FUNFAITH
 makes us taste in advance
I. LESSON 1 - FAITH
A. Faith
 our response to God, who reveals
himself and gives himself to us
 To obey (lat. “ob-audire”) “to hear,
to listen to”
 Submit freely to the word that has
been heard, because its truth is
guaranteed by God who is the Truth
itself.
B. Characteristics of Faith
 Faith is Grace
 man must have the grace of
God to move and assist him
 Man must have the interior
help of Holy Spirit who
moves heart and converts it
to God
 Faith is a gift from God
 a supernatural virtue
infused by him
 Faith is a Human Act
 Acts that proceed from the
reason and free will are
rightly called “personal
acts”.
 “Believing is an act of the
intellect assenting to the
divine truth by command of
the will moved by God
through grace.”
 Faith and Understanding
 we believe “because of the
authority of God himself
who reveals them, who can
neither deceive nor be
deceived.”
 Faith is certain
 All human knowledge are
founded on the very words
of God who cannot lie
 Faith seeks understanding
 The grace of faith opens the
“eyes of the heart” to a
lively understanding of the
contents of revelation.
 Faith and Science
 All branches of knowledge
carried out in a truly
scientific can never conflict
with faith, because the
things of the world and the
things of faith are derived
from the same God
 Freedom of Faith
 nobody is to be forced to
embrace the faith against
his will.
 Necessity of Faith
 Believing in Jesus Christ and
in the One who sent him for
our salvation is necessary
for obtaining that salvation
 Faith the beginning of eternal life
the light of the beatific
vision
 Faith is a personal act
 free response of the human
person to the initiative of
God, yet faith is not an
isolated act.
 Communion in faith needs a
common language of faith,
normative for all and
uniting all in the same
confession of faith
C. Quotes According to Saints
 St. Thomas Aquinas – In knowing
comes loving
 St. Augustine - I believe in order to
understand, and I understand the
better to believe.
D. Professions of Faith
 Such “syntheses of faith” are called
“professions of faith” - they
summarize the faith that Christians
profess.
 They are called “creeds” (Lat.
“credo” which means, “I believe”).
 They are also called “symbols of
faith”.
 begins with God, for God the First
and Last, the beginning and end of
everything.
E. Symbols of Faith
 The Greek word Symbolon means
“half of a broken object”
 It is a sign of recognition and
communion of believers
 Symbolon also means “A gathering,
collection or summary.”
 summary of the principal truths of
the faith
F. Creeds
 Two Creeds
 occupy a special place in
the life of the Church
 Apostle’s Creed
 The faithful summary of the
apostle’s faith.
 It is the ancient baptismal
symbol of the Church of
Rome.
 Adopted by the early
church before the middle of
the 2nd century CE
 Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
or Nicene Creed
 The Creed used by both
Churches in the East and
West.
 It draws it great authority
form the first two
ecumenical councils: Nicea
(325 CE) and
Constantinople (381 CE.)
  I believe
 faith of the Church
professed personally
 first affirmation and the
most fundamental part of
the Creed
 whole creed speaks of God,
and when it speaks of man
and the world, it does so in
relation to God
 We believe
 faith of the Church
confessed by the bishops
 begins with God the Father, for the
Father is the first Divine Person of
the Most Holy Trinity.
 begins with the creation of heaven
and earth, for creation is the
beginning and foundation of all
God’s works.
II. LESSON 2 – MYSTERY OF GOD
A. Holy Trinity
 Dogma of the Holy Trinity
 the root of the Church’s
tradition, by means of
baptism
 finds its expression in the
baptismal faith, formulated
in the preaching, catechesis
and prayer of the Church.
 Substance
 can also be called essence
or nature. To designate the
divine being in its unity.
 Person or hypostasis
 to designate the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit in the
real distinction among
them
 Relation
 to designate the fact that
their distinction lies in the
relationship of each to the
others
 The Trinity is One
 The divine persons do not
share the one divinity
among themselves but each
of them is God whole and
entire. The Father, Son and
Spirit by nature is one God.
 The divine persons are really
distinct from one another
 God is one but not solitary
 Father, Son, Holy Spirit are
not simply names
designating the persons of
the divine being, they are
really distinct from one
another in relations of
origin.
