This glossary explains technical doctrinal, hermeneutical, biblical-theological, and philosophical terms used around the chart. Each entry includes a technical definition and a simple explanation.
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\nOntology / Being
\nTechnical: The study of being-as-being; in theology, what God is in Himself—His fundamental reality, independent of creation.
\nSimple: What something really is at the deepest level; what makes God God.
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\nEssence (Ousia)
\nTechnical: God’s simple, indivisible, eternal being—His fundamental Godness shared fully by Father, Son, and Spirit.
\nSimple: God’s core reality—what He is in Himself.
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\nDivine Simplicity
\nTechnical: God is not composed of parts; His essence is identical with His attributes. Everything in God is God.
\nSimple: God is not made of pieces—He is perfectly one.
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\nAseity
\nTechnical: God’s self-existence and independence—He exists from Himself, uncaused and dependent on nothing.
\nSimple: God needs nothing and no one to exist.
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\nImmutability
\nTechnical: God is unchangeable in essence, perfections, knowledge, will, and purposes.
\nSimple: God never changes.
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\nImpassibility
\nTechnical: God is not subject to involuntary suffering or emotional fluctuation; He has true affections without instability.
\nSimple: God feels, but never has mood swings.
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\nIncomprehensibility
\nTechnical: God is truly knowable but cannot be fully or exhaustively known by finite creatures.
\nSimple: You can know God truly, but never fully.
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\nInfinity
\nTechnical: God possesses limitless being, perfection, power, and knowledge—without boundaries or finitude.
\nSimple: God has no limits.
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\nEternity
\nTechnical: God exists outside time, without beginning, succession, or end.
\nSimple: God has always existed.
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\nImmensity
\nTechnical: God transcends all spatial limitations; His being fills and exceeds all space.
\nSimple: God is beyond everywhere.
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\nSpirituality (God Is Spirit)
\nTechnical: God is immaterial, incorporeal, without physical composition.
\nSimple: God is not physical.
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\nInvisibility
\nTechnical: God cannot be seen by creaturely eyes unless He chooses to reveal Himself.
\nSimple: God is unseen.
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\nBeatitude (Blessedness)
\nTechnical: God’s perfect, self-sufficient happiness; the fullness of joy within the divine life.
\nSimple: God is perfectly happy in Himself.
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\nTranscendence
\nTechnical: God’s absolute otherness: infinitely exalted above creation.
\nSimple: God is far above everything.
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\nImmanence
\nTechnical: God’s nearness and active presence within creation.
\nSimple: God is right here with us.
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\nIncommunicable Attributes
\nTechnical: Divine perfections possessed by God alone, such as aseity, immutability, and omnipresence.
\nSimple: Qualities only God has.
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\nCommunicable Attributes
\nTechnical: Divine perfections reflected in creatures in finite analogies, such as love, wisdom, and justice.
\nSimple: Qualities God shares with us a little.
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\nKnowability of God
\nTechnical: God can be known truly through His revelation, though never comprehended fully.
\nSimple: God lets us know Him—but not completely.
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\nInfinity / Limitlessness
\nTechnical: God’s being is without limit in perfection, knowledge, and power.
\nSimple: God has no boundaries.
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\nUnsearchable / Inscrutable
\nTechnical: God’s ways and essence cannot be fully explored or comprehended by the creaturely mind.
\nSimple: God is too deep for us to fully figure out.
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\nAseity
\nTechnical: God’s self-existence and independence; He exists from Himself and depends on nothing outside Himself for being, will, or blessedness.
\nSimple: God needs nothing and no one to exist—He simply is.
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\nDivine Simplicity
\nTechnical: God is not composed of parts. His essence is identical with His attributes; His perfections are one undivided whole.
\nSimple: God is not made of pieces—everything in Him is perfectly one.
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\nDivine Essence (Ousia)
\nTechnical: The one, indivisible, eternal being of God shared fully by Father, Son, and Spirit.
\nSimple: God’s core God-ness.
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\nOntology / Ontological
\nTechnical: Concerning being or existence; in theology, what God is in Himself.
\nSimple: About what God truly is deep down.
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\nImmutability
\nTechnical: God cannot change in being, will, purpose, or character; He is incapable of increase, decrease, growth, or deterioration.
\nSimple: God never changes.
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\nImpassibility
\nTechnical: God is not subject to involuntary emotional fluctuation or suffering; His affections are real but perfectly stable and sovereign.
\nSimple: God has true feelings, but they never control Him or change Him.
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\nInfinity
\nTechnical: God’s boundlessness in being, perfections, knowledge, and power; without limit or measure.
\nSimple: God has no limits.
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\nEternity
\nTechnical: God exists outside of time, without beginning, succession, or end.
\nSimple: God always was and always will be.
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\nImmensity
\nTechnical: God transcends space and is not contained by spatial dimensions.
\nSimple: God is bigger than everywhere.
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\nSpirituality (God is Spirit)
\nTechnical: God is immaterial, incorporeal, and non-physical.
\nSimple: God is not made of matter.
