Boersma - Sacred Doctrine Midterm 1

apophatic theology

to deny by speaking; via negativa

(exp.: God is transcendent and beyond us; we cannot adequately define him)

You can talk about God in a negative sense more easily than a positive sense because it’s hard to define God

cataphatic theology

language that can define God; via positiva; God = fullness of the word

(imminence; God’s relation to everything because everything has goodness)

(comes from Scripture, Creation, and Jesus)

fides quae

faith which the Church believes; objective (something has been revealed to us) (Revelation)

fides qua

personal faith by which an individual believes; subjective faith; type of knowing and seeing gives us sympathy with God’s Revelation

first concentric circle

existence; anything worth mentioning can also be thought of theologically (creation can help us understand God and His goodness)

second circle

sacred history; God creates, enters into, and redeems time; moves through time

third circle

Scripture; one must have context and a solid understanding of Scripture in order to make any interpretations of it because it is the Word of God

I am who I am

God’s name; both answering and rejecting the question; revealing something but withholding information. reveals His identity and establishes a closer relationship to His people

*bonum diffusivum sui*

good is diffusive of itself; whatever God created will spread its goodness; nature of goodness to spread itself

pseudepigraphy

taking on someone else in your writing

God’s names

God is everything, but He is also Nameless because He just *is.* God is Being itself.

God’s existence and humanity

we can know THAT God is (existence), but not WHAT He is (essence). *quid est* means *what* God is; *an es* is *that* God is.

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analogical

same word points to a higher meaning; effects of the word tell us something truthful about the cause; conceptual language that describes His effects and not His being

(God fulfills the word completely in the analogical sense)

univocal

speaking about God in the same way as His creations (one word with one meaning) (only metaphorical)

equivocal

one word, different meanings; homonyms; dog bark vs tree bark, good cake vs good God

(both only metaphorical)

why do we need revelation/sacred teaching?

Revelation reveals God’s goodness to us

how is philosophy limited?

philosophy is only for the few because it requires a specific type of person; it is with much error; and lots of studying and contemplation are required

koinonia

relationship with God; a sharing of secrets; God’s participation and union with us

divine pedagogy

how God reveals Himself

creation, mankind/Adam and Eve/proto-evangelium, Israel (figure and instruction given to them), Christ’s coming

Dei Verbum and doctrinal development

doctrine does not change; it simply reveals more. Our understanding changes.

In what way is a theology of Scripture analogous to the Incarnation, according to *Dei Verbum*?

Jesus is the fullness of Divine revelation and Scripture and is the Word Incarnate

*aggiornamento*

to bring up to date

**ressourcement**

referring back to own sources and writings of tradition

Why does God use other people to help us understand Scripture?

People share their experiences with us and we can know God through their personal stories; God works through secondary causes a lot

dual authorship = God is the divine author and breathes His word through us

hermeneutics of charity

any interpretation of Scripture that builds up charity is correct

JPII on faith and reason

**Faith and reason beat together like wings on which a person soars to Truth**

**Fundamentally compatible; harmonious; knowing and loving God helps us to understand ourselves**

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JPII’s challenges on philosophy in modern culture

agnosticism = people can’t decide what’s true and so they don’t believe in anything

relativism = everything is relative and nothing matters; no objective truth; only subjective truth (what each person wants)

skepticism = one can’t be certain about anything

Modern philosophy is now mainly concerned with human knowledge rather than the truth. This is a very limited way of thinking about philosophy.

existence

THAT the thing is; particular - participates in universal

essence

WHAT the thing is; is universal

contingency

coming in and out of being

What is “contingency” and how does St. Thomas use it as an argument for the existence of God?

**Coming in and out of being; something contingent does not contain within itself the reason for its existence. It is dependent on something else. God is not contingent because He is being itself and exists because He is absolutely essential.**

is God’s existence self-evident?

No, because no one can think the opposite of something self-evident, and people do think opposite of God. We don’t know what God is.

How can God be demonstrated/how is He not demonstrated?

**God can be demonstrated to us because of natural reason; we can look at the Cross and know that we proceed from the effects.**

**However, He cannot be rationally proven as He is so transcendent, so we still need faith**

Thomas’s Five Ways

1. Motion
2. Efficient causality
3. Possibility and necessity
4. Gradation (of things as we speak about them; more good, less good, etc.; comparative language)
5. Finality (everything works towards an end; humans can also choose whether to cooperate with that)

Motion (proof #1)

everything moving has to be moved by something else

Efficient causality (proof #2)

all things have something that brings them into existence

Possibility and necessity (proof #3)

contingency; something must be not dependent on another and therefore a higher power must exist

Gradation

We use comparitive language to speak about things in levels, saying that things are more good, less good, etc. Therefore, something must be the ultimate version of those words.

Finality

**everything works towards an end; humans can also choose whether to cooperate with that end**

**Shema**

from Deuteronomy; states that the Lord is One; confession of God’s transcendence + unity; depicts monotheism

**temporal missions**

Son’s missions: incarnation and salvation (generation)

Spirit’s missions: spiration (Pentecost)

The Father doesn’t have a mission, but He works to sanctify and redeem us

**divine processions**

Will and intellect require that the procession have an ordered relationship

Son is forever coming to be; the Spirit is eternally coming forth

Logic, not chronology

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father

**generation**

how the Son is born through God’s eternity

**spiration**

how God the Father and the Son are love and give us the Spirit

inseparable operations

**The Father doesn’t do anything without the Son. Whatever happens to one is also brought about by the other person.**

**These operations are distinguished numerically but function inseparably.**

psychological image used for Trinity

mind; consists of memory, understanding, and will; one reality, three operations

Insights from Gen. 1 and Gen. 2

Genesis One = everywhere and nowhere simultaneously;

mentions humans’ souls and how we came forth from God’s speech

Genesis Two = names + describes places and creations; depicts God molding, shaping, and sculpting humans

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together: Yawist and priestly accounts provide reader with full theological context

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Ways of reading Scripture

literal, tropological, allegorical, anagogical

divine relations

Each person of the Trinity participates in a mutual indwelling with the others, and each one comes from the other