Theo Thesis Statements

1.
The questions of ultimate significance invite seekers to maintain a disposition of

wonder. It is dangerous to come up with absolute answers to these questions, but it is
reasonable and humble to commit to a high degree of certitude.
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
- Wonder
- Vigourous struggle
- Difficult surrender
- Antidote for absolute certainty
Danger
- Closemindedness
- Dangerous with out faith
- We have to understand; but not to stop asking
- Understanding of God is so limited
- Shrink God to whats convenient
- Faith stops flourishing
- Absolute Certitude- Force your ideas to others
- Challenge vs. Force
- Nitpicking Ideas
- We have to keep asking
- Certain up to a degree
- Endure the struggle to get to know our faith
Surrender
- We can never be absolute, but highly certain
- Humility
- We can never comprehend something as absolute God
- We need to live out our questions
- Ambiguous is okay
2. Theology is faith seeking understanding. A mature and authentic faith is not
credulity. Instead, it entails the employment of creative doubt that requires study and
questioning, yet it also entails an openness to mystery. Faith is also holistic as it is a
matter of the head, the heart, and the hands.
Thesis Statement: Theology is faith seeking understanding

Key Words: not credulity, the employment of creative doubt, an openness to mystery,
holistic
1. Define why theology is faith seeking understanding

- Theology is faith seeking understanding, because theology naturally assumes a
questioning manner, and we shouldnt refuse questions about our faith
- Theology allows us to have an investigative approach to faith and constantly re-
examine, make assertions, and make reasonable conclusions
2. Faith vs. Reason

- We can find out a lot through reason and by being objective
- We can determine a lot about God through reason
- But theres only so much we can know with tangible facts
- Authentic faith is not lower than reason, thats credulity
o Its thinking we can get away with just surrendering, and being ignorant.
o If we think we fully understood, were deceiving ourselves; Gods infinity
can never be captured by our finite minds
- Authentic faith is super rational; its a surrender on the far side of reason, reason
having done all its work; now theres a surrender we cant control
- Faith doesnt involve a sacrifice of the intellect, or a suspension of thinking
- Surrender allows us to go deeper and ask more.
3. Employment of Creative Doubt

- Its our responsibility to find out more about our faith
- The absolute truth doesnt encapsulate what we believe in, thats dogmatism
- Having creative doubt allows us to recognize our fallibility and that what we
know is limited
- Continual studying and questioning
- Its not wrong to question, its a wrong to try to control and grasp thats why it
goes beyond
4. Openness to Mystery; God and relationships

- We dont understand in order to believe, we should believe in order to
understand
- God is a mystery. And the only way to know mystery is to allow it to unfold in front
of you
- Faith that moment of trust that we accept the truth of the God who speaks
o Theres no way to be in a relationship other than faith
o A mutual act of trust faith is saying we trust what God reveals to us
o Faith isnt opposed reason, but it goes beyond reason
- Thats why we fall in love KAHULUGAN
o We dont leave reason behind, but God is the ground of all person;
therefore, if we really want to know God, we have to wait for this free
person to speak
o And we make the decision to trust or not
o We take the plunge without knowing everything
o We might not have all the answers but we allow faith to communicate
with us
- Revelation
o God revealing Himself to us
o Gods invitation
o Faith is the acceptance of revelation
CONNECT WITH:
- Wonder faith entails rigor & surrender
- Absolute Certitude we reduce truth to our ides and were missing out on the
complexity and the bigger picture
3. Revelation is Gods invitation for all to come into a loving relationship with Him. He
expresses this desire for a relationship through manifold signs: the order and goodness of
creation, the words of Sacred Scripture, the community of believers, and most fully, in
the person of Jesus Christ who is the ultimate expression of the love of the Father.
Thesis Statement:
Key Words: desire for a relationship,
1. Revelation & relationship

o God revealing Himself to us
o God disclosing something about Himself that we wont know through
reason
o Revelation points to the fact that we become aware of Gods constant
presence within our world, and within our live
o Gods goal is not for us to expand our knowledge, but rather to offer a
relationship and relationship with us
o Loving relationship
Love is willing, desiring, and scting upon the good of the other as
other
Not out of necessity
He reveals to us because he loves us

2. Through manifold signs

- CCC1 Shows a revelatory God who desires to have a relationship with all of
creation
- Shows a God, out of His great love wants to have a relationship with us
- And this love isnt contained, but rather manifested though manifold signs and
events
- This means that he communicates with us through the natural world, human
experience, scripture, and tradition
- God chose to reveal to us though these signs
3. Order and Goodness of Creation

-
4. Sacred Scripture
5. Community of Believers
6. Jesus Christ
o Faith is the acceptance of revelation

