Personal Theology Reflection Paper

The first four chapters of Genesis indicate that God is the eternal Creator the universe; that God communicates with His creation and evaluates his own work, and that God is sovereign, exercising “supreme authority and absolute power over all things” (Lecture 2, para. 5). There is but one true God, who exists as a Triune Being and is three Persons in one essence; a Divine essence which exists wholly, invisibly, simultaneously and eternally, within three members of the one Godhead—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Lecture 2, para. 7). Harmoniously linked, “each divine figure of the Trinity exercises dominion over creation and is involved in the biblical narrative in its own unique, yet cooperative, way” (Johnson, p. 178). The unity of the Trinity not only illustrates the full divinity of God, the immeasurable power, benevolence, wisdom and omnipresence distinctly setting Him apart from His creation, but also shows that He is the source of all that is good, true, beautiful, loving, just, and

Theology 104 has changed my personal view of theology. Right away after week one when I open my Bible and start to read there was more clarification in the way I understood the scripture that was being read. There was a more comfortable and confident feeling in the way I regard God and redemption. In turn, I feel more knowledge of what I have learned and able to share the word of God more effectively. Finding factual proof to substantiate my theory of Christianity and the existence of God has become less challenging from the knowledge I have obtained from this division. Passing on my view of Christianity and God has been less challenging for me.

The Christian faith is centered around God almighty, a holy godhead. “The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that the only true God eternally exists as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one in essence, united in glory, and distinct in relations” (Horrell, 2014, para.1). God represents the Father, Jesus represents the Son, which was God in the flesh and the Holy Spirit, which is given to those that believe in him. “We are invited to know this God through Christ and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds through the Word and by the Spirit” (Horrell, 2014, para.5). There are many profound characteristics of God; He is the great I Am, holy, just, faithful, good, merciful, gracious and the source of all blessings. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign, immutable, wrathful and wise. His strength and power is unlike anything else. He existed

In this paper, I am going to share my ideas of theology. I believe that one of the biggest mistakes I made in the past was that I was afraid of being rejected, so I wrote a theology paper and tried to give the previous COM what I thought they wanted to hear instead of what was truly inside of me. Fortunately for me, even though I was not given a green light in order to see the Eccleastical Council, I was licensed to preach and this gave me time

"The trinity refers to the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ who is fully God and fully man), and God the Holy Spirit, three persons, same substance, one God" (Lecture 4, 2017). God is the person who came to Earth, sacrificed himself for every person's sins so everyone can have the choice to live with him again. God has many characteristics. The main one that comes to many people's minds is His love for everyone. In Genesis 1:27 (ESV) it says that man was created in God's image.

“God is the sole deity worshipped in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” (García, 2015). According to the Christian worldview, God is one being who exists eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ, who is fully man and fully God), and the Holy Spirit (Merrick 2014). God is the sovereign creator of all that there is. “Because God created and sustains all things, He alone is worthy of worship and praise” (Scripture and biblical passage support the history of the creation of the universe, in accordance to the Christian worldview. “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth” and all living things, including humans (Genesis 1:1). Mankind is His highest creation perfected in Him (“Lecture 2,” 2015). We as humans were made in the image of God, so that we may bear the attributes He has. God is indescribable, but at the same time

Just what is theology? This question can have a wide variety of answers, from irrelevant facts about God thought up by men centuries ago, to complicated theories discussed by scholars. Typically, the average 21st century man does not consider theology as relevant. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Theology by definition has the characteristics of both expounding the truth, and impacting the believer with that truth (Himes, 2011). Therefore, theology and the church are intricately combined, in that the church embodies the revelation of God, and is reality, not theory (Himes, 2011). A personal practical theology must begin with revelation, not the individual (Himes, 2011), and proclaim

The concept of Jesus being fully man but also fully God at the same time has been debated amongst scholars, both Christians and non-Christians alike for centuries. The doctrine and study surrounding the person of Jesus is known as Christology, and after extensive and often hostile debates the Church gave a concluding definition of its Christology in 451 CE at the Council of Chalcedon. It was stated that they affirmed the belief in Jesus Christ as ‘one Person in two natures, which are united without confusion.’ The early church was adamant that the Incarnation was one of the most important truths of the Christian faith.

