Theology 101: My Faith
the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church deals with
 The study of theology is more than just the study
of doctrines and practices of the Catholic faith
which have no connection to the everyday life
experiences of people today (Cacho & de Mesa,
2012).
 The focus on knowing the contents of faith
detached from the local circumstances of people
have long been known as Neo-Scholastic
methodology in theologizing.
 The theological methodology of Neo-
Scholasticism can be summarized in the
following:
 Presentation of the church’s official teaching
or doctrine.
 Proofs supporting the doctrine from the Bible
and leading church authorities.
 Speculative elaboration of the doctrine
 Possible practical application].
 Western thought has become the norm and the
basis, especially in evaluating the emergence of
new cultures related to the practice of faith.
Other cultures (particularly non-Western) have
been subjected to suspicion and unfortunately
rendered inferior.
 Four of the sixteen documents of Vatican II are
regarded pivotal (essential; fundamental). These four
essential documents, namely:
 Lumen Gentium,
 Gaudium et Spes,
 Sacrosanctum Concilium
 Dei Verbum
are typically recognized by their Latin “titles,” which
are actually the first words of the original Latin
documents.
 The first, Lumen Gentium (Light of Nations) or
life of Catholics within the Church itself.
 The second, Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope)
is the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World. It treats the relationship of the church
with contemporary situations.
 Sacrosanctum Concilium (Sacred Council),
the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, lays out the
importance, relevance and re-orientation of worship
within Catholicism at the present time.
 And Dei Verbum (Word of God), the Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation, speaks about the
centrality of the God-human relationship in Christian
thought as well as the important role of scripture
within Catholicism.
 Regarded as the most important of the four
documents is Dei Verbum. It deals with the
relationship between God and people as well as
created realities. According to Cacho and de Mesa
(2012) “within the discipline of theology, this
relationship is normally articulated with two technical
terms, revelation and faith” (p. 13). Revelation is the
initiative of God in the relationship while faith is the
human response to God’s initiative. Since they are
mutual and reciprocal, we cannot understand one
without the other. To speak of revelation is to
presume faith that would recognize it (Cacho & de
Mesa, 2012). On the other hand, to regard faith is to
assume a revelation that go before it. There is no faith
therefore without revelation and vice-versa.
 This relational reality of revelation-faith braces and
influences the way we perceive Jesus as the Christ
(Christology), how we understand the church
(Ecclesiology) and what perspective we have
regarding the deep meaning of life shared by God
with us (Eschatology). Our interpretation of what
revelation and faith are will have significant effects on
the manner by which we understand the different
areas of theological thought.
 Neo-Scholasticism have interpreted revelation
and faith in a way that is somewhat irrelevant to the
context of particular cultures. Revelation referred to
God’s action of revealing supernatural truths for the
sake of our salvation and faith meant the assent of
our minds to these revealed truths. As a
consequence, we understood Christ as being sent by
the Father to reveal the fullness of truth (Cacho & de
Mesa, 2012). The church’s mission was consequently
understood as safeguarding and revealing all the
truths entrusted to it by Christ. Lastly, the meaning of
life was seen as the ownership and the living out of
the truths which have been accepted.
 This rationalistic language of Neo-Scholasticism was
abandoned in Dei Verbum by Vatican II and espoused
the thought categories of personalist philosophy was
 considered to be more biblically attuned and
situationally meaningful (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
Instead of revealing of and agreeing to truths,
“revelation” and “faith” begun to be interpreted in
terms of personal relationship. Subsequently, the way
Jesus related to people as well as how the church
ought to relate to people have come to the fore in
understanding Christology and Ecclesiology.
Communion with God and others, as noted by Cacho
and de Mesa (2012), provides the real meaning of life.
 This new realization in the theology of the church, de
Mesa and Cacho (2012) remarked, “has led not only
to understanding the diversity of cultural perspectives
among peoples of the world, but also and more
pertinently, to a comprehension of how such views
impact the way we see our Catholic faith, particularly
the church” (p.3).
 According to Cacho and de Mesa (2012) we have to
rediscover and recover experience as a source for doing
theology. The experiences of people as regards the
presence of God in their lives, how God manifested Her
kindness and benevolence in the ordinary
circumstances of the people, and how God unrelentingly
demonstrated Her great love for the people.
 The phrase “doing theology,” refers to “the process of
carrying out theological reflection, articulation and
action” (McKim, 1996 in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
Today it is commonly understood and used to highlight
the necessity of thinking theologically in context (Cacho
& de Mesa, p.16).
 According to Cacho and de Mesa (2012) “the
mutual interaction between human experience and
the gospel makes it possible to start theologizing
from either human experience or from the Gospel.
 In a theological reflection, there are two poles that
serve as bases, namely: Judeo-Christian
Tradition; and Contemporary Human Experience.
 The pole on Judeo-Christian Tradition prompts us
of what is passed on to us through generations. 
This Tradition (from the Latin verb “tradere” which
means “to transmit or to hand over”) is a passing
on of life, a point which Vatican II already
indicated: “Now what was handed on by the
apostles includes everything which contributes to
the holiness of life, and the increase in faith of the
People of God, and so the church, in her teaching,
life, and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all
generations all that she herself is, all that she
believes” (Dei Verbum, art.8).
 This heritage progressed from faith in Jesus as the
