OUR knowledge of God can either be
natural or
supernatural. The former simply relies on our reason and human
capacity to know. The latter is the fruit of faith, of grace, of God’s
mercy.
While there is distinction between the two, we have to
understand that we need to have both of them working organically.
While our natural power to know God would already give us a certain
knowledge of God, we have to understand that, due to our human
condition that is weakened by sin, we are in great need of the divine
gift of faith which God himself gives generously.
We should avoid falling into the extremes of rationalism,
where we use reason alone in our relationship with God, and of
fideism, where we use what we call as faith alone. Reason and faith
should go together.
This faith does not replace our natural powers to know
God. In fact, it requires the full play of our natural powers. What it
does is to purify, deepen and elevate our natural capacity to know God
to the supernatural order.
We have to understand that our faith could go to waste if
our natural powers to know God fail to do their part. That is why we
have to realize that we need to develop our natural capacity to know
God as much as possible.
We should see to it that these natural powers to know God
are not obstructed and entangled in some earthly values alone, but
should go all the way to acknowledge God’s presence and love
everywhere.
This is where much of our problem in this area spring. We
fail to make our natural powers to know God to go all the way. And so
we fall into many inconsistencies in our Christian life.
How does this natural knowledge of God work? And how
should we develop it?
“The person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming
to know him. These are also called proofs of the existence of God” not
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. These ‘ways’ of approaching God from
creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and
the human person.” (Catechism 31)
The Catechism continues: “The world—starting from
movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one
can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the
universe.” (Catechism 32)
“The human person—with his openness to truth and beauty,
his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his
conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man
questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs
of his spiritual soul. The soul, the ‘seed of eternity we bear in
ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,’ can have its origin
only in God.” (Catechism 33)
What we have to do to develop our natural knowledge of God
is to pursue to the last consequences the logic of these natural
approaches of knowing God. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is
that we tend to get contented at a certain point of the development
process and refuse to go any further.
We easily get contented with merely worldly values, like
practicability, ingenuity, profitability, etc., and refuse to
acknowledge the God who is behind all these values. As a consequence,
we make our own agenda and detach ourselves from the providence of God
in which we play a vital role. We little by little become secularized
and paganized, until we become insensitive to that basic longing of
ours to seek God.
While it’s true that there is a certain autonomy we enjoy
in our earthly affairs, that autonomy is never meant to be a complete
disregard or separation from the ways of God’s providence. If anything
at all, that autonomy should stir even our desire to seek God.
Seeking God, whether having the physical world or the
human person as points of departure, should be a wholistic effort that
involves all our faculties. It should not just be an intellectual
exercise without the feelings, or vice-versa, a matter of pure
feelings without the use of the intelligence.
Christ himself said so: “Seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
(Mt 6,33) And, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your strength, and with all our mind.” (Lk
10,27)
supernatural. The former simply relies on our reason and human
capacity to know. The latter is the fruit of faith, of grace, of God’s
mercy.
While there is distinction between the two, we have to
understand that we need to have both of them working organically.
While our natural power to know God would already give us a certain
knowledge of God, we have to understand that, due to our human
condition that is weakened by sin, we are in great need of the divine
gift of faith which God himself gives generously.
We should avoid falling into the extremes of rationalism,
where we use reason alone in our relationship with God, and of
fideism, where we use what we call as faith alone. Reason and faith
should go together.
This faith does not replace our natural powers to know
God. In fact, it requires the full play of our natural powers. What it
does is to purify, deepen and elevate our natural capacity to know God
to the supernatural order.
We have to understand that our faith could go to waste if
our natural powers to know God fail to do their part. That is why we
have to realize that we need to develop our natural capacity to know
God as much as possible.
We should see to it that these natural powers to know God
are not obstructed and entangled in some earthly values alone, but
should go all the way to acknowledge God’s presence and love
everywhere.
This is where much of our problem in this area spring. We
fail to make our natural powers to know God to go all the way. And so
we fall into many inconsistencies in our Christian life.
How does this natural knowledge of God work? And how
should we develop it?
“The person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming
to know him. These are also called proofs of the existence of God” not
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. These ‘ways’ of approaching God from
creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and
the human person.” (Catechism 31)
The Catechism continues: “The world—starting from
movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one
can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the
universe.” (Catechism 32)
“The human person—with his openness to truth and beauty,
his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his
conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man
questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs
of his spiritual soul. The soul, the ‘seed of eternity we bear in
ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,’ can have its origin
only in God.” (Catechism 33)
What we have to do to develop our natural knowledge of God
is to pursue to the last consequences the logic of these natural
approaches of knowing God. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is
that we tend to get contented at a certain point of the development
process and refuse to go any further.
We easily get contented with merely worldly values, like
practicability, ingenuity, profitability, etc., and refuse to
acknowledge the God who is behind all these values. As a consequence,
we make our own agenda and detach ourselves from the providence of God
in which we play a vital role. We little by little become secularized
and paganized, until we become insensitive to that basic longing of
ours to seek God.
While it’s true that there is a certain autonomy we enjoy
in our earthly affairs, that autonomy is never meant to be a complete
disregard or separation from the ways of God’s providence. If anything
at all, that autonomy should stir even our desire to seek God.
Seeking God, whether having the physical world or the
human person as points of departure, should be a wholistic effort that
involves all our faculties. It should not just be an intellectual
exercise without the feelings, or vice-versa, a matter of pure
feelings without the use of the intelligence.
Christ himself said so: “Seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
(Mt 6,33) And, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your strength, and with all our mind.” (Lk
10,27)
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