The student will be able to understand:
• Natural religion
• The fundamental ways of knowing
God
• The natural knowledge of God
• The Five Ways
• Science as a restriction of reason
• Scientism
• Modern science and God
• Principal errors regarding the
existence of God
• Why supernatural religion is
necessary
• What faith does for reason
• Man’s response to Revelation
• Reason leads to the assent of
faith
• Contemplation and theology
• Natural morality and religion
• God wants people to know him and has provided ways to do so.
• Reason and modern science are allies in man’s quest for God.
• God reveals himself through creation and Divine Revelation.
• Faith comes to the aid of reason.
• Study and prayer based on Divine Revelation are two ways to get
to know God better.
• How the desire to find God is written on the human heart.
• How God draws each person to himself.
• How we can come to a certain level of knowledge of God
through the use of human reason.
• The difference between knowledge gained through science and
knowledge gained through reason.
• The limitations on knowing God from the use of reason alone.
• Why we need God to reveal himself in order to know him fully.
Knowing God Through Natural
Revelation, Reason, and Faith
- Lesson Objectives -
• Natural religion
• Fundamental ways of knowing God
- Basic Questions -
What is natural religion?
• Each human being is born with a natural desire for God,
which is answered in the natural capacity to know God
through reason.
What are the two fundamental ways of knowing God?
• The two fundamental ways of knowing God are through
reason and Revelation.
- Focus Question -
What inborn capacity do human beings possess that
no other creature in material creation has?
They have an inborn capacity to know God and to
be in communion with him.
- Anticipatory Set -
Incorporate the passage from the Book of Wisdom
into opening prayer and then discuss:
What does this passage reveal about natural knowledge of
God, that is, knowledge anyone can obtain through reason
and experience?
- Focus Question -
What is the natural desire for God?
Each person has this yearning for God in his or
her human nature.
- Focus Question -
How does Pope Benedict XVI see the natural desire
for God evident in Plato?
Beauty causes a certain kind of suffering—a nostalgia
and longing—in each person that keeps him or her from
being satisfied with ordinary life.
- Focus Question -
How does St. Augustine describe man’s natural
desire for God?
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our
hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
- Focus Question -
What is the supernatural counterpart to a person’s
natural desire for God?
It is God’s desire for us.
- Focus Question -
What is God’s supernatural desire for each person,
and what is the result of this desire?
God wants people to live in communion with him,
so he reaches out and enables them to find him.
- Focus Question -
What does it mean to say each person is—by nature
and by vocation—a religious being?
People come from God and seek and desire God.
- Focus Question -
What are two ways one can come to know God?
One can know God through Revelation
and human reason.
- Focus Question -
What is the overarching subject of this textbook?
Faith and reason work together to help us understand
God’s Revelation.
- Focus Question -
Even without the help of Divine Revelation,
what can human reason lead a person to realize
about God?
Human reason can lead one to realize God exists.
It can even tell us something about his divine nature.
- Focus Question -
According to the Catechism, no. 31, what is the
nature of the proofs that reason can give in regard
to God’s existence?
They are proofs for the existence of God not in the
sense of proofs in the natural sciences but in the sense
of “converging and convincing arguments.”
- Focus Question -
What did the pagan philosophers Plato and
Aristotle conclude about God?
Using reason alone, they concluded there must
be one God.
- Focus Question -
What is Aristotle’s First Cause?
Despite his polytheistic culture, Aristotle reached
the philosophical conclusion there is one God.
- Focus Question -
What attributes of God did Aristotle
discern by reason?
He reasoned God must be eternal and perfect.
- Focus Question -
What did St. Thomas Aquinas do with Aristotle’s
arguments about God?
He clarified and extended them in the
thirteenth century.
- Graphic Organizer Complete the following table to clarify the four
characteristics of a person’s knowledge of God.
Characteristic
Mediate
Natural
Universal
Certain and Easy to
Attain
Explanation
- Focus Question -
Review the six themes of this chapter
(p. 3, “In this Chapter We Will Discuss”)
Free write on the one you find the most important and
explain why.
- Lesson Objectives -
• Natural knowledge of God
• The Five Ways
- Basic Questions -
What is natural knowledge of God?
• One can discover the existence of God and some of his
attributes by reason through the things that he has created.
What are the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas?
• St. Thomas offers five ways to prove the existence of God
based on reason.
- Anticipatory Set -
Think of any object created by a human being—whether
a work of art or technology—how does it reflect
something about the person who created it?
- Focus Question -
What is natural revelation?
It is the truth that God communicates through
creation. When God creates, he imprints a
“mark” on his creation; through that mark
people can learn something about God.
