Religion final Notes | Knowt (2024)

Religion 12 Final Exam Review

Unit 1 & 5 – Prayer

Prayer - Insights and Misconceptions

PRIMARY CAUSE

God - Ground of all being → Cause of all that ‘is’ → Primary Cause → infinite (no beginning/end)

• Creator ex-nihilo (Creation of nothing)

  • Nothing is a concept not thing (absence of something)

• God is distinct from creation

  • Creation reflectors beauty of God / Science can prove creation exits, but can’t prove God exists

SECONDARY CAUSE

Humans (us) - receive being (born & made from something)

• Gain being at conception as a cell → we are created → must be a creator

• In created order with a telos (purpose)

  • Created by God means we have a purpose for Him (Sons/daughters of God (relationship w/God))

Transubstantiation

• When the bread & wine become the Eucharist

  • b/c the Eucharist already is the body & blood of Christ

Trans - across, beyond, changing thoroughly // Substantia - substance, essence, content

Beginning of mass just have bread → after consecration → have body & blood of Christ

• At Mass, bread and wine change (trans) into the real (pure) body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus

  • A real (not symbolic) presence // Appearance stays the same

(SUBSTANCE vs ACCIDENT) OR (REALITY vs APPEARANCE)

Most of the time, reality matches with appearances, but can there be exceptions?

• Some stars we see don’t actually exist anymore, b/c their falling light hasn’t reached yet (millions of years away)

Priests have AUTHORITY

• Certain people have the authority to change realities … example?

  • Prime Minister, Judges can sentence you even if you’re innocent

At ordination, priests are marked with this authority (AUTHORITY vs POWER)

Freedom

Incomplete Misconceptions of Freedom

Freedom is…

i. Being able to choose from one thing to another // ii. Having the least restriction possible

Freedom rooted in …

Freedom According to Benedict XVI

• Freedom is the capacity to accept one’s own nature and become identified”

  • Human nature is good so rules and things that lead us to objective moral goodness (are in line with natural law) encourage freedom

• Freedom isn’t just being free, but free from something

  • Being free from bad thoughts makes your thinking more free (Freedom from evil)

  • More space for positive thoughts of thinking leads to more good

Technology is NOT ‘Neutral’

Technology → Tool to make life more convenient

• Lack of philosophical reflection on technology in our technological age

  • Rarely speak about television, only about what is on television

• Each technology comes not only with a purpose inscribed on it, but a particular bias as well

• Every technology has an inherent bias (purpose of creation)

  • TV can be used as a lamp, radio or table → but its purpose of creation is entertainment

  • Purpose of internet is unrestricted information

  • Is a nuclear bomb neutral if used wisely?

• Technologies have changed the world in which we live, changed the way we think and relate to one another

  • Will forever see distance differently since the invention of the automobile

• Main tasks of ours is to learn to use this technology wisely

  • Better able to use something wisely the more you know about it

Purpose of technology is … making life more efficient and convenient

Purpose of prayer is … experiencing God’s presence

• Do we take a technological approach to prayer?

  • If prayer doesn’t work do we stop?

Types and Stages of Prayer

Type 1 - VOCAL PRAYER

Stage 1 - Vocal (verbal) prayer

• “Formula” prayers, said out loud (Our Father, Glory Be)

• Never outgrown since they are profound spiritual truths

• Results … MIND IS ENLIGHTENED, WILL LOVES MORE

Type 2 - MEDITATIVE PRAYER (intellect)

Stage 2 - Mental prayer (meditation)

• Become bored with vocal prayer and disillusioned with prayer altogether unless we develop mental prayer

• Meditation is more mature communication with God

• Seven types of mental prayer

• GOALS OF MEDITATION

  • Enlighten mind with deeper understanding of spiritual truth

  • Arouse the will to respond to God and truth with more love

  • Become motivated to live a life in line with Christ's charity

Type 3 - CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER (imagination // being in God’s presence)

• Mystical experiences (visions, locutions) these are gifts from God that only come in contemplative prayer

Stage 3 - Affective (feeling) prayer

• Type of meditative prayer which we dwell in love which we feel in mental prayer

• Enable us to live a life of increasing virtue

Stage 4 - Prayer of simplicity (silence) (connects to Fr. Mike Schmitz)

