Faith & Revelation BB JC-SJC Ch.1

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Knowing God Through Natural

Revelation, Reason, and Faith

Chapter 1



Chapter Objectives

• Natural religion

• The fundamental ways of

knowing God

• The natural knowledge of God

• The Five Ways

• Science as a restriction of

reason

• Scientism• Modern science and God

• Principal errors regarding the

existence of God

• Why supernatural religion is

necessary

• What faith does for reason

• Man’s response to Revelation

• Reason leads to the assent of

faith

• Contemplation and theology

• Natural morality and religion

The student will be able to understand:



Keys to Chapter 1

• God wants people to know him and has provided ways todo so.

• Reason and modern science are allies in man’s quest for

God.

• God reveals himself through creation and DivineRevelation.

•Faith comes to the aid of reason.

• Study and prayer based on Divine Revelation are two waysto get to know God better.



In This Chapter We Will Discuss:

• How the desire to find God is written on the human heart.

• How God draws each person to himself.

• How we can come to a certain level of knowledge of Godthrough the use of human reason.

• The difference between knowledge gained through science and

knowledge gained through reason.

• The limitations on knowing God from the use of reason alone.

• Why we need God to reveal himself in order to know him fully.



Part 1 – Chapter 1

Knowing God

Through Natural

Revelation, Reason,and Faith



Knowing God Through

Reason

Lesson Objectives•Natural religion•Fundamental ways of knowing

God



Knowing God Through Reason

What is natural religion?

• Each human being is born with a natural desire for God, which is answered in the natural capacity to know God through

reason.

What are the two fundamental ways of knowing God?• The two fundamental ways of knowing God are through reason

and Revelation.

Basic Questions



Focus Question

What inborn capacity do human

beings possess that no other creature

in material creation has?

• They have an inborn capacity to

know God and to be in communion with him.



Anticipatory Set

Incorporate the passage from the Book of Wisdom into

opening prayer and then discuss:

What does this passage reveal about natural knowledge of God, that is,

knowledge anyone can obtain through reason and experience?



Focus Question

What is the natural desire for God?

• Each person has this yearning for

God in his or her human nature.



Focus Question

How does Pope Benedict XVI see

the natural desire for God evident in

Plato?

•Beauty causes a certain kind of suffering —

a nostalgia and longing — in each person that keeps him or her from being satisfied with

ordinary life.



Focus Question

How does St. Augustine describe

man’s natural desire for God?

•“You have made us for yourself, O Lord,

and our hearts are restless until they rest in

you.”



Focus Question

What is the supernatural counterpart

to a person’s natural desire for God?

•

It is God’s desire for us.



Focus Question

What is God’s supernatural desire for

each person, and what is the result

of this desire?

•God wants people to live in communion with

him, so he reaches out and enables them to find him.



Focus Question

What does it mean to say each

person is — by nature and by

vocation — a religious being?

•People come from God and seek and desire

God.



Focus Question

What are two ways one can come to

know God?

•One can know God through Revelation and

human reason.



Focus Question

What is the overarching subject of

this textbook?

•Faith and reason work together to help us

understand God’s Revelation.



Focus Question

Even without the help of Divine

Revelation, what can human reason lead a

person to realize about God?

•Human reason can lead one to realize God

exists. It can even tell us something about his divine nature.



Focus Question

According to the Catechism , no. 31, what is

the nature of the proofs that reason can

give in regard to God’s existence?

•They are proofs for the existence of God not in the

sense of proofs in the natural sciences but in the

sense of “converging and convincing arguments.”



Focus Question

What did the pagan philosophers Plato

and Aristotle conclude about God?

•Using reason alone, they concluded there must

be one God.



Focus Question

What is Aristotle’s First Cause ?

•Despite his polytheistic culture, Aristotle reached the philosophical conclusion there is one

God.



Focus Question

What attributes of God did Aristotle

discern by reason?

•He reasoned God must be eternal and perfect.



Focus Question

What did St. Thomas Aquinas do with

Aristotle’s arguments about God?

•He clarified and extended them in the thirteenth

century.



Graphic Organizer

Complete the following table to clarify the four

characteristics of a person’s knowledge of God.

Characteristic Explanation

Mediate

Natural

Universal

Certain and Easy to

Attain



Guided Exercise

Review the six themes of this chapter (p.

3, ―In this Chapter We Will Discuss‖)

Free write on the one you find the most

important and explain why.



Knowing God ThroughNatural Revelation

Lesson Objectives•Natural knowledge of God• The Five Ways




What is natural knowledge of God?

