Day Five: Revelation, Tradition, and Scripture, Part Two

At the core of all education is really just repetition until new knowledge sticks in the brain. Repetition, I tell students, is the point of every note they take, every project they do, every quiz they fail, and every homework they finish two minutes before it is due. I carefully scaffold my courses so my students encounter essential knowledge at least five times before they take a test on it. The last tier of repetition before I help them create a study guide is the daily review.

I go over what they most recently studied the day before. The transcendence of God must be at the forefront of my students’ minds when we discuss Truth and what we can know about God. I ask them to finish the following sentences, just to remind them what they took notes on the day before.

•       We cannot figure out the full Truth of God because God is……..

The answer is “transcendent”.

•       We can use logic and reason to begin to develop……….for God’s existence.

The answer is “proofs”.

I finish the review with a claim that will be at the heart of the first objective of the day:

•       But these proofs are not perfect; more is needed. How do you think we can “know” God exists and Loves us?

Usually I hear a few responses. Usually my students are sharp enough to understand, based on the Bellwork and this question, that to “know” God must require more than simply studying. There are serious philosophical and epistemological concepts that need to be understood before we can really “know” God.

I start the lesson. Humans lack the intellect to “know” transcendent Truths. We can use logic and reason to begin to “prove” that God exists, but logic and reason cannot describe the fullness of God’s Truth and Love for us. So how can we know that which is beyond our understanding? The simple answer is Revelation. Revelation is how God, in His infinite Love for us, becomes humble and “unveils” Himself to us. He reveals Himself to us because we cannot discover Him on our own. The History of God’s Revelation to us (Salvation History) is a story of how He increasingly makes Himself vulnerable to us so we can choose to enter into relationship with Him…or not.

            There are some technical philosophical terms that I can use here, but because many of my students are new to Catholic theology, I prefer to hold off on some of the finer Aristotelean concepts regarding knowledge. It is usually enough to just introduce my students to the concept that if we believe in transcendence or transcendent knowledge, then we, as humans, are not capable of knowing everything. We rely on one who is outside of our material and temporal limitations to assist us in knowing these transcendent Truths. The Pit Analogy helps here.

            I come back to this over and over again, but it is worth noting here. The Pit Analogy demonstrates that all the transcendent Truths of God, and Love, and Authentic Self are outside of the Pit. We, for reasons we discuss in later units on sin, are in a Pit and we cannot even “see” those Truths. We are limited to the confines of the Pit, and we cannot even climb out on our own. Revelation or Grace comes to us in the form of “Ropes” thrown down to us. If we grab on to these ropes, and tie them around our waists, and allow God to pull us up, then we can begin to understand those Transcendent Truths. Already, you might be guessing what some of those Ropes are and already you probably realize that Jesus is the single most important Rope for us to grab on to, but I hold off at this point in class. I want my students to start developing a way of thinking about God as one who desires for us to be out of that Pit and will do what He can to help us. Of course, in the next blog, I will describe more clearly how Scripture and Tradition, in Catholic Theology, are forms of those “Ropes”.

(Spring Break is good times for blogging, painting the living room, and napping...I did two of these things)

Day Five: Revelation, Tradition and Scripture, Part One

“What is the greatest lesson someone has ever given you?”

This is my students’ Bellwork for the day. I will break the suspense; the focus of today is epistemology, or, rather, Catholic understanding of how we can “know” anything. I will get back to that in a bit. The students take about a minute to complete this.

