1.

The person outside all traditions lacks sufficient rational resources for enquiry and a
fortiori for enquiry into what tradition is to be rationally preferred. He or she has no
adequate relevant means of rational evaluation and hence can come to no well-grounded
conclusion, including the conclusion that no tradition can vindicate itself against any other.
To be outside all traditions is to be a stranger to enquiry; it is to be in a state of intellectual
and moral destitution.
There are norms and requirements pertaining to morality that are always tradition-
dependent and that there are rival (and incommensurable) traditions and that truth is
shown to be, at best, relative to a system of inquiry. Someone must either be within a
tradition and hence operating with its standards and so committed to their correctness, or
else outside it and hence not equipped to take a view one way or the other.
2.a. That a denial of the very existence of God is an offense against God, and that to
vindicate the majesty of God the state should punish it.
Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less
broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense,
atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with
theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists. The
term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s)", used
as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger
society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in
criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope.
2.b. To the scientific thought the world is a self-generated, self-controlling machine,
complete and fully organized for movement; life and mind and consciousness have been
attained by the play of natural forces acting upon the complexities of highly developed
molecular aggregates-at first life-cells, ultimately brain-cells, and these not the organ or
instrument, but the very reality and essence of life and of mind. Orthodox science at the
present teaches that the cosmos is self-explanatory, self-contained, and self-maintaining.
2.c. Religion, then, can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which
a group of people struggles with these ultimate problems of human life. It is the refusal to
capitulate to death, to give up in the face of frustration, to allow hostility to tear apart one's
human association.
"political theology" assigns to the Church a socio-critical function with a basis in its
eschatological hope is an interesting line of thought where the exercising of that function
(in practice already initiated) has enormous repercussions.
3. The third millennium has begun with a gusto of promises. There are economic
promises, social promises, ecological promises, and dozens of others. Moreover, the third
millennium has begun in a very unique way. It has inherited the unbelievable abilit to
travel in space, a truly worldwide or globalized economy, an explosion in people's
knowledge due to the computer and online services, and a military capacity far beyond
any other age that this world has known. Without any doubt, the third mimllennium has
begun as an unparalleled, creative, and powerful period of time.
In many ways, the third millennium is a new world and therefore it is a new immediate
context in that the Western Christian Churches are rethinking their integrity and their
relevance. At the beinning of hte third millennium, a strong but incipient vision of a
renewed ecclesiology has begun to emerge. The momentum for ecclesial renewal
remains positive, but the goal of the renewal has not yet been sighted.
4. Fides Assensus is our conviction that the content of our faith is true. It is about knowing
the Christian faith and yet believing that it is not true. Genuine faith says that the content
— the notation taught by Holy Scripture — is true.
Fides Fiducia refers to personal trust and reliance. Knowing and believing the content of
the Christian faith is not enough, for even demons can do that. Faith is only effectual if,
knowing about and assenting to the claims of Jesus, one personally trusts in Him alone
for salvation.
5. The term emunah, which is rendered in English as “faith” or “belief,” occurs for the first
time in the Torah in connection with Abraham.
After obeying God’s command to leave his family and home, Abraham is led to the land
which God promises to give to his descendants. Famine forces him to sojourn in Egypt,
where his wife Sarah’s beauty almost precipitates a tragedy. Back in the land promised
by God, Abraham and his nephew Lot find that they cannot live together in peace, and
each goes his own way. Lot is captured by enemies and then freed by Abraham.
“After these things,” the Torah tells us, “the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision,
saying: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, thy reward shall be exceeding great.'” Now, for
the first time, Abraham questions God: “O Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go
hence childless…to me thou hast given no seed.”
What is the nature of Abraham’s belief which God counted as “righteousness”? It is quite
clear that Abraham’s righteous belief was not a matter of his accepting God’s statements
as true, or of having given explicit intellectual acquiescence to the truth of a series of
propositions such as:
1. God exists.
2. God communicates with individuals and makes promises to them.
3. God has the power to keep promises made.
4. God may be relied upon to keep promises.
In God We Trust
Abraham’s act of righteousness is his demonstration of trust in God. There can be no
doubt that, had he been asked, Abraham would happily have affirmed the truth of the four
propositions listed just above. The Torah, however, gives us no reason for thinking that
Abraham ever asked himself the sorts of questions to which our four propositions could
be construed as answers. The emunah spoken of here is more than belief that certain
statements about God are true; it is belief in God, trust and reliance upon God, all of which
call forth behavior consistent with that stance of trust and reliance.
6. Two qualities necessary for faith are that: (1) a person be willing to believe; and (2)
that the contents of belief be proposed to that person.

7. Our Christian Faith is truly life-giving and mature only through love, for "the man without
love has known nothing of God, for God is love." And to be Christian, this love must be
inseparably love of God and love of neighbor, like Christ's. It thus impels us to mission,
to evangelize, by bringing others the Good News. Such a missionary spirit is the test if
authentic Faith because it is unthinkable that a person should believe in Christ's Word
and Kingdom without bearing witness and proclaiming it in His turn. This means that we
are all called to share in Christ's own three-fold mission as priest, prophet, and king.
8. With respect to prayers the Filipino people can be said to be truly religious. From the
time a Filipino rises from his bed to the time he returns to it to rest from the wearisome
day all his actions alternate with prayers and devotions. Perhaps they are the only
Catholic people who still preserve the primitive traditions. The ringing of the church bells
announces the hours of prayer and retreat; communication with the Creator is frequent
and repeated, though the object of their devotions is the Virgin and the saints.

However, many pray in their native tongue, but as the majority of the novena are strongly
recommended to obtain certain objects and wishes, the faithful are forced to recite these
prayers instead of the simple and pure prayers taught by Jesus Christ, thus giving rise to
instances of such very bad pronunciation of phrases and words that would make laugh
even the very images to whom these religious acts are dedicated. There’s something
worthy of note in them: there’s a rigid measure for the “Our Fathers,” “Ave Marias," and
“Gloria Patris,” a fixed number, a certain whimsical combination that the common man
follows and scrupulously observes, as if God would scorn the prayer of an unfortunate
man for being one “Our Father” more or one “Gloria Patri” less. The same thing happens
to the novena. They must be exactly nine days though they are not recited devoutly –
always the form before the substance. As we have already noted, the cult of the Virgin
and of the saints is more widespread than that of God because of the belief that the graces
could be more easily obtained through the intercession of mediators. These novenas are
dedicated to all the images of the Virgin and all the saints known for their specialties, for
this or that miracle.

It’s a pious and laudable act to light a candle to an image to honor it with their external
manifestation of religious fervor. Far be it for us to censure it, but what we can’t accept,
now or ever, is that many ascribe more power to a candle (which is sold even for a penny)
than to a simple petition coming from a humble and repentant heart.