ChristologyRevelation

God Making Known Who God IsPart 1: The God-Human Relationship

Revelation God’s self-disclosure to us

Knowledge not known on our own

Gradually reveals himself

Divine plan of salvation Through words and deeds Created world Lives of the saints Human intellect & reason

Revelation is a Gift Lovingly offered to us

God’s utterly free decision

Allows us to know God more fully

Empowers us to respond to Him with love & devotion

Gradually unfolds in stages throughout Salvation History

Natural Revelation Natural Revelation

Ongoing Available to all Experienced through gifts of creation and intellect

Inward dimension Through human reflection

Hunger for certain things but never satisfied Something more: truth, beauty, and love that is God

Natural Revelation cont. Outward expression

Experienced in things and creatures that make up creation Through intellect recognize something bigger and more powerful for it Recognize a creator who is in love with beauty and diversity See tenderness, compassion and heroic sacrifice in human relationships

Only possible because human beings are channeling the love of God

Doctors of the Church Thirty-three theologians and saints

Holiness in the service of God and his people Study the history and teachings of the Church Guide us in understanding and interpreting the Revelation of the divine plan in

salvation history

First four - 1295 Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory the Great

Recently women - 1997 Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Therese of Lisieus

Church Fathers Origen about Natural Revelation (AD 225)

“Although no one, certainly, is able to speak worthily of God the Father, it is nevertheless possible for some knowledge of Him to be obtained by means of visible creatures and from those things which the human mind naturally senses: and it is possible, moreover, for such knowledge to be confirmed by the Sacred Scriptures.”

Church FathersSaint Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 350)

“In regard to the divine and holy mysteries offaith, not the least part may be handed onwithout Holy Scriptures. Do not be led astrayby winning words and clever arguments. Evento me Holy Scriptures the proof of the thingswhich I announce. The salvation in which webelieve is proved not from clever reasoning,but from the Holy Scriptures.”

Salvation HistoryThe Unfolding Of God’s Plan For Us

God acts within historical events to redeem and same humanity

Began at dawn of universe, continued through events of Old Testament

Culminated in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus

Fullness of God’s loving plan revealed at the end of time

Jesus ChristSavior of the World

The Revelation of God’s loving plan in history finds its fulfillment in the Incarnation. Jesus became one of us.The life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus, the Eternal Son of God made flesh, is God’s definitive effort to save us, to reveal the truth, and to bring us to the fullness of life.

All Revelation is Trinitarian The work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

In a particular way it was the work of the Holy Spirit To inspire and guide Apostles To remember and teach all they learned from Christ Called Apostolic Tradition or just Tradition

The IncarnationContinues

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands but yours,

No feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which

Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which

He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which

He is to bless us know.

We Cannot Fully Know God

God is beyond our limited human capacity for Thought, words, speech, and understanding.

“God remains a mystery beyond words: ‘If you understood him, it would not be God.” Saint Augustine

We can certainly experience divine love and mercy when we attune our minds, hearts, and spirits to the many signs of God’s active, loving presence in the world.

Sharing in God’s Life Revelation makes it possible for humanity to respond to God’s plan of loving

goodness for us

God’s plan for us To live in communion with him To have a share of God’s own life To love as God loves us

Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, O Lord. (Saint Augustine) God has planted in our hearts the desire for him; through Revelation this divine-human

bond becomes clear.

How Do We Know God Really Exists? Sacred Scripture

Written through inspiration of Holy Spirit A privileged place to encounter God’s strong, reliable, and active presnce

Other Believers: The Witness of Faith-Filled Lives People who have responded to the gift of faith with extraordinary trust despite trails, suffering,

and persecution.

Reason and Conscience Saint Anselm – “faith seeks understanding” Created with human reason and a moral conscience CCC – can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason

Evil and Suffering and a Good and Powerful God

Theodicy – human attempts to answer question why so much suffering in the world

Four key elements: The World is Yet Imperfect

CCC – with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying toward its ultimate perfection

Free will, option to sin Redemptive Suffering

Jesus’ death redeemed – view suffering, especially when endured on behalf of others, as redemptive The Paschal Mystery – Church’s theodicy rooted in Paschal Mystery – baptized into Christ’s death, also share in

Resurrection We see Only Partially – cannot see big picture

All things work for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28) Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that evil.

(CCC)