My dad once said to me “Don’t be sorry; just do it right”. For prayer today I share a story. What is a prayer but a story, at least the dialogue part of a story. Sometimes I lead my class in prayer with a story from my life. In fact, I point it out to them that when we share a story we are being vulnerable with those with whom we share. The concept of vulnerability in relationship will be a theme I stress throughout the year. The best way to prayer is with humility and vulnerability. I tell them about how when I was young, my dad taught me everything I knew about baseball. My dad, my older brother, and I would go to the park every weekend and work out. Once my dad was throwing batting practice for me and I did something lazy or stupid; I don’t remember what it was. My dad yelled something at me and I said “sorry”. His response, you know, was “Don’t be sorry; just do it right”. That was almost thirty years ago and I remember it. It might be the first time I ever thought to myself to be aware of my time and space…to be conscious of where I was and what I was doing. To be present wherever and whenever I was. I tell my students this story, both because I think my dad’s wisdom is especially powerful and because I want them to know that True knowledge or wisdom actually must be rooted in the vulnerability of the teacher and the learner. It is the same with the Love God has for us (I don’t say this to my students yet; they are still just trying to imagine me as a kid). The fullness of God’s Love for us is not found in a list of dos and don’ts. The fullness of His knowledge that He wants to share with us is not found in a speech He gives us… the knowledge He desires to give is found in His vulnerability to us.

(Falling asleep with his stick)

Day Four: Proofs of God's Existence, Part Two

Every class I have ever taken in my life has begun with an assumption. Math classes assume certain axioms to be True. Science classes, as well. My French classes in high school began with the assumption that I would one day have a reason for knowing French (I’m still waiting for that reason to present itself). Every teacher that there was begins his or her class with some sort of an assumption, and if the students want to understand any of the logic of the class, they should buy into that assumption, at least intellectually or for the purposes of the class. In my theology classes we always begin with the assumption that there is such a thing as the Authentic Self. This is relatively easy for the students to accept, but when I tell them that this Authentic Self is transcendent and not fully understandable or obtainable by human design, they pause. I am challenging their own assumptions about the total autonomy of the human person. As I try to teach them, the True Authentic Self is really only possible with the assistance of another, more transcendent being.

What can we say about the Authentic Self? My students have already had this conversation with me. The Authentic Self “looks like” God, and God “looks like” community and Love. The Authentic Self cannot be limited to our own, human and material perception of reality. It is not rooted in or based on anything we necessarily want or desire. Instead, the Authentic Self is, in effect, what God desires of us. The nature of the Authentic Self, then, must be transcendent, and the only way we can know anything outside of time and space is if someone or something outside of time and space teaches us or gives us that knowledge. A relationship with God, therefore, is essential to knowing our Authentic Self.

This further helps to explain why we cannot define the Authentic Self on an individual basis. God  is community and if we are made in the image and likeness of God, anything we claim to be True because “I” claim it to be so. Truth is, in Christian philosophy, determined by the universal “We” of God, and we humans need a relationship with Him to know this Truth.

Having reviewed this, I give the students the first objective of the day:

Students will be able to define monotheistic, polytheistic, agnostics, and atheists as these terms relate to God.

In this class we assume that there is a God, but there are other belief systems that are not exactly like what Christians believe when it comes to God. Monotheistic refers to “religions that believe there is only one God.” (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). Polytheistic refer to “religions that believe in multiple gods and goddesses.” (Ancient Romans and Greeks, and Animism) Agnostics are people who believe that God’s existence cannot be known or proven using normal human intelligence or experience. An Atheists is a “person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.” (OED)

Christianity, of course, is monotheistic. There is one God. In addition, Christianity believes that God is one. God is perfectly unified and not divided. It gets potentially tricky when we say God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This seems paradoxical. But theology thinks in terms of “Both/And” and not “Either/Or”. This cannot be understood using normal human logic or experience; it suggests the Truth of God is transcendent. However, Christian theology and philosophy also understands that there are, in fact, ways in which we can come to know these Transcendent Truths, although those ways require total acquiescence, humility , or vulnerability, which most people may not be willing to practice.

My sharper students already are looking at the second objective and asking how, if God is transcendent, can we “prove” that He exists. This is the next part of this lesson.

(Anyone who ever knew Father Lopez knows that  he is evidence that there is a God and that God Loves us. Thanks for being a sacrament in our lives, Father Lopez!)

Day Four: Proofs of God’s Existence Part One

I don’t pretend to be able to “prove” to 9^th graders the existence of God. While the proofs are, in fact, relatively simple, most 9^th graders (and most people in our culture) lack the essential philosophical training related to epistemology and the nature of knowledge to really “learn” this in a modern classroom setting. What I can do is offer some fundamental vocabulary needed to discuss various beliefs about God. That is how I stat this lesson.