• Resting before God with an enlightened mind and a quiet heart

• RESULT … Inner calmness and personal peace

Type 4 - LITURGICAL PRAYER

• Official & public prayer of the Church, like Mass or the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours)

• Church as a whole → all those baptized into the Body of Christ → prayed in unity

• Individual participates in given liturgical prayer, prayed in union with others

  • All readings for the Masses are the same throughout the world each day

  • ‘Our Father’ said at mass is both vocal & liturgical prayer

Unit 2 – Scripture and Christology

Scripture

Scripture: Reliable History (The Bible is also a historical book)

Motives for disbelief in Bible could be

1. Psychological

2. Lack of information

• Many Christians defend Christian tenets (beliefs) by starting with the authority/infabilliary of Scripture

  • PROBLEM: Credibility of the Bible

• INSTEAD: Scripture is historically reliable, Jesus claims divinity in Scr. (So what Jesus says must be true)

• Both modernists (atheist) and fundamentalists (Ralph Ree) use their own standard (materialism or fideism) when studying Scr.

  • Both use eisegesis (reading into Scr. with own bias view/opinion)

    • put own explanation on analogies and metaphors

  • Rather than exegesis (reading out of); whether it be our materialism or suspended reason

    • The action of reading to find out what the author is trying to tell us. Not affirming what already think/want to hear

Historical Critical Method (HCM) - is the tool used to read Scr. by using (I) history, (II) the human author’s intent, (III) cultural realities at the time

HOW TO INTERPRET SCR.

i) Read for author’s intended meaning; who, where, when, etc. → who is writing and for who (target audience)

ii) Distinguish interpretation from belief → separate what it is saying from what you want it to say

iii) Interpret book according to genre → poetry has figurative language (cook book is read literally)

iv) Know when to take literally vs symbolically

v) Historical vs Religious questions

vi) Historical proximity → those closer to the year of occurrence, probably know more about the incident

Ex. Martin Luther knew less about Jesus’s life and his teachings then John the Apostle

The Bible: Can an Intelligent Person Believe in the Bible?

1. Historical Record

• Other non-Christian historians near 33 AD mention Jesus as someone who existed and claimed to be the messiah

2. Gospels Accounts of Jesus Reliable?

• Geographical names & cultural details written in Bible confirmed by historians & archaeologists

• Each of the four gospel writers made a very detailed account. Agreement in the facts.

3. Does Archaeology support the Bible?

• Pool of Bethesda mentioned in Gospel of John with the healing of a cripple by Jesus

• Not one archaeological find has conflicted with what the Bible records.

4. Textual scholarship confirms that the books of the Bible have not changed since they were first written.

How to Read the Bible - Fr. Barron

HCM - using history to uncover i) intention of the author, to find the ii) target audience, to find iii) problems/issues target audience was facing at the time

• Must use HCM with a theological framework of thinking (recognize God as the author & tradition of Church)

• Read Bible through a lens of theological & spiritual imagination, & knowing is rooted in history

Deep Misunderstandings about the Bible

Problem with Biblical Literalism - misread text, not understand and don’t seek to find deeper meaning

• Ignores genre of book and author’s intention

What is the Bible?

• A collection of texts, with diff. genres, author’s purposes and at diff. times (more like a library)

Approach to the Bible cause problems?

• Our interpretive lens does not match the genre of the book

How to refrain from “cherry picking”?

• Read the Bible through an interpretive tradition (within the Church's values and beliefs)

How is Literalism a form of modernism compared to the traditional interpretive approach to the Bible?

• Literalism has only recently increased popularity, in line with modernism (science view on world)

Scripture: The Word of God

Divine Revelation (DR) → Jesus revealing himself is the climax of DR

• DR makes known what is hidden (veiled) & reveals who God is and His plan to His creation (us)

  See Also

  The Benedictine Order: Monks, Rule of St. Benedict, and LegacyCore Values: Benedictine Spirituality (Part 1 of 3) - Benedictine Center

  • Can’t hide from God → everywhere // DR deals w/who & what God is & how not burn in Hell

• DR is done through people (Abraham, Moses, prophets), the Scr. and His Son. Jesus fulfilled and fully revealed all that God has to reveal (“It is finished”)