•

One can discover the existence of God and some of his attributes by reason through the things that he has created.

What are the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas?

•St. Thomas offers five ways to prove the existence of God based on reason.

Basic Questions



Anticipatory Set

Think of any object created by a human

being — whether a work of art or technology — how does it reflect something

about the person who created it?



Focus Question

What is natural revelation?

•

It is the truth that God communicates through creation. When God creates, he

imprints a “mark” on his creation;

through that mark people can learn

something about God.



Focus Question

According to the Catechism , no. 41,

what is the starting point for

―naming‖ God through creation?

•

The perfections of creatures reflect the infinite perfection of God.



Focus Question

How is God’s likeness to his creation different

from a person’s likeness to one of his or her

creations?

•Since God’s creative action is stronger and deeper than man’s, the

likeness between God and his creatures is deeper than the likeness

between man and his crafts or products. Since the distance between

God and his creation is infinitely greater than the distance between man and his products, what creation tells us about God is infinitely

less proportionate than what man’s products tell us about man.

St Th A i d th



St. Thomas Aquinas and the

―Five Ways‖

1. The Argument from Motion

2. The Argument from Causes

3. The Argument from Possibility andNecessity

4. The Argument from Degrees of

Perfection5. The Argument from Governance



Focus Question

What attributes about God are

known from creation?

•The existence in God of goodness, unity,

simplicity, infinity, wisdom, and

omnipotence are known.



Focus Question

What does the Church teach about man’s

knowledge of God’s existence from

reason alone?•“God…can be known and demonstrated with

certainty by the natural light of reason starting from

the created world, that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause is known through its effects.”



Focus Question

According to the Catechism , no. 32, what

are some starting points to prove God’s

existence from reason?

•They are from movement, becoming, contingency,

and the world’s order and beauty.



Focus Question

Why are St. Thomas’s proofs of God’s

existence valid even though science has

changed so much since his lifetime?

• A thing in motion — whether today or in the thirteenth

century — must be set in motion by something else,something cannot come from nothing, and everything in

nature is contingent.



Focus Question

Can philosophy absolutely prove God’s

existence?

• No; not everyone wants to be convinced.



Guided Exercise

Perform a focused reading of pp. 7-8

using the following question:

How do St. Thomas Aquinas’s arguments

relate to the modern understanding of the universe?



Focus Question

What is revealed by the arguments for the

existence of God presented by Aristotle

and St. Thomas Aquinas?

•These arguments reveal the existence of a single

being who is responsible for the causation and governance of reality. They also offer a certain

understanding of his nature.



Focus Question

What are some things reason can show

about the nature of God?

•God must be unlimited in all of his

perfections: powers, truth, knowledge, and

goodness.



Guided Exercise

Discuss the following:

What does it mean to say reason contains

science rather than science contains reason?



Science and Reason

Lesson Objectives

•Science as a restriction of reason

•Scientism

•Modern science and God

•Principal errors regarding the existence of God




What is the relationship between science and reason?

•

Science is a particular, highly successful form of reasoning, but it is only a portion of what can be known through reason.

What is scientism?

•Scientism is a view that reduces knowledge to what can be known through the methods of science.

Basic Questions




Can modern science support the idea of God?

•

The findings of modern science can be the grounds for philosophical reflection, which can lead to belief in God.

What are the principal errors regarding the existence of

God?•Some principal errors in regard to the existence of God are

atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, and fideism.

Basic Questions



Anticipatory Set

Read the opening paragraph of this lesson (p. 9,

―We can conclude…‖).

What is the relationship between

science and reason?



Focus Question

What is scientism?

•It is the error that, because science can measure

some things well, it can measure everything well and

things that cannot be measured scientifically either do

not exist or cannot be known.



Focus Question

What view of God is derived from

scientism?

•If science cannot prove the existence of God — and

it cannot — God may not exist.



Focus Question

Why cannot God be proven by science?

•God cannot be physically observed.



Focus Question

Is scientism scientific?

•

No; scientism is not provable because it cannot be tested by a scientific experiment.



Focus Question

What prevents true science from denying

the existence of God?

•True science must acknowledge the limitations of

science in ascertaining truth and, therefore, cannot

deny the existence of God.



Focus Question

How can philosophy use the findings of

modern science to indicate God exists?

•The intricate “fine tuning” of the universe, which science

has discovered — without which the universe and life would

not be possible — suggests there is an intelligence behind them, which is called God.



Focus Question

How might a philosophical reflection on

the deep intelligibility of reality allow a

person to infer God exists?•If the universe were the result of random accidents of chance, one

would not expect to see deep intelligibility; that is; that the universe

is knowable through consistent laws. Deep intelligibility can only be

caused by an even deeper intelligence, and that intelligence is God.



