The Catholic Vision: Difference between revisions
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Plato conceived of "the good", Aristotle argued for the existence of an "unmoved mover" which he said must be conceived as "thought thinking itself" | Plato conceived of "the good", Aristotle argued for the existence of an "unmoved mover" which he said must be conceived as "thought thinking itself" | ||
[[St. Thomas Aquinas]] formulated the most stringent arguments of the existence of God. His [http://catholicknowledge.org/New_Advent_2/summa/index.html Suma Theologia | [[St. Thomas Aquinas]] formulated the most stringent arguments of the existence of God. His [http://catholicknowledge.org/New_Advent_2/summa/index.html Suma Theologia] gives five ways, each starts from a different observation of the natural world. | ||
] gives five ways, each starts from a different observation of the natural world. | |||
==== 4. Nature Speaks of God ==== | ==== 4. Nature Speaks of God ==== | ||
==== 5. God has spoken to us ==== | ==== 5. God has spoken to us ==== | ||
Revision as of 21:39, 2 January 2012
Title: 'The Catholic Vision
Author Edward D. O'connor, C.S.C
Content
Part 1: Perspectives
2. Christianity amid the world religious.
3. The modern Religious atmosphere
Part 2: The sources of religious knowledge
The sources from which religious knowledge can be sought... nature and revelation
Nature has often been preceived as a manifstation of God, and most of the classical arguments for the existence of God start from nature. We call this natural knowledge of God by reason.
Tradition of Judeo-Christian is characterized by the claim of having received revalation from God himseld. This might be referred to as a superatural revalation as opposed to a natural revalation. We call this Divine revalation.
The church maintains that the human reason is inded capable by itself of attaining the knowledge God: but that the revelation given to through Jesus Christ and the phrophets is nevertheless very useful. The First Vatican Council (1870) declared:
God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certitude from created things by the natural light of human reason... But God, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, has seen fit to reveal himself and the eternal decrees of his will to the human race in another way - one that is supernatural...
it does not say that the existance of God can be demonstrated.
Revelation enables us to know them easily, whereas without it the knowledge of God is quite difficult.
Divine revelation is absolutly indispensable in that God has by free "decree," call nam to "participate in the divine goods, which utterly transcend human understanding." That is to say, mankind has a vocation that is supernatural, beyond the reach of mere natural human powers.
Without revelation, we would not know that this has been offered to us; hence weather could we orient our efforts toward such a goal.
Plato conceived of "the good", Aristotle argued for the existence of an "unmoved mover" which he said must be conceived as "thought thinking itself"
St. Thomas Aquinas formulated the most stringent arguments of the existence of God. His Suma Theologia gives five ways, each starts from a different observation of the natural world.