I give students the following Bellwork to consider in the first few minutes of class:

“How do you prove something exists? Give an example.”

They take a few moments and jot down a response. We will get back to it after some prayer and review.

Prayer does not need to be the static and dry recitation of words. Those prayers we learned as youngsters in parochial or Sunday schools are essential components of Catholic piety, but the sooner we realize the diversity of prayer, the better we will be able to start seeing “God in all things”.

I show students picture of several Doctors of the Church, demonstrating how some of the greatest minds in the history of the Church have used logic and reason and mystical encounter to argue the existence of God. Students reflect on the concept of God as being demonstrable with reason and logic in addition to what they may normally think of as a personal encounter. Augustine, Hildegard, Aquinas, Catherine, Newman…these are just a few of the great names that I introduce to my students.

After prayer, I ask students to share what they have written for their Bellwork. Usually they talk about how they know the material things around them exist. But they also talk about more transcendent concepts; they claim that that they know things like Love and happiness and Beauty exist. They don’t know it, but they are engaged in an exercise related to epistemology, the study of the nature of knowledge. Some students describe the academic sort of knowledge they have and the way they gained it. Others describe more personal or emotional knowledge and how the method of knowing that kind of knowledge is quite different from academic knowledge. I do not teach them the finer points of epistemology here, but I do point out that in philosophy, the method we use to learn or to know something is heavily dependent on the nature of that which we are trying to know. That is, if something is material, we use material means to “know” it. If something is more transcendent, we use more transcendent means. This sets us up to know a little bit about the nature of proving God’s existence. But first, we need to develop a little vocabulary regarding monotheism, polytheism, agnosticism and atheism.

(Texas ain't so bad)

Day Three: Doctrine and Diversity

Those of us who grew up in the Catholic Church take it for granted that Catholicism is, in fact, a Christian religion. For us, “Christianity” is any religion that believes Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of humankind. So, Catholicism falls under that categorization. It never really occurred to us that other Christian religions have a different definition of what “Christianity” is. For example, growing up in the South, for many of my friends, to be a Christian is to believe what I said, AND in order to develop a relationship with God, the Bible is essential. There is a reason why they call it the Bible Belt, after all. Of course, Catholicism also says the Bible is God’s Revelation to humankind and is certainly necessary in the development of a relationship with God, but I explain a few other facts about Catholicism that makes it a distinct form of Christianity.

I reiterate that Christianity refers to the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that the goal of Christianity is to develop a relationship with God for the purpose of what is normally called “salvation”, although I am more precise in my lessons on this point. Instead of simply saying “salvation”, I teach my students that a relationship with God allows us to encounter our Authentic Self and to experience Authentic Love in a way that we cannot do on our own. I am getting ahead of myself here, but this Authentic Self is, effectively, “salvation”.

I break it down a bit here; Catholicism is oldest and largest denomination of Christianity. It also happens to be the most diverse, single religious sect in the history of humanity. This takes students aback a bit, but I explain to them that currently there are over a billion Catholics in the world on every continent, in nearly every country, speaking almost every language, in nearly every culture in the world. I stress to my students that it is a pretty major feat for one central set of doctrines to be shared by such a diverse selection of people. Later on, I will explain how the structure of the Church really only has two goals: to maintain a balance between central doctrine and diverse cultures. I think we do a pretty good job. In case you wonder how difficult this process is, consider how the United States maintains a central Constitution despite the thousands of distinct communities with varying beliefs and agendas. If you are saying, “Well, the United States does not do a good job of that,” then maybe you get my point.

The great thing about Catholicism is, actually, the Beautiful tension between doctrine and diversity. This is where Catholicism differs from many other forms of Christianity. Let me go back to the Bible. The Bible is definitely a major way in which God reveals Himself to humanity and by which we can grow in relationship with Him. But Catholicism also sees the Bible as part of how God reveals Himself to us. But there is so much more to His Revelation. Scripture, Creation, Sacraments, Service, Community… the list  goes on. Catholic theology looks at everything in Creation as potential manners by which God reveals Himself. This does not decrease the importance of Scripture in our relationship with God; it increases our understanding of just how much God desires to be in relationship with us. This is a theme I continue as the year goes on. In short, the diversity of the Church and the diversity of how God reveals Himself to us allows more avenues to the development of that relationship.