LEAVES US WITH TRADITION AND SCRIPTURE; two lungs that give correct interpretation of DR

Tradition - Truths revealed by God and passed on to the faithful;

• Done through teaching of the Church (Magisterium). Ex = Matthew 16, Luke 104

Scripture - collection of 73 books written over thousands of years

God is principal author of Scr. & sacred writers =secondary, although real & essential, authors of the texts

God worked through these authors freedom (not director diction from God, like Qu’ran), without hindering their reason and will; in fact their intellects are enlightened, inspired & guided by HS to write what God wanted down

Ex. God writes intention → person frameworks story for the intention

SCR. NEED TO BE READ IN …

i) in differents senses (4 → Literal, Allegorical, Moral, Anagogical)

ii) within a unity (OT ↔ NT) → read as one book, both help explain the other

iii) within Tradition and Church teaching

All Scr. should be read Christocentrically → JC is only person who influenced history before, during and after His birth

• Lens = hermeneutic // best way to read Scr. through a Christological hermeneutic of Jesus

- As time goes by, we come to understand revealed truths more deeply under guidance of the HS

- Scr. reveals God’s master plan of saving his people (salvation history) and the way he achieved this

The 4 Fold Sense of Scripture (LAMA)

Scr. has two-fold meaning → literal & spiritual sense (reflective of the person of Jesus, both man & God)

• Jesus’ human nature is a path to understanding his divine nature -- everything he did as a man reflects or portrays some aspect of the invisible God

  • The literal sense is path to understanding spiritual sense (Allegorical, Moral, Anagogical)

1. Literal Sense

• The meaning conveyed by the words // All other senses of scripture are based on literal

• Accurately describes what took place // Paraphrasing of the passage

2. Allegorical (Typological) Sense

• Signifies a foreshadowing (typology) in the OT that will be fulfilled by Christ in the NT

Ex. Abraham’s son, Isaac, is a typology for Jesus

3. Moral Sense

• Recorded for our instruction (Written as an instruction → “We must…”)

• Moves the Chrisitan to act justly in the life of the Church by indicating to us what ought be done

4. Anagogical Sense

• How does this passage reveal God’s ultimate plan for us? (which is Heaven)

Ex. Story of Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of His ministry which points to how baptism is our beginning to a new life and how Jesus’ life is our way to show us how we can achieve salvation

Noah’s Ark Story 4 Senses

i) Literal - thes story of time (story of the Ark) // ii) Allegorical - NOAH → JESUS /Ark → Church / Waters → Baptism

iii) Moral - Must follow God to avoid destruction // iv) Anagogical → saved from drowning/hell

Salvation History

Salvation History - the progressive unfolding of God’s plan to save the human race from sin & death after the fall. This is the meaning of the entire world history.

Original Sin - Loss/lack of inheritance (perfect Grace)

Ex. Win lottery of 50M = kids are set for life → But if you spend all 50M = kids lose all inheritance b/c of actions before them (Adam & Eve)

• God makes promises (covenants→belong to each other) with prophets over the years

• Deeper reason for these events & covenants who prefigure Christ

  • Jesus is the answer to the world’s questions and PERFECT covenant w/God

The Divinity of Christ

Jesus’ View of Himself

• Claimed divinity, sinlessness, being Saviour, spiritual foods and to forgive sins (all outrageous)

Importance of the Issue

• Divinity of Christ that Jesus claimed is most distinct Chrictian doctrine (prophet → claimed messenger of God)

  • All our doctrines hinge on this belief // If true, then Incarnation most important event ever

Clues to JC’s Divinity

• Similar legend and other myths

  • Copying of prior stories OR foreshadowing to Christianity

• Author going into own story // God is ALMIGHTY - he can do this

The Alternatives

1. Jesus said he was God → Meant it Literally (either: LORD, LIAR, LUNATIC)

2. Jesus said he was God → Meant it Symbolically (PANTHEISTIC GURU)

3. Jesus said he was God (MYTH → NT is false/lie)

LIAR

Jesus said he was God → Knew He was Not

• Jesus was unselfish, caring, etc.

• Liars/con artists are not like that → Lie for their own gain

• Motive for JC lie? Would JC die for his lie? Would he Disciples also lie and die for the lie?

