Three Declarations of Faith

I hope I have not given the impression in my writing thus far that I doubt the fatherhood of God or have only philosophical appreciation for the doctrine. I have faith in the fatherhood of God. I further have faith that the love of the Father is made known through the Son, even on the cross. And I have faith in the Holy Spirit. This morning, I silently reviewed three declarations that affirm this Trinitarian faith:

1. What We Believe |The Nicene Creed
2. Statement of Faith | Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations
3. Our Beliefs | Creation Care Church  

After my review, a thought arose. "It's alright, Jonathan. These are all good just the way they are. Jesus is reaching out to you through all three declarations of faith. This is right where you need to be right now. You don't need to have everything philosophically harmonized into a new synthesis at the outset. It's enough that you have studied all three declarations of faith first thing this Sunday morning on your way to greater understanding. It's enough that you are considering all three together."

Turning back then to Fides et Ratio, I meditate first on paragraph 8 in Chapter I:

Restating almost to the letter the teaching of the First Vatican Council's Constitution Dei Filius, and taking into account the principles set out by the Council of Trent, the Second Vatican Council's Constitution Dei Verbum pursued the age-old journey of understanding faith, reflecting on Revelation in the light of the teaching of Scripture and of the entire Patristic tradition. At the First Vatican Council, the Fathers had stressed the supernatural character of God's Revelation. On the basis of mistaken and very widespread assertions, the rationalist critique of the time attacked faith and denied the possibility of any knowledge which was not the fruit of reason's natural capacities. This obliged the Council to reaffirm emphatically that there exists a knowledge which is peculiar to faith, surpassing the knowledge proper to human reason, which nevertheless by its nature can discover the Creator. This knowledge expresses a truth based upon the very fact of God who reveals himself, a truth which is most certain, since God neither deceives nor wishes to deceive.

Pope John Paul II continues in paragraph 9:

The First Vatican Council teaches, then, that the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive: “There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known.” Based upon God's testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone. Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the message of salvation the “fullness of grace and truth” (cf. Jn 1:14) which God has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Jn 5:9; Jn 5:31-32).

Lastly today I will cite also paragraph 10 from this significant encyclical:

Contemplating Jesus as revealer, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council stressed the salvific character of God's Revelation in history, describing it in these terms: “In this Revelation, the invisible God (cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17), out of the abundance of his love speaks to men and women as friends (cf. Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15) and lives among them (cf. Bar 3:38), so that he may invite and take them into communion with himself. This plan of Revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this Revelation, then, the deepest truth about God and human salvation is made clear to us in Christ, who is the mediator and at the same time the fullness of all Revelation.”

What I am looking at, then, in this brilliant Vatican light, is a prayer for the Cardinal electors, of course, and gratitude for God, and for the nature of our faith in the resurrection.