- Focus Question -
According to the Catechism, no. 41, what is the
starting point for “naming” God through creation?
The perfections of creatures reflect the infinite
perfection of God.
- Focus Question -
How is God’s likeness to his creation different from a
person’s likeness to one of his or her creations?
Since God’s creative action is stronger and deeper than man’s,
the likeness between God and his creatures is deeper than the
likeness between man and his crafts or products. Since the
distance between God and his creation is infinitely greater
than the distance between man and his products, what
creation tells us about God is infinitely less proportionate
than what man’s products tell us about man.
- St. Thomas Aquinas and the “Five Ways” -
1. The Argument from Motion
2. The Argument from Causes
3. The Argument from Possibility and Necessity
4. The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
5. The Argument from Governance
- Focus Question -
What attributes about God are known
from creation?
The existence in God of goodness, unity, simplicity,
infinity, wisdom, and omnipotence are known.
- Focus Question -
What does the Church teach about man’s knowledge
of God’s existence from reason alone?
“God…can be known and demonstrated with certainty
by the natural light of reason starting from the created
world, that is, from the visible works of creation, as a
cause is known through its effects.”
- Focus Question -
According to the Catechism, no. 32, what are
some starting points to prove God’s existence
from reason?
They are from movement, becoming, contingency,
and the world’s order and beauty.
- Focus Question -
Why are St. Thomas’s proofs of God’s existence
valid even though science has changed so much
since his lifetime?
A thing in motion—whether today or in the
thirteenth century—must be set in motion by
something else, something cannot come from nothing,
and everything in nature is contingent.
- Focus Question -
Can philosophy absolutely prove God’s existence?
No; not everyone wants to be convinced.
- Guided Exercise -
Perform a focused reading of pp. 7-8 using the
following question:
How do St. Thomas Aquinas’s arguments relate to the
modern understanding of the universe?
- Focus Question -
What is revealed by the arguments for the
existence of God presented by Aristotle and
St. Thomas Aquinas?
These arguments reveal the existence of a single being who
is responsible for the causation and governance of reality.
They also offer a certain understanding of his nature.
- Focus Question -
What are some things reason can show about the
nature of God?
God must be unlimited in all of his perfections:
powers, truth, knowledge, and goodness.
- Guided Exercise -
Discuss with a partner:
How does “Hamlet vs. stack of papers with
random words” reveal a limitation of science?
- Guided Exercise -
Discuss the following:
What does it mean to say reason contains science
rather than science contains reason?
- Lesson Objectives • Science as a restriction of reason
• Scientism
• Modern science and God
• Principal errors regarding the existence of God
- Basic Questions -
What is the relationship between science and reason?
• Science is a particular, highly successful form of reasoning,
but it is only a portion of what can be known through reason.
What is scientism?
• Scientism is a view that reduces knowledge to what can be
known through the methods of science.
- Basic Questions -
Can modern science support the idea of God?
• The findings of modern science can be the grounds for
philosophical reflection, which can lead to belief in God.
What are the principal errors regarding the existence of
God?
• Some principal errors in regard to the existence of God are
atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, and fideism.
- Anticipatory Set -
Read the opening paragraph of this lesson (p. 9,
“We can conclude…”).
What is the relationship between science and reason?
- Focus Question -
What is scientism?
It is the error that, because science can measure some
things well, it can measure everything well and
things that cannot be measured scientifically either do
not exist or cannot be known.
- Focus Question -
What view of God is derived from scientism?
If science cannot prove the existence of God—and
it cannot—God may not exist.
- Focus Question -
Why cannot God be proven by science?
God cannot be physically observed.
- Focus Question -
Is scientism scientific?
No; scientism is not provable because it cannot be tested by
a scientific experiment.
- Focus Question -
What prevents true science from denying the
existence of God?
True science must acknowledge the limitations of
science in ascertaining truth and, therefore, cannot
deny the existence of God.
- Focus Question -
How can philosophy use the findings of modern
science to indicate God exists?
The intricate “fine tuning” of the universe, which science
has discovered—without which the universe and life would
not be possible—suggests there is an intelligence behind
them, which is called God.
- Focus Question -
How might a philosophical reflection on the
deep intelligibility of reality allow a person to
infer God exists?
If the universe were the result of random accidents of
chance, one would not expect to see deep intelligibility;
that is; that the universe is knowable through consistent
laws. Deep intelligibility can only be caused by an even
deeper intelligence, and that intelligence is God.
- Focus Question -
How might a philosophical reflection on the
deep intelligibility of reality allow a person to
infer God exists?
