Faith Seeking Understanding A Complete Course In Theology PDF Download

The book provides a clear and straightforward presentation of Christian truth for the average Christian believer in understandable, non-ecclesiastical, language. It is intended to help the believer understand the ultimate truth about God and human beings and, with the knowledge of such truth, experience the peace, comfort, and assurance of God's love and purpose. God has made Himself known through the magnificence of the natural world and astounding complexity of life itself. Today we also know that the universe was created in the Big Bang, which requires a Creator who exists outside the universe. Although believers know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, an indispensable part of God's true nature is his love. This is demonstrated through God's ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ. It is his love of human beings and his desire for a love relationship with us that is his reason for creating us and our purpose for being. But sin entered the world with Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden. The true nature of sin is understood as self-centeredness, a misplaced priority of putting our own needs and wants above those of the One who created us. Adam's original sin resulted in a genetic change that has been inherited by all human beings born after Adam, and accounts for the sin nature of self-centeredness that exists within each one of us. It is this original sin which accounts for all the pain and suffering, even from natural disasters and disease. God's act to remedy human sin and restore our relationship with Him is Jesus Christ. The Bible describes our condition and his solution using legal terms such as guilt and punishment, as a debt which we owe to God but cannot repay, and as slavery to our sinful nature. We are unable to do anything ourselves to remedy our condition. Salvation is a gift which God offers us. All we have to do is believe the truth. In the second part of the book, various troublesome topics that confront the Christian believer are discussed in order to bring understanding, comfort, and assurance. God's existence outside of time is presented to correct the misunderstandings of predestination. The truth of God's grace, the free gift He offers through Jesus Christ, is explained, showing that a gift offered must be accepted in order to be complete. The contemporary issue of evolution is shown to be wholly consistent with Christian truth when the established scientific facts and Christian truth are both understood. God's hand, rather than chance, explains the development of new species through genetic changes in DNA, while human beings came into existence through the image of God which He miraculously breathed into Adam and Eve in a second step following the physical and physiological development of the bodies which we inhabit. Insights are provided into the usually avoided topics of Jesus Christ as the only way to God and the seeming mystery of death.