Correcting Limited Views of God with Scripture and Theology

Sources

1. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 137: plant, and Apollos water, but that God only can give the increase. 651 5. It assumes that the only power which God exercises in the conversion of sinners is that inherent in the Word, whereas the Scriptures abound with prayers for the gift of the Spirit to attend the Word and render it effectual; and such prayers are constantly offered, and ever have been offered, by the people of God. They would, however, be not only unnecessary but improper, if God had revealed his purpose not to grant any such influence, but to leave men to the unatte”
2. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 41: revealed religion, there are others which cannot be thus summarily disposed of. The most obvious of these is, that the sacred writers contradict each other, and that they teach error. It is, of course, useless to contend that the sacred writers were infallible, if in point of fact they err. Our views of inspiration must be determined by the phenomena of the Bible as well as from its didactic statements. If in fact the sacred writers retain each his own style and mode of thought, then we must renounce any theory which assumes that inspirat”
3. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 9: § 6. The Scriptures contain all the Facts of Theology . This is perfectly consistent, on the one hand, with the admission of intuitive truths, both intellectual and moral, due to our constitution as rational and moral beings; and, on the other hand, with the controlling power over our beliefs exercised by the inward teachings of the Spirit, or, in other words, by our religious experience. And that for two reasons: First, All truth must be consistent. God cannot contradict himself. He cannot force us by the constitution of the nature which ”
4. CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 26: 87 CHAPTER 10. IN SCRIPTURE, THE TRUE GOD OPPOSED, EXCLUSIVELY, TO ALL THE GODS OF THE HEATHEN. Sections. 1. Explanation of the knowledge of God resumed. God as manifested in Scripture, the same as delineated in his works. 2. The attributes of God as described by Moses, David, and Jeremiah. Explanation of the attributes. Summary. Uses of this knowledge. 3. Scripture, in directing us to the true God, excludes the gods of the heathen, who, however, in some sense, held the unity of God. 1. We formerly observed that the knowledge of Go”
5. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 21: These are subjects on which philosophy undertakes to speculate and dogmatize; if in any case these speculations come into conflict with what is taught or necessarily implied in the Bible, they are thereby refuted, as by a reductio ad absurdum . And the disposition which refuses to give up these speculations in obedience to the teaching of the Bible, is inconsistent with Christianity. It is the indispensable condition of salvation through the gospel, that we receive as true whatever God has revealed in his Word. We must make our choice bet”
6. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 4: Tertullian IV, Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen — FROM THE GREEK.: lent God, the Saviour had come to announce a more perfect Deity, who, they say, is not the Demiurge, being of different opinions regarding Him; and having once departed from the Demiurge, who is the only uncreated God, they have given themselves up to fictions, inventing to themselves hypotheses, according to which they imagine that there are some things which are visible, and certain other things which are not visible, all which are the fancies of their own minds. And yet, indeed, the more simple among those who pr”
7. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 8: sin, of liberty, of obligation, from the facts of the Bible. He should remember that his business is not to set forth his system of truth (that is of no account), but to ascertain and exhibit what is God’s system, which is a matter of the greatest moment. If he cannot believe what the facts of the Bible assume to be true, let him say so. Let the sacred writers have their doctrine, while he has his own. To this ground a large class of modern exegetes and theologians, after a long struggle, have actually come. They give what they regard as t”
8. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 4: Tertullian IV, Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen — CHAP. XV. (part 1): Observe, now, here at the very beginning, how, in ridiculing the doctrine of a conflagration of the world, held by certain of the Greeks who have treated the subject in a philosophic spirit not to be depreciated, he would make us, "representing God, as it were, as a cook, hold the belief in a general conflagration;" not perceiving that, as certain Greeks were of opinion (perhaps having received their information from the ancient nation of the Hebrews), it is a purificatory fire which is brought upon the world, an”
9. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 37: effected by a continual and gradual progress. The same progress has taken place in theological knowledge. Every believer is conscious of such progress in his own experience. When he was a child, he thought as a child. As he grew in years, he grew in knowledge of the Bible. He increased not only in the compass, but in the clearness, order, and harmony of his knowledge. This is just as true of the Church collectively as of the individual Christian. It is, in the first place, natural, if not inevitable, that it should be so. The Bible, altho”
10. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 5: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian — CHAP. XXX. ARGUMENT.--IN FINE, NOTWITHSTANDING THE SAID HERETICS HAVE GATHERED THE ORIGIN OF THEIR ERROR FROM CONSIDERATION OF WHAT IS WRITTEN:[14] ALTHOUGH WE CALL CHRIST GOD, AND THE FATHER GOD, STI (part 1): And now, indeed, concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let it be sufficient to have briefly said thus much, and to have laid down these points concisely, without carrying them out in a lengthened argument. For they could be presented more diffusely and continued in a more expanded disputation, since the whole 642 of th”
11. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 24: quatenus ratione instructa est, cujus ministerio, veluti sceptro quodam, omnia sibi subjicere potest. ” These views agree in excluding man's moral conformity to God from the idea of the divine image in which he was created. The Lutheran theologians were, in general, inclined to go to the apposite extreme. The image of God, according to them, was that 98 which was lost by the fall, and which is restored by redemption. Thus Luther says: “ So ist nun hier so viel gesagt, dass der Mensch am Anfang geschaffen ist ein Bild, das Gott ähnlich war”
12. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 49: the simple Scriptural statement. Realism, however, is a philosophical theory outside of the Scriptures, intended to account for the fact that Adam’s sin is the ground of the condemnation of our race. It introduces a doctrine of universals, of the relation of individuals to genera and species, concerning which the Scriptures teach nothing, and it makes that philosophical theory an integral part of Scripture doctrine. This is adding to the word of God. It is making the truth of Scriptural doctrines to depend on the correctness of philosophi”