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\nInvisibility
\nTechnical: God cannot be seen by creaturely eyes in His essence.
\nSimple: No one can see God as He truly is.
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\nIncomprehensibility
\nTechnical: God can be known truly but never exhaustively; finite minds cannot fully grasp the infinite God.
\nSimple: We can know God, but never completely understand Him.
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\nBeatitude (Blessedness of God)
\nTechnical: God’s perfect, self-sufficient happiness and delight in His own infinite perfection.
\nSimple: God is perfectly joyful in Himself.
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\nAnalogical God-Talk
\nTechnical: Human words applied to God correspond to real divine truths without being identical, not univocal or equivocal.
\nSimple: Our words point to God, but do not fully match Him.
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\nAnthropomorphism
\nTechnical: Using human physical terms to describe God’s actions, such as hand, arm, or eyes.
\nSimple: Talking about God as if He had a body.
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\nAnthropopathism
\nTechnical: Using human emotional terms for God to convey His relational posture, such as grieved or relented.
\nSimple: Talking about God as if He had human emotions.
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\nDivine Accommodation
\nTechnical: God reveals Himself in forms suited to human limitations without compromising truth.
\nSimple: God speaks to us in ways we can understand.
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\nRevelatory
\nTechnical: Pertaining to divine self-disclosure through Word, deed, covenant, and presence.
\nSimple: About God showing something of Himself.
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\nIncommunicable Attributes
\nTechnical: Divine perfections belonging to God alone, such as aseity, infinity, and immutability.
\nSimple: Traits only God has.
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\nCommunicable Attributes
\nTechnical: Divine perfections that have creaturely analogues, such as love, wisdom, and mercy.
\nSimple: God’s qualities that we can reflect in small ways.
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\nOmnipotence
\nTechnical: God’s unlimited power to accomplish His will; He can do all things consistent with His nature.
\nSimple: God can do anything He wants.
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\nOmniscience
\nTechnical: God knows all things—actual, possible, past, present, and future—simultaneously and exhaustively.
\nSimple: God knows everything.
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\nOmnipresence
\nTechnical: God is present in all places while remaining fully Himself; not bound by spatial limits.
\nSimple: God is everywhere.
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\nHoliness
\nTechnical: God’s absolute moral purity and separateness from creation.
\nSimple: God is perfectly pure and set apart.
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\nRighteousness
\nTechnical: God’s conformity to His own perfect moral standard and His commitment to act rightly.
\nSimple: God always does what is right.
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\nJustice
\nTechnical: God’s perfect moral rectitude expressed in judgment.
\nSimple: God judges fairly.
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\nWrath
\nTechnical: God’s holy, settled opposition to sin.
\nSimple: God’s righteous anger against evil.
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\nGrace
\nTechnical: God’s unmerited favor and blessing toward the undeserving.
\nSimple: God gives good things we do not deserve.
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\nMercy
\nTechnical: God’s withholding of deserved punishment.
\nSimple: God does not give us the punishment we deserve.
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\nGoodness
\nTechnical: God is the absolute standard and source of all good.
\nSimple: Everything good comes from God.
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\nFaithfulness
\nTechnical: God’s unwavering reliability to His covenant and promises.
\nSimple: God always keeps His word.
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\nTruth / Veracity
\nTechnical: God is truth itself; He cannot lie or deceive.
\nSimple: God always tells the truth.
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\nBeauty (Pulchritudo Dei)
\nTechnical: The harmonious, attractive splendor of God’s perfections.
\nSimple: God is beautiful in every way.
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\nCharacter (vs. Attributes)
\nTechnical: The moral-relational outworking of God’s attributes in covenant history.
\nSimple: How God acts because of who He is.
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\nChesed (Steadfast Love)
\nTechnical: God’s covenant loyalty, steadfast love, and faithful commitment toward His people.
\nSimple: God’s loyal love that never quits.
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\nCompassion
\nTechnical: God’s holy affection toward the suffering and His inclination to relieve misery.
\nSimple: God cares deeply and helps.
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\nLongsuffering / Patience
\nTechnical: God’s restraint in delaying judgment to allow space for repentance.
\nSimple: God waits patiently.
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\nJealousy
\nTechnical: God’s holy zeal for His glory and covenant loyalty.
\nSimple: God protects what is His.
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\nHoly Love
\nTechnical: Love ordered by holiness, righteousness, and covenant fidelity.
\nSimple: God’s love never ignores sin.
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\nCheap Grace
\nTechnical: A distortion of grace that removes repentance, holiness, and obedience.
\nSimple: Fake grace that costs nothing.
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\nAntinomianism
\nTechnical: Rejecting God’s moral law while claiming divine grace.
\nSimple: Acting like obedience does not matter.
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\nMarcionism
\nTechnical: The heresy separating the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New Testament.
\nSimple: Pretending the Old Testament God is different from the New Testament God.
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\nPersonhood of God
\nTechnical: God as a personal, self-aware Being with intellect, will, and affections.
\nSimple: God is a real Someone, not a force.