If the universe were the result of random accidents of
chance, one would not expect to see deep intelligibility;
that is; that the universe is knowable through consistent
laws. Deep intelligibility can only be caused by an even
deeper intelligence, and that intelligence is God.
- Focus Question -
How are science and natural theology similar?
They use reason and observe natural phenomena.
Extension: Natural theology is the branch of
philosophy that looks at what can be known about
God from reason alone.
- Focus Question -
What is modern science?
It is the practice of systematically observing the
behavior of nature so people better understand
the laws and structures that govern it.
- Focus Question -
What does it mean to say science is a restriction
of reason?
Science limits itself to those truths that are
demonstrable through the control and
manipulation of observable phenomena.
- Focus Question -
What is atheism?
It is the denial of the existence of God.
- Focus Question -
According to Gaudium et Spes (p. 11), is atheism
natural in a person?
No; it is an unnatural development that has both
intellectual and moral causes. Atheism presupposes
the mystery of sin, which turns the hierarchy of
values of the person upside-down.
- Graphic Organizer Complete the following table to organize your knowledge
of the principal errors regarding the existence of God.
Error
Atheistic Materialism
Atheistic Humanism
Current Atheism
Agnosticism
Rationalism
Fideism
Definition
Effect on Religion
- Lesson Objectives -
• Why supernatural religion is necessary
• What faith does for reason
- Basic Questions -
Why is supernatural religion necessary?
• The knowledge of God from contemplating creation is not
sufficient to know God; instead, one needs faith in supernatural
Revelation to attain to God.
What does faith do for reason?
• Faith heals, perfects, and elevates reason in terms of religious and
moral truths that either can be known through reason only with
great difficulty or exceed reason.
- Anticipatory Set -
Compose a bullet-point summary of the
quote from Humani Generis in CCC 37
- Focus Question -
What does the phrase, “a personal God,” mean?
It means God is a Person, a being with
reason and will.
- Focus Question -
According to the Catechism, no. 35, what is the
purpose of the proofs of God’s existence?
They predispose people to faith and help them see
faith is not opposed to reason.
- Focus Question -
Why has God revealed himself and given
people grace?
He did this so people can enjoy his friendship.
- Guided Exercise -
Discuss the following:
What does it mean to say “grace builds on nature”?
- Focus Question -
What is the relationship between faith
and reason?
Faith is above reason because it reveals truths
outside the grasp of reason alone.
- Focus Question -
According to Fides et Ratio, how is God’s plan of
Revelation realized?
God makes real his plan of Revelation by deeds
that reveal and confirm the truths he speaks and
by words that proclaim and clarify the meaning of
those deeds.
- Focus Question -
What two types of truths has God revealed?
God has revealed truths beyond human understanding
and truths within reason but difficult to know with
certainty and without error.
Extension: The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity could
never have been reached without Revelation. The Ten
Commandments are moral truths that can be known by
reason but that many people find difficult to reach.
- Focus Question -
How is the periodic table of the elements an example
of natural faith?
Very few people can perform the mathematics to prove the
periodic table is true; the rest accept it on faith and use the
periodic tables as a basis for studying chemistry.
- Focus Question -
What foundation does reason give to understand God?
Reason demonstrates there is a God and reveals something
about his attributes. Reason also leads to the natural law,
the knowledge of what will perfect and fulfill human
nature and the obligation to use that knowledge to do good
and avoid evil.
- Focus Question -
Why does a person need God’s help to aid reason to
understand even truths that can be known by reason?
Because of Original Sin, human reason is darkened.
Sometimes people use reason to justify what they want to
do instead of finding out what they ought to do. Revelation
provides certainty.
- Focus Question -
Where does God reveal himself to us?
He reveals himself in history, Scripture and the Church.
- Focus Question -
What is God’s motive in revealing himself to
the world?
God’s motive is his gratuitous love that desires to
bring all people to salvation.
- Focus Question -
Why do people need grace in regard to
knowing truth?
Sin and error prevent people from reaching a perfect
knowledge of God and his will in their lives.
- Focus Question -
Why do we call grace supernatural?
It is a power above and beyond human nature.
- Focus Question -
How does grace aid human nature to reach God?
As a person struggles to reach God through human
reason, God, through grace, lifts up him or her in
faith, building on what is already known.
- Focus Question -
What is faith?
It is “the theological virtue by which we believe in
God and believe all that he has said and revealed to
us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief
(CCC 1814).
- Focus Question -
How do some erroneously view the relationship
between faith and reason?
They see faith and reason as inimical toward
each other.
- Focus Question -
What is meant by the statement, “Religion
depends on faith, but Christians have good
reasons for believing”?
