Understanding God's Goodness Through Theological Foundations

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Understanding history is crucial for developing a theological framework that answers life's fundamental questions. This framework is not just academic but deeply practical, guiding us in our daily lives. Without it, we lack the foundation to navigate life's complexities. [00:03:45]

Theology addresses and answers the questions who am I, where did I come from, where am I going, and does it matter. Theology addresses the issues of where did this universe come from, why does it exist, and is there any purpose in the future for it. [00:04:20]

For individuals to take the kind of approach to life which is to say don't confuse me with any thoughts about design or plan or theology, let me just get on with my days, is akin to inviting somebody to come into your home and do some remodeling work without them producing any kind of schema IC design or plan. [00:05:44]

If you don't have a theology which is biblical, you have no scheme of reckoning by which to understand yourselves, make sense of your family, constrain your marriage, teach your children, go about your days. It all hinges or is founded upon the right kind of knowledge of God. [00:06:36]

Ignorance of God, ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him, lies at the root of much of the church's weakness today. The absence, if you like, of muscle within the church, the absence of vibrancy and fluidity of movement, Packer says, can be traced to the fact that there is a generation growing up without a knowledge of God. [00:07:44]

The fact that they want to fish and that they have the equipment to fish does not mean that they know how to fish. Some of them don't even know what to do with the thing if it ever jumps up and bites the Jolly little thing. [00:08:55]

Modern Christians, preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in an irreligious world, have allowed themselves to become remote from God. Men and women have become preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in a world that is irreligious while personally being remote from God. [00:10:10]

The goodness of God is an immense subject. Stepen Charuk, who wrote two volumes on the existence and attributes of God, gives 145 pages to the theme of God's goodness. We're not talking pages that have pictures in them; we're talking tiny, tiny print. [00:13:00]

All the acts of God, he says, are nothing else but the influxes of his goodness. All these acts are the outpourings of his goodness, distinguished by several names according to the objects it is exercised about. [00:15:26]

Many of our problems may actually be traced to the fact that when push comes to shove, we do not, we have not come to a conviction deep in our hearts that God is actually good. [00:17:09]

For example, if we believe that God is all good and wants only the best for his children, even when we wander and when we err, then why is it that we grumble and complain? My grumbling and my complaining is simply an evidence of the fact that I question God's goodness. [00:17:44]

When we distrust the way in which he has provided for us, we condemn his goodness, and we end up sitting conceiving of God to be either without the goodness to exert his power or somehow devoid of the power to display his goodness. [00:18:29]

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