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\nDivine Affections
\nTechnical: God’s holy, perfect expressions of love, wrath, compassion, joy, and similar perfections without change or instability.
\nSimple: God truly feels—but never in a broken, human way.
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\nGodhead
\nTechnical: The one divine essence shared fully by Father, Son, and Spirit.
\nSimple: The one God.
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\nTrinity
\nTechnical: One divine essence in three co-equal, co-eternal Persons.
\nSimple: One God in three Persons.
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\nOntological Trinity
\nTechnical: Who God is eternally in Himself—Father, Son, and Spirit in essential relations of origin.
\nSimple: The Trinity as God is forever.
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\nEconomic Trinity
\nTechnical: How the Persons act distinctly in creation, redemption, and history.
\nSimple: What the Father, Son, and Spirit do in the world.
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\nProcessions
\nTechnical: Eternal relations of origin: the Son begotten of the Father; the Spirit proceeds from the Father and, in Western theology, from the Son.
\nSimple: How the Persons relate inside God.
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\nMissions
\nTechnical: Historical sendings: the Father sends the Son; the Father and Son send the Spirit.
\nSimple: How God enters history.
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\nInseparable Operations
\nTechnical: All divine works toward creation are the unified act of the one God, though fittingly attributed to different Persons.
\nSimple: The Trinity always works together.
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\nAppropriations
\nTechnical: Fittingly associating certain works with specific Persons without dividing the divine action.
\nSimple: Highlighting which Person a work especially reveals.
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\nAd Intra
\nTechnical: God’s internal eternal life—His essence, attributes, and tri-personal relations.
\nSimple: God as He is within Himself.
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\nAd Extra
\nTechnical: God’s external actions toward creation: decrees, providence, redemption, and judgment.
\nSimple: What God does outside Himself.
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\nDecrees of God
\nTechnical: God’s eternal, unchangeable plan embracing all that comes to pass.
\nSimple: God’s master plan.
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\nProvidence
\nTechnical: God’s preserving, concurring, and governing of all things.
\nSimple: God running the universe.
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\nPreservation
\nTechnical: God sustaining creation in existence at every moment.
\nSimple: God keeps everything from disappearing.
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\nConcurrence
\nTechnical: God working through creaturely actions without violating their agency.
\nSimple: God works with our choices.
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\nGovernance
\nTechnical: God directing all things toward His purposes.
\nSimple: God guides history.
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\nSovereignty
\nTechnical: God’s supreme authority and control over all things.
\nSimple: God rules everything.
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\nHiddenness
\nTechnical: God’s withholding of felt presence, though remaining fully present.
\nSimple: Times when God feels distant.
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\nLament
\nTechnical: Faith-filled sorrow expressed before God in suffering.
\nSimple: Honest crying out to God.
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\nTheophany
\nTechnical: A visible manifestation of God in the Old Testament.
\nSimple: God appearing visibly.
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\nChristophany
\nTechnical: A pre-incarnate appearance of the Son.
\nSimple: Jesus showing up before Bethlehem.
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\nNames of God
\nTechnical: Revelatory identifiers expressing God’s character and essence.
\nSimple: God’s titles that show who He is.
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\nCovenant
\nTechnical: God’s binding relational commitment with promises and obligations.
\nSimple: God’s formal promise-relationship.
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\nFear of the LORD
\nTechnical: Covenant awe combining reverence, obedience, and love.
\nSimple: Taking God seriously.
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\nBiblical Paradox
\nTechnical: Two truths that appear in tension but harmonize in the fullness of God’s revelation.
\nSimple: Two ideas that seem opposite but both are true.
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\nDialectical (Covenantal) Pairs
\nTechnical: Complementary biblical truths held together without contradiction.
\nSimple: Two angles on one truth.
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\nTranscendence
\nTechnical: God’s otherness—His absolute distinction from creation.
\nSimple: God is above everything.
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\nImmanence
\nTechnical: God’s nearness and active involvement in creation.
\nSimple: God is close.
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\nMissio Dei
\nTechnical: God’s overarching mission to redeem and restore creation through the sending of Son and Spirit.
\nSimple: God’s big plan to save the world.
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\nInaugurated Eschatology
\nTechnical: The kingdom is already present through Christ, but not yet fully consummated.
\nSimple: God’s kingdom has begun but is not finished.
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\nExegesis / Exegetical Method
\nTechnical: The disciplined practice of drawing out the intended meaning of a biblical text by analyzing its language, grammar, historical-cultural context, genre, and authorial intent.
\nSimple: Careful, systematic Bible study that asks what the passage meant to its original readers.
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\nHermeneutics
\nTechnical: The theory and principles governing interpretation, including philosophical assumptions about meaning, authorial intent, and readers’ contexts.
\nSimple: The rules and philosophy you use to read and understand the Bible.
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\nTextual Criticism
\nTechnical: The scholarly discipline of reconstructing the earliest attainable form of a text by comparing manuscript variants, evaluating scribal errors, and assessing transmission history.
