Episode 9. Please turn to page one in the handouts. Two theological categories that can be confusing are the terms catholic and evangelical. Here's a tip: distinguish the adjectives from the nouns. The word catholic is made up of the Greek preposition kata, which in this context means with respect to, and holos is the adjective whole. So when the term catholic is used as an adjective, it means universal and general. When this word is used as a noun, it refers to Roman Catholic. For example, the Pope is a Roman Catholic. The term evangelical derives from the Greek adjective eu, meaning good, and angelos is the word for messenger. The word evangelical as an adjective means related to the good news which is the main message or the Gospel found in the Bible. And evangelical used as a noun means evangelical protestant, such as Billy Graham. In light of the terms catholic and protestant, I can make my religious beliefs more specific. I like to call myself a pre- protestant reformation Christian. I am a catholic in that I embrace the whole church. I see Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as one body of Christians. I would also include Eastern Orthodox Christians in this universal church. I am also an evangelical in that I focus on the good news, the Gospel. As you'll see in this course, my theology is always informed by the Bible and the Gospel. Regarding my theological education, I obtained my master's degrees at Regent College, which is an Evangelical Protestant college. My PhD in theology comes from the University of St. Michael's College, a Roman Catholic university. I teach at a Roman Catholic college and I've attended Evangelical Protestant churches including Baptist, Pentecostal and Christian Missionary Alliance churches. So, as you can see, it's difficult to put a person's religious beliefs into a simple box, and I suspect this is also the case with you. With the next categories, I'll be introducing some paradigms and I need to offer a warning about them. Paradigms are teaching tools to help organize information. Let me explain what I mean. Everyone has seen a beautiful rainbow. If we tried to categorize all the colors, shades and hues, we would never be able to do it, because there is a countless number of them. But one way to describe a rainbow is in this way, and I love that it uses children's play dough. This is not a perfect one to one match, but it offers us a reasonable representation of a rainbow using only five colors. In this way, it is a good teaching tool. So with the next categories, I'll be using some paradigms to understand theological concepts. They certainly are not perfect, but I find them to be helpful teaching tools. Our next general Christian category is Divine Revelation. It is the belief the God communicates with humanity. There are two basic categories of Divine Revelation: Special Revelation and General Revelation. Special Revelation is the belief that God communicates specific information to humanity. There are three categories of Special Revelation. Please turn to page two in your class handouts. Special Revelation from God offers specific information. The first category of Special Revelation is the incarnation. This term comes from the latin proposition in which means in, and the noun carnus meaning flesh. The incarnation is a central belief in Christianity. It is the belief that God became a man and revealed himself through Jesus. The first chapter of the Gospel of John states, the word, that is Jesus, was God and became flesh. Therefore according to Christians, the greatest act of divine revelation is God in the flesh, who is Jesus. And Jesus reveals specific information about God and our relationship with him. The second category of Special Revelation is Biblical Revelation. This is the belief that God inspired the writers of the Bible to reveal himself. As 2 Timothy 3:16 states, all Scripture is God-breathed. Similarly, Romans 3:2 asserts that the Old Testament has the very words of God. The final category of Special Revelation is Personal Revelation. This happens when God communicates to men and women through answered prayer, dreams, visions, and various signs and wonders. As we noted in the introductory lecture, 40% of US scientists believe God answers prayer. This is an example of Personal Revelation. The second basic category of Divine Revelation is General Revelation. This is the belief that God communicates general information to all of humanity. With general revelation we get an inkling or some sort of feeling that God is communicating with us. The first category of General Revelation is Natural Revelation. This is the belief that nature reflects God and some of his general attributes. For example, as the Bible states in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Similarly, Romans 1 asserts that God's invisible qualities are clearly seen and understood from what has been made. When you look at the natural world, in all its glorious beauty, complexity and functionality, do you get an inkling someone or something is behind it all? If so, you believe in Natural Revelation. Today, Natural Revelation is also known as intelligent design and this is a huge topic in science and religion. Throughout this course, we will deal extensively with the belief that God reveals himself through nature. The second category of General Revelation is Moral Revelation. This is the belief that God communicates to us through the human conscience and our sense of morality. The Bible refers to this type of divine revelation in Romans 2 as the law written on the human heart. It is also known as the moral compass within us. So, if you get an inkling that some behavior is right or some behavior is wrong, then you would be experiencing what Christians call Moral Revelation. I want you to be aware that all the verses that appear in this paradigm are found at the back of the class notes in a section en titled Supplementary Quotes, and they appear in quotes one to six. End of episode.
