Module 2: Faith as Believing

• The world of ideas = is unchanging, fixed, and permanent. This is the world of the real.
• The world of the senses = is changing, ephemeral, and unreal.  This world is not the ultimate reality but simply a shadowy reflection of the world of ideas.
• Faith as Belief focuses on the reasonableness of faith. Faith need not to be incompatible with reason and the findings of science.
• A major doctrine of Plato is the notion of the two worlds – the world of truth and ideas and the world of the senses.
• Faith as Belief =  predominant in the 19th century
• A major doctrine of Plato is the notion of the two worlds – the world of truth and ideas and the world of the senses.
• Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) could not accept the Augustinian concept of revelation as illumination for it left aside the function of the senses.
• Thomas Aquinas found Aristotelianism more helpful: the world of ideas cannot be divorced from the world of the senses.
• Augustine (354-430 CE) was influenced by neo-platonism which is a revival and religious reinterpretation of the Philosophy of Plato (427-347 BCE) and flourished from the 3rd to the 6th century AD.
• While both Augustine and Thomas held reason as the most important part of the person, it is the industrial revolution (18th-19th cen) and the age of enlightenment (18th cen.) that were the immediate precursors of rationalism.
• Rationalism is characterized by the following:
• Rationalism is characterized by the following: (1) recognized only one norm for attaining knowledge, namely rational truth (truth dictated to the person by their autonomous reason), (2) through reason alone that one can arrive at the truth about God, (3) rationalists rejected the belief in revelation containing truths that cannot be explained by human reason, (4) rationalism holds a profound distrust of tradition and authority (tradition cannot be reasonable).
• Vatican I document De Fide Catholica (1869-1870) = rejected rationalism
• Vatican I document De Fide Catholica (1869-1870), Acknowledged the importance of faith that goes beyond that which can be explained by reason. There can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason.
• Vatican I document De Fide Catholica (1869-1870) = understood revelation as communication of propositional truths or doctrines.
• This doctrinal-intellectualist model was popularized in catechetics in the Philippines in what is called the PESO approach: P = Presentation of Doctrines, E = Elaboration Employing Scripture and tradition, S = Speculative Elaboration, and O = Orientation to daily life.
• • Strengths

  1.  Revelation is propositionable and is reasonable
  2. The model is attractive for those who want clear norms and standards
• • Criticisms

  1. It depersonalized faith. Revelation came to be closely associated with notions of creed, correct doctrine, or a collection of doctrines. Faith is no longer a personal encounter with Jesus.
  2. its concept of the person is contaminated by Hellenistic dualism.
  3. does not foster responsible commitment to social concerns.
• Faith is understood as directed to truth-claims despite lack or absence of material/empirical evidence
• Reason is that which tends to truth-claims governed by proof.
• Paul Tillich's ideation on faith that appreciates the value of sensory experiences as mediations towards understanding one's faith, here it is proposed that faith is indeed based from reason.
• Two ways to acquire knowledge or determine the truth-value of a certain idea: Priori and Posteriori
• Priori (BEFORE)= something that is known without being based on any sensory experience/data other than one's mere learning of the language (Knowledge is IMMEDIATE)
• Posteriori (AFTER)=  its basis the experience. Knowledge is Reflective/Mediated
• In the exercise of faith, one believes in something or someone either by a priori or a posteriori.
• faith is never blind
• You only use faith when there is a certain sense of uncertainty.
• Despite this presence of uncertainty and doubt, one chooses to believe and put faith. That's how faith works.
• The famous dictum from St. Anselm of Canterbury, "Fides quaerens intellectum" which is roughly translated as, "Faith seeking understanding". 
• Any statement of faith, including one's faith statement on God, it is important that we don't simply stop by just an act of belief because it is also our responsibility to initiate and exert effort in finding ways to enlighten this belief and nurture it by reducing the gap of the unknown.
• For St. Anselm, understanding still continues on seeking the one it has found.