\nSimple: Comparing old copies to figure out what the Bible originally said.
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\nCanon / Canonization
\nTechnical: The historical process and normative criteria by which certain writings were recognized as Scripture and formed the closed corpus of the Bible.
\nSimple: How the church recognized which books belong in the Bible.
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\nSeptuagint (LXX)
\nTechnical: The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, widely used in the Hellenistic Jewish world and quoted in the New Testament.
\nSimple: The Greek Old Testament used by many early Jews and Christians.
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\nMasoretic Text (MT)
\nTechnical: The authoritative medieval Hebrew text of the Old Testament preserved with vowel pointing and masoretic notes by Jewish scribes.
\nSimple: The carefully preserved Hebrew Bible text used by Jewish scholars.
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\nForm Criticism
\nTechnical: A method that classifies units of Scripture by literary form and attempts to reconstruct their pre-literary setting in life.
\nSimple: Figuring out what kind of short piece a passage is and where it came from in daily life.
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\nSource Criticism
\nTechnical: Investigation into the documentary origins of a biblical book, seeking earlier sources or documents behind the received text.
\nSimple: Looking for earlier written pieces that were combined to make a biblical book.
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\nRedaction Criticism
\nTechnical: The study of how an editor or redactor shaped, ordered, and theologically reworked source materials to produce the final canonical text.
\nSimple: Seeing how biblical writers shaped older material to teach theological emphases.
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\nHistorical-Critical Method
\nTechnical: An umbrella approach combining historiography, philology, archaeology, and literary-historical analysis to situate texts in their original contexts and evaluate claims about origin and development.
\nSimple: Investigating what happened, who wrote it, and why, using history and language tools.
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\nNarrative Criticism / Literary Criticism
\nTechnical: Approaches that analyze plot, characterization, narrator perspective, and rhetorical devices to interpret biblical books as coherent literary wholes or narratives.
\nSimple: Reading the Bible as literature, paying attention to story, characters, and structure.
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\nReception History (Wirkungsgeschichte)
\nTechnical: The study of how a biblical text has been understood, used, and adapted through history in worship, art, theology, and culture.
\nSimple: Tracing what people through history have made of a Bible passage.
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\nTypology / Typological Interpretation
\nTechnical: A hermeneutical method that sees Old Testament persons, events, or institutions as divinely intended prefigurations fulfilled in Christ and New Testament realities.
\nSimple: Seeing Old Testament events or people as previews of Jesus or His work.
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\nRedemptive-Historical Reading
\nTechnical: An interpretive stance that reads Scripture as a single unfolding story of God’s saving action from creation to consummation, prioritizing Christ-centered fulfillment.
\nSimple: Reading the Bible as one big rescue story that leads to Jesus.
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\nCanon Criticism
\nTechnical: The study of the formation and theological significance of the biblical canon and how the final shape of Scripture influences interpretation and theology.
\nSimple: Thinking about how the Bible’s final lineup of books affects what it means.
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\nIntertextuality
\nTechnical: The study of relationships between biblical texts, including quotation, allusion, echo, and how earlier passages inform later ones.
\nSimple: Noting where one Bible passage talks to or quotes another.
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\nSitz im Leben
\nTechnical: A German phrase meaning setting in life—the socio-religious context in which a literary unit originally functioned.
\nSimple: The real-life situation that gave birth to a Psalm, parable, or hymn.
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\nHistorical Reliability / Historicity
\nTechnical: The assessment of textual claims against external evidence and internal coherence to judge whether described events occurred historically.
\nSimple: Checking whether Bible stories match what other historical evidence says.
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\nEhyeh / Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה / אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה)
\nTechnical: Hebrew verbal form usually translated I AM or I WILL BE, used by God at the burning bush to denote self-existent, sovereign, covenantal being.
\nSimple: God’s self-name meaning I am or I will be—expressing His eternal, dependable existence.
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\nTetragrammaton (יהוה — YHWH)
\nTechnical: The four-letter divine covenant name in Hebrew, vocally uncertain in antiquity, rendered LORD in many English translations and central to Israelite worship and theology.
\nSimple: The special four-letter name for God often printed as LORD in English Bibles.
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\nChesed / Hesed (חֶסֶד)
\nTechnical: A rich Hebrew term often glossed steadfast loving-kindness or covenant loyalty, denoting God’s covenantal commitment involving loyalty, mercy, and faithful action.
\nSimple: God’s loyal, never-giving-up love for His people.
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\nRûaḥ (רוּחַ)
\nTechnical: Hebrew for spirit, breath, or wind; used for the Spirit of God, human spirit, or wind, and foundational for pneumatology.
\nSimple: The Hebrew word for spirit or breath, used of God’s Spirit and human spirit.
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\nPneuma (πνεῦμα)
\nTechnical: Greek equivalent of spirit, breath, or wind; used in the New Testament for the Holy Spirit, human spirit, and metaphorical breath or life.
\nSimple: The Greek word for spirit, such as the Holy Spirit or a person’s spirit.