What is modern science?

•It is the practice of systematically observing the

behavior of nature so people better understand

the laws and structures that govern it.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What does it mean to say science is a

restriction of reason?

•Science limits itself to those truths that are

demonstrable through the control and

manipulation of observable phenomena.



Focus Question

What is atheism?

•It is the denial of the existence of God.



Focus Question

According to Gaudium et Spes (p. 11), is

atheism natural in a person?

• No; it is an unnatural development that has

both intellectual and moral causes. Atheism

presupposes the mystery of sin, which turns the hierarchy of values of the person upside-down.

h



Graphic Organizer

Complete the following table to organize your knowledge

of the principal errors regarding the existence of God.

Error Definition Effect on Religion

Atheistic Materialism

Atheistic Humanism

Current Atheism

Agnosticism

Rationalism

Fideism



God makes himself knownto Man

Lesson Objectives• Why supernatural religion is necessary

• What faith does for reason




Why is supernatural religion necessary?

•The knowledge of God from contemplating creation is not

sufficient to know God; instead, one needs faith in supernatural Revelation to attain to God.

What does faith do for reason?

•Faith heals, perfects, and elevates reason in terms of religious and

moral truths that either can be known through reason only with

great difficulty or exceed reason.

Basic Questions

A i i S



Anticipatory Set

Compose a bullet-point

summary of the quote

from Humani Generis inCCC 37

F Q i



•It means God is a Person, a being with reason

and will.

Focus Question

What does the phrase, ―a personal

God,‖ mean?

F Q i



Focus Question

According to the Catechism , no. 35,

what is the purpose of the proofs of

God’s existence?

•They predispose people to faith and help them

see faith is not opposed to reason.

F Q i



Focus Question

Why has God revealed himself and

given people grace?

•He did this so people can enjoy his friendship.

G id d E i



Guided Exercise

Discuss the following:

What does it mean to say

“grace builds on nature”?

F Q i



Focus Question

What is the relationship between faith

and reason?

•Faith is above reason because it reveals truths

outside the grasp of reason alone.

F Q i



Focus Question

According to Fides et Ratio, how is

God’s plan of Revelation realized?

•God makes real his plan of Revelation by

deeds that reveal and confirm the truths he

speaks and by words that proclaim and clarify the meaning of those deeds.

F Q i



Focus Question

What two types of truths has God revealed?

•God has revealed truths beyond human understanding and

truths within reason but difficult to know with certainty and

without error.

Extension: The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity could

never have been reached without Revelation. The TenCommandments are moral truths that can be known by

reason but that many people find difficult to reach.

F Q i



Focus Question

How is the periodic table of the elements an

example of natural faith?

•Very few people can perform the mathematics to prove the

periodic table is true; the rest accept it on faith and use the

periodic tables as a basis for studying chemistry.

F Q ti



Focus Question

What foundation does reason give to understand

God?

•Reason demonstrates there is a God and reveals something about his attributes. Reason also leads to the

natural law, the knowledge of what will perfect and fulfill

human nature and the obligation to use that knowledge todo good and avoid evil.

F Q ti



Focus Question

Why does a person need God’s help to aid

reason to understand even truths that can be

known by reason?•Because of Original Sin, human reason is darkened.

Sometimes people use reason to justify what they want to

do instead of finding out what they ought to do. Revelation provides certainty.

F Q ti



Focus Question

Where does God reveal himself to us?

•He reveals himself in history, Scripture and the Church.

F Q ti



Focus Question

What is God’s motive in revealing himself

to the world?

•God’s motive is his gratuitous love that desires to bring all

people to salvation.

F Q ti



Focus Question

Why do people need grace in regard to

knowing truth?

•Sin and error prevent people from reaching a perfect

knowledge of God and his will in their lives.

F s Q sti n



Focus Question

Why do we call grace supernatural ?

•It is a power above and beyond human nature.

Foc s Q estion



Focus Question

How does grace aid human nature to

reach God?

• As a person struggles to reach God through human

reason, God, through grace, lifts up him or her in faith,

building on what is already known.

F Q ti



•It is “the theological virtue by which we believe in God

and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and

that Holy Church proposes for our belief (CCC 1814).

Focus Question

What is faith?

Focus Question



Focus Question

How do some erroneously view the

relationship between faith and reason?

•They see faith and reason as inimical toward each other.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What is meant by the statement, ―Religion

depends on faith, but Christians have good

reasons for believing‖?

