Baked noodles - 12 March 2010 |
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These are the questions for week 18 of the Guided Reading Course. We’re looking this week at the introduction and the first half of chapter 1 of Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word’s becoming in the incarnation (Still River: St Bede’s, 1985).
As the Oracle might say, this one will really bake your noodle. Eat slowly, and chew carefully.
Introduction
1. God is “present as the wholly other” (p. xx). What does Weinandy mean by this?
2. What three questions are raised by John’s statement that “the word became flesh” (John 1:14, p. xxi)?
3. Why did Docetists feel themselves forced to deny the real humanity of Christ? How did Docetists view God’s relationship to the world? (p. xxii)
4. Weinandy believes that “it is indeed surprising that at such an early date one finds the full divinity and full humanity predicated of the one person of Christ almost in Chalcedonian rigor” (p. xxiii). Do you agree?
5. What were the different forms of Monarchianism? Why were the adherents of these positions trying to preserve? (pp. xxiii-xxiv)
6. What problems with Modalistic Monarchianism does Weinandy highlight? (pp. xxv-xxvi)
7. What principle, shared by Tertullian and Origen, expressed the relationship between the Father, on the one hand, and the Son and the Spirit, on the other? What were the consequences of this view? (pp. xxvi-xxvii)
8. What did Origen have in common with the Docetists? (p. xxviii)
9. How did Origen explain the incarnation while preserving divine impassibility? Why doesn’t his view work? (pp. xxx-xxxi)
Chapter 1
10. What question did Arius ask about the Logos? What two presuppositions lay behind his answer? What was his answer? (pp. 4-5)
11. From where did Arius derive his notion of divine transcendence? Why was this important in shaping his view of the Logos? (pp. 5-6)
12. How did Arius understand begetting and creating? Why did he take this view? What implications did this have for his view of the nature of the Son? (pp. 6-9)
13. What two questions did the church need to answer in order to meet “the challenge of Arius”? (p. 10)
14. What did the Council of Nicea (325) say in response to these questions? What further questions did their response raise? Did Nicea address adequately these further questions? (pp. 11-12)
15. How did Athanasius address the questions left unanswered by Nicea? (p. 16)
16. What criticism did the semi-Arians level at Athanasius? How did Athanasius respond? (pp. 15-16)
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Guided Reading Course, Minister's Blog