John Clohisy
January 7, 2008
Junior Theology
First Semester Junior Theology: Truly a Learning Experience
As a member of this Junior Theology class at our Jesuit high school, I must say that I have been changed for the most part in terms of having a better feeling for the real truth. I know that I am so far away from the real truth that I cannot even begin to comprehend, but this class has given me a greater awareness of the existence itself of the real truth and better means to go about searching for it, regardless of how far I come. Ultimately I can see the Jesuit vision of metanioas, or little spiritual enlightenments and conversions leading closer to God, taking place in myself. I now have a deeper understanding of the world, of life, of myself, of others, and of God than I have ever had at any time before this course. Originally I would try to trick myself into being oblivious to the apparent conflicts between science and religion, but I know that if I kept it going I could not keep going in that direction for much longer. I knew that it would not be accurate to translate the Bible and everything in it, especially the Old Testament, word for word, taking all of its symbolisms and figures literally but I never really understood why or the deeper meanings behind these sacred writings. Since then, I have seen how the world and science can actually support the existence of God, regardless of Stephen J. Gould’s proposition of Non-Overlapping Magisterium which explains that science should deal with scientific matters and religion should deal with religious matters. We learned several ways that science can support religion and they all made sense.

A huge thing I learned about life in general was the human condition, which can give pretty satisfactory explanations to our condition here and now on Earth. One of my biggest concerns for virtually my entire life has been not only why do bad things happen to good people, but why do bad things even happen at all? Learning about our condition as humans and the effects it has on us has helped me to find better explanations to these questions. I have a deeper understanding for why people behave the way they behave and are the way they are. I have become somewhat more comfortable with myself knowing that it is not a bad thing to have huge the questions that might question God as long as I am open and doing my best to follow Him. I saw the Five Thinking Errors in our Reading Book when I was skimming through before we even covered them, and now I can constantly see them at play in my life and in others’ lives. The human inclinations can also describe in part who I am and I see that I am not the only one affected by these inclinations, which I so often experience. The right speech experiment can more or less sum up the new self-awareness I have acquired since the beginning of the class. I learned so much about myself that weekend and I can see right through my actions and know for the most part why or why not I said what I said. As another part of this class, I have learned about others and the reasons for others’ actions.

We have studied several individuals. I saw the true damage transference can co to a person through Amanda in “What the Bleep Do We Know?” and Andy Griffith’s definition of faith fits in perfectly with what I have learned, “I guess it’s a time like this when you’re asked to believe something that just don’t seem possible… That’s the moment that decides whether you got faith in somebody or not.” Overall, I think a big bonus of this class has been my recognition of a few other characters in history and their lives, such as Abraham Lincoln and Eric Liddell, who I did a report on. Good examples of people with good Faith and good results are Dick Hoyt, Jim Goodnight, Danny Meyer, Aaron Feuerstein, and the Jesuits from “The Mission.” I am especially thankful because I like to see what great people had to say about life and how they lived so maybe I can be similar one day.

Most importantly I have learned about God, proof of Him, and how He gave us free will to choose unattached to love Him or not. We need no proof of God because this would take away our free response to God’s love, making our response worthless. This class has helped to shape me in these numerous ways and I have become a more deeply intellectual, religiously stronger person as a result.