LUNATIC (Insane → but not mental illness)

Jesus Thought He Was God → Was Mistaken

• Lunatics usually strange, uncharismatic, unclear, needy → Jesus was the opposite of these

• People felt inspired and challenged by Him // Lunatics were not hated like Jesus was

• Were all Disciples lunatics as well? Fantastic Coincidence!!

PANTHEISTIC GURU

• Pantheism → no belief in God, no creator, everything is God and divine (God is creation).

  • JC was a Jew and so already believed God is outside creation

Jesus Said He Was Symbolically God

• Jews and Gurus have totally different worldviews

• Judaism → public religion/law, Gurus - private religion

• Jews believe in God/creation distinction

• For Jews, hell is real → JC spoke a lot about hell // For pantheism no hell→no real separation from god

• If JC was a pantheistic guru, he was pretty incompetent, b/c all his followers taught clear monotheism

MYTH

Jesus Never Said He Was God

• Scr. extremely critiqued, yet very consistent // Many manuscripts confirming he claimed divinity

• No eyewitness of Jesus supports

• PP said JC committed no crime, the Jews killed him for blasphemy (offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God)

• If myth, who invented it & why? // 1st century Jews didn’t believe in myths

YouCat: Handout; read sections 14 and 15.

• God did not dictate Scr. to human scribes who copied it down mechanically → worked through them

• The Bible is not meant to convey precise historical information or scientific finding to us

• The author’s of Scr. forms of expression are influenced sometimes by inadequate cultural images of the world around them

Unit 3 & 5 – Philosophical and Christian Anthropology

Introduction to Universals

• Asking what a “thing” is ≠ quantity (extra add on)

• Quantity bears upon “how much a thing is” not what a thing is

• Plato insight outside limits of ethics and saw every intelligible (know or can think about) has “essential form”

  • Idea = form = essence

• When we ask what atthing is we are inquiring about its nature

• Ousia = Essence/being. What a thing is → what it is essentially (in essence)

• Equilateral, isosceles, and scalene triangle all are triangles, because they share the form of triangularity

  • A 5 cm side of a triangle might appear in your imagination, but not all triangles have 5 cm. Having 5cm sides isn’t what a triangle is essentially.

• If no triangles were to exist in the world, the form of “traingulatrit” would still exist

  • It is impossible to draw triangularity (form), only particular triangles (particulars)

• Essences/forms are universal. UNCHANING, SINGULAR, NOWHERE, NO QUANTITY

  • It is the form which makes a desk, a desk (not being made of wood or having four legs, because chairs can also have these qualities)

• Real difference b/w intelligence and sensation

  • Sensation/intelligences can only perceive particulars

  • Intellect apprehends essences (animals have no intellect)

• Science studies nature/form (humans), not particulars (Felipe)

  • Ex. Hospital for humans, not just Zak

Principle of Non-contradiction - Something cannot both be & not be at the the same time + same respect(way)

Principle of Identity - Each being what it is [i.e. a bird is a bird] → “what is it?”

I. Form and Matter

Physical things are made up of 2 principles (from which a thing comes to being)…

• Union of form and matter is required for a thing to exist

i) Form - essence, what makes a thing be what is is

ii) Matter - out of which a thing comes to be (recieves form)

• Limits (ties down) the form

• When we grasp the form of a thing, we know whether there is a table or a dog in front of us

• Both principles are intrinsic (from within a thing)

• Matter is the “stuff” out of which the thing is made, and form is the “arrangement” of that stuff

  • A lighter made to look like a gun its external shape points to a gun. But still has the form of a lighter. Form influences every aspect of the thing we call it.

