Religion: Chapter 4 NOT 10.4.4

Questions EXCLUDING 10.4.4

How do people demonstrate the potential to love justly? 

Justice is when people are treated fairly and equally 

A sign of maturity is recognising others being treated unfairly, feeling guilty. 

God created these signs so human nature could be just 

How is this potential to love justly part of human nature as God created it? 

Justice is a sign of true love as people show concern.

It is the basic human value and feature of truly human love which is concerned for the good of others.

Concerns for the rights of the creator.

The growing ability to love others as members of the human family. 

Why is it important that all people are considered to be members of the human family?

Recognising this means that accepting each member of the human race as someone who is loved personally by God.

Families use the resources they have to provide for the needs of their members, they accept that each has a right to a share of things.

Parents provide for their children and other families members by sharing things like food, shelter, clothing and money.

How does it feel to love justly? 

Just love leads to peace, however, trying to be fair can be difficult.

When people realise they have ignored others’ rights, they feel guilty.

Many people realise that there cannot be true peace without justice.

How can just love lead to peace? 

People know that peace is not simply the absence of war or conflict.

Peace is ruined when people feel that they are being taken advantage of or their basic rights are being denied. Often, greed, jealousy, distrust, pride and other forms of selfishness

People must ensure that they face and try to overcome personal feelings of selfishness.

Questions of the human heart meant that people become concerned whenever they need injustices. “How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?” 

What are ways people behave unjustly?

Within families

Wider society

Between Nations

Against God

Injustice within families

Fights between families can have a long lasting effect on someone's life. This may be a cause of someone habitually pointing out their weaknesses and reminding them of their past mistakes. Injustice can also include failing to forgive or blaming others for wrong doing. 

Injustices in the wider society

caused when people fail to recognise that everyone has the potential to love and act justly. This can be caused by direct actions, stealing, or indirect actions, ignoring. People need to identify their unjust tendencies and change them

Injustices between nations

can happened economically, due to military, poverty and amount of wealth. These all trade back to greed and selfishness. 

Injustices against God

God has the right to receive thanks and praise from everyone, since, every person relies on him to live. People have an obligation to relate to God. However, many people fail to recognise this obligation and do not recognise the need to treat God justly. They take God for granted. This weakens their relationship with God and they do not draw on guidance, strengthening or other God-given blessings.

How does the failure to recognise disunity in the human family cause injustices in the world?

Injustices are caused by people's failure to recognise others as people. They often make decisions without considering other people's lives.

Questions of the human heart are asked as people develop social maturity and a personal sense of justice. They become concerned with how people treat each other and people's failure to recognise God's rights. Leading them to ask, "How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?" 

Original state of justice

The sin of human beings disrupted God's plan for the world. Human sinfulness is the root cause of all injustices in the world today. God does not want people to suffer injustices so he sent his son to bring justice to the world, offering God's healing power of love and reconciliation. The power of the gospel offers to each person the opportunity to accept the justice of God into their daily lives. As people accept this power by praying, God's justice is gradually realised throughout the world. 

Parents of the human race Adam and Even were created in complete harmony with God.

4 Harmonious relationships

Harmony within themselves

Harmony with God

Harmony with Creation

Harmony with each other

Harmony within themselves

Flowing from their peace with God the first parents enjoyed harmony within themselves. Drawing on God's guidance people experience inner peace and personal direction. Drawing on God's strength people are empowered to resist temptations.

Harmony with God

People owe obedience to their Creator who is more powerful than any force on Earth or in the universe. Complete happiness will only come when people develop a personal relationship with God. Behaving in ways which are in accordance with God's will for them.

First parents were originally creation to live in a harmonious relationship with God

Harmony with creation

The first parents were created in God's image and likeness. They appreciated creation for its goodness and continued as partners with God in the development of creation, as people are called to do today. 

Harmony with each other

Flowing from their relationship and respect for God, the first parents respected each other. People with inner peace tend to be peaceful towards others. If they are angry or upset with themselves, they tend to be angry/upset with others. By seeing the goodness and likeness of God in each other they are able to see each other as totally as human persons and to love each other.

Original sin

The foundation for the state of original justice was the human relationship with God. Other harmonies grew out of this relationship. First parents in disobeying God, destroyed their relationship with God.  

Original sin destroyed the state of original justice

Original sin that people today experience personal confusion, emotion conflicts, guilt and inner struggles. Tensions and injustices that exist today between individuals within families and societies and between nations. Bullying, violence, war, hunger, class, addictions (reveal inner conflict within people)  

Original sin destroyed the state of original justice example

Pollution is the environmental degradation and decline in earth's resources are also consequences of the breakdown of the harmony between human beings and the rest of creation. 

How to restore the state of original justice

God needed to save people from their sinfulness and to restore the relationship of harmony with the human race, this is called justification – the destruction of the power of original sin over people and the restoration of each human being's relationship with God. God needs the personal consent of each individual.

