Christology Revelation

1. ChristologyRevelation God Making Known Who God Is Part 1: The God-Human Relationship

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Church Fathers Origenabout 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.”

8. Church FathersSaint Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 350) “In regard to the divine and holy mysteries of faith, not the least part may be handed on without Holy Scriptures. Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce. The salvation in which we believe is proved not from clever reasoning, but from the Holy Scriptures.”

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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)