II. Potency and Actuality

Every created thing is a composition (unity) of potency and actuality

i) Potency - Capacity or ability of a thing to be actualized (not unlimited → man pregnant)

Ex. Mr. Grossling doesn’t have potency to stand when standing, but has potency to sit

ii) Actuality - Having real existence

Ex. dough has potency to be pizza, but only when out the oven is in actuality pizza

• Matter as a principle of a physical thing is “in potency” to a form which makes it actual or real

  • Form actualizes matter. Matter has the ability to change (flour salt). Actuality is what is (dougness)

• Form of a thing actualizes one (or more) of potencies of matter

III. Substance and Accidents

Two kinds of form

i) Substance - form that exists in and for itself (A human person, A tree, A block of gold)

Substantial form - from that makes a thing exist on its own

• Substance is int its unity; one thing → not a machine which is a collection of substances

ii) Accident - from that is able to exist in another, requires substance (speed, shape, cheerfulness)

Accidental form - makes a substance exist in a particular manner

QUANTITY, QUALITY, ACTION, PASSION (action against), RELATION, POSTURE, TIME, PLACE, HABIT (clothes)

• Both substantial and accidental forms are non-material. United w/matter not matter itself

IV. Primary and Secondary Matter

i) Prime matter - “matter” which substantial form actualizes. Pure potentiality. Doesn’t exist

• If prime matter is not united with a substantial form, then prime matter makes up nothing

• LEMON is made up of substantial form “lemon-ness” & the prime matter which received this form and which together make the particular thing we call a LEMON

ii) Secondary matter - exists because it has received substantial form

• Any substance whose prime matter has been actualized by a substantial form

• An accidental form makes a substance into a particular manner

  • The substance a human person can gain weight, become older and still be the same substance

V. Substantial and Accidental Change

• Prime matter does not have substantial existence yet (needs substantial form to give it that)

• Prime matter is a real principle of change → help understand how things in our world change

• Any change requires something constant

  • Without a constant, a gap in being would occur

  • Not be able to talk about change, because one thing (being) would have stopped existing and another thing would begin to exist.

  • Change involves a movement from potency to act

• Change can be accidental or substantial

Accidental change → constant is substance (zak) // accidents change (blonde hair to green)

Substantial change → constant is prime matter //

• substantial change occurs, prime matter loses one substantial change and receives another → substance changes

• Ex. wood as it burns many accidental changes occur. Instantaneously (impossible to pinpoint) the substance of wood becomes ashes. It is now completely different substance

  • Living body → corpse // Sand → glass // food → sh*t

What does Aristotle mean by Causality?

• 3 KINDS OF SUBSTANCES: i) perceptible, ii) motionless, iii) primary mover

  • Perceptible (sensible, moveable) & Motionless (not subject to change, but came into being at one point → mathematics) both pertain to things that come into being from potency to act

• Change or coming into being is the passage from potency to act

• Aristotle four distinctions of this change in substance → four causes

  • i) material, ii) formal, iii) efficient, iv) final

EXAMPLE: building a house

Material - House would be made of stone

Formal - built according to design or a plan makes it what it is

Efficient - undergo process of being built

Final - ready to be inhabited which is its purpose of use

• Change of something into one of these four causes suggests a mover. Third kind of substance (primary mover)

Aristotle’s Four Causes

Efficient - by which there is coming to be (sculptor)

Formal - sake of which there is coming to be

• Marble requires a form, namely a dove and the “dove” is what the marble is being created into

Material - from which there is coming to be (Marble)

Final cause - sake of which there is coming to be (two fold)

1. End of the generation

• When the efficient (sculptor) stops working, b/c dove is completed

2. End of the generated

• Ultimate purpose of his (sculptor) action

• Anniversary gift is the end of the generated

- Final cause also plays a role in determining the form (marble lasts long, dove is nice animal, sculptor makes it as gift)

Tie

Material - silk/cotton

Formal - tie

Efficient - sweatshop kids

Final - worn around neck

Introduction to the Idea of the Soul

How do living things move differently from non-living things?

• Life has something to do with movement

• Non-living things move, but not by themselves (being moved by something outside themselves)

  • Principle (source) of motion is extrinsic

• Living thing moves itself. Principle of motion is intrinsic

How does Plato discern that the mind is immaterial?

• If a thing was alive by virtue of its matter, then all material things would be living

  • Living by virtue of a principle that is immaterial (non-matter)

• The mind is able to receives forms and conceive ideas that are universal → mind is immaterial

  • Object of the intellect is the essence of things

• Material thing receives material form → can’t receive ideas

Why did Plato believe that the human person was 2 substances?

• The body and soul cannot be both immaterial and material

  • One is immaterial and the other is material, therefore man is made of two substances

• The body is the prison of the soul, they both are united to create man

Aristotle and the Soul

• A thing is alive by virtue of an immaterial principle (principle is not a substance, but formal principle of a substance)

• Where was the form of a computer when it was first built?

