Mobile Ed: TH111 Doctrine of God and Creation: A Reformed Perspective (9 hour course)

by R. Michael Allen; Logos Mobile Education

Publisher:

Lexham Press

, 2017

Overview

What is the relationship between Holy Scripture and Christian tradition, and how do you use both to live in the world as Christ’s disciple? These are some of the questions Dr. Michael Allen explores in Doctrine of God and Creation: A Reformed Perspective (TH111). Using John Calvin’s image of theology as spectacles, Dr. Allen shows how Scripture and theological tradition work together to shape how we see, interact with, and serve the world in our own unique time and place. After defining and explaining different theological methods, Dr. Allen provides an in-depth look at the character of God—in particular God’s triunity—in order to explain the relationship between God and humanity. Dr. Allen shows how our creaturely origins inform our rightful dependency on God and God’s unique covenant with humanity. He also explains how being created in God’s image affects our understanding of relationships, morality, and missions. This course concludes with a reflection on sin’s impact on God’s covenant with humanity and our vocation as divine image bearers.

Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion you should be able to:

• Explain the doctrine of election
• Understand what it means to be made in the image of God
• Describe the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God
• Refute the notion of God as merely a “God of the gaps”
• Balance the ideas of God’s will and human freedom
• Reflect on God’s providence in light of God’s transcendence

Course Outline

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker
• Introducing the Course

Unit 1:What Is Theology?

• Theology for Life: Calvin on Spectacles for Bible and for World
• The Imagery of Drama: Script and Improvisational Framework
• Twofold Content: God and the Works of God
• Theology, Prayer, and Worship
• Theology and Intellectual Asceticism
• Systematic Theology amongst the Disciplines
• Three Ways of Being Systematic: Breadth, Emphases, Cohesion
• Topics and Order: Creedal, Biblical Shape

Unit 2: Theological Method

• Psalm 145
• Luther: Theology of the Cross versus Theology of Glory
• Theology by Grace Alone
• Scripture
• Tradition
• Using the Tradition
• Culture and Contextualization
• The Imagery of Improvisation
• Reason and Mystery
• Modern Issues
• Postmodern Issues
• Theological and Intellectual Virtues

Unit 3: The Character of God

• Beginnings: Christological versus Canonical Starting Point
• Name of Mystery and Name of Mercy
• Divine Freedom and Divine Love
• God’s Self-Disclosed Attributes
• Hellenization of Christianity?
• Christianization of Hellenism (and Other Cultures)
• Disciplining Language for Critical Appropriation
• Immutability as a Test Case

Unit 4: The Triunity of God

• The One God: Deuteronomy 6
• Ethical Implication of Monotheism: Deuteronomy 7–11
• The Son as God in the New Testament
• Arian Old Testament Conservatism
• The Church’s Response to Arianism
• The Modalist Overcorrection
• The Nicene-Constantinopolitan (Pro-Nicene) Approach
• The Spirit as God in the New Testament
• Eternal Generation: John 5 as a Test Case
• The Trinity in the Old Testament?
• Analogies for the Trinity
• Feminist Concerns about Trinitarian Language

Unit 5: Election

• Grace Is Rooted in Eternity
• The Shared Glory of God
• Covenant of Redemption in Federal Theology
• God’s Glory and Humanity’s Good
• Election Is for Assurance: Romans 8–9

Unit 6: Creation

• The Old Testament of the Old Testament
• Creation from Nothing
• Genesis 1 and God’s Supremacy
• Created Beings: Contingent and Good

Unit 7: Anthropology

• Image of God: Four Views
• Rethinking the Divine Image
• Imaging and Faith, Imaging and Worship
• Image of God as Universal Commonality
• Stewardship
• Christ and Humanity: A Canonical and Christological Approach to Defining Humanity

Unit 8: Covenant

• Life with God as Central Message of Bible
• Covenant: Ordered Relationship
• Particular Means, Universal Invitation
• Three Major Covenants: Redemption, Works, Grace
• Three Major Categories of Law: Moral, Civil, Ceremonial
• Hermeneutical Value of Covenant Theology

Unit 9: Scripture

• Human Authorship
• Divine Inspiration
• Noncompetitive Divine and Human Agency
• Authority: Caricatures of and Corrections to Sola Scriptura
• Purpose: 2 Timothy 3:16–17
• Clarity: 2 Corinthians 4:5–6
• Unity: Hebrews 1 and Luke 24
• Sufficiency
• Truth: Infallibility and Inerrancy
• Theological Exegesis: Canon, Creed, Culture

Unit 10: Providence

• God’s Sovereignty and Human Agency
• Problems Inherent in a God of the Gaps Theology
• Necessity and Contingency: Defining Freedom Biblically
• Two Types of God’s Will
• Necessity and Culpability
• Pastoral Function of Providence: Heidelberg Catechism 28
• Thinking about Open Theism

Unit 11: SinDefining Sin

• The Root of Sin: Both Sins of Omission and Commission
• Lack of Trust, Idolatry, and Pride
• Universality of Sin
• Inability to Turn toward God
• Original Sin: Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian Controversies
• Original Sin: Immanent Determinism
• Personal Guilt and Hereditary Effects of Sin
• Romans 5 on Transmission of Death and Its Result in Universal Sin

Conclusion

• Renewing Our Minds

Product Details

• Title: TH112 Doctrine of Christ and the Church: A Reformed Perspective
• Instructor: R. Michael Allen
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Product Type: Logos Mobile Education
• Resource Type: Courseware, including transcripts, audio, and video resources
• Courses: 1
• Video Hours: 9

Resources Included

Hide owned resources

Value if sold separately

Expand all|Collapse all|Partially included

Value if sold separately

Total value if sold separately:

About R. Michael Allen

R. Michael Allen is associate professor of systematic and historical theology and the dean of students at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He is eager to guide students to grow in their ability to retrieve theological riches from the past for the sake of renewing contemporary reflection, worship, and witness. In this vein, he is committed to Reformed catholicity as a confession and a posture for doing theology and approaching ministry today.

Prior to joining the faculty of RTS in 2015, Dr. Allen taught undergraduate and graduate students at Wheaton College and then taught at Knox Theological Seminary for five years, where he held the D. James Kennedy Chair of Systematic Theology and also served as dean of the faculty. With Dr. Scott Swain, he serves as general editor of the T&T Clark International Theological Commentary and the New Studies in Dogmatics series for Zondervan Academic. He also serves as book review editor for the renowned International Journal of Systematic Theology and is a teaching elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.