\begin{chapter}{Faith in a Personal God}
    Before diving into the Christian faith, we must discuss whether that faith is \emph{rational} and \emph{reasonable}, and not \emph{socially} or \emph{morally destructive}.

    \subsubsection*{What do believers say about God's essential attributes?}
    Aquinas: God is \emph{eternal}, \emph{totally spiritual}, \emph{truly and fully personal}, \emph{omnipotent}, \emph{benevolent}, \emph{omniscient}. Others talk about God's transcendence and immanence (`beyond' and `within').

    These attributes give new questions, like how an eternal and non-material God can create a space-time universe, what God's omniscience means for our free will, or how God's benevolence relates to the existence of evil (see below).

    \subsubsection*{Special divine activity}
    A deist's view would be that there is one, ongoing act: that of creation, which set in motion causality. This implies that no specific divine action lies behind later events (as prophets, writing of Scripture, the life of Jesus Christ).

    If we deny this and accept \emph{more} divine actions, we must accept some sort of divine causality. But, because God is unique as an uncreated creator, His causality too may be unique.

    It can be difficult to talk about causality however, because Scripture talks mostly about \emph{effects} rather than causes, while the \emph{causes} could have given more insight into God's nature. However, effects often say something about their cause, and thus we may seek God in, for example, creation. Also, we may assume causes in a context of finality (the coming of the Messiah or the Final Judgement), which may help to discern them more easily.

    An immanent God implies a continuous activity, and hence the terminology of divine `interventions' is troublesome.

    \subsubsection*{The existence of God}
    Arguments for God's existence usually come from believers. Augustine tried to prove His existence by definition. Aquinas wrote about `Five Ways' to God: seeing Him as the `Unmoved Mover', the `Uncaused Cause', the `Necessary Cause', the `First Unlimited Cause` or the `divine Designer'.

    The latter way seems challenged by Darwinism, where evolution takes the place of this Designer. However, recent discoveries have shown the chance of a `Darwinistic' world coming into existence to be too small to be scientifically considered. Also, there is the question whether evolution can account for all biological developments, if we also look at -- for example -- the development of intelligence or consciousness.

    Following Kierkegaard, Buber, Marcel and Levinas some people seek God in the inner country of prayer and the heart, where the experience God in an utterly intimate sense, which is \emph{also} an approach to the question of God's existence.

    \subsubsection*{Approaches to the God-question}
    We can roughly distinguish three approaches:

    \begin{description}
        \item[Knowledge] What evidence can be put forward to support faith? Does religious experience have evidential value?
        \item[Faith] How do prayer and worship bear witness to the experience of God and prompt it?
        \item[Action] What does faith lead believers to do, or leave undone, in the world?
    \end{description}

\end{chapter}