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\nLogos (λόγος)
\nTechnical: In John 1:1, the pre-existent divine Word—God’s self-expression and agent of creation and revelation, with Jewish wisdom and wider conceptual background.
\nSimple: The Word—God’s self-communication revealed in Christ.
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\nMonogenēs (μονογενής)
\nTechnical: One-of-a-kind or unique/only begotten; used of the Son to denote unique filial relationship to the Father and ontological uniqueness.
\nSimple: The unique, one-and-only Son—Jesus as God’s Son in a unique way.
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\nParaklētos / Paraclete (παράκλητος)
\nTechnical: One called alongside; a New Testament term for the Holy Spirit as Advocate, Comforter, or Counselor.
\nSimple: The Helper or Advocate—the Holy Spirit who comes alongside believers.
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\nOusia (οὐσία)
\nTechnical: A Greek philosophical term meaning essence or substance, adopted in Trinitarian theology for the one divine essence shared by the three Persons.
\nSimple: The divine whatness or essence that makes God God.
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\nHypostasis / Hypostases (ὑπόστασις / ὑποστάσεις)
\nTechnical: In Trinitarian usage, the three personal subsistences who share one ousia—Father, Son, and Spirit.
\nSimple: The three Persons of the Trinity—the whos inside the one God.
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\nEgō eimi (ἐγώ εἰμι)
\nTechnical: Greek I am; Christological self-identification in John’s Gospel often echoing Exodus 3:14 and asserting divine identity and authority.
\nSimple: Jesus’ I am statements that point back to God’s name and claim divine identity.
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\nLogos / Memra / Shekinah
\nTechnical: Jewish and Christian concepts describing God’s self-communication or manifest presence: Word, Word-presence, and divine dwelling/presence.
\nSimple: Different ways of speaking about God showing up, speaking, and dwelling with His people.
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\nTelos (τέλος)
\nTechnical: Greek for end, goal, or purpose; used in theology for final purpose or consummation.
\nSimple: The end-goal or ultimate purpose—God’s end-game for creation.
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\nProtoevangelium
\nTechnical: Literally first gospel; Genesis 3:15 traditionally understood as the earliest promise of redemption, prefiguring Christ’s victory over evil.
\nSimple: The Bible’s first hint or promise that God will defeat sin.
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\nPatristic (Patristics)
\nTechnical: The theological and exegetical corpus from the Church Fathers, foundational for developments in Christology, Trinity, and creedal formulation.
\nSimple: What the early church leaders taught, important for classical doctrine.
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\nReformed / Reformed Theology
\nTechnical: A Protestant Reformation tradition emphasizing God’s sovereignty, covenant theology, justification by faith, and worship ordered by Scripture.
\nSimple: A Protestant system stressing God’s rule, covenant promises, and salvation by grace through faith.
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\nCalvinism
\nTechnical: A framework emphasizing God’s sovereignty in salvation, divine election, particular redemption, and perseverance of the saints.
\nSimple: The view that God chooses and keeps His people, emphasizing divine control in salvation.
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\nArminianism
\nTechnical: A tradition deriving from Jacobus Arminius that stresses conditional election, prevenient grace enabling free response, and the possibility of falling from grace in some subtraditions.
\nSimple: A view emphasizing freely-willed response to God’s offer—God enables, and people choose.
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\nWesleyan Theology
\nTechnical: A stream emphasizing prevenient and sanctifying grace, possible entire sanctification, and holiness in Christian life.
\nSimple: A tradition focusing strongly on holiness and God’s transforming grace.
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\nDispensationalism
\nTechnical: A hermeneutical and theological system that distinguishes dispensations or economies in redemptive history and typically maintains a distinction between Israel and the Church.
\nSimple: A way of reading the Bible that sees different eras and keeps Israel and the church distinct in God’s plan.
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\nCovenantal / Covenant Theology
\nTechnical: A framework that interprets Scripture through unfolding covenants, emphasizing continuity between Israel and the Church and a unified redemptive plan.
\nSimple: Reading the Bible as one covenant story from Adam to Christ and His church.
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\nSupralapsarianism / Infralapsarianism
\nTechnical: Two orders of logical priority in Reformed soteriology concerning the divine decrees and the Fall.
\nSimple: Two technical ways Reformed theologians arrange God’s eternal decisions.
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\nPelagianism / Semi-Pelagianism
\nTechnical: Views that deny or weaken the necessity of divine grace at the start of salvation, making human will the initiating factor.
\nSimple: Views that make the human will the starting point of salvation rather than God’s grace.
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\nOpen Theism
\nTechnical: A contemporary position claiming the future is partly open to God, limiting exhaustive divine foreknowledge and aspects of divine immutability.
\nSimple: The idea that God does not know the future exhaustively because free choices are not yet decided.
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\nMarcionism / Marcionite Error
\nTechnical: A second-century heresy rejecting the Old Testament and separating the creator god from the loving Father revealed in Christ.
\nSimple: The wrong idea that the Old Testament God and New Testament God are two different gods.