It means, though the Christian religion includes
many truths that cannot be reached by a chain
of reasoning but must be believed through an
act of faith, Christians have solid rational
grounds for believing those truths.
- Focus Question -
Is faith irrational?
No; faith deals with things that are above the grasp of
human reason alone but which are themselves
inherently or innately intelligible. Example: there is
nothing contrary to reason in the belief Jesus Christ is
true God and true man. However, this doctrine of the
faith cannot be deduced by reason alone but only
through the grace of God.
- Focus Question -
What truth about himself did Christ say God
revealed to St. Peter?
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
- Focus Question -
What does faith accomplish for human reason
in terms of its grasp of truth?
Faith heals, perfects, and elevates human reason
in terms of knowledge about God.
- Focus Question -
How does faith heal reason?
Faith overcomes erroneous applications of
reason and ignorance, which are effects of
sin.
- Focus Question -
How does faith perfect reason?
Faith allows everyone to know with clarity, purity,
and authority truths that could be known by reason
alone but only by a few and after much effort.
- Focus Question -
How does faith elevate reason?
Faith lets reason know truths about God that could
never have been known by reason alone.
- Focus Question -
What is the twofold effect of faith on reason?
First, faith helps reason grasp natural truths, separate these
truths from errors surrounding them, and illuminate them more
deeply. Second, faith allows people to reason about supernatural
truths so they can understand them more deeply. Example:
Enlightened by faith, a person can reason about the natures of
Christ, the Holy Trinity, the angels, God’s providential plan for
our salvation, and many other supernatural truths.
- Focus Question -
What is the relationship between Revelation and history?
God reveals himself in history through what he says and
what he does. These words and deeds are presented in a
unique way in Holy Scripture.
- Focus Question -
How did God decide to reveal his truths to mankind?
Rather than working through philosophy, God entered
human history, was born of a woman, and lived among
his creatures.
- Focus Question -
Why is it impossible for there to be a contradiction
between faith and what right reason can discover?
God is the author of all truth, and there is no
contradiction in God.
- Focus Question -
How does theology—as supernatural wisdom—help
scientific research?
When science seems to contradict faith, theology can
point out scientists have overstepped the limits of
science by presenting philosophical conclusions as
findings of science. Since those conclusions contradict
the Faith, they must be wrong.
- Focus Question -
What is culture according to the
Second Vatican Council?
Culture is any reality with a human or humanizing
value; in other words, it is not everything that mankind
creates or produces or the traditional customs of each
people but only what is useful to develop, perfect, and
humanize mankind.
- Guided Exercise -
Perform a paragraph shrink on the paragraph,
“The inner unity…” (p. 17)
- Focus Question -
What is the Church’s interest in culture?
The Church wants to enter into a dialogue with
the entire human family about the problems
besieging modern society in light of the resources
she has been given.
- Focus Question -
Why can the Faith be of service to any culture?
Since it is not the product of a specific culture, the
Faith has the intrinsic capacity to inform any culture.
- Lesson Objectives • Man’s response to Revelation
• Reason leads to the assent of faith
• Contemplation and theology
• Natural morality and religion
- Basic Questions -
What is man’s proper response to Revelation?
• God wants people to cooperate in their salvation through faith
in his Revelation.
What role does reason play in an act of faith?
• Reason can lead the way to faith, which is an assent to the
truths God proposes.
- Basic Questions -
How does one penetrate Divine Revelation more deeply?
• People can develop faith through prayerful contemplation and
study of Divine Revelation.
Are morality and religion natural to humanity?
• Man is naturally both a moral and religious being, as seen from
the natural law and natural religion.
- Anticipatory Set -
Complete a focused reading on Gaudium et Spes, 14
(p. 25) and discuss the following:
How does this passage portray man as a
naturally religious being?
- Focus Question -
What elevation of man has God chosen for
his people?
God invites all people to be members of the divine
family, to partake of the divine nature, to live in
intimate communion with himself, and to become
Godlike to the fullest extent possible.
- Focus Question -
In what way does God want each person to
participate toward his or her supernatural end?
God desires each person’s free and responsible
cooperation.
- Focus Question -
Is salvation and supernatural elevation
possible on one’s own?
No; the goal surpasses human intellect, energy,
and power.
- Focus Question -
What has God done to save people?
God revealed himself in history and addressed his
Word to men, first through the prophets and
ultimately through his Son.
- Focus Question -
How does one receive God’s Revelation?
It is received through an active faith, by which a
person is guided by God and cooperates with him.
- Focus Question -
Is faith a vague religious sentiment?
No; salvation begins with the acceptance of
the Word by the intellect.