  • The form was not in the computer, but in the mind of the engineer who blueprinted it

  • The form in his mind directed the organization of the matter

  • The form in his mind was the organizational or unifying principle of this new computer

• Living things self organize, like fetus’ in the womb

• Form is not in the mind of some person, but form is in the organism itself

• FORM is the organization or unifying principle of the building process

  • Form within organism → substantial form, is the organizing principle of living things

• Wherever we have form, we have unity. The soul is the “substantial form” of a living thing, and so soul is the organizing principle of the living substance

  • A corpse decomposes, b/c it has been transformed (no longer unified substance lacking substantial form)

PLATO - perfection in form, body limits it (forms exist in some other world, of intelligible ideas)

ARISTOTLE - perfection in unity of form & body, body still limits it (forms exist in substances)

• Soul of living substance is its substantial form (no body without the soul → body is in the soul)

• Parts of the body receive organization, unity, from a single principle (substantial form)

• Cannot talk about the body as one thing and soul as something else. Without soul or form, there is no body

Descartes (D) & Mind/Body Dualism

• Reacted against the growing skepticism @ the time

Looked for certainty in skepticism of knowledge

• Skeptics were doubting the senses

• Started by doubting all the senses since that can make error

  • Doubted everything except for one thing can exist → he existed! (b/c he was thinking)

“COGITO EGO SUM” → “I THINK, THEREFORE I AM”

• Even if an evil devil was tricking us about all of our existence, there must be an “I” to trick. We must exist to be tricked (not necessarily as a human)

• Only clear and certain things can be be trusted from deception

• Therefore two realities exist: mind (we can think) & physical . D separated them for certainty

Mind - thinking (makes one real)**

Physical - these things are extended (extensions of mind) (i.e. objects) (even though we can’t be certain)

• But these two realities do not interact; they’re separate (dualism), still work together

• So the MIND is what controls the separate body (that can’t be proven) For D, they are not one

***SO BODY IS JUST NEUTRAL MATTER & SOUL IS WHAT IS ALIVE

• Eventually D said contact b/w two was in gland of the brain

• D builds more certainties, and does so in two easy:

  • Mind - I exist & Innate ideas - i) God & ii) Math

i) D reasons God must be real b/c there is a concept of Him. And imperfect beings can’t come up w/perfect concept so a perfect being must have put it there (ontological argument → study of being)

ii) D said since God is perfect, He won’t deceive us rather force us to know truths about things (i.e. 2+2=4), but our experience can still be deceived, b/c we experience them

Relationship between Faith and Science

Religion & Science purpose: Search for TRUTH

Black Magic & Tech purpose: Impose our will on nature

Examples of Christian Scientists

• Galileo Galilei (Astronomy) → revolve around sun

• Isaac Newton (Physics)

• Gregor Mendel (founded genetics)

• Rene Descartes (Math)

• St. Augustine relied on established astronomical observation at time to read Genesis symbolically & not literally

• St. Robert Bellarmine said if heliocentrism (revolve around sun) is true then Catholics have misinterpreted the scripture and should not just disregard the scientific discovery

Argument for God’s Existence - Contingency

Contingent - not necessary (AKA dependent for existence)

Real Distinction - essence/nature (what a thing is) is not the same [distinct] as existence (that it is)

• TRex is a dinosaur (essence) that is now extinct (existent → wasn’t, was, wasn’t again)

• Mermaids (essence) have never being (existence)

• Mr. Grossling is a man (essence) that is (existence)

• Knowing what a man is (essence), does not say whether it is (existence)

  • Existence does not belong to the essence of man

    • We live & die (exist to non-exist)

    • Nothing has purpose, we are all brought into existence, then taken out of

• All things are contingent, as they are generated & corrupted (come out of existence/being)

• Things can’t give themselves existence b/c from nothing comes nothing.

