Religious Education 1

Unit I-
Faith Seeking
Understanding
Lesson 1: Theology and the Search for Meaning
Introduction
This lesson introduces students to the task of
doing theology in the context of the world
today. As a response to the post truth era,
theology presents a way to search for meaning
and purpose that is grounded on the certainty of
God. Theological enterprise is an opportunity for
people, especially the youth, to understand life,
faith and their reality.
Justin Joseph G. Badion. Initium Fidei: An Introduction to Doing Catholic Theology (Recoletos
Educational Apostolate in the Philippines, 2018), 1.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe challenges posed to the human
quest for meaning by the current world and
Philippine situation;
2. Examine features of theology as an endeavor
for meaning and purpose in relation to the
transcendent, an endeavor open to all people;
and
3. Weigh the various opportunities and
challenges of youth doing theology today.
Exposition
“Para kanino ka bumabangon?”

This statement is not just a question from a classic

coffee commercial in the Philippines. In a way, it is a
question we all ask ourselves. What do we wake up for
in the morning? What is our motivation? Why do we do
all the things we do? What keeps us motivated to keep
striving in our life now, especially as students?
Possible Answers
• For some people, self-growth is their motivation
• For others, their motivation is the people in their
lives: family, love ones
• For some people, If they work hard they might be
able to contribute to society and to the world
• Others don’t know fully what their motivations
• Lack of motivations, thereof, are signs that we are
still on our way in this journey of life
Question
What is the context
of our search for
meaning and
purpose in life?
1. The Context of Our Search

According to the Dictionary of Fundamental

Theology, we live in an age of indifference,
cynicism and skepticism.
What do these things got to do with
our search for meaning and purpose?
A disconcerting pluralism haunts our time,
where truth is relative to the interpreter.
• Imagine a world that considers knowledge to
be elitist
• Imagine a world where a free for- all opinion
that determines whether a new virus is
contagious or not
• Imagine a world where people are skeptical
about greenhouse gas emissions
The Post-Truth Era
• Terms such as post-truth era and fake news
have exploded into media and public
discourse. This growing abundance of
misinformation has clear adverse
consequences on society.
• For example, misinformation on vaccines, use
of media “trolls” to make lies appear as true,
and the rise of micro- celebrities.
Robert Bellah. Habits of the Heart (California Press, 1985), 142-163.
Recourse to this context…
Augustine in his own struggle to understand
one’s meaning and purpose: Domine Iesu,
noverim me, noverim te. “O God, let me know
myself, so I may know you.” The means of
understanding the self cannot be separated
from the means of understanding the
transcendent.
St. Augustine suggests that an
engagement and encounter with
God reveals one’s authentic self,
and in a similar manner,
introspection and self-
understanding will be an avenue to
witness the presence of the divine
in our lives (Augustine, Soliloquies
2.1.1.).
 2. Theology as an Endeavor for All People
For whom is fundamental theology
intended today?
As a search for truth and meaning in the
world, it is a field open to all humans
endeavoring purposeful existence. It is for
both the believers and the non-believers.

Anselm of Canterbury, “Proslogion,” in Thomas Williams, ed.,

Anselm: Basic Writings, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2007), 81.
For Believers
• For believers, theology acts as faith
seeking understanding (Latin), fides
quaerens intellectum. The term was
originally coined by Saint Anselm of
Canterbury, elaborating the role of
theology saying that, “For I do not seek
to understand in order to believe; I
believe in order to understand, For I also
believe that ‘Unless I believe, I shall not
understand (Anslem, 81).
Scientia Dei
Placed in possession of ‘the boundless riches of Christ
(Eph 3:8) by faith, believers seek to understand ever
more fully that which they believe, pondering it in their
hearts (cf. Lk 2:19).
As St Augustine explains, this work of understanding
faith contributes in turn to the nourishment of faith and
enables the latter to grow. Thus, “faith and reason are
like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the
contemplation of truth”.
As Scientia Dei, theology aims to understand in a
rational and systematic manner the saving truth of God.
For the believer doing theology, faith is a prerequisite,
no matter how big or small that initial faith.
International Theological Commission, Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), pars. 17–19.
For Non-believers
• For non-believers, theology is a form of
appreciation of the capacity of human beings
to acquire faith.
• It is an invitation to take a look, observe our
practice, study our dogma, and learn from our
faith.
• As humans with the same capacities, my
capacity to believe reveals that you yourself,
even as a non-believers are equipped to
comprehend the logic of faith.
3. Youth as an Essential Audience of Theology