•It means, though the Christian religion includes many

truths that cannot be reached by a chain of reasoning but

must be believed through an act of faith, Christians have solid rational grounds for believing those truths.

Focus Question



Focus Question

Is faith irrational?

• No; faith deals with things that are above the grasp of

human reason alone but which are themselves inherently or innately intelligible. Example: there is nothing contrary to

reason in the belief Jesus Christ is true God and true

man. However, this doctrine of the faith cannot be deduced by reason alone but only through the grace of God.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What truth about himself did Christ say

God revealed to St. Peter?

• Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What does faith accomplish for human

reason in terms of its grasp of truth?

•Faith heals, perfects, and elevates human reason in terms

of knowledge about God.

Focus Question



Focus Question

How does faith heal reason?

•Faith overcomes erroneous applications of reason and

ignorance, which are effects of sin.

Focus Question



Focus Question

How does faith perfect reason?

•Faith allows everyone to know with clarity, purity, and authority truths that could be known by reason alone but

only by a few and after much effort.

Focus Question



Focus Question

How does faith elevate reason?

•Faith lets reason know truths about God that could never

have been known by reason alone.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What is the twofold effect of faith on reason?

•First, faith helps reason grasp natural truths, separate these

truths from errors surrounding them, and illuminate them more deeply. Second, faith allows people to reason about supernatural

truths so they can understand them more deeply. Example:

Enlightened by faith, a person can reason about the natures of

Christ, the Holy Trinity, the angels, God’s providential plan for our salvation, and many other supernatural truths.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What is the relationship between Revelation and

history?

•God reveals himself in history through what he says and what he does. These words and deeds are presented in a unique way

in Holy Scripture.

Focus Question



Focus Question

How did God decide to reveal his truths to

mankind?

•Rather than working through philosophy, God entered human history, was born of a woman, and lived among

his creatures.

Focus Question



Focus Question

Why is it impossible for there to be a

contradiction between faith and what right

reason can discover?

•God is the author of all truth, and there is no

contradiction in God.

Focus Question



•When science seems to contradict faith, theology can point out scientists have overstepped the limits of science by

presenting philosophical conclusions as findings of science.

Since those conclusions contradict the Faith, they must be wrong.

Focus Question

How does theology — as supernatural wisdom —

help scientific research?

Focus Question



Focus Question

What is culture according to the Second

Vatican Council?

•Culture is any reality with a human or humanizing value; in other words, it is not everything that mankind

creates or produces or the traditional customs of each

people but only what is useful to develop, perfect, and

humanize mankind.

Guided Exercise



Guided Exercise

Perform a paragraph shrink on the paragraph, “The inner

unity…” (p. 17)

Focus Question



Focus Question

What is the Church’s interest in culture?

•The Church wants to enter into a dialogue with the entire human family about the problems besieging modern society

in light of the resources she has been given.

Focus Question



Focus Question

Why can the Faith be of service to any

culture?

•Since it is not the product of a specific culture, the Faith has the intrinsic capacity to inform any culture.



The Necessity of Faith in

Knowing God

Lesson Objectives•Man’s response to Revelation

•Reason leads to the assent of faith

•Contemplation and theology

•Natural morality and religion

The Necessity of Faith in Knowing God




What is man’s proper response to Revelation?

•God wants people to cooperate in their salvation through faith in

his Revelation.

What role does reason play in an act of faith?

•Reason can lead the way to faith, which is an assent to the truths

God proposes.

Basic Questions





How does one penetrate Divine Revelation more deeply?

•People can develop faith through prayerful contemplation and

study of Divine Revelation.

Are morality and religion natural to humanity?

• Man is naturally both a moral and religious being, as seen from

the natural law and natural religion.

Basic Questions

Anticipatory Set



Anticipatory Set

Complete a focused reading on Gaudium

et Spes, 14 (p. 25) and discuss the

following:

How does this passage portray

man as a naturally religious being?

Focus Question



Focus Question

What elevation of man has God

chosen for his people?

•

God invites all people to be members of the divine family, to partake of the divine nature, to

live in intimate communion with himself, and to

become Godlike to the fullest extent possible.

Focus Question



Focus Question

In what way does God want each

person to participate toward his or

her supernatural end? •God desires each person’s free and responsible

cooperation.

Focus Question



Focus Question

Is salvation and supernatural

elevation possible on one’s own?

• No; the goal surpasses human intellect, energy,and power.

Focus Question



Focus Question

What has God done to save

people?

•God revealed himself in history and addressed

his Word to men, first through the prophets and

ultimately through his Son.

Focus Question



Focus Question

How does one receive God’s

Revelation?

