i.

1. Religion
A. Definition and Division
i. System of beliefs and practices concerning sacred things that unite its
followers into a single moral community. (Emile Durkheim)
ii. Sum total of the truths and laws which establish and regulate man's duties to
God.
iii. Division of Religion
 Objective Religion
 Subjective Religion
iv. Ethics is primarily concerned with objective religion.
v. We distinguish objective religion as natural and supernatural.
 Natural religion – sum-total of religious truths and laws which are
known, or can be known, by sound human reason, unaided by divine
revelation.
 Supernatural religion – or revealed religion, sum-total of truths and
laws divinely revealed to regulate man's duties towards God.
B. Relation to morality
i. There can be no morality without religion
ii. Morality itself is religious
iii. There can be no religion without morality

2. Worship
A. Definition
i. Worship is honor and homage paid to a person.
ii. Divine Worship - sum-total of all acts by which a rational creature shows to
God the honor and homage that is His due.
 Internal worship – acts of mind and will by which due honor and
homage are paid to God.
 External worship – acts which sensibly express honor and homage.
B. Obligation of Worship
i. Individual man has the duty of internal and external worship.
B.
C. Acts of Worship
i. The chief acts of internal worship are devotion and prayer, while the most
notable acts of external worship are adoration and sacrifice.
 Devotion – readiness of the will to elicit acts that belong to the
worship of God.
 Prayer – elevation of the mind to God to praise Him, to thank Him,
and to ask for His blessing.
 Adoration – exterior manifestation of subjection to the divine
excellences.
 Sacrifice – a bodily object is offered to God, and destroyed (really and
equivalently) to manifest the supreme dominion of God over creatures
and the utter dependence of creatures upon God.