Learning Encounter 3: The Image and Likeness of the Triune God in Humans As

Destroyed by Humans Themselves

• Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:
1. WORD OBJECTIVE ( Knowledge of the Word of God, doctrine or teachings of
the Catholic faith) Analyze issues of social injustices in view of sin as reflected
in selected Biblical themes and presented in PCP II;
2. WORSHIP OBJECTIVE (Affective objective or love of God expressed through
faith and worship) Examine one’s way of living in the context of the concept of
authentic prayer or being deeply spiritual versus idolatry in today’s consumerist
and materialistic world. Share sincerely with others some stories of being in
touch with the depths of life or with the deepest reality of life – God.
3. WITNESS OBJECTIVE (Psychomotor objective or applying and living the Word
of God): Take an active role n raising the people’s level of awareness and
sensitivity in regard to issues of social injustices.

Learning Encounter 3: The Image and Likeness of the Triune God in Humans As
Destroyed by Humans Themselves
WORD DIMENSION OF FAITH
1. Why did the human beings fall?
Because of pride and self-centeredness: they wanted to be like God.
2. Consequences of sin to human beings
- Human being is cursed (Gen 3:14-17) They were thrown out of the garden of Eden,
away from that beautiful life of Shalom. He is not anymore at peace.

Consequences of Sin
- Cursed
- The human being is scattered (Gen 11:1-9 Tower of Babel)
They could not understand each other. Instead of being a complement to ones
growth, the other now becomes a threat.
- The human being becomes a being towards death. P22 Life now has no meaning
and no end except in death. Like an over ripe banana it has no future except to rot.
What meaning does human life has when there is no God. Relationship with God is
broken, so human life has no future. What gives meaning, future, sense and purpose
to human life?
What is the so-called affective disorder?
Human being’s constant search to be loved and to love; hung for love.

Did God allow mankind to be enslaved by sin?

• God intervened and took the initiative to remedy and change the bleak situation
that human pride and selfishness, self-centeredness has brought upon the
human situation and the whole of creation.
In what light should we understand the concept of Salvation History? That salvation
history came in with the bleak and dark picture of the human situation after the
fall.

Concept of Alienation
- What did you feel after you committed a sinful act or failed to do the good and the
right? Why negative feeling? Because we know that we go against our very nature as
human beings. As created in God’s image and likeness, we are called to reach out to
others in a gesture of love, in true generosity.
- What is the movement of sinning?
Going away from ones good self, from others who are equally good, from nature which
reflects the goodness of the Creator, and from the Creator Himself, the Ultimate Good.

Alienation from Self

• Gen 3:7 signified by the strange feeling of nakedness and embarrassment,
Adam and Eve experienced after eating the forbidden fruit.
• Many forms of alienation from self.
Self-pity, guilt, worry-complex, failure to appreciate oneself, attachment to material
things and not forgiving oneself which may result to suicide.
What is the strong impediment in accepting God’s forgiveness? Narcissism and inability
to forgive oneself.
Rom 8:38 “I am certain that neither death nor life…whatsoever will separate us from the
love of God…”
Who is the exception in this teaching of St. Paul?
The person himself in his total and final refusal to forgive oneself.

Alienation from Others With Whom We are Supposed to Relate in Love

- Manifold evil acts depicting alienation from others
- Difference between alienation from self and alienation from others. and violence
- If alienation from self is anger turned inward, alienation from others is, on
the whole, violence turned outward.
- Story symbolizing alienation from others (Gen 4:1-16 Cain and Abel)
- -Why is envy along with the other capital sins deadly?
It can lead to death not only physically but also spiritually.

Alienation from Others With Whom We are Supposed to Relate in Love

- Difference between jealousy and envy.
Jealousy is the desire to own what one does not have; envy goes beyond because it
seek the destruction of the owner of the thing or object desired.
- Where can alienation from others extend in the much bigger scheme of things?
- *to the society, to the whole nation and eventually to the entire world.
-Where is it evidenced?
*In war, violence, racial discrimination, nuclear race, widening gap between the rich and
the poor countries...
• What are the two types of sin that cause social injustices?
Personal sins and social / structural sins

Alienation from Others and Alienation from Nature

• Acc. to Albert Nolan in “Jesus Today”, why does alienation from others continue
to take a deeper root and become much more difficult to destroy in the guise of
globalization?
• “The globalization that many people are protesting about today is the
globalization of a particular economic culture, neo-liberal capitalism, a thoroughly
materialistic worldview based on the principle of survival of the fittest, a culture
 that destroys other cultures and indigenous wisdom, making the rich richer and
the poor poorer around “the world.
• What Biblical story best exemplifies this type of alienation from others?
• Tower of Babel in Gen 11:1-9 where people misunderstood one another since
they were speaking in different language.
• What is alienation from nature? What biblical story symbolize alienation from
nature?
• The story of the Great Deluge in Gen. 6:9 shows how men disregarded the laws
of nature and disrespected Mother Earth.

Alienation from Nature

• What is more to blame in the destruction of the natural environment, the sporadic
acts of poor people who exploit nature’s resources because of extreme poverty
or the activities of multinational corporations?
• What are these extensive and indiscriminate acts of raping the natural
resources?
Illegal logging and mining, release of toxic waste from establishments, dumping of
cargoes of industrial wastes on the territorial waters of other smaller nations, nuclear
testing, etc.
• What does this create?
A great imbalance in the ecosystems that results to calamities.

Alienation from God: Inseparable from other Types of Alienation

WORSHIP DIMENSION OF FAITH
Why is alienation from God inseparable from all the other types of alienation?
Because an act away from the creature is also an act of moving away from the Creator.
• What Biblical story appropriately illustrate alienation from God?
Gen 3: 8-12 After eating the forbidden fruit, the man and the woman hid from God.
Hiding from God appropriately illustrates human person’s alienation from his Creator
with Whom he is meant to be united.
• What is an obstacle to authentic prayer? Sin
 • What is idolatry ? Idolatry (Ex. 20:3-4) is worshipping possessions, prestige,
popularity, power and even persons.
• What is the root cause of social injustices? Idolatry
• What is authentic prayer? Authentic prayer is ‘letting go of idols and letting God.
It “is always rooted in the heart, and related to neighbor in loving compassion and
service.”
•
Alienation from God: Inseparable from other Types of Alienation
WITNESS DIMENSION OF FAITH
• What does beating our breast and saying ‘mea culpa’ signify?
Awareness of our sinfulness which have penetrated the structures of society.
• What will restore the image of God in men disfigured by sin? Love 1 Jn 4:18
Loving commitment to the poor, the oppressed and the exploited is a gospel demand.
(Mt. 25:31-46
• To emphasize the truth that the commitment to love is far greater than any
human instinct and is in fact, the greatest in the hierarchy of human and Christian
values ….
The Wise Man and the Scorpion: “My son this animal’s nature is to sting, but mine is to
save.”