Saturday 7th grade Week 2 Review

Week 2 was spent discussing revelation and faith, the first being God’s invitation to the truth, and the second being our response. This revelation does not need to be an angel appearing to someone with a divine message – it can be as simple as perceiving the Designer of the universe in the things He has created. The latter is called sometimes ‘natural revelation’, as opposed to ‘supernatural revelation’ such as God speaking to Abram or the appearance of angels or visions to prophets. I like to cite examples of ‘natural revelation’ – those things about ourselves and the universe that point to God’s providence and power.

A couple of good references I have found are:

• God: The Evidence, Patrick Glynn. He comes at the subject from several angles, including science, medicine and psychology. The most compelling examples are found in chapter 1, ‘A Not-So-Random Universe’.
• How Now Shall We Live? Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey. This is a book primarily about the subject of ‘worldview’, and Colson is obviously not a Catholic. His approach is more generically Christian. That notwithstanding, his treatment of the anthropic principle generally and the examples we see in nature are great, p.61-66.

One example of natural revelation would be the properties of water. It is the only substance that is less dense as a solid than as a liquid. This causes ice to float, rather than sink like one would expect. Floating ice allows fish and marine plants to survive the winter, keeping the food chain intact. There are tons of examples like this, which fuel the theory that the universe was created for a purpose – the existence of life, more specifically human life.

A big pitfall that people of faith fall into is the perception of science as an enemy of religion. Catholics are not as prone to this, but it seems to be prevalent among so called ‘Bible Christians’ – those Christians who take parts of the Bible literally, just different parts than we do. It’s important to me that the kids know that truth is everywhere, just waiting to be discovered, and it all points back to the Author of Truth. Science can and should help.

This week we will focus on the other type of revelation – ‘Divine Revelation’. Natural revelation can only get us so far – God needs more explicit means to guide us to our destiny. We will go over Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the teaching authority of the church. Stay tuned.

Dan Pesta