or whatever they may be. This strange belief is fundamental to man’s religious intuitions. Even when he is inclined to break with this belief and become an atheist in the full sense of the word, he is still overwhelmed by the idea that there is a Supreme Power to which he himself is related is he just can’t get rid of. Infinite Impersonal Power Invisible Realities I and the Supreme Being Finite Personal Weakness Visible Realities