Tomorrow's Catholic Flashcards
How does a fundamentalist or literalist interpret “the inspired Word of God?”
diction from heaven - God speaks, man writes
How do fundamentalist or literalist see everything recorded in Scripture?
literally true and there cannot be errors of any kind.
If Scripture is not to be understood as dictation from heaven, then how does God operate?
God cannot be everywhere at the same time.
Is God ever absent?
Never
God presently works with…
what God has to work with.
List 9 things required to understand the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
- cultures
- worldviews
- time
- place
- ways of communicating
- literary style
- thought patterns
- community circumstances
- history circumstances.
What special commission issued document to help Catholics appreciate the idea of revelation and to go beyond fundamentalism?
The Pontifical Biblical Commission.
What does Pontifical mean?
Pope’s orders.
How does fundamentalism treat the biblical text?
Dictated word for word by the spirit.
What does fundamentalism adopt? What does it accept?
Fundamentalism adopts very narrow points of views. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology.
If God is truly always present everywhere, then what are the two things we should expect?
- God’s presence and something of God’s nature to be revealed in all of creation.
- God’s presence, God’s spirit, has been and is at work in all people, in all places, at all times, in a multitude of different cultures, thought patterns, and world views.
What does God work with?
What God has to work with. Our human thought limitations.
What can we never claim?
That we are actually imaging or describing what or who “God” is.
What does transcendence mean?
God is beyond any statement we can make about God.
What mystery are we asked to hold?
Yes, God is distinct from, other than, not identifies by the created universe; and yes, God is concerned, involved with, intimately connected to, moved by the created universe.
What is our challenge?
Whether we ca appreciate the reality and mystery of these two dimensions of God, and at the same time speak meaningfully about God in relation to our universe and ourselves in the light of today’s understanding.
What does the challenge invite us to do? Explain
To break new ground. When we encounter the challenge we find we are shaking some of the foundation of our religious belief system.
What is the primary question?
What do you think you would be believing in if you did not believe in God?
List 3 ideas about God that make it easy for atheists.
- God set the universe, then left it.
- God can control and prevent, but doesn’t.
- God who requires praise.
What makes these ideas about God easy for atheists?
That God as a manipulator/punisher is hard to accept.
What is all creation permeated with?
The presence of God.
What do we literally give God? And subsequently, what else do we give?
A voice and arms, We give love a shape and form.
If we are loved by others, what is given human form?
The reality of God.
We are not “masters of” creation. Instead, what are we??
We are one with, nurtured into life by, totally dependent on Earth’s life systems.
