Power Point based on Chapter One of Foundations of Theological Study

1. Foundational Questions for RS107
• Is there a god?
• What does it mean to be human?
• How does the human interact with the
sacred?
• How does the human interact with the
believing community?

2. The world is wondrously beautiful
place but it is also terrifying.
This world is not this world. From The Nazi Doctors

3. PLATO 427 – 347
Refer p. 23 FTS
“Things” are
beautiful (or good)
because they
participate in
varying degrees in
an ultimate and
divine beauty
which is the final
goal of human
desire.

4. Jose Maria
Gironella
Wrote the most
definitive book about
the political, religious ,
and economic chaos
that preceded the
Spanish Civil War.
Compelling story of
faith and love. “Love is
eternal as experienced
in the love of another
(unconditionally).”
Faithful love has the

5. I believe that unarmed truth
and unconditional love will
have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily
defeated, is stronger than
evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

6. • Thomas Aquinas – • Joseph Pieper 1907 –
Doctor of the Church, 1225 – 1997, Aquinas scholar
1274, Dominican priest
(Consider the Church’s
greatest theologian and• The nature of love is
philosopher) to will the Good of
• Summa Theologica
the “other”
• Can human love give
The first thing a lover
us a true intimation
wills is for the Beloved
of eternity?
to exist and live.
• Refer p. 24 FTS
I/Thou relationship

7. Love is above Rush Entre Nous
all what
“makes be.”
Maurice
Blondel
What are the
“threads” that
positively
“bind us” to
one another?

8. Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin (1881 –
1955), paleontologist
Evolution of the
human spirit
(ontogenesis)
We are “the face” –
the personal
expression of the
Universe itself
The Source? Point
Omega – Evolution is
the unity of all things
in God’s love p. 26
In a sense We are

9. Karl Rahner – 1904 –
1984, SJ,
Whenever a person lives with
radical courage [Tillich] and love
[Merton/ MLK], there is an
experience of God and an implicit
faith response EVEN if God remains
unacknowledged or is DENIED on
the conceptual level… God can be
experienced in the ordinary (p. 27
FTS)
We can experience grace* in the
most dire of situations …Hope in

10. The acceptance of life in
courage and hope sets a
person free in the saving and
incomprehensible greatness of
God and his freedom…
Mysterium Tremendum
….But the world is also a
terrifying
Place. Our lives can be filled

11. Fear
What is it? What is
it that we fear the
most?
Fear has a defined
object.
As long as there is
an “object” of fear.
Love (openness to
love) can conquer
it.

12. Anxiety
“Fear of the unknown”
In the case of the “fear of dying,” it is the
absolute unknown “after death”
-ultimate non-being (“to be or not to
be”)
What does fear and anxiety have to do
with faith? Religion? Or God?
Ans: Facing the God who is really God

13. Mysterium Tremendum
• Rudolf Otto (1869 – 1937) – theologian
• Sought to define in a “neutral”
language humankind’s encounter with
“awesome mystery”
• Foundation of all religions
• See handout
• Fear and “the Force”

14. Religion: Symbolic Dimension
• Catherine Albanese – defines religion
as a “boundary making function”
• “ordinary religion” (horizontal)
• “extraordinary religion” (vertical)
• All religion consists of creed, code,
cultus, community
• See p 52 FTS

15. • What we know about various kinds of
religions suggest that they arose in the
context of dealing with boundaries (p. 52
FTS- para. 2)
Territorial – limits of physical/
physiological
(body)
Temporal – life cycle (birth, puberty,
marriage,
death → life questions
As language developed so did the
attempt to
make sense
of mysteries
realities

16. Quest for Identity – Internal
Landscape
• Our location in time (history), place
(culturally) and religiously is always
social. This means staking out a claim
on the “landscape of identity.”
• By searching for identity and finding it,
individuals metaphorically establish
“inner boundaries” – discover through
testing who I am not, and begin to
affirm who I am (part of the work of
Joseph Campbell)

17. We are drawn to
locate others who
occupy the same
inner territory and
share with them
ourselves and our
concerns.
Micro – meaningful
relationships
Macro -
community,
pluralism*

18. Two Kinds of Religion
Ordinary Extraordinary
• How to live within • Seeks to transcend the
cultural boundaries everyday culture and
• Focus on customs, concerns – to crossover
folkways, making sense into another form of life
of everyday life • Special language –
• Social distinctions that distinguishes from rest
define life in community of culture
– respects social roles • Involves symbols,
rituals that transcend a
person

19. Components of a Religious
• Creed – explanation about the meaning
of human life, stories of origins
• Codes –rules that govern everyday
behavior
• Cultuses – rituals to act out what is
expressed in creeds and codes
• Communities – groups of people either
formally or informally bound together
by creed, codes and cultus