David Ziegler
Journal #6
January 2, 2007

One paragraph summary of the key idea summarizing the major idea of the section.

In this section we learned about the ways to prove God's existance. There are ways to prove God's existance from the natural world and from human experiences. Some arguments from the natural world are The Golden Ratio, The Anthropic Principle, Kalam's Argument, and Plato and Aguinas's argument from the degrees of perfection. Plato and Aquinas' theory states that there is a ladder of perfection that begins with inanimate objects and progresses to humans. Since humans are not the most perfect beings, there must be another rung higher up. This next rung is occupied by God, the perfect form of being and existance. The other arguments for God's existance come from the human person. Through our own human religious experiences, our conscience, and the natural law, we can conclude that God exists. In this section we also studied Jesus's humanity through the Bible, and through O'Malley's "Understanding Jesus" which tells us four major points of being Christian. First, we must believe that Jesus is the embodiment of God. Second, we must believe that Jesus died in order to rise and save us from our fears of death to bring us to heaven. Next, to become part of God's family, we must strive to accomplish God's goals before ours. Lastly, we must celebrate our community of service at a meal. Jesus's humanity makes Him much more acceptable and believable. We have an instinct to follow people like us who feel pain and enjoy being happy. Jesus was truly like us and fully human.

Three Main Ideas To Remember

1) The Argument Of Natural Law - The Argument of Natural Law is another important idea of the chapter because it reveals so much about how people relate to each other. Because there are objective standards to things like morality, we are able to argue with other people who think that their view of morality is the correct one. Of course, natural law by itself is not enough to prove the existence of God, but it is more evidence that leads us to this conclusion. It says that there is something out there that is telling me what is right and what is wrong, and I feel that I should follow these rules.

2) Argument from Religious Experience - The argument from religious experience suggests that people are compelled by nature to believe in some kind of higher power, namely God. Also, about 99% of the billions people in the world believe in a higher power. I find this statistic to be interesting and reinforcing, as it helps to strengthen evidence for a God who created us to be with Him. If God does exist, then He would make humans to desire Him, and because 99% believe in a higher power, I think the statistic points toward a true God. God is also a "crutch" that we use for help and support in times of pain and suffering.

3) Father O'Malley's list of the "non-negitiables of Christianity" - By the very name the nature of his list suggests that it is not a theoligian-esque set. Instead, he puts into practical terms four things he thinks that you must have to be a Christian. The first one is that you must believe "Jesus is the embodiment of God," and this is necessary because without it then the basis for our entire religion would be void. The second is that "Jesus/God died in order to rise," and this is necessary because our lives would ultimately be meaningless. We are part of the Trinity Family because of this. The third aspect we must believe is that "To be come part of the Trinity family," we must live as Jesus set out for us to. He gave the example of being countercultural and putting others before yourself, which is exactly what we are called to do. The final one is that "We celebrate our community of service at a meal." It is here that we join as a community of the Church to celebrate Jesus with his body and blood.

One Good Picture


This photograph is a sunflower which demonstrates the Golden Ratio. It suggests intelligent design in the universe because of so many natural things that exhibit the Golden Ratio.
Image from "The Many Guises of The Golden Ratio"

Who Is Jesus?
Jesus is both human an divine. He is love and a great teacher. He brought forgiveness to the world when God wasn't seen in that sort of light. Jesus could relate to the people which made him human. He went throught the same problems regular humans have to face. He also was divine through the miracles he performed when teaching. He is God because He understands God.

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