Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

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The doctrine of God is at the very root of everything else we believe about reality. If we have a wrong view of who God is, that misperception will ultimately distort everything else we believe. That is why the great heresies faced by the Church have almost always involved teaching something wrong about the nature of God. Help the students think of what would be lost to the Church if the Holy Spirit was only thought of as spiritual energy or spiritual consciousness (similar to “the force” portrayed in the Star Wars movies). For example, a spiritual force is not “holy,” it cannot hate sin or love righteousness; a spiritual force cannot teach Jesus’ disciples how to apply his words; a spiritual force cannot intercede for us in prayer; a spiritual force can bring God’s power to us but not his personal loving presence, etc. In answer to the first question: We mean that there is one God eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In answer to the second question, some illustrations might include: Example 1: The Trinity is like water which can exist as solid (ice), liquid, or gas (steam). The strength of this illustration is that it shows how something common to our experience can appear in three different forms without changing its essential nature. The weaknesses would include that water is not all three forms at the same time and that water is an impersonal substance rather than a conscious being. Example 2: The Trinity is like a man who is simultaneously a father, and husband, and a son. The strength of this illustration is that it involves a personal being and it builds upon the Father/Son language of the Trinity itself. The weakness is that it involves one person playing three roles. The man does not have three separate centers of consciousness; he is not three persons. Without proper explanation it could lead to thinking of the Trinity as Modalism does. Modalism is the heresy that denies the Trinity by teaching that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed himself in three modes, or forms. According to Modalism, there are not three Persons in the Godhead, but one Person playing three different roles. (Note: Modalism is commonly refuted by appealing to Jesus’ baptism where the Father speaks and the Spirit

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