GOD MAKES

HIMSELF KNOWN
CCC 26-141
Man is a religious being
◦ In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their
religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious
expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being
CCC 28

◦ “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” St. Augustine, Confessions 1,1,1.
Ways of Knowing God
“Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with
certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.“  Vatican II, Dei Filius, 2. Without this capacity, man
would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God CCC 36

I. Informal.
II. Formal. Proofs.
Not proofs “in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing
arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.
A. From the World Around Us
B. From what we know about ourselves.
Proofs from the World Around US
◦ St. Thomas’ five “ways”
◦ A. Structure
◦ B. First way: from motion (change)
◦ The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in
motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which
it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to 
actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot,
as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing
should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot
simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same
way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by
another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another
again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent
movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand.
Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.
Proofs from Our Experience
◦ I Desire for complete happiness
◦ II. Sense of moral obligation
We can know about God
◦ Concepts we gain from creation can be applied to God
◦ “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator” Wis. 13:5.

Analogy.
Only those perfections that don’t imply a limitation
In the highest degree

◦ “We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely
perfect God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust the mystery.”
◦ CCC 48.
◦ Negative way
◦ Between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude CCC 42
God comes to Man: Revelation
◦ God, who "dwells in unapproachable light", wants to communicate his own divine life to
the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son. ”
◦ CCC 52

◦ “By deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other.” CCC 53
◦ Adam and Eve
◦ Noah
◦ Abraham
◦ Prophets
Culmination of Revelation in Christ
◦  "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a
Son.“ Heb.
◦ No further revelation
◦ “Private revelations” To help live Christ’s revelation more deeply in a given period.
HANDING On of Revelation
◦ The Apostles
◦ I. Preach
◦ II. Write
◦ III Pass on their teaching authority to the bishops
◦ Living transmission under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is “Tradition”
IV Passed on to the whole Church
V Authentically interpreted by Pope and Bishops: Magisterium
VI Growth in understanding
Sacred Scripture I
◦ Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself
completely
CCC 102
God is the author of scripture. He inspires the sacred writers, although they make full use of their own faculties and write in
their own style

 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the
literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is
differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms
of literary expression. CCC 110

But Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written CCC 111
Principles for Reading Scripture
◦ I. Attentive to the content and unity of the whole of scripture.
◦ II Read within the living Tradition of the Church
◦ III Be attentive to the Analogy of the Faith: coherence and connection of truths among themselves.

◦ Meaning
◦ A. Literal. All other senses are based on the literal sense.
◦ B. Spiritual
◦ Allegorical. Reference to Christ. Crossing of Red Sea and Baptism
◦ Moral
◦ Anagogical. What it tells us about heaven and after life
Canon of Scripture
◦ Defined by the Church. Which books.
Old Testament/ New Testament
◦ OT.
◦ Even though they contain matters imperfect and provisional,94 The books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole
divine pedagogy of God's saving love: these writings "are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on
human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers
◦ CCC 122

◦ NT.
◦ “The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures ’because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate
Word, our Saviour’. CCC 125