- Focus Question -
How does Christ’s claim to be the Light of
the World illumine Luke 1:78-79 (cf. Jn
8:12)?
Without God, people sit in darkness, under the
shadow of death. Christ’s Revelation is the light
that enlightens them.
- Focus Question -
What is the assent of faith?
It is the agreement of the human intellect with
the truth God reveals. This is done under the
influence of grace.
- Focus Question -
Can a person reach faith through natural
reasoning?
Though faith is reasonable, reason cannot bring a
person to faith.
- Focus Question -
On what authority does a Christian believe?
He or she believes on the authority of God,
who reveals.
- Guided Exercise -
What are the preambles of faith?
• Some define faith as a “leap into the dark,” accepting
something impossible without evidence.
• In reality, reason prepares the act of faith through the
“preambles of faith.”
• The preambles of faith are truths that can be established
by reason and make the act of faith reasonable.
- Guided Exercise -
What are the preambles of faith?
For example, the following are facts reason can
prove or at least prove to be reasonable:
• the existence of God;
• the life, miracles, Death, and Resurrection
of Jesus Christ as historical facts.
• Christ’s establishment of a Church to carry
on his work.
- Guided Exercise -
What are the preambles of faith?
• These preambles of faith can lead to the Faith.
• Faith, itself, is a gift from God by which a person
freely assents to what God has revealed.
- Focus Question -
What is the metaphorical light of faith?
It is the possession of truth by which a person guides
his or her life.
- Focus Question -
What is the Scriptural definition of faith?
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1)
- Focus Question -
When will people see for themselves what
now they only believe?
They will see in Heaven, when they see God
“face-to-face.”
- Focus Question -
Why do believers meditate on what they believe?
They want to know God more closely.
- Focus Question -
In what two ways can faith be developed?
Faith can be developed by the spiritual (or mystical)
way and the intellectual (or theological) way.
- Focus Question -
What is the spiritual (or mystical) way?
It is achieved with the help of the Holy spirit by
meditating on the Word of God.
- Focus Question -
What is the intellectual (or theological) way?
It consists of using all of one’s intellectual
faculties and cultural resources to understand
Divine Revelation.
- Guided Exercise -
Brainstorm current events that challenge the
faith of a believer and can only be solved with
an understanding of the Faith.
- Focus Question -
What should be the relationship between the
two ways in which faith is developed?
They should complement each other and be
pursued at the same time.
- Focus Question -
What is the origin of Christian theology?
It is born of the prayerful contemplation and
intellectual study of Divine Revelation.
- Focus Question -
What is theology?
It is faith seeking understanding.
- Focus Question -
What does theology study?
It studies the treasures of love and wisdom God has
revealed.
- Focus Question -
Why should every Christian study the Faith?
Study of the Faith helps to know and love God and
the world that has come from him.
- Focus Question -
Why does St. Peter advise Christians to study
the Faith?
“Always be prepared to make a defense to any
one who calls you to account for the hope that is
in you” (1 Pt 3:15).
- Focus Question -
Why is theological formation especially
necessary today?
The world presents problems and challenges
that test people’s faith and require a reasoned
Christian response.
- Focus Question -
What is prayer?
Prayer is a conversation with God.
- Focus Question -
How is the Blessed Virgin Mary a model
of prayer?
In response to God’s Word and to the events of her
life, Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in
her heart” (Lk 2:19).
- Focus Question -
What is the danger of studying theology
without piety?
Theology could degenerate into empty intellectualism.
- Focus Question -
Which gifts of the Holy Spirit help most to
study the Faith?
The gifts of understanding and wisdom help most.
- Focus Question -
What drawbacks are inherent with natural
law and natural religion?
After the Fall, reason and intellect became
clouded to the fullness of truth.
- Focus Question -
What solution did God give people to the
problem with natural knowledge of God and
good and evil?
God has given grace and Revelation.
- Focus Question -
What is natural law?
It is the universal moral law for human beings;
it can be known through reason.
- Focus Question -
How does St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
allude to natural law?
Gentiles may obey the moral law, which is written on
their hearts.
- Focus Question -
What are some of the precepts of natural law?
Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong,
and adultery is wrong.
- Focus Question -
What did ancient philosophers see as the
highest virtue?
Religion, or the act of giving to God what is due to
God, was seen as the highest virtue.
- Focus Question -
How does ancient history support the notion
of man as a religious being?
Every ancient society was religious, and religion was
considered not just a private virtue, but also a public
one. Wherever archaeologists look, they find the most
important monuments were religious.
- Focus Question -
What does the ubiquity of religion tell us?
Natural religion demonstrates to be human is
to be religious, and not to be religious is
contrary to human nature.