Joe Murphy-Baum
Theology III
1/5/08
Essay


What I really learned in Faith, Reason, and Revelation

Throughout this course I have learned more things than I ever thought I would. In the section of the Human Condition I was glad to see that we were going to go over the mystery of death. I have had people in my life die such as my grandfather and Chris Zandstra and since those experiences I have had to face the mystery of death and as we went through that section it really helped me to understand it more clearly.

In the wonder and Awe section we looked at what wonder and awe was in each of our lives. That exercise made me learn that these things, since they were so beautiful and almost unbelievable, had to come for a greater being which brought me to God again.

In the Faith and Reason section I learned a lot about the different ways that each of us tries to avoid the truth. The exercise where we examined our speech to see if we were straying away from truth really helped me then and now to think about what I am about to say and how it affects me and others. I learned a lot from the different types of common thinking errors and the steps to critical thinking because they taught me that there are things in life that we do not even notice that make us stray away from the truth.

In the What is Faith section, I learned most from "The Mission". From the movie I learned that faith can take you anywhere in life. I also learned that faith almost never constant. During the movie it shows two different ways to deal with problems. You can choose the way of violence or the way of God and the ending really portrayed that idea.

In the Challenges to Faith section, I came to understand the relations between science and religion. I had never really been brought to the idea of the existence of religion and science being in complete unity at one time before this course. This section taught me that there are things out there that take you away from God without you even realizing it. One example that was really big in my life was the media.

The last section, Faith and Apologetics, was probably the most interesting and useful section the course in my opinion. I learned in this section many different reasons to believe in God such as the anthropic principle and the golden ratio. The reason that was given that really helped get me out of doubt in God was the anthropic principle.

I enjoyed this course very much because it had been different than all my past experiences with theology courses. I think that it was because this course really dealt with issues that I was dealing with and it really helped me to solve those problems.


picture found here