Many weeks have passed since I last wrote about my theological perspective at length. I began the class with lots of questions, and I do not believe I can say for sure that they have been answered, but I can say that I am now at peace with the idea that some of my questions may not be able to be answered in this life. It amazes me that I have been able to grow so much in such a short period of time. The growing pains were great, but the reward was greater. I feel that I am in a much better place in my life now. In the past few months, I have tried to reclaim some of the closeness to God that I feel I have been missing. It has not been easy for me to give up control of my life. I have strong tendencies to be in control of what goes on, so that I have some inclination of how to prepare to react. As a result of learning to let go, I feel much less fearful of the future or my place in it. Not only has this class helped me come to terms with the idea that I should not have total control over my life, but it has also reminded me of things I had forgotten about. It truly left me pleasantly surprised with the content of the class.

My faith has been very important to me and my family since my birth. I was baptized at Broad Street United Methodist Church by Rev. Mark Ale on January 17, 1993. The reason my faith has played such a vital role for me is mainly due to my Mom’s United Methodist influence. After my Dad began to live on his own he grew distant and stopped going to Church until he married my Mom, and she told him that a condition of being married to her was that they would go to either her Church or his Church every week. When I stated Kindergarten my parents and I were attending Holy Name Roman Catholic Church each week and decided to raise me as a Catholic, so I was brought into the Catholic Church not missing any sacraments due to my valid United Methodist

Catholicism. Once I was born my parents decided to continue the family tradition of following

To help rid people of this inaccurate view of who God is, it is vital to walk through the salvation story with them. I learned in my Polity class about how the salvation story is all throughout Scripture. Not only can we see this in the New Testament, but it is throughout the entire Old Testament as well. This is something that I had never realized before, but once I did I was able to see how God truly desires relationship with us. Relationship is huge with God. This is not because He is in some way lacking relationship – for there is perfect relationship within the Trinity – but, because of His character of love, He desires for us to

Christianity is a very developed religion and it resides mainly in the Western Culture. Followers up to 2 billion with a continuous rise as the world population grows. “Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Protestant Churches are the largest groups” (Stefon et al) known to Christianity. The life of Jesus and his teachings is the base of this religion. Jesus taught the way of God, whom is the creator of all and the father of Jesus. He taught the people that living their lives in a certain manner, would end with eternal life after you have died. Jesus and his guidance was becoming notorious; however, The Roman Government and Jewish leaders showed vast disapproval. Thus, leading to the crucifixion of Jesus where he was executed upon the cross. Christians believe that 3 days after Jesus died he rose from the dead; therefore, giving the chance to his believers to live eternal life after death. “Christianity is more than just a religious belief. It also has generated a culture, a set of ideas and ways if life, practices, and artifacts that have been handed down from generation to generation since Jesus became the object of faith” (Stefon et al). Christianity is appealing to me for the fact of knowing one man sacrificed himself for the good and eternal life of all the people is one hell of a sacrifice and I admire that. I admire most that you will always be given the chance to have you sins forgiven.

Christian Tradition course exposed me to the Christian Tradition based on Biblical and church history. The course taught me the differences and similarities of Christian Tradition from other major world religions. I learned about the significance of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity based on the teachings of the Bible. The course also briefly covered 2,000 years of church history but with emphasis on the impact of the Council of Nicea, Council of Chalcedon, and John and Charles Wesley on Christianity. The professor emphasized the importance of the reformation that sparked a revolution in the church.

To understand where I am now in relation to Catholic theology I feel that it is appropriate to look back on the thoughts and ideas that I had when I first started this THEO 1001 class. Honestly coming into college I have thought about my faith very little and studied the bible and what it means even less. In my mind I have always thought that theology was primarily a group of people just sitting around reading the bible repeatedly and then coming up with ways on how to interpret certain beliefs and messages in it and what they mean to us as Christians. Now I understand that theology has many more aspects to it than just the one example I gave earlier. The fact that this class was just about Catholic theology doesn’t really have a meaning to me because I haven’t studied other religions or denominations theology. Diving deeper into what I thought about how Catholic theology impacted my life will be a very shallow dive, given that I am neither Catholic or a theologian I honestly thought that this class was going to be a history of how Catholics are the greatest Christians and their way of looking at the bible. Thankfully I was very wrong about both those things and have learned about some very interesting topics throughout the class, one being the fascinating section we did about anthropology and what role it plays into theology.