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\nModalism (Sabellianism)
\nTechnical: A Trinitarian error claiming Father, Son, and Spirit are modes or roles of one Person rather than three distinct Persons.
\nSimple: Saying God just plays three roles instead of being three Persons.
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\nTritheism
\nTechnical: An error that treats the three Persons as three separate gods instead of one divine essence.
\nSimple: Mistakenly saying there are three gods, not one God in three Persons.
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\nUniversalism
\nTechnical: The doctrine that all persons will ultimately be saved, sometimes argued from God’s universal love or selected readings of Scripture; usually rejected in classical evangelicalism.
\nSimple: The belief that everyone eventually ends up saved.
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\nAnnihilationism
\nTechnical: The view that the wicked will finally be destroyed rather than subjected to eternal conscious torment; debated within evangelicalism.
\nSimple: The idea that the unsaved are ultimately destroyed instead of suffering forever.
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\nLiberation Theology
\nTechnical: A movement emphasizing social, political, and economic liberation for the oppressed as integral to the gospel, often using structural critiques.
\nSimple: A theology linking the Christian message to social justice and the liberation of oppressed peoples.
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\nOrthodox / Catholic / Protestant Distinctions
\nTechnical: Major ecclesial families with differing emphases on sacramental theology, authority, ecclesiology, and sacramentology.
\nSimple: The big groups in Christianity with different practices and beliefs.
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\nSoteriology
\nTechnical: The study of salvation: its nature, basis, application, and effects, including justification, sanctification, adoption, glorification, and atonement doctrines.
\nSimple: The theology of how God rescues sinners.
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\nChristology
\nTechnical: The theological investigation into the person and work of Christ, including the hypostatic union and atonement.
\nSimple: The study of who Jesus is and what He accomplished.
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\nEschatological Systems
\nTechnical: Interpretive frameworks for Revelation and prophetic texts, including premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism.
\nSimple: Different maps of how the end-time story plays out.
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\nAxiom
\nTechnical: A foundational principle accepted as true without needing further proof, forming the starting point for reasoning within a system.
\nSimple: A basic truth you start with, like the foundation of a house.
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\nOntology / Ontological
\nTechnical: The philosophical study of being itself; in theology, concerns God’s existence, essence, and mode of being.
\nSimple: What something really is deep down.
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\nEpistemology / Epistemological
\nTechnical: The discipline concerning the nature, possibility, and limits of knowledge—how we know what we know, especially about God.
\nSimple: How we know anything, especially how we know God.
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\nMetaphysical
\nTechnical: The study of the fundamental structures of reality: being, causation, time, purpose, and the relation between God and creation.
\nSimple: What reality is doing behind the scenes.
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\nDialectical
\nTechnical: The interpretive method of holding two seemingly opposing truths in tension until a fuller synthesis emerges.
\nSimple: Balancing both sides of a truth that seem to clash.
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\nParadox
\nTechnical: Two truths that appear contradictory to finite minds yet are harmoniously unified in God’s reality.
\nSimple: Two ideas that seem opposite but fit together in God.
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\nInscrutable
\nTechnical: Unable to be exhaustively explored or comprehended by human intellect due to the infinite depth of its subject.
\nSimple: Too deep or mysterious for us to figure out fully.
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\nUnsearchable
\nTechnical: Beyond the reach of human investigation; unfathomable because of divine infinitude.
\nSimple: You can never get to the bottom of it.
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\nExegesis / Exegetical
\nTechnical: The disciplined interpretation of Scripture through linguistic, grammatical, historical, and literary analysis to extract the author’s intended meaning.
\nSimple: Carefully discovering what a Bible passage really means.
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\nTypology / Typological
\nTechnical: Interpreting Old Testament persons, objects, or events as divinely intended types that find fulfillment in Christ.
\nSimple: Old Testament pictures that point to Jesus.
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\nAnalogical Language / Analogical God-Talk
\nTechnical: Language that speaks truthfully of God using creaturely words without those terms being strictly identical or completely different.
\nSimple: Human words that point to God’s reality, even though He is bigger than the words.
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\nUnivocal Language
\nTechnical: Language used with exactly the same meaning in every context; impossible when applied directly to God due to the Creator-creature distinction.
\nSimple: Words that mean exactly the same for God and humans—which does not work.
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\nAnthropomorphism
\nTechnical: Applying human physical terms to God to communicate His actions, such as God’s arm, hand, or eyes.
\nSimple: Talking about God as if He had a body.
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\nAnthropopathism
\nTechnical: Applying human emotional terms to God to describe His relational posture toward creatures.
\nSimple: Describing God with human-like feelings so we understand Him.
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\nAccommodation (Divine)
\nTechnical: God’s gracious self-adjustment in revelation so finite humans can understand Him without the truth being compromised.
\nSimple: God explains Himself in simple ways so we can grasp Him.
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\nEssence → Attributes → Character
\nTechnical: A doctrinal sequence showing that God’s essence grounds His attributes, which then express His character.
\nSimple: Who God is shapes what He is like and how He acts.