4. Creation did not come as a result of a primordial conflict, but by the sheer gratuitous
act of God that brings forth shalom into the world. But since selfishness distorted this
original order and goodness, we now find ourselves in a world bent and broken. Though
tainted by sin, the human being is still created in the tselem and demuth of God.
*image and likeness of God
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
- God created So as to manifest and share His Glory
- The entire universe has been loved into existence
- Love Willing the good of the other as other
- Love is the great act of the will
- God doesnt need the world
- Non-violence is the fundamental reality
- We are connected to each other
- We must acknowled by the way you love, that what connects us is always more
basic and always more powerful than what divides us
- The garden God wants us to be fully alive
- God wants human beings to flourish
- Trees- all that makes life wonderful
The Fall
- We know from our sin, its all compromised
- Sin compromised what God intended for us
- SIN free reign in the garden save one;
- The one thing we cant do, if we want to flourish according to Gods will, is to
appropriate to ourselves the criterion of good and evil
- We must receive always from God
- SIN- turning oneself into God, appropriating the Divine Life rather than receiving it
- The Divine Life is a gift, we cant have it
- As we receive it, we give it only then do we really have it
- We go into a great emptiness
- I appropriate, I make my own,I decide what life means
- The minute we think we arent sinners, Is the moment w ebecome the beasts
The Original Sin

- Prohibition
- God is the measure of good and evil
- Its irrigating to ourselves the prerogative of determining good and evil
- Clothing sign of self-consciousness
-
5. The Revelation of God is powerfully expressed in words. The believing communitys
non-negotiables for an authentic faith are expressed in the canon of its Sacred Texts.
God chose certain human authors who, as true authors, made full use of their human
powers and faculties, yet were so guided by the Holy Spirit, who so enlightened their
minds and moved their wills, that they put down in writing what God wanted written
(DV 11)
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
6.) In interpreting Sacred Scripture, one must pay attention to three worlds: the world
behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text. In spite of
factual errors and glaring inconsistencies, the Bible still conveys the truths that lead to
salvation.
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
Popes method in
- Historical critical method
- Trying to uncover the intention of the hujman authors of the biblical books within
their historical framework as they address their particular audiences
- What was it like at that time
- Value: Christianity is not a mmythological system; there are mythic elements
within the Bible; but its historical
- God has spoken and acted in very definite historical situations God has
addressed particular methods at particular times
-
Danger of a one sided dimension (only of this world [present siguro?]
- Misses the vertical dimension
- By focusing on the human suthor
- It will miss the divine tradition
- Its not just a collection of books, its also authored by God
- God works thorugh history ; and the authors
- Great patterns or trajectories of the Bible; unity of the purpose
- The bible does cohere, under the guidance of a diveine author
- By focusing so much on the history, its gonna lock you in time

- Theological hermeneutic that goes along eith historical critical
- Church - a clearer lens
Bible
- More like a library rather than a book
- We take the library literally, we will ipso facto misread them
- Put on different lens to approach text; what kind of text is this?
- Lack of genre sensitivity
- Within an interpretive tradition the Church, the community whos read the Bible
- We have to read in the context
- Origin richly textured and symbolic reading
- Fundamentalism is really a modernism
-
7.) Revelation culminates in the person of Jesus Christ. It is through Christ that the
innermost being of God is expressed most clearly (DV 4).
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
8.) This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe
the gospel (Mk. 1:15). Through Jesuss words and deeds, the Kingdom broke forth,
demanding a radical response. All are welcome to enter the Kingdom, but this
invitation is especially strong and urgent for the anawim.
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
9.) The entire program of the life of Jesus Christ is the Incarnation which has a
descending and ascending movement. This is seen most fully in the Paschal Mystery
where He immersed Himself into the human condition, allowing every evil in the world to
come crashing down on Him, including death. But by His resurrection, He has fulfilled His
mission as the mashiah and gave us the hope that we will one day share in His triumph
over evil and be reunited with the Father.
Thesis Statement:
Key Words:
Analysis:
-Wonder
-Vigourous struggle; Difficult surrender
-Antidote for absolute certainty
Danger
-Closemindedness || Dangerous with out faith
-We have to understand; but not to stop asking
-Understanding of God is so limited
-Shrink God to whats convenient
-Faith stops flourishing
-Absolute Certitude- Force your ideas to others
-Challenge vs. Force
-Nitpicking Ideas
-We have to keep asking
-Certain up to a degree
-Endure the struggle to get to know our faith

Theo Thesis Statements

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1.

The questions of ultimate significance invite seekers to maintain a disposition of

Thesis Statement: Theology is faith seeking understanding

1. Define why theology is faith seeking understanding

2. Faith vs. Reason

3. Employment of Creative Doubt

4. Openness to Mystery; God and relationships

1. Revelation & relationship

2. Through manifold signs

3. Order and Goodness of Creation

o Faith is the acceptance of revelation

*image and likeness of God

The Original Sin

- By focusing so much on the history, its gonna lock you in time

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