Catholic Theology Essay Highlights

*Sense experiences/depth experiences: not limited by the empirical data-the really "real" is not necessarily able to be seen.

*Religious Experience (depth experience): Not just a sense experience, an experience that causes people to change, always touches on the "other" (the transcendent)-that which goes beyond our understanding (anything that we can come up with) (ie..who can really explain the sunset?).

*Orthopraxis (Right-practice): The process of doing the right things.

*Orthodoxy: Believing the right thing.

*Sacramental Approach: Sacraments use the world around us as a way/event in which we encounter God: The way we do that is being involved with life/experiences in this world-that we are able to reach God in the afterlife (ex: eating is a way of being joined w/ God).

*The things of this world matter-it becomes the way we reach God on the road to reaching eternal happiness (meeting God).

*Foundation Theology/Fundamental Theology: Explains what theology is all about.

*Theology: "Faith seeking understanding" - we need faith 1st before understanding can be reached.

*Determining the "cannon" (cannon of scripture): list of writings that adequately express the faith of the community.

*Apacal Writings: didn't make it onto the list (cannon) because they didn't adequately express what the community expressed as far as their understanding of faith.

C.Rahner: Sees theology as the science/study of faith (it has excepted way of doing things).

*Theology has a special subject matter: the act & content of faith

*Act: what it means to be a believer/a person of faith

*Also sees faith as the goal of theology

*We have to have faith 1st (it's a gift given to us by God)

*Theology doesn't assume faith, it produces it. Theology is a practical science, it impels us to put what we know into action-practice what you preach.

*Christian faith is a community based function, not an individual function.

*Revelation: The historical passing over/on of beliefs (the interpretation of faith).

*Catholic Theology: Lives build on faith in God who has been mediated to human beings through Jesus Christ.

*Formative Factors in Theology (Macquarrie): where we get our theology from

1. Experience

2. Revelation: God making himself known through scripture, continuance through tradition-tries to recognize the ongoing belief in God

A. Scripture

B. Tradition

3. Culture: the culture in which a theologian works

4. Reason: Heresy-"taking for oneself", occurs when 1 factor is overemphasized

*Too much stress on experience leads to individualism.

*If all 4 aren't balanced: we end up w/ heresy.

*Heretic: Someone who doesn't accept a certain part of a faith.

*(Lane-viii) Question is not whether God exists; it is the question of how "God" fits in the roles of our lives.

*We can't theologize w/out experience.

*Our best experiences are those that occur outside of the ordinary experience: Sense data-self involved.

*If determined by language it is limited.

*We need to have a person encounter somebody/something else (interplay) so that experience happens.

*Union w/ God is not random, God choose you to experience.

*Theological Anthropology: Premises is on free will.

*Community: "The horizon of understanding", without the base of community we don't know what context to put our experiences in

*Inherited wisdom

*Tradition

*We can't meet God directly in the life.

*Private Revelations: Experiences of God that are only felt/experienced by one indiv.

*Indiv. Experiences have to be tried/tested against the corporate/community in order to be true.

*Revelation has "closed", new things will not be learned about God, but we are learning new ways about how the church is involved/ how we witness the world (the result of our ongoing appreciation of God).

*God is co-present in our lives. As we are experiencing things, God is there experiencing w/ us (co-pilot). That's why we have experiences, because God is leading us.

*God is not just available to a privileged few, he is available to all. He sustains all human experiences, the very foundation of existence.

*In considering the role of doctrine, we need these specified beliefs/specific assertions of God: describes the community.

*We can't experience God unless we have the knowledge of God. God that which is beyond us, the ideas/beliefs held by the community.

*Faith does not contradict our reason; it just takes us beyond what we can reason

*God of the Gaps: A God who we call on only when we have no other option (The belief that God has nothing to do with our lives until we are in trouble and we pray) (i.e. an atheist that prays).

*"What is yours and only yours is not divine" (Josiah Royce).

*In order to have a Christian experience:

1. Needs to receive God as Father, Son & Spirit

2.

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