Truth & God God is Real (One in Three)

Saint Mark RCIA Sept 16, 2019

Truth & God

• Truth

• Faith and Reason

• Is God Real?

• What About Evil?

• Why Do we need God?

• Jesus

• The Trinity

• The Bible – The Church

Truth & God

Where we are today:

• “Freedom”

• Church and American Society

• “Your truth”…”that might be true for you”

• “Don’t legislate your religious morality”

• “Government should stay out of my bedroom, stay away from my body”

• “the church should be more tolerant”

• “Love the sinner, hate the sin”

Truth & God

Truth

• Definition of truth:

• “What Is” – How something conforms to reality.

• Objective vs Subjective

• Objective – What is…objectively/absolutely

• Subjective – My perception/feelings.

• The trouble…we tend to blur these lines…

• GK Chesterton – “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

Truth & God

What About God

• Is God Objectively True?

• Ancient Philosophy

• Love of wisdom. (science)

• The cause of ALL things.

• Plato & Aristotle in ~400 BC.

• Physical and metaphysical TRUTHS (spiritual reality)

• There must be a first cause of all things.

• God found via Reason alone

Truth & God

God - Truth

• Is God Objectively True? Reasonable?

• Existence of God

• We can know God by His Creation

• Nature and God – God can be seen/appreciated through the beauty of His creations; but God is not Nature or vice’ versa. Nature is the work of God and is ever changing, God is never changing (St Augustine)

• Romans 1:20; “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”

Truth & God

Knowing God through Human Reason Alone

• St. Thomas Aquinas took this one step further

• 5 Ways to Prove God Exists and is Reasonable

• First Mover (un-moved mover)

• The efficient cause.

• Necessary Being

• Scale of perfection

• Intelligent design

God in Nature - Reasoning

CCC 31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments," which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.

• The creator cannot be objectively found in his creation.

• Evidence of Alexander Graham Bell himself within the phone itself.

• Russian cosmonauts looking down on earth, “we are in space and God is nowhere to be found.”

Truth & God God - Truth

• Is God Objectively TRUE?

• What’s the alternative? Is No God “reasonable”?

• Big Bang?

• Everything is an evolutionary result (randomness).

• Reasonable?

• Good and evil why?...the meaning of life.

• Free will?

• Human ethics

• Cosmological constant (0.000…………~119 0’s and a 1) • 649,000:1 * 50 = Same odds applied Poker & a Royal Flush

• “No God” is simply unreasonable.

Truth & God

• Questions???

The Problem of Evil

Evil – If God is Truth and Love then why do bad things and evil happen?

• All of theology attempts to answer this question it is a fundamental one as well as a stumbling block.

• God doesn’t cause evil, evil exists because something is lacking. Evil is a mystery…We live in a fallen world, where sin and suffering were brought on by our first parents.

• God permits evil so as to bring out a greater good.

• “Evil exists when things are not the way they ought to be”

• An artist’s painting is play of light and dark. You cannot understand the painting by only focusing on a square inch of black paint, you need to see the entire work, that is the mystery.

• Job 42:2-3; “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered. “Who is this who obscures counsel with ignorance?” I have spoken but did not understand; things too marvelous for me, which I did not know” yesterday’s 1st reading my ways vs your ways

Truth & God

• Questions???

Faith and Reason • “The ultimate purpose of personal existence, then, is

the theme of philosophy and theology alike”. St JPII

Faith

Reason

Theology

Philosophy

Metaphysical

Reason

Revelation

Faith

Physical

Science

Nature

Existence

of God

Essence of God

Truth & God (why we need God)

Created in God’s Image

• We were made for God…In God’s Image. **

• Body & Soul

• Natural and supernatural

• Soul – Supernatural (Intellect and Will)

• Essence – who we are…the soul contains the body

• God gave us an intellect to come to know the TRUTH… EYES OF THE SOUL

• God gave us a free will so that we could LOVE freely… HANDS & FEET OF THE SOUL

What is Our End - Perfection

• What is our goal in life … Our purpose? **

• Happiness (Aristotle & Aquinas)

• According to the world; happiness = ? **

• Ordered to God how is happiness realized? **

• Simultaneous possession of all good.

• Heaven

• Natural desire to see God (intellect)….face to face

• Any detour will cause stress

Truth & God (why we need God)

Truth & God (why we need God)

God the Creator -- We were made for God

• We constantly seek spiritual answers. We seek God, we ask why I am I here, what is the purpose of life….these are inherently religious questions. If there were nothing else, our minds would never ponder such a thing, but since we were made for God, we seek to understand it.