 It is the Father who
generates, the Son who is
begotten, and the Holy
Spirit who proceeds.”
 The divine persons are relative to
one another
 The distinction of the
persons from one another
resides solely in the
relationships which relate
them to one another.
 Father
 “source and origin of the
whole divinity” (Toledo VI,
638)
 origin of everything and
transcendent authority
 Beyond gender,
transcending both
motherhood and
fatherhood
 Son
 “consubstantial with the
Father” (Nicea, 325)
 Only-begotten Son of God,
eternally begotten of the
Father (Constantinople,
381)
 Holy Spirit
 “proceeds eternally from
the Father and the Son”
 Has his nature and
substance at once from the
Father and the Son
 Mystery of Personal Loving
Communion
 The “mystery” of the Trinity
is not only how One God
can be three Persons.
 God is also “Mystery”
because, as infinite LOVE,
there is always more to
understand and love in
Him.
B. Attributes of God
 God is One
 The Church tells that Jesus
revealed God as the One
Lord whom we must love
with “all our heart, soul,
mind and strength”
 Jesus also reveals that he
himself is “The Lord”
 The Church also proclaims
the Holy Spirit as “Lord and
giver of life”
 Living God
 God moves beyond space
and time to put his almighty
power at work for his plan
 “I Am Who I Am”
 God revealed himself
progressively under
different names to his
people but there is one
fundamental name for both
the Old and New Covenant.
 expresses the mystery of
God is beyond words or
indescribable
  God is merciful and gracious
 Even after his people
turned their backs away
from God to worship the
Golden Calf, God continues
to express goodness to his
people.
 God is truth
 his wisdom, which
commands order and
governs the world.
 God is love
 His love is victorious over
worst infidelities
 Out of love that God never
stopped saving Israel and
pardoning their
unfaithfulness.
 God so loved the world he
gave his only Son.
 His love is “everlasting”
 God himself is an eternal
exchange of love
 God the Almighty
 God’s universal might: the
creator of everything rules
everything and can do
anything. Nothing is
impossible with God, who
disposes his work according
to his will.
 God’s omnipotence: filial
adoption and infinite mercy
 The faith in God the Father
Almighty can be put to the test by
the experience of evil.
 God can sometimes seem
to be absent and incapable
of stopping evil. But in the
most mysterious way God
the Father has revealed his
almighty power in the
voluntary humiliation and
resurrection of his Son, by
which he conquered evil.
B.
III. LESSON 3 – CREATION AND FALL OF
MAN
A. Creation
 Creatio Ex Nihilo
 God created the world
freely out of nothing – from
no pre- existent matter, no
space or time
 Creator
 fundamental source of all
being and order, in whom
all existing things
participate.
 necessary condition for
everything and the
sufficient condition for
nothing.
 Quinquia Vie/Argument of
Contingency
 God alone is a necessary
being
 God created the world out of his
wisdom and love, ‘out of nothing’,
freely, directly and without any
help.
 Wisdom and love – not
product of necessity, nor of
blind fate and chance
 Freely share in his goodness
and love
 Needs no pre existent thing
– ‘create’
 The Glory of God
 The creation of the world
and man witness to: His
almighty love and His
wisdom
 the realization,
manifestation and
communication of His
goodness God created an
ordered and good world.
God upholds and sustains
creation.
 For his glory but not to
increase his glory, but to
show it & communicate it
 Creation is the foundation of ‘all
God’s saving plans’, the beginning
of the history of salvation that
culminates in Christ.
 Creation concerns the very
foundation of human & Christian
life
 Human intelligence is now capable
of finding answers to questions of
Origin. Human reasoning ascertains
the existence of God the creator.
 Creation is the Work of the Holy
Trinity
 Though the work of
creation is attributed to the
Father, our Faith teaches
that He did this indivisibly
together with God the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
The Creation Story
 Origin and end in God
 Order and Goodness
 Vocation of man
 Drama of sin and hope of salvation
 Genesis
 It is the first book in the
bible that means “Origin,
beginning, source, and
creation”
 It is not a scientific book.
