Hey Readers,
Instead of using this blog sit, I will be using http://agapeadvocate.com from now on. It is a more comprehensive, more user friendly, better looking website. Enjoy!
Matt
Monday, July 5, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
What is Revelation?
As an aspiring youth minister, I do not yet claim to have fantastic realizations or claims to greatness, therefore, I will quote those wiser than I, Mark Hart and Todd Lemieux. In their book called "100 Things Every Catholic Teen Should Know", one of the 100 is about the meaning of revelation, why God revealed himself, and is it really helpful?
Man was created in the image of God. As a result, there are things we can know about God from simply reflecting on our lives and the world around us: Being good is better than being evil, so God must be good. Beauty is better than ugliness, so God must be beautiful. Love is the greatest thing to which man can aspire and the source of all peace in the world, so God must be love.
But we are limited. When we consider how little we can actually know about God, it is easy to see how many pagan religions came to the surface at the beginning of humankind. C.S. Lewis made the point that we are far below understanding God - like a flea trying to understand a man. The difference between God and ourselves is even more, since God is infinite and we are not.
How are we to understand this God? He must reveal Himself to us. That is the only way - there is no way we can grasp or comprehend something with our minds when that "something" created our minds!
Throughout the history of man, God has revealed himself. The most obvious ways are through Scripture and Tradition, as He makes himself known to us through a gradual unwrapping of who He is before all of mankind. When all of this comes together, we have a revealed picture of who God is. The picture is incomplete, because He is still infinite and we are not, but is a more complete picture than what we would have without His help.
(Ref: 1 Sm. 3:1, Ps. 119:130, Lk. 2:32, Rv. 1:1, CCC#238-242, 54-67)
Man was created in the image of God. As a result, there are things we can know about God from simply reflecting on our lives and the world around us: Being good is better than being evil, so God must be good. Beauty is better than ugliness, so God must be beautiful. Love is the greatest thing to which man can aspire and the source of all peace in the world, so God must be love.
But we are limited. When we consider how little we can actually know about God, it is easy to see how many pagan religions came to the surface at the beginning of humankind. C.S. Lewis made the point that we are far below understanding God - like a flea trying to understand a man. The difference between God and ourselves is even more, since God is infinite and we are not.
How are we to understand this God? He must reveal Himself to us. That is the only way - there is no way we can grasp or comprehend something with our minds when that "something" created our minds!
Throughout the history of man, God has revealed himself. The most obvious ways are through Scripture and Tradition, as He makes himself known to us through a gradual unwrapping of who He is before all of mankind. When all of this comes together, we have a revealed picture of who God is. The picture is incomplete, because He is still infinite and we are not, but is a more complete picture than what we would have without His help.
(Ref: 1 Sm. 3:1, Ps. 119:130, Lk. 2:32, Rv. 1:1, CCC#238-242, 54-67)
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