  • Contingent things DON’T contain in themselves the reason for existence

• THEREFORE, act of existence in contingent things does not belong to its essence

  • Whatever belongs to essence of a thing belongs to it necessarily

  • If existence were part of my nature, I would necessarily exist and would have had to always exist and will exist forever

• God is only necessary being (non-contingent). Without his being, nothing would come to be (contingent beings need an efficient cause)

• If everything were contingent (union of form&matter) then at some point there would have been nothing

  • Then nothing would exist, does stuff does → MUST BE NECESSARY BEING

• Infinite chain of contingent things is impossible, why?

  • Infinite regress is impossible, b/c contingent things cannot impart existence since they receive existence (by nature they are not necessary)

• Only God (necessary being) can impart existence, b/c HE IS HIS EXISTENCE

• His essence is to exist, no real distinction in God (they are the same in Him

Argument for God’s Existence - Gradation (Perfection) & HIERARCHY OF BEING

• Express degrees of perfection by comparing one thing with another (Ford vs Porsche)

• But Aquinas is not saying that everything that exists is traceable to one standard of perfection (ie. sweetness, smellines, hotness)

• Things that come in degrees point to a maximum (NOT talking about heat, smellines, but rather) → UNITY, TRUTH, GOODNESS, BEAUTY, BEING, (TRANSCENDENTALS)

Unity → It is simple; absent of division (God → Human → Car)

Truth (T)→ known by the intellect; corresponds to reality (God → CNN)

Goodness (G)→ Corresponds to one’s nature and is desirable (not just morality) (God → M.Teresa → Trudeau)

Beauty (B)→ To delight in (not definition, rather what beauty is used for) (God → Picasso → Van Gogh)

• Aquinas argues that the transcendentals come in degrees and they must be traceable to a maximum

• They are also “convertible” with one another AKA the same thing under different descriptions

• The transcendentals are above every genus (category) & common to every being

  • TO BE PERFECT, MUST PERFECT IN UNITY, TRUTH, GOODNESS, BEAUTY

• There is hierarchy of beings, for example, substances are greater than accidents (need substances)

  • Ex. Humans → Angels → God

• Hierarchy exists b/c higher being possesses what previous has & MORE

  • Ex. tiger greater in being then plant, b/c it can do what plant does and more (move, eat)

• Reflections in things (triangles, rocks) can be measured in degrees of their being (T,G,B,etc)

  • Degrees of perfection of transcendentals present in a thing points to the higher being

  • Greatest in transcendentals = greatest in being

Q. How is the highest level of being the cause of the “lower” instances of being?

A. The same way that only a being whose essence is to exist can impart being, b/c existence is not essential to contingent thins (the same applies to the properties of being)

• Something that participates in T, G, etc. cannot have it as part of its essence

  • Part of its essence (ie. G) would mean it has it in an unlimited way (ie. perfectly good)

• Therefore, degrees of perfection in being (things) points to a maxim, and we call this GOD

Reductionism = -R-

R - Belief that living things are the mere sum of parts, nothing more

• Unity (number=10 eggs) vs multitude (plurality=a bunch of eggs) - the former organizes the chaos (latter)

  • Ex. quantity of milk vs litre of milk

• We have 2 interiors - bodily (anatomy) & immaterial (personality, mind & heart)

R - living things are just made up of parts

• But the whole gives meaning to the parts of living things (ex. liver)

  • Liver has purpose when in organism

• Living things have parts that are simplified to a unity. Unity (cell, organ, man) is what it is

• That is why we number things… to make sense of them (km, m, cm, mm). A unity is one & measures multiplicity

• Plurality gets organized into an intelligible whole

• But if R is true, then I am sum of parts, which are sum of parts, which are sum of parts, which are…

  • So what is Felipe? Liver? Protein?

    • Hence, a thing is not in anything in itself. It is other than itself (NO FORM)

Unit 4 & 5 – Vocation and Discernment

The Consecrated and Religious Life (“religious and consecrated life” = RL)

• The consecrated and religious life makes no sense at all without a belief in God

• Like all vocations, the consecrated life is rooted in our call to holiness and path to salvation

• This is living the life of the evangelical counsels

→ Poverty

→ Chastity (celibacy)

→ Obedience

- It is a rejection of goods for another good - a total self-gift to God - the whole self is given away

Is this life too hard?

