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Part of Faith: 1. Way to Faith 2. Faith 3. Motive of Faith 4. Preambles of Faith 1. Dimensions of faith. God has revealed himself to man in his Son made man (Heb 1:1; Jn 1:14–18; Mt 11:25–27); revelation is the mystery of God who draws near to man in the human word of his eternal Word. Man’s response to God revealing himself in Christ is called faith; faith, therefore, is as supernatural as revelation itself, and together they constitute the mystery of God’s encounter with man in Christ. In this encounter it is God…

Part of Nature: 1. Philosophical and Theological 2. Naturalism 3. Nature and Grace 1. The term “naturalism” is employed in so many different senses, both in technical language (scientific, philosophical and theological) and in current usage, that it is impossible to reduce them to a common kernel. Perhaps its main characteristic may be described as a tendency to think of all reality exclusively or predominantly in terms of concepts and images derived from the world of things, while denying or ignoring the tr…

Part of Nature: 1. Philosophical and Theological 2. Naturalism 3. Nature and Grace 1. The problem of nature and grace is implicitly present in all theological reflection on the salvation of man, and is strictly related to a series of basic themes such as creation and covenant, creation and incarnation, natural knowledge of God and revelation, reason and faith, philosophy and theology, law and gospel, freedom of man and God’s gift of himself, history of the world and history of salvation, progress and the kin…

Part of Faith: 1. Way to Faith 2. Faith 3. Motive of Faith 4. Preambles of Faith 1. God reveals himself in Christ. According to the ОТ to believe God is to rely (לְהֶאֱמִין = hiphil of צָּמן = to be firm) on his word (Gen 15:1-6; Exod 4:15,28–30; 14:31; Is 43: 1, 10; Jn 3:1-5). St. Paul adopts this concept when saying that faith accepts the Gospel as the word of God (2 Thess 2:13). While Heb 1:1 declares that God has spoken to us in his Son, the fourth gospel outlines a theology of God’s testimony (μαρτυρία) through Christ as the f…

Part of Faith: 1. Way to Faith 2. Faith 3. Motive of Faith 4. Preambles of Faith 1. This expression refers to an aspect of the theological problem of “reason and faith”, which is ultimately the problem of “nature and grace”. It is God who of his good pleasure reveals himself and creates in man an ability to receive the divine word; but it is man who freely believes and enters into vital contact with the God of revelation. What is necessary for man to satisfy himself that his free decision to believe God is not a…

Part of Nature: 1. Philosophical and Theological 2. Naturalism 3. Nature and Grace A. The Philosophical Concept The word “nature”, strictly speaking, means birth, going forth ( nasci, φύεσθαι). It is used to designate both the constant rise of the individual being in its reality (the essence as actively realized) or the totality of all beings in its constant course. This totality is understood either as self-explanatory (in the Greek notion of φύσις or in a pantheistic concept of natura naturans) or as creation. In the latter case, nature is understood as evolving in a proc…