•

It is received through an active faith, by which a person is guided by God and cooperates with

him.

Focus Question



•

No; salvation begins with the acceptance of the Word by the intellect .

Focus Quest o

Is faith a vague religious sentiment?

Focus Question



Q

How does Christ’s claim to be the

Light of the World illumine Luke

1:78-79 (cf. Jn 8:12)? •Without God, people sit in darkness, under the

shadow of death. Christ’s Revelation is the light

that enlightens them.

Focus Question



Q

What is the assent of faith?

•It is the agreement of the human intellect with

the truth God reveals. This is done under the influence of grace.

Focus Question



Q

Can a person reach faith through

natural reasoning?

•Though faith is reasonable, reason cannot bring a person to faith.

Focus Question



Q

On what authority does a Christian

believe?

•He or she believes on the authority of God, whoreveals.

Guided exercise



What are the preambles of faith?

•Some define faith as a “leap into the dark,” accepting

something impossible without evidence.•In reality, reason prepares the act of faith through the

“preambles of faith.”

•

The preambles of faith are truths that can be established by reason and make the act of faith reasonable.

Guided exercise




•For example, the following are facts reason can prove or at

least prove to be reasonable: •the existence of God;

•the life, miracles, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus

Christ as historical facts.•Christ’s establishment of a Church to carry on his

work.

Guided exercise




•These preambles of faith can lead to the Faith.

•

Faith, itself, is a gift from God by which a person freely assents to what God has revealed.

Focus Question



Q

What is the metaphorical light of

faith?

•It is the possession of truth by which a person guides his or her life.

Focus Question



Q

What is the Scriptural definition of

faith?

•“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1)

Focus Question



Q

When will people see for

themselves what now they only

believe? •They will see in Heaven, when they see God

“face -to- face.”

Focus Question



Q

Why do believers meditate on what

they believe?

•They want to know God more closely.

Focus Question



Q

In what two ways can faith be

developed?

•Faith can be developed by the spiritual (or mystical) way and the intellectual (or theological)

way.

Focus Question



Q

What is the spiritual (or mystical)

way?

•It is achieved with the help of the Holy spirit by meditating on the Word of God.

Focus Question



Q

What is the intellectual (or

theological) way?

•It consists of using all of one’s intellectual faculties and cultural resources to understand

Divine Revelation.

Guided exercise



Brainstorm current events that

challenge the faith of a believer and can only be solved with an

understanding of the Faith.



Focus Question



What is the origin of Christian

theology?

•It is born of the prayerful contemplation and intellectual study of Divine Revelation.

Focus Question



What is theology?

•It is faith seeking understanding.

Focus Question



What does theology study?

•It studies the treasures of love and wisdom God

has revealed.

Focus Question



Why should every Christian study

the Faith?

•Study of the Faith helps to know and love God

and the world that has come from him.

Focus Question



Why does St. Peter advise

Christians to study the Faith?

•“Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is

in you” (1 Pt 3:15).



Focus Question



What is prayer?

•Prayer is a conversation with God.

Focus Question



How is the Blessed Virgin Mary a

model of prayer?

•In response to God’s Word and to the events of her life, Mary “kept all these things, pondering

them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

Focus Question



What is the danger of studying

theology without piety?

•Theology could degenerate into empty intellectualism.

Focus Question



Which gifts of the Holy Spirit help

most to study the Faith?

•The gifts of understanding and wisdom helpmost.

Focus Question



What drawbacks are inherent with

natural law and natural religion?

• After the Fall, reason and intellect became

clouded to the fullness of truth.

Focus Question



What solution did God give people

to the problem with natural

knowledge of God and good and

evil?

•God has given grace and Revelation.

Focus Question



What is natural law?

•It is the universal moral law for human beings;

it can be known through reason.

Focus Question



How does St. Paul’s Epistle to the

Romans allude to natural law?

•Gentiles may obey the moral law, which is

written on their hearts.

Focus Question



What are some of the precepts of

natural law?

• Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, and adultery is wrong.

Focus Question



What did ancient philosophers see

as the highest virtue?

•Religion, or the act of giving to God what is

due to God, was seen as the highest virtue.

Focus Question



How does ancient history support

the notion of man as a religious

being?

• Every ancient society was religious, and religion

was considered not just a private virtue, but also

a public one. Wherever archaeologists look, they find the most important monuments were

religious.

Focus Question



What does the ubiquity of religion

tell us?

• Natural religion demonstrates to be human is to be religious, and not to be religious is contrary

to human nature.

Faith & Revelation BB JC-SJC Ch.1

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