The main idea of this section on apologetics is that there are three main sources of our knowledge of god. The first is our knoweldge of God through the natural world, in which we were given a series of different types of evidence of God's exisistence through creation. The second way we gain knowledge of God is through the human person. And the final and most important way we gain knowledge of God, especially for us Christians, is through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. This section gave mutiple types of believeable and reasonable evidence for God's existence and in that way gave us a basis for our Faith in God.
The first important Idea I want to remember from this section is telelology. Knowledge of God through the natural world mostly uses teleology. Teleology comes from Greek meaning "end" or "purpose" and attempts to show, by way of logical arguments, that the universe was purposefully created. Some great examples of teleological arguements include: William Paley's arguement of "The Watch and the Watchmaker," the Golden Ratio), the Anthropic Principle,Kalam's Argument, and St. Thomas Aquinas's and Plato's Arguments from Degrees of Perfection. My favorite of all these arguments is the Anthropic Principle. Basically the Anthropic Principle argues that the chance of Earth developing, surviving, and creating all the forms of life that it has, including intelligent life, is astronomically slim. So there must have been a purpose for its existence, because it could not have been random. There must have been a creator or a higher power that willed the earth's existence. And I have to believe that that power is God. So for me, Teleology is a good basis for my belief in God.
Another main idea I want to bring away from this section is that evidence for God's existence can be found all around in the natural world. We just have to look around at the world and realize that something of such great beauty had to be created by a greater being. For me, this evidence comes from my own personal experience of nature. I cannot believe that our earth could have been an accident. It is too amazing and perfect. I have to believe that there was a greater artist who made this world. For me the natural world is one of the main sources of my faith in God. If we lived in a bleak, boring, and ugly world, I'm not sure that I would believe in God. The Earth is extremely beautiful, and I believe that God is the source of that beauty.
The third main idea I want to bring away from this section is that Jesus is the greatest of God's self revelations and is the most accurate source for our knowledge of God. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the Word made Flesh, the incarnation of God. If Jesus is God, then Jesus should be the person we look to to really know who God is. Jesus is the most important of all the ways we have to know God.
Before Jesus lived, God could see that the people really did not know God and did not know how to live their lives. So God came down to Earth and became human to show us how to live. And in doing so, fully revealed himself to us. For me, Jesus is the main way I come to know who God is. Teleology and my own experience of the natural world can give me enough insight to believe that God does exist, but that really is not very important. We can believe in Gods existence, but what really matters is that we know God and know how God asks us to live our lives and that we carry that out in our day to day lives. Without Jesus, I would have little to no knowledge of who God really is even though I might believe that he exists.