Beliefs

 

The following list of beliefs does not represent any specific church, ministry organization or denomination and only represent the beliefs specifically of Aaron Aquinas. These beliefs are subject to change and updates and are not comprehensive.

For any Christian doctrine listed, the specific scriptures and exegesis will not be provided in this section. This will be a summary of Aaron's positions on each specific topic and doctrine covered in the content.

Metaphysics: In short summary, this is a list of relevant metaphysical beliefs and axioms to the published work

• Metaphysical Realism: The external world, the past, other minds and similar realities really exist instead of just being useful models.
  
• Moral Realism: Moral Value is not merely descriptive behavioral patterns in human beings, nor is it contingent on individual opinion or cultural standards. There exists a concrete objective in reality independent of humans that gives value and meaning.
• Theism: The metaphysical ultimate of reality that necessarily exists and is the fundamental source of all contingent reality is itself conscious and personal. This reality is also the ontological foundation of moral value, the paradigm of goodness itself.
• The Cartesian Self: The first and only thing we can know for sure in itself is that the individual exists.
• The Principle of Sufficient Reason: Anything that exists has a foundational intrinsic reason to make it sufficient to exist. For contingent reality, this is in a form of an external cause. For any necessary reality, this is in the form of the very nature of necessity.
  
• Logic and Reason: Logic is necessarily true and is at the foundation for any form of reasoning. Any objection to the necessary validity of logic is self refuting.
• Time: Time exists dynamically in some sense, even if a 4 dimensional tenseless interpretation of General Relativity is correct.

Biblical Theology

In short summary, below is a statement of faith containing Biblical doctrine covered in the content.

The Scriptures: The entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, are the inspired and authoritative Word of God. Everything that the Bible teaches is true and the written text itself is inspired by the Holy Spirit. This can be by either the Holy Spirit dictating the authors to write these specific words or a more general inspiration that is compatible with their free choice to write or through the providence of God's middle knowledge that they would freely write the text in history. While the Scriptures are the final authority, they are not presupposed as a system of epistemology. They are predicated on prior knowledge, axioms and beliefs that can make it intelligible and its truth discoverable.

God: God exists and is knowable, both through direct revelation and inferring from prior axioms and experience. God is not just some powerful spirit that controls everything and part of the existing world. God is the very foundation of being, the underlying truth of everything that is real. God is a personal conscious reality that necessarily exists and is necessary to create and sustain contingent reality resulting in what it produces. God is the very foundation of moral value, as necessarily reflected by His perfect character. Objective moral value is grounded in the very necessary character of God and His real existence.

The Trinity: God as a personal being has revealed Himself specifically as three eternally distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These persons are revealed as operating with specific roles with respect to divine providence, the relationship of God with man and many other aspects.

Jesus: Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person who lived, died and rose from the dead. This Resurrection and the surrounding religiohistorical facts and context serves as divine confirmation of His claims as the Jewish Messiah, the Christ who was promised to come. He is the Son of God, the Son of Man. Jesus being the Son of God does not mean He is the offspring of God as a separate deity. Jesus is the same God as the Father and Holy Spirit, but a distinct person that existed as God eternally referred to as the Word. Jesus is the Word of God that eternally existed as the creator of all things and became incarnate as a man, taking on a human nature, becoming the Son of Man, the Son of God. Jesus continues to maintain His divine and human natures simultaneously. His sacrificial death on the cross serves as an atonement for the sins of the world.

Salvation: Humanity is in a natural state of separation from God through sin. Salvation is delivery from this state of separation to eternal life with God. This is done specifically through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. This salvation is offered freely to everyone. Anyone who believes Jesus gives them this eternal life by faith has been born again, regenerated to this life. Once regenerated, this state of eternal life cannot change. No matter what the individual does or believes in the future, their eternal life is permanently secured forever. 

Faith Alone: The doctrine that is described as Faith Alone, is Justification by Faith. Calling it Faith Alone is a more precise way of responding to adding anything to Justification by Faith. No other behaviors or good works are required before or after faith to maintain eternal life or to have assurance. 

The Christian Life: At the point of Regeneration through faith, the believer is now renewed by the Holy Spirit to Spiritual Life and is empowered by this life to continue living in the body of the flesh to grow more like Christ, also known as Sanctification. While the believer is still in the flesh, there is a constant battle between the flesh and the spirit. It is commanded that the believer yield to the Spirit of God that is their true self, no longer held captive by the sin of the flesh. Even though this new birth in the spirit is the believer's real identity, they may still struggle in sin while in this flesh prior to the resurrection at the last day. This sanctification process is meant to help deliver the believer from the power of the flesh and produce good works to direct the world to their Faith in Christ who receives all credit. These good works and righteous living in the spirit are paramount for all believers to do in this life to lay up treasures in heaven, rewards given at the Judgement Seat of Christ. These good works are not the basis for personal assurance. There is a strong correlation between someone with faith in Christ and a life different than that of the world. This does not mean there is a degree of sinful living or lack of good works that necessarily falsifies their faith. A regenerate believer is capable of living carnally, and is disciplined by God in a way that is not true of the unbeliever.

Assurance: Assurance is having personal knowledge and awareness that the individual has been saved and has eternal life. It is certainty that the individual is bound for heaven and is not left up to any degree of probability, future knowledge or observation. This assurance is a product of the content of what a person believes to be saved, also referred to as Saving Faith. A person knows they're saved because the content they believe that saves them is that their salvation cannot be lost for any reason. If a person believes their lifestyle or behaviors currently or in the future could call into question their salvation, that is not saving faith. If a person has never had saving faith, they do not have eternal life. This does not mean if a person doesn't remember having saving faith, that it is impossible they are saved. This is not dependent on the fallible memory of people.

Creation: Creation is any contingent reality and its products that was created by God. There are a variety of compatible interpretations of the creation account of Genesis and the general Old Testament stories that may seem incompatible with contemporary astrophysics, biology, population genetics, archeology, paleoanthropology, geology and other disciplines.