 It does not give scientific
accounts of the origin of
the world and humankind.
 The biblical authors wrote
for their contemporaries
and used images, symbols
and expressions common in
their time and culture.
 Biblical Inerrancy
 Religious Myth
 A literary form used in the
Bible as an “Imaginative
story that uses symbolism
to speak about reality”
 First Account of Creation
 not literal, not a scientific
description, not the actual
historical description
 it’s about God and creation
in symbolic way
 Priestly Account
o The writer’s
concern with
matter liturgical
(worship)
o He divided God’s
creative activity
into six days, thus,
foreshadowing
what would
become man’s work
week
 God is the origin of
everything especially life.
 Creation is orderly and
good.
 Humankind is the summit
of God’s creation
 Humans are stewards over
all creation
 Human sexuality and
procreation belong to the
divine order of creation
 Rest is Godly
 Second Account of Creation
 It emphasizes God’s
relationship to all human
being represented by the
figures of Adam and Eve.
 Yahwist Account
o the writer is so
called as such
because of his
consistent use of
“YAHWEH” to name
GOD.
 humans are created first
 the theological reason is
that the fact that the
universe is made
specifically for human
beings at their disposal.
 Man is created out of clay
to express the belief that
humans are of earth but
that they share in the life of
God
 Eden is the original locale
of human beings
 The human being is both
body and soul.
 Humans have the vocation
to care for and cultivate
the world
 Man and woman
complement each other
 Human Love and Marriage
are divinely ordered
 There is an intimate
connection between the
land and the human beings
 In Statu Vie
 In the state of journeying
towards perfection
 Divine Providence
 disposition of God as He
guide the universe to
perfection
C. Angels
 St. Augustine
 'Angel' is the name of their
office, not of their nature. If
you seek the name of their
nature, it is 'spirit'
 are servants and messengers of
God.
 comes from the Greek angelos,
which means 'messenger'.
 purely spiritual creatures
 have intelligence and will
 they are personal and immortal
creatures
 it’s own specie
D. Man
 in the image of God
 possesses the DIGNITY of a Person
 capable of self-knowledge, self-
possession and of freely giving
himself and entering into
communion with others
 called by grace to a covenant with
his Creator, to offer him a response
of faith and love that no other
creature can give
 We are the only beings capable of
acknowledging our creator/ origin
 Dignity
 innate in human; in born;
inherent
E. Body and Soul
 Soul
 (Gk. Psyche) – innermost
aspect of man; spiritual
principle in man
 Form of the body
 Body
 (Gk. Soma) – animated by
the spiritual soul
 Made of matter
 becomes a living human
body because of the
Spiritual Soul.
 Spirit and matter, in man, are not 2
natures united but forms a single
nature.
 We are a body and a soul
 meaning I do not have a
body and a soul, I am a
body and a soul they are
not a composite part but
ways of describing the
 complex and total human
person.
 The human soul is spiritual,
thus, it is immortal soul, it
will be reunited with the
body at the Final
Resurrection.
 I can only relate with God through
my living body
 The body shares in the
dignity of the image of God,
it is the human body that is
intended to become, in the
body of Christ, a temple of
the Holy Spirit.
 To violate the body is to violate
God
 God does not only save souls but
we are challenge to open our
entire life to the Spirit (Eternal life)
 The creation of man is ordered to
supernatural end
F. Man and Woman
 Each for the Other
 Genesis 2: 18 - 23
 Created to be a communion
of persons, a ‘helpmate’ to
the other, complementary
to one another
 Co-creators: Forming ‘one
flesh’ they can transmit
human life
 Equal as persons (bones of
my bones)
 Procreation
 Equality and Difference
 Good and willed by God
 Both with one and same
inalienable dignity
 in their being man and
woman, they reflect the
Creator’s wisdom and
goodness
G. Man in Paradise
 Eden
 Hebrew: pleasure, and
delight
 Triple Harmony
 Harmony between God
and Man, the harmony
between man and woman
and harmony between
man and nature
 Established in friendship with his
Creator, himself and with the
Creation around him
 Original Justice
 inner harmony in all
aspects
 Original justice + original holiness =
God’s sanctifying grace
 Sanctifying grace
 nadadagdagan through
holy mass
 Hindi tayo pwedeng ikulong ng
kasalanan dahil mayroong grace
 Original Holiness
 divine intimacy, sharing in
the divine life, the
presence of sanctifying
grace.
