The Doctrine of God, that is: since the early Fathers were not infallible, we may need to humbly take issue with some of their views, eg. Augustine created some major problems with his belief that God existed outside of time (the Bible simply teaches that God is eternal). He borrowed this idea, not from Scripture, but from Platonism which taught that if God were temporal in any way He would be limited.
Such a notion of course is a threat to the portrayal of God as acting in history. Teaching that past, present and future are all present at once before God has no support from the Bible. The 2nd Advent of Christ is not only future to us, it is also future to God. When the Scriptures teach that God will do something in the future, you can be sure He hasn't (in any way) done it just yet.
Augustine came up with some other erroneous notions from Platonism which will have to be discussed later, eg. that God is immutable and impassible(that God cannot experience sorrow, sadness or any emotions familiar to us!) How could we ever discuss God too much? What's wrong with people who have no interest in such matters? Al
Such a notion of course is a threat to the portrayal of God as acting in history. Teaching that past, present and future are all present at once before God has no support from the Bible. The 2nd Advent of Christ is not only future to us, it is also future to God. When the Scriptures teach that God will do something in the future, you can be sure He hasn't (in any way) done it just yet.
Augustine came up with some other erroneous notions from Platonism which will have to be discussed later, eg. that God is immutable and impassible(that God cannot experience sorrow, sadness or any emotions familiar to us!) How could we ever discuss God too much? What's wrong with people who have no interest in such matters? Al