• We desperately seek “happiness”…we seek to satisfy ourselves…typically in things of the flesh…we will find happiness when…I win the lottery.? Happiness – Joy - Pleasure

• There is a God shaped hole in our hearts….only God can fill it…but that’s tough for our minds to wrap around.

• Are hearts are restless till the rest in you oh Lord” St Augustine

• “Our God is a jealous god.”

Truth & God (why we need God)

God the Creator -- We were made for God • “The world was made for the glory of God … not to increase His glory, but to

show it and communicate it.” CCC 293

• God doesn’t need us or our love, but he created us out of his goodness and love. We need God. We need his providence.

• We owe God everything and are bound in justice to obey him and to give him an account of our lives. We are not self-sufficient.

• Job 12:10 “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

• AA 17:28; “In him we live and move and have our being”

• In Genesis, God created our first parents and commanded them “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over….every living thing that moves upon the earth”. Thus we participate in God’s creative work through the use of our sexual gifts…man and women become “one flesh”, and through that love are capable of the greatest gift of all, giving life to another, what a responsibility. (more on this in a bit)…

Law & Freedom

Can’t be free without boundaries.

• River finds its strength in its banks.

• Golf swing – Musical instruments

• God’s law (Thomas Aquinas)

• God’s eternal law (within the mind of God)

• Natural law (God’s law infused in us)

• Human law (flows from natural law; common good)

• Divine law (revealed directly by God)

• Requires authority

Truth & God – Obeying God

Truth & God

Morality

• Objective moral truth.

• There is absolute right and wrong.

• The Church holds fast to Sacred Scripture.

• The Spirit of Truth

• Interpretation of scripture

• Understood in the context of both Old and New.

• The Church holds fast to Tradition

• As handed on down, through the Apostles

• Saint Augustine said …

• “We are Both Servant and Free”

• What does this mean to you? **

Truth & God

The Pursuit of Happiness - In Jesus America 2019:

• Relativism abounds.

• My body.

• My life

• My bedroom

• I should have freedom to choose…

• Abortion, contraception, divorce without nullity….

• Morals dictated by a majority of 9 justices

• Not on objective moral truths.

• Our national religion is “tolerance”

• Relativism does not FREE you…it strips the meaning out of life. Peace = I do things my way???

The Pursuit of Happiness - In Jesus

Catechism 1756:

• It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

Truth & God (Why We Need God)

• Questions???

How do we come to know God? • “The ultimate purpose of personal existence, then, is

the theme of philosophy and theology alike”. St JPII

Faith

Reason

Theology

Philosophy

Metaphysical

Reason

Revelation

Faith

Physical

Science

Nature

Existence

of God

Essence of God

Truth & God (Coming to Know God)

• Why are we hear:

– Know God

– Love God

– Serve God

• We cannot love what we do not know (Aquinas)

Truth & God (Coming to Know God)

How Do we Come to Know God?

• God has revealed Himself to us so that we might come to know him, objectively.

• Sacred Scripture (Old and New)

• Old = Imperfect

• New = Perfect

• Sacred Tradition

• Grace through the Sacraments dispensed by the Church – The authority for Divine Truth – Objectively!

• “The Spirit of Truth will come and teach you all of the Truth” “The pillar and foundation of the Truth”

So Who Is God The Blessed Trinity

• God revealed himself progressively and under different names to his people, but the revelation that proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants was the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush, on the threshold of the Exodus and of the covenant on Sinai. CCC 204

• I AM, Who Am….”being itself”

• Old and New Testaments

• Go back to Genesis 1:26; “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness.”

• Genesis 1:1-3; “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters. Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness.”

• Creator the witness, and the wind. Water and Spirit is always a part of new creationism.

So Who Is God Attributes of God

• Perfection.

• Goodness.

• Simplicity.

• Infinite.

• Eternal.

• Unchanging

Who Is God

Catechism

• 222: Believing in God, the only One, and loving him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life.

• 223: It means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty: “Behold, God is great, and we know him not.” Therefore, we must “serve God first.”

• 224: It means living in thanksgiving: if God is the only One, everything we are and have comes from him: “What have you that you did not receive?” “What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me?”

• 225: It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God.

Truth & God (Knowing God)

• Questions???

