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L1 - Theology and The Search For Meaning
L1 - Theology and The Search For Meaning
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?”
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