Exam 1 Flashcards
What is divine revelation?
Divine revelation is God’s self-disclosure.
How is divine revelation given?
It is given through words and deeds that have inner unity.
What is the classic definition of theology?
Theology is …
fides quaerens intellectum or “faith seeking understanding”
What does faith mean in the classic definition?
Faith is the rational act by which we receive, with our whole person, what is revealed.
Does faith substitute critical thinking?
No, they depend on each other. “Does what is proposed conform to what is otherwise knowable, or does it contradict it?”
What is the cause or motivation that leads one to make an act of faith.
Faith begins from the encounter with a person and from the decision to trust what that person reveals. The reasonability is taken into account, but it is an act of the will, a rational decision to trust the person whom we have encountered.
What is revealed in the encounter?
Revelation allows us to know God and all things in light of God, principal among which is the human person who is created is the divine image.
Where does this encounter and thus this revelation take place?
It comes to us in Sacred Scripture and sacred tradition.
How are sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture connected?
They both come from the same divine wellspring and merge into a unity and move towards the same end.
What is Sacred Scripture?
Sacred Scripture is the word of God that is placed in writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit.
What is sacred tradition?
Sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known.
For what end is revelation given?
God desires to create others and to share his perfect goodness with others even though he has nothing to gain. God reveals “so that He may invite and take [men and women] into fellowship with Himself.”
In what does fellowship consist?
Theology begins and ends with a personal encounter with God. It leads ultimately to a state of joyful adoration, being with, namely God.
When does the process of revelation end?
It never ends because God is a mystery that is intelligible but inexhaustible. The process of seaking can never end. The goal of seeking is not to fully comprehend but to deepen our knowledge of God.
In what way should we seek to unfold the contents of revelation?
We must study the Scripture and Tradition as a genuine human artifact and take into account such things as historical context, literary genre, and language because it has a human author. And Discern Scripture and the Tradition in the light of the whole work of God which culminates in Jesus because God is the primary author.