• God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called

• The RL is witness by physically living like God/Christ

Characteristics

• Separation from the world // Community life // Contemplative prayer // Corporate Apostolate (service related) // Visible Gard or Habit

• RL radically mimics life of Christ’s poverty, chastity, and obedience = PCO

• PCO are practices to perfection to remove attachments // RL requires publicly professed vows (need witnesses)

POVERTY - to receive everything from God

• God’s salvation is our greatest treasure - it’s not earned // Poverty teaches us to trust/depend solely on God to live

• This poverty witnesses to the involuntary poor // Strips person of the unnecessary ‘weight’ to do their work

CHASTITY - one undivided heart for Jesus

• Christianity raises celibacy to higher than Jews since Jesus saw the covenant passed through marriage and family

• One is called to celibacy and enters it if they freely accept it

• We are all ordered to marriage, but God calls some of us out of this to something higher

• God brings order and happiness to this life while still remaining a sexual person

• Celibacy leaves more freedom for loving and serving God and neighbor in a way not possible for one with a spouse and family

• Celibacy is the objectively higher calling:

1. It is a symbol of all of us in afterlife (no marriage to other people except God)

2. Jesus and Mary were celibate

3. It is a renouncing of an incredible good (marriage)

OBEDIENCE - delighting in God’s will

• This vow is not a renouncing of one’s freedom (autonomy)

• Mimics Jesus as a servant; 100% emptying

• Obedience makes one totally available for God’s work and a sign of trust in God

• Life of evangelical counsels gives everything and is a deeper conforming to Jesus himself in a life of service.

Marriage and Canon Law

Canon Law - The Roman Catholic Church has its own body of laws, called canon law

• Affects baptized Roman Catholics

• These laws can change because they are made by the institutional Church

The Church derives marriage laws from…

• Natural law; it is written in our heads

• Divine law; the word of God

• (Ecclesial) Canon Law (law of the Church) →can change

• Marriage exists in the civil and religious realm

3 Things to Differentiate

1. Divorce // 2. Dissolving a valid marriage // 3. Annulment

Marriage is: 1. A ‘covenant’ and a contract // 2. Partnership of the whole life

Marriage comes into existence:

• At the moment of consent (saying your vows)

• Valid if vows are said: Full (total or unconditional, Free, Faithful, Fruitful (open to having children)

Purposes of marriage: Good of the spouses (holiness) // Having and raising children

Properties of marriage: Indissolubility (lifelong) // Unity (monogamy)

What makes marriage a Sacrament?

• The two spouses MUST both be baptised (Christian baptism NOT Catholic baptism)

When is a sacramental marriage indissoluble? (cannot be dissolved)

• Consummation (sex after marriage) because sex expresses the 4 F’s (full, free, faithful, fruitful)

Who makes the marriage happen?

• The spouses (ministers) make it happen // the presider (priest, deacon, or bishop) is witness for the Church

3 Ways a marriage is NOT valid

1. Improper Consent (the 4 F’s missing)

• Consent is: 1. Freely given // 2. Must know what they’re consenting to 3. Neither can be prevented by law

• Full, free, faithful, fruitful is key

2. Impediment (Restriction):

• Everyone bound by civil impediments

• Some also bound by impediments of their religion

Impediments in canon law:

1. Relationship by blood (mother, father, sibling, etc)

2. Relationship by adoption

3. Underage (man under 16, women under 14)

4. Prior bond: currently in a valid marriage

5. Holy orders or vow of celibacy

6. A non-Christian (this one can be dispensed)

   1. Lifted if the non-Christian allows their children to be Catholic and is not an obstacle to their faith

3. ..Lack of Ceremonial Form

• Catholics are also bound to marry in a Church (the physical building) (with proper official, i.e. priest)

• Dispensation must be granted to marry outside the Church (e.g. due to other religions)

When a marriage fails:

• Divorce

• Dissolving a Marriage

• Annulment or Declaration

Divorce

• The Church does not give divorce nor recognise them as ending a marriage

• It permits people to obtain civil divorce when spouses need to separate, but marriage still exists

Dissolving a Marriage

• Sacramental marriages that are NOT consummated can be dissolved

• There must be an important reason to do this

Annulment

• A Catholic annulment declares that a valid marriage never took place at all

1 - no proper consent given lacking on F

2 - an impediment was discovered

• So one is free to enter a vocation