God the Son - Jesus

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

So Who is Jesus to You? Logic: Tri-Lemma (C.S. Lewis)

Jesus Claims to be God “The Father and I are One”

“I AM”

If TRUE

Jesus IS

LORD

If FALSE

If SINCERE If INSINCERE

Jesus is a

LUNATIC

Jesus is a

LIAR

Who Is Jesus to You?

• “Who do YOU say that I am?” – C. S. Lewis, who was a professor at Cambridge University

and once an agnostic, wrote: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him:

– 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be GOD.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of GOD: or else a madman or something worse."

Or he’s a myth?

Jesus – The God Man

God the Son - Jesus

• John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word and the was with God and the Word was God.”

• Gal 4:4-6 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption. As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his on into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

• Why did God become Man? – To save us from our sins (forgiveness)

– Show us God’s love…how to love.

– Be an example of holiness

– So that we might be partakers in His divine nature.

• True God and True Man (the Church had to fight many heresies)

God the Son – Jesus’ Mission

• Lineage from Abraham through David. (Son of David) Mt 1

• Announced by Angels in Luke 1 “Glad tidings” a new king.

• Baptism by John, his ministry begins (Behold the Lamb of God) Jn 1

• Wedding feast at Cana “do whatever he tells you” Jn 2

• Miracles, walking with the people in Galilee, the healer, the teacher with authority, a new law.

• Heading to Jerusalem (the Way) to be crucified; the new Passover Lamb.

• He promised the Spirit of Truth (The Church) Jn 14-17

• The last supper, the new pass over, passion, death, the new lamb sacrificed (Paschal Mystery). Jn 19

• Conquered death, He rose from the dead.

• He commissioned the twelve to Baptize, Forgive, teach…Mt 28, Jn 20

God the Son – One in Being

• One God – One Supreme being

– 3 equal yet distinct Persons in one Godhead.

– The central mystery of the Christian life.

– God is the eternal Father;

– The Son is consubstantial (the same substance).

– The Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son.

– Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Scriptures by which God reveals himself to us.

– Water is H2O – Ice, steam, water all of one substance yet different “appearances”

Truth & God (Holy Spirit & Trinity)

So Who Is God

• The Blessed Trinity • So there is a God and he created all things in heaven and earth….So who is

God?

• God is three persons in one God. (One nature)

• Love is the foundation of the Trinity. 1 John 4:8 “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love”. This is the same love that binds the Trinity. Love is who God is!

• [God is Lover] == [Jesus is the Beloved] == [Bound by Love; The Holy Spirit].

• God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son, the son so loved the world that he gave us the Spirit, the Church, that he might dwell with us forever.

• The Holy Spirit is the result of the Love of the Father and the Son…just like a child is the result of the love of a husband and wife. We exemplify the trinity in our love for one another.

Truth & God (Holy Spirit & Trinity) The Blessed Trinity

• The Trinity is all about love. It is a mystery. We really are not meant to understand it (First reading Sunday’s mass; “our ways vs. God’s ways”… One in 3 is meant to confound us a little. Pope Benedict XVI says this even of the incense at mass; it is a prayer to God but also it obscures our vision, throws us off a bit.

• St. Augustine “si comprehendis non est dues” “If you can grasp it, it isn’t God”.

• Jesus is the perfect image of God, he bares witness to God’s creation…the Spirit is the Breath, the movement of Love…The Spirit of Truth will come…He will teach you everything” “You will do greater things than these” John 14-16. Preparing the Apostles for the Spirit of Pentecost.

• God dwells among his people through the Spirit.

• The Spirit proclaims the Truth through the teachings of the Church. 1 Tim 3:15 “The Church which is the pillar and foundation of the truth”.

• We live within the Holy Spirit in the love of God through the Church.

Truth & God (Holy Spirit & Trinity)

Questions???:

The Pursuit of Happiness – In Jesus

The Church:

• Old Testament reveals God imperfectly, through God’s chosen people.

• The New Testament perfectly fulfills the Old through Christ.

• The New lies hidden in the Old and Old is revealed in the New. St Augustine.

• Jesus becomes the new Moses, the New Passover Lamb, defies death by His resurrection.

• Ascends bodily so that the Spirit would come.

• The Church is born.

The Pursuit of Happiness – In Jesus The Church:

• The authority instituted by Christ to dispense Truth (oral and written) and Grace.

• The Bible came from Catholic Church Councils; Rhome, Constantinople and Carthage 397AD.

• 2 Pt 1:20-21; “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God

• Grace dispensed through the sacraments. Instituted by Christ.

• Supernatural food for our souls.

Truth & God (Holy Spirit & Trinity)

Questions???: