What is the primary and essential point to be made about the Scriptures? Why are we moved to venerate both Old and New Testaments?
The primary and essential point to be made is that here is the speech of God himself; that through human words the Uncreated Word, God himself, is transcribed, communicated. The entire preoccupation of the text, therefore, is God himself. The Bible is not
The only finally appropriate attitude to take in the presence of God's self-revealing word is that of discipleship. True or false. Explain.
True. It is only the one who submits in docility, moving in reverent, childlike wonder before the truth of the text, the sheer Otherness of the sacred, who is likely to obtain insight into its meaning. To appreciate a work of art, of beauty (says the poet
How does one overcome the false antagonism between naive piety and scientific exegesis? What norm of faith is needed to mediate the difference?
Antagonism is overcome only by the witness of the Scriptures themselves, in which a full and credible account of Christ is given; that any approach apart from the faith witnessed to in teh Scriptures will necessarily produce a pallid and distorted picture
Identify and explain the condition laid down by St. Anselm in the 11th century for the idea of a God, who first pours Himself out upon His Word, Christ, then inserts that same Word into Scriptures.
The idea of God, for the famous Benedictine Abbot and Bishop, is that Being no greater than which can be imagined or thought of or conceived. That God should choose to reveal himself as man, entering so deeply into the broken human estate as to plunge eve
To what does the immense wealth of Christianity finally reduce?
It all reduces, says Balthasar, "to the ineffable poverty of the divine, incarnate, crucified love" of Jesus Christ.
Identify the three great secrets crying out to be told, wrought in the silence of heaven, about which St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr of the church of Antioch, has spoken.
The three secrets are: Mary's virginity, the birth of the Savior, his death upon the cross.
What four themes are set down in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel?
The four themes are: the eternity of the pre-existing Word; the creation of all things in and through this Word (Christ giving "instress" to all the "inscapes"); the extraordinary enfleshment of the Word ("Where every where and every when is focused" -Dan
Describe the discovery made by Dante in the vision that characterizes the last canto of The Divine Comedy.
Dante discovers, at the very center of the Tri-une reality of God, the face of Jesus which is the countenance of Everyman--Christ "painted with our effigy"--which blows him completely away ("like the geometer who sets himself/ To square the circle, and is
It all began when a few fisherman on Lake Tiberias were called by Jesus of Nazareth." Certain unique characteristics of the "school of Jesus" became instantly evident. What were they?
They are: 1) the fact that Jesus takes the initiative in choosing them; they do not, as was the custom in choosing rabbis, seize upon him. 2) the community's life centers around, not a book (Torah), but the Person of Christ, whose very presence becomes th
What was so special about "Parker's Back"? Name the heresy dramatized in O'Conner's telling of it.
What makes the story so amazing is the fact that his back becomes the precise place, the setting, for salvation. Thus affirming the truth that God may so contrive human circumstance as to communicate the infinite in and through the finite. An epiphany of
In the effort to see and express the absolute newness of the Christian religion, a number of examples (vignettes) were given, including that of a fish. Why?
The figure of the fish became: 1) a sign of Christ, the centerpiece of faith; 2) it also served to signify the newly baptized, who had put on Christ; and 3) the Eucharist, which is Christ. But why a fish? (Why not, say, a squirrel?) Because in Greek the l
Yet another example was that of Newman's "Dream of Gerontius". And why, in terms of this course, might that be significant?
Because in a half dozen lines of beautifully compressed poetry, Newman captures the distinctiveness of the Church's Christological belief, i.e., the fact that not only does God assume our condition (Manhood taken by the Son) but that he suffers it to beco
Where does one stand in relation to the Christ event?
Do we stand in front of the Cross, intending to conform our lives to its cruciform shape and meaning? Do we stand in neurotic flight from the Cross, seeking to escape its hardship so that we needn't have to endure it? (Or, as the writer J.F. Powers once p
Describe the Alpha point.
This is the point of every Christian origin, or the source from which we live, deriving all our energy and strength and clarity and courage. It is the Mystery of God in Jesus Christ. And Beta? It is the point towards which we live, consisting of all those
The essence of Christianity may be expressed in three stunning statements made by Christ. Together these constitute the challenge posed by faith. Explain.
Christ declared Himself to be the "way, the truth, and the life." Immense, far-reaching provocations are loosed by those claims, since not only are they absolutely unique and unprecedented in the entire history of the world, but that they are uttered by o
Define the doctrine of Recapitulation.
It is the process by which, according to Sts. Paul and Iranaeus, Christ moved through all the phases of human experience, thus reversing the evil caused by sin. He restores fallen humanity by having summed up in Hismelf all previous prophecy and revelatio
What three relatively singular events may be said to provide an intimation of the Absolutely Singular Event which is Christ? How might that be the case?
They are: Art, Love, Death...each an invitation to encounter an event whose relative uniqueness points to, signposts, something of the Absolute Singularity of Christ. Because in each event man is confronted with a sheer datum, which, to accept, requires t
What two bookends frame the entire narrative of biblical theology? And then there is a third thing which, on the strength of its soteriological impact, justifies all else. Describe this.
The first is that God exists (located in the great theophany of Exodus where Moses hears the Name, I AM WHO AM!); the second that this existence is nothing other than God's being love (found in the first letter of John). And moving between the two is the
What connection do we find concerning Christ at the center of a Catholic Christology?
That Person and Mission be seen as identical, i.e., that the work of Christ is explicable only in relation to who he is, and that what he does be seen as revelational of who he is.
Identify the three principal aspects around which a Theology of Christ may be organized and understood, illustrating each with an appropriate tag from the New Testament.
Claim ("before Abraham was I AM.") Poverty ("I do not seek my own glory"); Abandonment ("He loved them to the end.")
The whole rhythm of Christ's singular descent, right down to the bitterest dregs of his fall into Sheol, is an expression of a four-fold love. Explain. And is there a primacy here?
One, Christ's love for the Father. Two, the Father's love for the Son. Three, the Father's love for the world. Four, the Son's love for the world. And, yes, the primacy falls upon the mutual love of Father and Son, which alone may account for the other se
What is the significance of the title of your text, The Suffering of Love? In short, where does that phrase come from and what does it mean? Has it any light to shed on the Mystery of Holy Saturday?
see notes