How We Think About God: Introduction to Theology

Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Athanasius, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Abelard, Aquinas, Barth, Tillich,

Julian of Norwich, Jonathan Edwards, Philipp Spener, Conrad Grebel, Gottfried Arnold, Hochman van Hockenau, Menno Simmons, Alexander Mack, Walter Rauschenbusch, John Howard Yoder, Dale Brown, Walter Wink, Wendy Farley, Mary Schertz, Marcus Borg, and many many more have had their thoughts about God written, considered, argued, and talked about. We looked at some of it. The textbooks were excellent resources and easy to read.

This Brethren Leadership Institute (BLI) course gave us a good overview of the various ways others, and we ourselves, think and talk about God and Jesus.  Is God unchanging with many rules and regulations?   Do human experiences and feelings matter? Are we saved by grace alone?  Why did Jesus come?

Does how we live and behave effect eternity?  How do we learn?  Where is justice?

What is the correct relationship between faith and reason?  Is there one? 

Is God invested in each person?   Is each person invested in God?

Why is one baptized?  And when?  

What is forgiveness?  How does one receive it?   What about grace?  And sin?

We spent a good amount of time looking at Atonement from the Anabaptist viewpoint.

How is ones relationship with God restored when it gets broken? (from our side, not God’s)

  God wants more than we do.

One text book  “Cooperative Salvation” written by Church of the Brethren member and Manchester University professor Kate Eisenbise Crell covers  ‘A Brethren View of Atonement”.

And along with the Brethren Encyclopedia article on Theology by Dale W Brown, we were able to look closely at the importance of faith formation and life in the anabaptist/pietist part of Christianity.  With a deep sense of community how you live is more important than what you believe.  Belief is important and affects how we live.  As a denomination we have shifted in the past 70 years to become highly individualistic and continue to struggle with unity in belief. 

We think about God in some way every day.  This course, ably led by Gene Roop, broadened  my scope of awareness and thinking.  None of us agree with everything out there on this subject.  The idea is to become more aware of our own thoughts about God and how they relate to the decisions we make and the interactions we have with others.   I’m very glad I audited this course.

Marie Willoughby, Manchester CoB