Christ, who himself was a Jew. This shows that
part of our religious legacy was significantly
influenced by Jewish religious tradition. For this
reason our Holy Bible includes Jewish scriptures
which we usually refer to as the Old Testament. It
earned a distinct character though, as noted by de
Mesa and Wostyn (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) as
it was understood in the light of faith in Jesus
Christ by different communities of Christians
coming from diverse cultural circumstances.
 According to de Mesa and Wostyn, the church’s
teachings which had become detached from
human experiences for quite some time in history
created a crisis in theology (de Mesa & Wostyn,
1990 in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
 Every experience is interpreted reality and people
may perceive the same reality and read it
otherwise (Cacho & de Mesa, p. 18).
 Culture, de Mesa (2016) argues can be “a source
to understand and probe deeply into the mysteries
of faith” (p.329). Culture is defined, in Cacho and
de Mesa (2012) and de Mesa (1991) as the
integrated system of beliefs, values, customs and
institutions which binds society together and gives
it a sense of identity, dignity, security and
continuity.
 Mercado (1994) even noted that culture and
religion are inseparable because one is a part of
the other. It is the deepest and most spontaneous
interpretation, people do, to make sense of reality,
most especially religious reality.
 “Theology begins with an experience of God (cf. 1
Jn. 1: 1-3) and proceeds by way of deepening
such an experience through meditative
(damdamin) and systematic reflection (isip).  It is a
reflection on our experiences in life and of life in
 the light of our relationship with God” (de Mesa,
2016).
 St. Anselm of Canterbury (in Williams, 2016)
defines theology as, “fides quaerens intellectum”
which literally means “faith-seeking-
understanding.” Theology is supposed to be
understood as “seeking God” to mean as an active
love of God seeking for a deeper knowledge of
God.
 The dialogue or interaction between the two poles
is mutual yet critical. It is mutual in the sense that
each of the poles benefits or draws its richness
from the other, but serves also as a corrective to
the other’s drawbacks that is why it is likewise
critical.
 There may be elements in the Tradition which are
contrary to what promotes the well-being of the
people today. This may call for a re-reading of the
biblical texts using other lenses in order to critique
those elements which hinder life from flourishing.
 The various theologies like: inter-religious theologies,
gender-sensitive theologies, liberation, and ecological
theologies, etc. which developed after Vatican II are
the results of the mutual interaction of the Judeo-
Christian Tradition and contemporary human
experiences.
 In the birthing or emergence of a particular theology
each of the two poles draws and utilizes the potential
of one another as well as how each pole laid bare the
deficiency in the other.
 In the midst of every theology, there is likewise the
interweaving of experience, culture and language.
There is no “raw” experience. Every experience is
necessarily an interpreted experience, although at
times it is merely implicit (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
 Of the most opulent source of interpretation of reality
is culture which we almost certainly need to grapple
with. Inseparably linked to culture is language. It is the
fundamental path or the starting point in
understanding a particular culture. It is the “voice of
the culture speaking in its own terms” (Cacho & de
Mesa, 2012, p.25).
 Language, de Mesa argues is “the rich resource for
understanding culture from within” (de Mesa, 2016,
p.108).
 Any given theology therefore as a way of
understanding our relationship with God is a cultural
interpretation of it. It is rooted in a particular culture
and expressed in the language of that culture. As
Filipinos, we have our distinct experience of this God
who is a source of “ginhawa” in moments of troubles
and tribulations, a relief in our experience of pain and
suffering, a fellow sufferer. And as source of “ligaya”
and “katiwasayan ng buhay” in our experiences of
achievements and triumphs.
 It is possible for us Filipinos to call our understanding
of our Catholic faith by other name. One option, if we
take our cue from the Filipino culture may perhaps be
“mabathalang aral.”
 Aral” since this is what we endeavor to learn from our
experiences in life. Lessons learned from such
experiences (mga aral na napulot sa karanasan) are
closely connected to Filipino thought. A customary
catchphrase we attach to accounts of experiences in
the Filipino culture is “sana kapulutan ng aral.”
 In Filipino vernacular jargon, “kailangan pulutin ang
mga aral.” In this context we can compare the “aral” to
the call extended by Jesus’ parables to his listeners.
They are invited to think about the story, from their
own ends and to make their own resolutions.
 Relevant stories are narratives one can truly learn
from and are therefore worth listening to. Vermundo
Miranda (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012), a Filipino bible
scholar says it profoundly, “ito ang kwentong may
kwenta” (p.27).
 The aral in mabathalang pag-aaral refers to a lesson
from and for life drawn from our experience of God.
The “aral” would be equivalent of what we call in
English as “theology.” Consequently, we can use the
adjective “mabathala” (divine) from the local root word
for Deity, Bathala. Filipino theology can be referred to
as “mabathalang aral” and the activity as well as the
process of doing theology can be called
“mabathalang pag-aaral” (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).

 There is no explicitly Christian term for God just in

case some would object to such usage of Bathala-
referring to the supreme god of pagan Filipinos. The
words used by Western Christians for God are merely
ordinary words in their culture as denoting to the
supreme being. For instance the Greek term θεός, the
Latin term deus, and the Spanish dios all refer to the
English word “god.”

 Faith must take root in the matrix of our Filipino being

so that we may truly believe as Filipinos. But for this
to happen, the Gospel must be presented with tools,
methods and expressions coming from culture itself. It
must be accepted within a person’s cultural heritage
(PCPII, art.72, in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012, p.29)