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\nPerfections
\nTechnical: The infinite excellences of God’s being which express His essence without defect.
\nSimple: God’s perfect qualities.
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\nCharacter
\nTechnical: The outward, relational expression of God’s attributes in covenant, judgment, mercy, and faithfulness.
\nSimple: How God behaves toward people.
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\nWorks of God (Opera Dei)
\nTechnical: The external acts of God in creation, providence, redemption, and judgment.
\nSimple: What God does.
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\nCovenantal
\nTechnical: Pertaining to God’s binding relational commitments and the structured form of His dealings with humanity.
\nSimple: About God’s promises and commitments.
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\nFear of the LORD
\nTechnical: Covenantal awe—reverence shaped by God’s holiness, authority, and goodness—producing obedience, trust, and worship.
\nSimple: Taking God seriously with deep respect that changes how you live.
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\nGlory
\nTechnical: The manifested radiance of God’s perfections; the weight of His worth displayed in creation and revelation.
\nSimple: The wow-factor of God—His greatness shining out.
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\nDoxology / Doxological
\nTechnical: The praise of God flowing from theology; worship as the telos and natural end of all doctrinal study.
\nSimple: When theology turns into worship.
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\nLament
\nTechnical: Faith-filled, covenantal protest directed to God amid suffering; expressing sorrow without unbelief.
\nSimple: Crying out to God honestly while still trusting Him.
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\nHiddenness
\nTechnical: God’s sovereign withholding of felt presence for sanctifying or revelatory purposes.
\nSimple: Times when God seems silent but is not absent.
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\nIdolatry Audit
\nTechnical: A diagnostic discipline evaluating one’s affections, habits, and practices to identify functional idols.
\nSimple: Checking what you love more than God.
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\nStewardship Check
\nTechnical: Evaluation of one’s use of time, gifts, and resources under God’s lordship.
\nSimple: Making sure you use what you have for God’s glory.
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\nPerseverance
\nTechnical: The sustained, Spirit-enabled endurance of believers in faith and obedience until final salvation.
\nSimple: Sticking with Jesus to the end.
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\nJustification
\nTechnical: God’s forensic declaration that a sinner is righteous through Christ’s imputed righteousness received by faith alone.
\nSimple: God declares you not guilty because of Jesus.
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\nSanctification
\nTechnical: The process of being made holy, both definitively set apart and progressively transformed.
\nSimple: God making you more like Jesus over time.
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\nGlorification
\nTechnical: The final transformation of believers into perfected resurrection glory at Christ’s return.
\nSimple: Becoming fully like Jesus forever.
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\nSubstitutionary Atonement
\nTechnical: Christ’s death as the sinner’s substitute, satisfying divine wrath and achieving reconciliation.
\nSimple: Jesus took our place on the cross.
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\nPropitiation
\nTechnical: Christ’s sacrificial work that satisfies God’s righteous anger against sin and restores divine favor.
\nSimple: Jesus absorbed God’s wrath so we could be forgiven.
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\nPatristic
\nTechnical: Relating to the theology of the early church fathers from the first through eighth centuries.
\nSimple: What the early Christian teachers wrote.
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\nReformed
\nTechnical: The theological tradition emphasizing God’s sovereignty, covenantal structure, grace, and the authority of Scripture.
\nSimple: A teaching tradition focused on God’s rule and saving grace.
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\nWesleyan
\nTechnical: A theological tradition stressing holiness, free will, and transformative grace.
\nSimple: Emphasizes holy living and real human decisions.
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\nArminian
\nTechnical: The tradition emphasizing conditional election, resistible grace, and genuine human freedom.
\nSimple: A view that says people truly choose to accept or reject God.
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\nDispensational
\nTechnical: A system that divides history into distinct dispensations and distinguishes Israel from the Church.
\nSimple: A way of reading the Bible in time-period stages.
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\nOpen Theism (Error)
\nTechnical: The belief that God does not have exhaustive foreknowledge of future free choices.
\nSimple: The false idea that God does not know the future perfectly.
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\nMarcionism / Marcionite Error
\nTechnical: The heresy claiming the Old Testament God of justice differs from the New Testament God of love.
\nSimple: Pretending the God of the Old Testament is a different God.
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\nModalism
\nTechnical: The heresy that claims God is one Person appearing in three modes rather than three distinct Persons.
\nSimple: The false idea that God just switches roles.
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\nTritheism
\nTechnical: The heresy teaching that the Trinity consists of three separate gods.
\nSimple: The false belief that Christians worship three gods.
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\nParadox Cards
\nTechnical: A pedagogical device pairing dialectical truths for theological training.
\nSimple: Flashcards that help you hold two truths together.
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\nAdore–Align–Ask
\nTechnical: A structured worship rubric: praise, repentance, and petition.
\nSimple: A simple three-step way to pray.
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\nS-I-P
\nTechnical: A doctrinal triad summarizing Simplicity, Independence, and Perfection as guardrails of divine essence.
\nSimple: A memory aid for God’s core attributes.