• We have determined that all peoples can

do theology, but amongst all these
possible audiences, theology resonates
most with the problems of the youth.
Why? Young people are still at the point
in their lives where they are trying to
make sense of their identity, their
relationship with others, and also their
relationship with the world and God.
• Most of the energies of the self are
directed towards self-establishment and
self-securing. In adolescence, more than
any other time, people use others as
mirrors in which to see themselves.

Craig Dykstra, Vision and Character: A Christian Educator’s Alternative to Kohlberg (New York, NY: Paulist
Press, 1981), 141.
Generation Z (Digital Natives)
• Generation Z are all the people born from the mid
1990’s to the 2000’s.
• Members of Generation Z display shared
characteristics, including being technologically
savvy and consuming information through digital
media, such as the Internet.
• They are the first global, most technologically
literate and socially empowered generation ever.
• They are shaped by technology almost from birth.
They are extraordinarily dependent on technology
and their first language is a technological one.
Cf. Supriya Pavan Desai and Vishwanath Lele, “Correlating Internet, Social Networks and
Workplace – a Case of Generation Z Students,” Journal of Commerce & Management
Thought 8, no. 4 (October 2017): 802–15.
Ideology-wise
• What the youth take in now, ideology-wise, is determined by
what they see, hear, read, watch, and surf. Albert Nolan
speaks of the youth’s “fascination with vampires, aliens, and
magic, with the occult, the supernatural and the
preternatural.” This is actually a symptom of something
graver, that by shifting towards these new fascinations, they
are moving away from horizons originally satisfied by faith,
particularly Christianity.
• At the heart of the matter, the youth are searching for
meaning because for them the trust in what religion once
offered has died. But it does not mean that their search for
meaning has ceased. Rather, they are now searching for that
meaning elsewhere, where it is most accessible, most
interesting, most fantastic, and most gratifying.
Nolan, Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom, 5.
Failure to engage students…
• Young people are not so much antagonistic as they are
indifferent to theology and religious education.
• Take for instance a study done by Marisa Crawford and
Graham Rossiter, where they presented the question of
‘issue-oriented content’ in religious education
curriculum.
• According to their observations, religious education
has failed to engage students sufficiently at the level of
contemporary spiritual and moral issues.
• In other words, they do not adequately touch the
spirituality and human experience of young people.
Cf. Marisa Crawford and Graham Rossiter, Reasons for Living: Education and Young People’s Search for
Meaning, Identity and Spirituality (Camberwell: ACER Press, 2006).
What is the solution?
• It is possible for theology to engage students by
drawing from the youth’s human experience of
being immersed in the globalized world. Popular
culture-music, fiction, movies, the internet- can
become a new avenue of grace that theology may
use to further the message of the Good News to
young people.
• Human experience is a key source for theological
discourse. By drawing from the experience of
people, one is able to fully integrate and
inculturate the faith into their lives.
Summary
• The world is immersed in the mystery of God.
Every search for meaning, truth, clarity and
depth today is in its own way a part of the
human being’s quest to engage that very
mystery.
• However, it must be affirmed that mystery is
not fully knowable and it is therefore a
realization of our limitedness.
• Saint Augustine said: “The firs step in the
search for truth is humility.”
Reflective
Assessment