(Watching over the front yard; rabbits are his enemy.)

Day Three: Faith and Religion

Day Three

“Whom do you Trust?” I start the class with this question. My students take a few moments to write down the name of someone they Trust. It is an important question. The ones we Trust often are the one who will influence us the greatest. So, as we discuss later in class, we need to be aware of those in whom we place our greatest Trust. To flippantly Trust based simply on superficial or material Truths of popularity or excitement is to place ourselves in great danger of being led in a wrong direction.

They seem surprised when I show that somewhat disturbing scene from Alladin where Jasmine is visited on her balcony by the main character and as he stands on the magic carpet and asks her if she wants to go for a ride. He creepily inquires: “Do you Trust me?” Maybe it is just the animation and the over-sized eyes in head head that creeps me out, but we make this part of our prayer. I ask students to reflect on what it means to Trust and how if we are to really Trust another, we are also making an unspoken claim about the authority of those in whom we place our Trust. Certainly, the leap is not too great; if we say that God is the highest authority, then perhaps we should be placing all of our Trust in Him.

We discuss the characteristics of people we Trust. We tend to say words like “honest”, “honorable”, “kind”, “Loving”, and “caring”.  These are some of the many word we use to describe those whom we Trust. Ultimately, though, I ask students why they continue to Trust these people, even if they have shown many of these great attributes. Ultimately, though, what we are talking about is Faith. To Trust another is to have Faith that they will provide for us, whether that provision comes in the form of material, emotional, or really any form of help or support. We so easily and proudly claim to Trust our friends and family… we have Faith in them. Now, maybe we should be more open to having Faith in God.

Christianity is not a religion about God, it is a RELATIONSHIP with God. And although God is transcendent, there can still be reason to believe in Him. In fact, because God is transcendent, in order to know anything about Him or to really develop a relationship with Him, we need signs, symbols, and most importantly, Sacraments. The Truth of God cannot be comprehended by human intellect; we need material Truths that point to more transcendent Truths. In terms of Sacrament, God actually gives us material Truths that are also encounters with the Transcendent.

But we encounter those Truths in multiple ways. Faith and Religion, while often conflated, are two very different ways in which we encounter the Transcendent Truth of God. While they are different, Faith and Religion are necessarily complementary.

The first objective for the day is:  Students will be able to differentiate between Faith and Religion. Thinking back to symbols and signs, symbols and signs are like invitations to do something or to think about something. God uses symbols and signs to “get our attention". It is God who invites us into relationship with Him, not vice-versa. If we believe that God is personally inviting us into a relationship with Him, then it stands to reason that He will often use methods that are most becoming our individual and unique character. Belief in God based on personal, intimate signs or symbols, is Faith. Faith is the individual response to the signs that God gives to us. It is not too different from being asked out on a date. (I teach girls; this works). The more personal the sign a Love interest shows you, the more likely you will respond. Generic signs from a potential date often fall short. God, who seeks to woo us, presents us with the same personal and, as we will discuss later, efficacious, signs. If we say "yes", our response is Faith…Trust that He will Love us.

This is how we understand God as one who Loves us individually and is dedicated to the heart of the individual. However, there is always more to God. As I teach later in the week, God is community…God is Trinity. Therefore, it is not enough for God to encounter us individually; He  encounters us communally, as well. We need to encounter Him with and through our community. This is religion.

Religion is the organized communal expression of a particular faith. It is how a community works together to develop relationships with God. While Faith is a personal response to individual symbols or signs, religion is a collective response to symbols or signs to be in a relationship with God.