 Preternatural Gifts
 Integrity
o perfect subjection
of sensuality to
reason, the body to
soul, the human to
Creator
 Immortality
o would not pass
through tough
passage of death.
 Impassibility
o Immunity from all
suffering and
misery
o No fatigue, no
physical/moral
suffering
 Infused Knowledge
o Did not need effort
to study
o Adam named
animals
 Death
 separation of body and
soul
 Abstraction
 removal of materialities
because knowledge is
spiritual
 Work is not seen as a burden but
rather a collaboration with God in
perfecting the visible creation.
 Original state of holiness
 Divine Intimacy
o sharing in the
divine life (not to
suffer and die)
H. Fall
 Fall of Man
 Tempted by the devil, let
his trust in his Creator die
in his heart and, abusing
his freedom, disobeyed
God’s command CCC 397
 Man preferred himself,
chose himself over against
God
 Wanted to “be like God”,
but without God, before
God, and not in accordance
with God”
 Tree: Symbolical to the
insurmountable limitations
of man, being a creature
 Man is dependent on his
creator
 “First Sin”
 Sin
 broken relationship
 Humanity’s rejection of God
and opposition to Him
  Abuse of the freedom that
God gives to created
persons so that they are
capable of loving him and
love one another
 More than disobedience
and distrust > Broken
Relationship
 Analogy: romantic
relationship
 Sin in the New Testament is
Paraptoma meaning
“misstep.” Parabasis means
“transgression” or
Hamartia meaning “missing
the mark”
 Consequences of Man’s First Sin
 Loss of grace of original
holiness (sanctifying grace)
 Distorted Image of God
o a GOD jealous of
his prerogatives
 Destroyed original justice
(Harmony)
o Broken harmony
with creation
 Control of soul’s spiritual
faculties over the body is
shattered
 Lust and dominations
between man and woman
o Lust: shame of
their nakedness
o Domination:
blamed each other
 Death makes its entrance
into human history.
 Original Sin
 The sin transmitted to his
descendants
 “Fallen state”
 Transmission of a human
nature deprived of original
holiness and justice
 A sin “contracted” not
committed – a state and
not an act
 Loss of Original Justice
 Loss of original holiness
o Loss of sanctifying
grace
 Loss of Infused Knowledge
o need to go through
rigid study, science,
discoveries,
experiments
 Loss of control over passions
o struggle, disorder
 Death
o the person goes
through tough
passage of death
 Loss of impassibility
o Misery, suffering,
pain
 Concupiscence
 Human Nature
o wounded not
corrupted
o Subject to
ignorance, suffering
and death
o Inclined to sin
o Tendency to do evil
I. Protoevangelium
 Mary was preserved from all stain
of original sin and by the special
grace of God committed no sin
during her earthly life
 God did not abandon man, instead
calls him to be victorious over evil
and be restored from his fall
 Protoevangelium
 glad tiding, savior, woman
 Dogma
 definitive teaching
 First Gospel
 first announcement of
Messiah and Redeemer, of a
battle between the serpent
and the Woman, and of the
final victory of a descendant
of hers.
 New Adam
 Jesus, who is obedient unto
death, even on the Cross
 Woman/ New Eve
 Mary, the Mother of Christ
 Christ’ Redemption
 Universality of Sin and death
contrasted with the
universality of the salvation
of Christ
 Immaculate Concepcion
 free from original sin
 Mary talks to her guardian
angels
 Mary is immortal
o upon completing
her life on earth
(dormitio);
assumed to heaven
(body & soul)
 Ascension
o power of Jesus
 Assumption
o power of God
 Mary was sorrowful but was
able to sustain it
 Dogma of the Immaculate
Concepcion
 Ineffabilis Deus
 8 December, 1854
 Pope Pius X pronounced
and defined that the Blessed
Virgin Mary was preserved
exempt from all stain
of original sin.