What I Really Learned In Faith, Reason & Revelation



During this first semester in Theology, I have realized that what I thought I was learning before hasn't really stuck with me. It was more just quick memorization then forgetting it in a few months. When exams came up, I would go back through my notes and remember things quickly, memorizing it for the exam, and then forgetting it again until i needed to know it for a test. Freshman year I experienced real learning for the first time, then I sort of forgot about it Sophomore year. This year, I was reintroduced to real learning and how to really know something. There have been many times where I have been talking to friends about God or a particular belief and I was able to use some of the information I learned in this course. Here are a few ideas that have really stuck in my mind during this course.

One thing I have really learned was learned through a recurring idea. The Five Foundational Lessons can be applied to many of the sections if not all. It was brought up the very first day of class when we were given a quiz about where we sat and why we sat there. Most of us thought that it wasn't an important decision that we had to make. Sure, it matters if you want to be able to see the board well, but it wasn't a matter of life or death. The fact that it wasn't very important to our health doesn't take away from the fact that it was a decision we had to make. Thus, this proves the first lesson: we are always and unavoidably making decisions and that these decisions can and do affect me, as well as others. Everyday, we see people who we categorize. It's natural for our brain to put things into categories, including people. We put certain people in certain groups because of our pre-existing beliefs about that person. This brings up the second lesson: we are necessarily and unavoidably biased. We see things the way we have been taught to see them. We also make decisions on how much we want something at the time. If we don't have a real need for it, we might be more inclined to get another thing we could need soon, if not then. We all make value judgements which determine our action. Some of us have life altering experiences, some don't. Many of us experience a change in our beliefs though, no matter how small or insignificant. These changes in our beliefs change our life and how we experience things. If we are taught something different than what we thought about something, that can change how we experience that thing from then on. If we see something act in a different way than we though, then that can change how we experience that thing as well. All of us make very important decisions in our life. Some of those may include whether to believe in God or not, if you should marry someone, or maybe it's whether you should become a priest. Whatever the decision is, it needs to be a faith decision. "Faith is an opinion based on evidence to which I am committed."

Another important thing that I have learned so far in Junior Theology is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. In this, Plato suggests that we are all born in darkness, chained down and unable to move. When they are all freed, they don't want to go up to the light. But one of them is dragged up to the light. After a while, after his eyes stop hurting from the sun, he is able to make out shapes and then details. He finally sees what is true in the world. He realized that what he had been seeing before was all a lie. He goes back down into the cave and tells everyone what they are seeing isn't real and that he can show them what is true. But they don't believe him and say that he is lying and try to kill him. This is very true in the case of Galileo, Martin Luther King, Jr., and even Jesus. They tried to tell people what was real, what was true and what they had been seeing wasn't true, and they were all looked down upon or killed. Their teachings were not accepted by many people and they were hated by many for what they tried to talk about. They main lesson from this is that we don't know everything. We are all in the cave. Every once in a while we are shown some of the light, but not many of us are brought fully into the light. And even when that does happen, not many people listen until much later.



Lastly, I learned that even though people say there is not a God, there is evidence for His existence. The most influential one for me is the Anthropic Principle. It seems to me that with that small of a chance for the world to be created just right to sustain life, there has to be a divine creator. Another example of evidence is William Paley's "The Watch and the Watchmaker". We are too complex and too perfect to be made by nature. All of our organs work together to keep us functioning. There has to be a designer of our bodies since all of our parts fit together so perfectly. In grade school, I didn't challenge my faith that much, just because I didn't know enough about it to challenge it. Now, I know more about my faith and my beliefs, enough to where I am able to question it. It seems that the more I question, the more unanswered questions I have. I started asking simple questions, then as i began to learn more, I started asking more complicated ones. When I started doing this, I would get fewer answers or the ones I would get were not satisfactory. I have been told that I need to make a decision on whether God exists or not, and after this course, I think I have more of an understanding of this decision. I do believe that God exists, but since this is based on faith, there will always be times of doubt and I will never stop struggling with the decision.

Any comments, questions, or suggestions, e-mail me at mark_mcbride72@yahoo.com

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