JESUS CHRIST God’s Revelation to the World Chapter One: Searching for God

True Happiness Only God can make us truly happy since God created us and made us with longing souls that only he can satisfy.

Money and power cannot buy true happiness; neither can possessions, popularity, physical beauty, athletic skill or intellectual achievement.

God: The Source of True Happiness We were made to be happy. Yet we will only achieve true happiness if we understand, accept and live God’s plan for us.

God created us to share in his own blessed life, God wants to share his love.

The Restless Human Heart We all have deep yearnings for completeness, for satisfaction, for happiness that is implanted in us by God himself and is only satisfied by God.

God Wants you to be happy, but you wont be perfectly happy until you rest in him. St. Augustine: “Our hearts are restless until it rests in you.”

Questioning Minds We not only have restless hearts we have active questioning minds. Just like your hearts yearns for love and happiness, you are searching for the truth about human existence;

God made you, and all humans, in his image and likeness. you want to know what is the meaning of life. God made you, and all humans, in his image and likeness.

Being made in God’s image endows us with the ability to choose and to think.

We Are Religious by Nature Through out history, humans have discovered that they are not whole or complete persons unless they are connected, bound to or related to God.

Religion: “reconnecting to the divine” or “binding to God” Monotheistic: the belief in one God

Polytheistic: the belief in many gods Irreligion: the lack of religion, indifference to religion, or hostility to religion.

Secularism: the principle that promotes worldly values or ideals over religious ones. Atheist: someone who does not believe in God. (denies the existence of God)

Agnosticism: The belief that God’s existence cannot be known, (from the Greek word meaning “don’t know”) in essence to “decide not to decide”

Divine Revelation: God’s free gift of self-communication, which helps us understand God’s plan for us.

Knowing God Through Natural Revelation Contemplating Creation “God our creator and LORD can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human reason.” (CCC, 47)

Saint Thomas Aquinas set out five proofs for God’s existence.

1.Unmoved Movers: There must have been a “First Mover” who started everything, that “unmoved mover” is God.

2. First Cause: Nothing causes itself, there has to be a first cause or uncaused cause that is eternal and started everything.

3. Everything Comes From Something: For anything to exist, there must be a necessary, eternal being (God) who always existed and brought other beings into existence.

4. Supreme Model: This supreme model of goodness, truth, and beauty is the perfect being we call God.

5. Grand Designer: The world contains beauty, symmetry, order, and power that must have been put in by a grand designer. That someone is God.

Contemplating the Human Person The human hear longs for happiness, love and understanding, our lives have meaning beauty and truth. God gives us a taste of heaven here on earth.

The God who made, understands, and loves gives us a glimpse of what is in store for us when we are united with him in eternity.

Conscience: A judgment of reason that helps a person decide the goodness or sinfulness of a action or attitude. (continue)

A judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. (to do good and avoid evil)

Love and intelligence Free will which enables us to love, and intelligence which enables us to think, can only come from love and intelligence itself, God.

Original Sin: The sin of Adam and Eve into which we are born and resulted in their los of original holiness and justice.

Original Sin: The first sin of human kind that broke our intimate relationship with God.

Knowing God Through Divine Revelation By looking at creation and reflecting on the human person we can discover that God exists.

Omnipotent: an attribute of God that he is everywhere, almighty, unlimited and all-powerful. Revelation: means “unveiling, uncovering”

God is infinitely loving and good God is infinitely loving and good. Because of this he entered human history. God revealed himself to us.

He stepped into human history to tell us who he really is. Salvation History: The story of God’s saving action in human history.

We learn about God’s plan of revelation in the Bible. The Scriptures (Bible) teach that God invites humans to live in covenant with him.

Covenant: a binding promise between God and humankind in which God pledges enduring love and asks for our love in return.

God will always be faithful to us; we are called to be faithful to God. The greatest sign of God’s love was the sending of his Son, Jesus Christ our Savior.

The truths about Jesus and Salvation History are found in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Tradition: The Church’s handing on of the Gospel message. The living transmission of the Church’s Gospel.

Sacred Scripture: The written record of Divine Revelation found in the books of the Old and New Testament (the Bible)

Magisterium: The official teaching authority of the Church.

The Magisterium is the bishops in common with the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome, the pope.

Salvation History Creation of the world (original sin) Covenant with Noah (sign rainbow) Covenant with Abraham (sign male circumcision)

Covenant with Moses, the Sinai Covenant, God revealed his sacred name Yahweh. Yahweh: “I Am Who I Am” (YHWH)

Kings and Prophets The first three kings of Israel are Saul, David and Solomon.

Prophets: A Greek word meaning “one who speaks before others.” God sent prophets to help form in his people the hope of salvation.

Wisdom Literature Jesus Christ

Handing Down Divine Revelation Deposit of Faith: The heritage of faith contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition handed down in the Church from the time of the Apostles.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles handed down the deposit “or heritage of faith,” to the Church.

SACRED SCRIPTURE Bible: The word bible means books. Canon: The official list of inspired books of the Bible.

OLD TESTAMENT The Catholic canon of the Old Testament list 46 books. God’s workings in the history of the Chosen People,

his fidelity to his covenants and his promise to send a Savior (the Messiah).

NEW TESTAMENT The Catholic canon of the New Testament list 27 books. God’s saving action through his Son, Jesus Christ,

and the covenant sealed in his death and Resurrection.

SAINT PETER The first among the twelve Apostles, upon whom Christ founded the Church. Keys represent the authority given to St. Peter as head of the Church.

The Latin Cross turned upside down symbolizes the manner of St The Latin Cross turned upside down symbolizes the manner of St. Peter’s execution.

Dogma: A central truth of Revelation that Catholics are obliged (must) to believe.

Faith: Our response to divine revelation. Faith is our response to God’s invitation which comes to us through the Church.

Faith is a virtue, one of the three theological virtues Faith is a virtue, one of the three theological virtues. The theological virtues are faith, hope and charity.

These virtues are known as theological because they relate us to God. (theos is a Greek word for God)