2. What are the limits of such “proofs”?
The limit to these proofs is that the certainty which we can get is incomplete. We can know that God exists, but we cannot know God. Intimacy with God comes from faith and theophany (God’s self-revelation).
Category Archives: Grad School/Seminary
Theological Foundations I: Midterm Exam Review: #1
Okay, don’t freak, but there is no way I am going to have the title of these be that long after this post! 🙂 If you get a “TFI #2,” you’ll be lucky…. 🙂
For the purposes of anyone who may wish to visit my blog, I will post the question for review, then attempt to answer it. Please, please, chime in and start a discussion, by which we can all grow in our understanding. 🙂
Disclaimer: The questions are from a study sheet provided by our professor, and is NOT a take-home test, so do not worry about any possible moral/ethical questions of collusion. It is perfectly legit to help a seminary student study. 🙂
1. What are the proofs for the existence of God we spoke of in class?
There are two proofs for the existence of God: creation and the human person. By examining these two in the light of human reason, we can come to know with certainty that God exists.
The Catholic Church: A 5 Star Hotel on the Way Home
From Doing Theology
[Origen’s interpretation of the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:30-35.]
The man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho is humankind expelled from paradise, who is beset by evil spirits who strip him of heavenly grace and inflict dire wounds on him. But the Samaritan who came down was Christ the Son of Man, who brought with himself numerous medicines. In the inn of the church the fallen creature will be restored to health until his kindly benefactor returns.
I posit that while Origen imagines the inn to be the Church, the innkeepers (the ones who nurse the fallen creature to health and cares for him) are our priests. They are the ones who lead us from the brink of death back to life. As I would imagine the innkeeper in the tale would tell the beaten man of his kind benefactor, our priests tell us of our savior, Jesus Christ.
Certainly, to be an innkeeper in charge of a seriously ill man cannot be a fun task all the time. And certainly, it cannot always be a fun task to shepherd us wayward sheep. However, comfort can be taken by our priests, knowing that the Samaritan will return and reward them/pay them back for all the good they did in taking care of the ill man during his absence.
Just my two cents. 🙂
Analytical Writing
This weekend I got my official GRE scores in the mail.
Verbal – 660, 94th percentile
Quantitative – 590, 46th percentile (Okay, so I can’t multiply my way out of a paper bag — at least I can write about the experience!)
Analytical Writing — the only one that is graded by a human and based on essays we write instead of radio buttons we click:
5.5 (out of 6)
What they say about that:
Scores 6 and 5.5: Sustains insightful, in-depth analysis of complex ideas; develops and supports main points with logically compelling reasons and/or highly persuasive examples; is well focused and well organized; skillfully uses sentence variety and precise vocabulary to convey meaning effectively; demonstrates superior facility with sentence structure and language usage but may have minor errors that do not interfere with meaning.
🙂
That and yesterday I was told that they held an admissions meeting in the morning and I’ve been accepted to the Master’s degree program at Sacred Heart Major Seminary for Theology.
YAYYYY!!!
Graduate Record Exam
I would love to say that the reason why I have been so incommunicado recently has been because I have been studying furiously for my GREs.
Alas.
I have put in maybe, oh, 5 hours *total* to studying, despite all my plans to work diligently on my study guide. Add that to the fact that I have never in my life taken a vocabulary class, have issues with language in general, haven’t seen simple algebra in years and can’t do geometry to save my life, and you have a picture of why my grades are suboptimal. I did, however, take an IQ test last night (yes, instead of studying….) and got a 155, which is in my normal range of 147-179. These things are important to know, when you are about to take a test that will kick the pants off you.
Right after taking the test, the computer gives you your verbal and quantitative scores. You have to wait a few weeks to get your analytical writing scores, which are graded by an actual person. The first thing I did after taking my GRE was (of course) go to Starbucks and get a venti peppermint white mocha. (Yums!) Then, I sat in my car in their parking lot and looked up my scores in their book, to see what my percentiles were.
On the quantitative/math section, I scored in the low 60s. Okay, so 40% of the population can do this stuff better than me. I’m fine with that. I said I can’t to geometry to save my life, and I’m sticking to it! I also don’t have any spatial reasoning skills, but they don’t test on that. 🙂
On the verbal section, I scored in the 96th percentile. Yippee! I’ll take it! 🙂 Hopefully, it will be good enough to get into grad school, because I am *really* excited about beginning my studies. 🙂
Oh, and what does one do after taking the GREs?
1. Starbucks
2. Find percentiles
3. Go home and dance
4. Jump on the trampoline
5. Write on your blog
Getting Closer…
Ooooh, I’m getting excited now! I just had my admissions interview last night — which I think went pretty well. Today, I turned in my registration form for Spring classes. All that is left is to write my essay and take my GRE on 3/14!! 🙂 YAY!!
If all goes well, the week of 5/4, I will be starting my first class, a prerequisite to the graduate program: Introduction to Sacred Scripture!!!!
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 