Two aspects of justification

• People are forgiven and saved from sin through the grace of the Holy Spirit

• People are sanctified, that is, they receive a share in the very life of God.

Catholic understanding of justification

Justification is God's free gift. God is merciful. Mercy flows from God's unconditional love and tenderness.

Justification is a free gift from God which humans have done nothing to deserve. God was under no obligation to restore the relationship with people. The gift for God's self-communication in relationship with people and the help God gives to grow in that relationship is called 'grace'. Every gift of God is a 'grace' freely given and without obligation: 

• Human capacity to make choices and to choose to accept God's invitation to relationship. 

• The capacity to convert to God. 

• The spiritual gift received through the Eucharist and other sacraments. 

Holy Spirit heals one’s relationship with God by… (FOSE)

•  empowering the baptised person to convert increasingly to God 

• gradually helping to overcome the human weaknesses that lead people to sin 

• giving the spiritual gifts a person needs to deepen in relationship with God 

  – faith (the spiritual power to believe in God and all that God has revealed) 

  – hope (the spiritual power to trust God’s promises) 

  – charity (the spiritual power to love God and other human beings) 

• increasingly freeing people from influences which can dominate the will or tempt them to ignore their conscience. 

Developing baptismal graces in essential in order to deepen one's relationship with God. 

• Praying daily, joining in community worship especially Sunday Mass, trying to live each day as Jesus taught. 

People do not experience the effect of God’s graces because they neglect their baptismal gifts

• fail to draw close to God 

• give in to human weaknesses that lead to sin 

• have doubts about God, and what God has taught through the teachings of Jesus 

• lack hope and experience a sense of hopelessness at times, and even despair 

• lack charity and remain selfish and self-centred weakening their love for God and others 

• allow influences to dominate the will. 

State of grace

State of grace means that a person has a living relationship with God. People lose the state of grace by committing moral sin. People need to die in the state of grace to enter heaven. 

How can people be promoted by God to make a just world?

God empowered the parents of the human race to be in harmony with each other and with the rest of creation.

Grace of the Holy Spirit

God empowers followers of Jesus to help restore the harmony between human beings and between human beings and the rest of creation.

True answer to human heart question, "How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?" 

What are the basic human needs that a person requires for their development?

God intended to provide the needs of people through others. original sin caused people to be selfish and greedy, plan did not work. God's original justice between people is necessary for the development of people to experience personal fulfilment.

• Physical potential 

• Intellectual and emotional potential 

• Social potential 

• Spiritual potential 

• Potential to recognise goodness and beauty in creation 

• Religious potential 

develop the harmonies God intended them to experience. The human weaknesses and failings caused by original sin work against this. This conflict can be overcome only to the extent that people draw on the power of the Kingdom of God, which Christ promised to all who ‘Repent and believe’ his gospel  

How do people assist each other in developing as human beings?

God intends that everyone should reach their full potential. God created everyone in the human will (freedom and responsibility for person development as they mature) to help them god created:

The resources of the Earth:

• Growing gap between rich and poor

• 20% of nations using 86% of Earth's resources

• Colonial powers depleting the natural resources of countries under their rule.

The human society

The earth’s resources are intended to meet every person’s basic needs  

God intention that every human being draw on the resources of the Earth for their basic needs is called the Principle of the Universal Destination of Good. Meaning that when someone is starving for essential life, they are entitled to take whatever basic resource they need from the surplus of another person who has more than they need. Resource is theirs by God's authority. God intends human beings to behave from the Earth's resources what they need to live.

What are the corporal works of mercy?

Corporal works of mercy is feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty etc. Jesus focussed on giving money or alms to those in need. Teachings apply to where people have what exceeds their own life needs and need to provide for their families. People are not exempt from giving to the poor because of their financial or material ambitions.

How did Jesus teach his followers about the corporal works of mercy?

Jesus emphasised God's intention for the resources of the Earth. In two parables he warned that those who fail to provide for the needy from any surplus that they have beyond their own needs will be condemned. 

• Parable of the Rich Man and the Beggar 

• Parable of the Last Judgement 

How does the Eucharist nourish Jesus’ Followers’ commitment to the poor?

When people receive Jesus in Holy Communion, he draws them into a deeper relationship. The more they are influenced by his attitudes and ideas. Jesus deepens love for the poor in those who receive him in Holy Communion. 

In Australia with the decline of religious practice, there has been a decline of people working in voluntary organisations that help the poor, also declines in 

• Individual donations for works for the poor 

• Australian national funding for overseas aid 

Jesus teaches that people have a moral responsibility to care for the poor by supporting non-government agencies that aid the poor and by encouraging elected officials to adopt policies that assist the poor in Australia and overseas