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\nP-C-G
\nTechnical: A summary of the threefold structure of providence: Preserve, Concur, Govern.
\nSimple: How God runs the universe.
\nThis final synthesis gathers the major doctrinal threads from essence, attributes, Trinity, revelation, providence, salvation, and Scripture interpretation into a unified theological summary.
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\nBeing → Act → Aim
\nTechnical: A comprehensive doctrinal structure where God’s being grounds God’s acts, which together reveal God’s aim. All theology flows from who God eternally is, through what God does in time, toward what God intends in the end.
\nSimple: Who God is explains what God does and shows what God is working toward.
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\nCreator–Redeemer–Consummator Pattern
\nTechnical: A biblical-redemptive-historical triad describing God’s work: creation as origin, redemption as rescue, and consummation as final completion.
\nSimple: God made everything, saves what is broken, and will finish His plan perfectly.
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\nRevelation → Interpretation → Transformation
\nTechnical: A sequence stressing that God reveals the objective Word, the Church interprets, and the Spirit transforms.
\nSimple: God speaks, we understand, our lives change.
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\nAuthority → Clarity → Necessity → Sufficiency
\nTechnical: A doctrinal grid summarizing Scripture: God’s Word rules belief and practice, is understandable in essentials, is needed for saving truth, and is enough for life and godliness.
\nSimple: The Bible is in charge, clear enough, needed, and enough.
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\nImmanent God → Economic God
\nTechnical: God’s external works correspond to His internal being, without collapsing Creator into creature. What God is in Himself is expressed in His works toward us.
\nSimple: Who God is inside shows in what He does outside.
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\nOpera Trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt
\nTechnical: The classical doctrine that all God’s external works are done indivisibly by the Father, Son, and Spirit, even when one Person is especially highlighted.
\nSimple: The Trinity always works together.
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\nCovenant → Kingdom → New Creation
\nTechnical: A schema linking God’s relational commitments to His royal rule, climaxing in the eschatological renewal of all things.
\nSimple: God makes promises, God rules as King, and God restores everything.
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\nLaw → Gospel → Spirit Empowerment
\nTechnical: A redemptive sequence where God’s law reveals righteousness and sin, the Gospel announces Christ’s provision, and the Spirit empowers obedience flowing from grace.
\nSimple: The law shows our need, Jesus saves us, and the Spirit helps us live it out.
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\nCruciform Theology
\nTechnical: A framework in which Christ’s cross uniquely reveals divine justice, holiness, love, sovereignty, wrath, mercy, and wisdom in harmony.
\nSimple: The cross shows exactly what God is like.
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\nPenal Substitution
\nTechnical: Christ bears the penalty of sin in the sinner’s place, satisfying divine justice and upholding God’s holiness and covenant faithfulness.
\nSimple: Jesus took our punishment so God could forgive us and stay perfectly just.
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\nUnion with Christ
\nTechnical: The soteriological reality by which believers are spiritually united to Christ in His death, resurrection, ascension, and glory.
\nSimple: Christ shares His life with us so we can live in Him.
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\nSanctification → Service → Suffering → Glory
\nTechnical: A biblical pattern where believers grow in holiness, serve Christ, endure suffering, and are finally glorified, mirroring Christ’s path.
\nSimple: Grow, serve, endure hard times, and then share Christ’s glory.
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\nThe Missio Dei
\nTechnical: God’s eternal purpose to fill creation with His glory through redemption and restoration accomplished in Christ and applied by the Spirit.
\nSimple: God’s big plan to restore everything through Jesus.
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\nAlready / Not Yet
\nTechnical: God’s kingdom has been inaugurated by Christ but awaits consummation; believers live between present spiritual reality and future fulfillment.
\nSimple: God’s kingdom has started, but the best is still coming.
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\nThe Telos
\nTechnical: The final end for which God created the world: the display of His glory in a redeemed creation under Christ’s lordship.
\nSimple: God’s end-goal: everything restored under Jesus’ rule.
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\nDoctrinal Super-Summary
\nTechnical: The infinite, simple, triune God reveals Himself covenantally in Scripture, acts sovereignly in creation and redemption, unites believers to Christ by the Spirit, and directs all things toward the consummation of His glory in the new creation.
\nSimple: The triune God made us, saves us through Jesus, stays with us by His Spirit, and will remake everything for His glory.
\n![\"Part](\"https://ai-bible-commentary.com/charts/the-greatness-of-god-a-study-of-god-chart/GreatnessOfGodPart1.png\")
\n\n![\"Part](\"https://ai-bible-commentary.com/charts/the-greatness-of-god-a-study-of-god-chart/GreatnessOfGodPart2.png\")
\n![\"Part](\"https://ai-bible-commentary.com/charts/the-greatness-of-god-a-study-of-god-chart/GreatnessOfGodPart-3.png\")
\n![\"Jesus](\"https://ai-bible-commentary.com/charts/the-greatness-of-god-a-study-of-god-chart/Jesus-In-The-Greatess-Of-God-Study.png\")
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