As a theologian and as a teacher, it helps to always have a primer or a theme that ties all my teaching together. For me, the image and likeness of God as Trinity does just that. I always return to the concept that if we are made in the image and likeness of God, then in order to “look like” God, we must “look like” the Trinity. Be careful not to read that too narratively. Essentially, we cannot “look like” God if it is just the individual “I” and God; it must be “Us” and God. Therefore, while Faith may bring us into initial contact with God, it is religion that makes us “look like” Him.

Both Faith and religion are essential for a complete relationship with God. The response to God’s invitation to be in a relationship with Him is both an individual AND a communal one. Why? Because God is both singular AND communal; God is ONE and God is Community. If we are made in the image and likeness of God and if God is ONE and COMMUNITY, then the best way to respond to His symbols and signs is both as individuals and as community. Faith and Religions are both needed.

We take a breather before we move onto the next objective for the day, just a quick description of where Catholicism falls into the whole Christianity scheme of things. Nothing too tough; just a quick Venn Diagram.

(One of those benefits of living in Colorado.)

Day Two: Signs, Symbols...Sacraments

Christianity is a religion of signs and symbols. God is Transcendent and the thoughts and ideas we have about God are simply too limited in scope to really understand God. In fact, anything that humans create in order to describe God is utterly incomplete. Christianity believes that God give us signs that point to His transcendent Truth. But before we can talk about Sacraments, as this what these particular signs are, students need to have a good working knowledge of what sign and symbols are.

The second daily objective for the day two is: “Students will be able to define what sign and symbol are in relationship to the thing that it represents”

Starting with basic vocabulary, as theology is essentially based on being able to communicate clearly with precise words, I give them the following concepts.

•       Signs are literal representations of something else. Signs inform the audience of that to which it refers.

•       For example, a “sign” above a grocery store aisle informs you of what you can find in that aisle.

•       Symbols are metaphorical representations of something else. Symbols require interpretation and usually point the audience to a more abstract idea or thing.

•       For example, on a highway exit ramp pictorial images can symbolize what kind of stores or services are at that exit.

Symbols are more complicated than signs and sometimes symbols.

•       In general, “sign” and “symbol” are used interchangeably.

•       Technically, signs are literal descriptions of that which it represents. They represent things that are easily understood.

•       Symbols, on the other hand, are metaphorical descriptions of things that are more complex and difficult to explain with simple signs.

I displays the two images next to each other and explains that if someone wants to communicate “mystery” or ideas or things that are beyond human comprehension, then symbols are more appropriate. However, there will be a difference between symbols that humans use to represent other material Truths and symbols that God uses or creates to represent more Transcendent Truths.

•       Christianity uses symbols to represent or to point to complex things or Truths. (This is how I word it at the beginning of the semester; we still haven’t developed the best vocabulary for discussing this).

•       Symbols must be used because the Truths about God cannot be understood on a literal level.

To be more precise, Catholic Christianity uses Sacraments to point us toward God,. Symbols, strictly speaking, point to more complex ideas or concepts but still those ideas or concepts are inert and are within the imagination of the human intellect. Sacraments, on the other had, as I describe mush later in the course, are efficacious and both symbolize a Truth beyond human imagination and are a Truth beyond human imagination. It is highly complex and my students need a bit more vocabulary before we can dive deeply into this. But we can practice.

After I have presented this concept of symbolic representation, I assign students to make a symbol representing themselves. They will do this in twenty minutes. I remind them:

•       You are more than what can be described literally. You need symbols to represent who you are.

•       Take twenty minutes to create a symbol that might help other people know more about who you are.

•       Look at the example that the teacher gives you and make sure you follow the directions.

When students are done, they turn their symbols in to the teacher. Essentially, I do this exercise so students gain a deeper and more tactile and visual understanding of symbolic representation. I also use their symbols to decorate the room. When students believe they “own” a classroom, they are more inclined to feel a sense of welcoming. The worst thing a teacher can do in a classroom, of any kind, is to make it oppressive and intimidating. The limits the capacity for the classroom to let down any guards they have and inhibits the cultivation of Love. I have to be honest, I do not do many projects with students any more, but when I do, I make sure the entire class can see work they have created.