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A

Adonai

Biblical name of God meaning Lord, Master, Ruler

Atheism

Belief that there is no God

Augustine

Bishop of Hippo (354-430 A.D.). He believed in the Scriptures as our final authority in doctrine, and considered the creeds of the Church as helpful summaries of Scriptural teaching. He wrote regarding the Nicene Creed, "These words which you have heard are in the divine Scriptures scattered up and down: but thence gathered and reduced into one, that the memory of slow persons might not be distressed; that every person may be able to say, able to hold, what he believes."

B

Basil

Elected bishop of Caesarea in A.D. 370. In Letter 189, written to Eustathius, he defended the Scriptures as our final authority in doctrine.

C

Catholic

Term which originally meant "universal," and was used in the Apostles' Creed to describe the Church as including all believers from all places and  throughout all of history. The term later came to be used in reference to the Roman Church as an organization, but this was not the original meaning as it was used in the creed.

Cyprian

Bishop of Carthage in the third century. In Epistle 73, he wrote that traditional teachings of the Church should not have more authority than the Scriptures, because the Church can make theological mistakes. In this letter he wrote, "...custom without truth is the antiquity of error."

E

El Elyon

Biblical name of God meaning God Most High

El Shaddai

Biblical name of God meaning Almighty God

Ex nihilo

Latin phrase meaning "out of nothing," used to explain that God created everything out of nothing

G

Gnosticism

Early heresy from the first centuries after Christ. Among other things, they believed that material things were evil, including the human body, which was a prison of the human soul. They consequently believed that God would never take on the form of human flesh, and therefore denied that Jesus was both God and man.


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