Forms of belief in God. As former atheist Anthony Flew showed, there is more than one form of belief in God. Is God just the great Watchmaker who designed and created the universe and takes no active interest in it, or is God very much more?
Deism is belief in a God who created the universe and then left it alone except to energize it. God is the first cause and the sustaining cause of the universe. Period.
Theism is belief in a God who not only created the universe but guides it and intervenes in it.
Polytheism is belief in many gods—a god for war and a god for peace, a god for good weather, a god for health, etc. This is common in the ancient pagan religions.
Judeo-Christian theism is belief in the One God who is not only our Creator but who actually loves each individual man and woman, not just “mankind,” and who wants us to love Him. Furthermore, this One God has intervened in human affairs as told in the Judeo-Christian history. Easter celebrates as a real historic fact the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Deism or the God of Revelation?
As a believing Catholic, I believe that God loves his entire creation. I believe that God loves you and me and each one of us and that he has revealed His plan for our eternal happiness. I believe that His commandments are from His love and are for our good, not His.
I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God in many different kinds of language. I accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis as parable-like accounts that reveal extremely important truths about creation and our relationship with our Creator, similar to the parables of Jesus.
I believe that God entered human history with the call of Abram whose name He changed to Abraham as a sign of the Covenant.
I believe that Jesus worked true miracles like those more recently worked at Lourdes.
I believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, the Christ, the Messiah foretold by the prophets in the Church of the Old Covenant. In turn, the Lord Jesus founded the Church of the New Covenant upon Simon, son of John. Just as God had changed the name of Abram to Abraham, so also the Lord Jesus changed the name of Simon to Peter (rock) as a sign of headship in the New Covenant.
To be continued next week.
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