9 GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL

1. To inculate and develop among NDTCians the culture of Christ-Centeredness,

apostolic service and Marian spirituality.
2. To develop sense of national identity and cultural consciousness.
3. To offer comprehensive courses, updated curricula, and expand related
learning experience.
4. To provide responsive development programs.
5. To provide holistic human development programs.
6. To develop and promote the culture of research and information technology.
7. To provide supportive educational environment.
8. To establish and strengthen linkages, networking and community extension
services.
9. To provide avenues in the realization of the vision-mission of the Archdiocese
of Cotabato.

YES OF MARY - FIAT

AMARE EST SERVIRE - TO LOVE AND TO SERVE
CREATION - START OF SALVATION HISTORY
TO LOVE - CRUCIFIXION

CHARACTERISTICS OF NDTC

 Christian
 Ecumenicl
 Filipino
 Diocesan
 Marian

COURSE DESCRIPTION

 Comprehensive understanding of Salvation History

 It focuses on gradual unfolding God’s plan in history as revealed to his chosen
people and fulfilled in his son Jesus Christ.
 God still reveals himself to us in many ways, today.
 Comprehensive knowledge about the person of Jesus Christ, his life and
mission.
 Focuses on Jesus as He is presented to us today, through the teaching, witness
and prayer life of the catholic church.
 Faith dimensions as basically, the core of relationship with God and other are
considered significant and necessary in the inclusion of this course.
 It highlight the Nicene Creed as the Summary of Christian Faith.
FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

THE PROFESSION OF FAITH - WE BEGIN BY SAYING “I BELIEVE” OR

“WE BELIEVE” MEANS?

CHAPTER 1: MAN’S CAPACITY FOR GOD

THE DESIRE FOR GOD

 It is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God,
and God never ceases to draw man to himself.

WE ARE BOUND TO BELIEVE

AN OVERVIEW OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

REFERENCE: THE GLOBAL RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE
A REPORT ON THE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD’S MAJOR
RELIGIOUS GROUPS AS OF 2010.

PEWRESEARCHCENTER
THE PEW FORUM ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 8 in 10 people identify themselves with a religious group.
 Out of the 6.9 billion world population, 5.8 billion are religiously affiliated
adults and children.

SIZE OF MAJOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS, 2010

 Jews - 0.2%
 Other Religious - 0.8%
 Folk Religionists - 5.9%
 Buddhists - 7.1%
 Hindus - 15.0%
 Unaffiliated - 16.3%
 Muslims - 23.2%
 Christians - 31.5%
 Christian - 2.2B
 Muslims - 1.6B
 No Religious Affiliation - 1.1B
 Hindus - 1B
 Buddhists - 500M
 Folk/Traditional Religions - 400M
 Other Religions - 58M
 Jews - 14M

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

SEVERAL RELIGIOUS GROUPS ARE HEAVILY CONCENTRATED IN THE

ASIA-PACIFIC REGION
 Hindus
 Buddhists
 Folk/Traditional Religions
 Other Religions
 Unaffilated
 Muslims
 Christians

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION
 76% of the Religiously Unaffiliated are also found in the Asia-Pacific Region.
The biggest number of Religiously Unaffiliated is found in China (700M).
 62% of Muslims are also found in the Asia-Pacific Region. Only 20% of
Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa.
 44% of Jews live in North America. 41% live in the Middle East and North
Africa - almost all of them in Israel.
 97% of Hindus live in the world’s three Hindu-majority countries (India,
Mauritius, and Nepal).
 87% of Christians are found in 157 Christian-majority countries.
 Muslims are majority in 49 countries, including 19 of the 20 countries in the
Middle East and North Africa.
 The majority of the Religiously Unaffiliated are found in 6 countries, of which
China is by far the largest. The other five countries are Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan, and North Korea.
 There are 7 countries where Buddhists are a majority: Bhutan, Burma,
Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
 Israel is the only country with a Jewish majority.
 Religion is a worldwide phenomenon.
 Faith is a part of the human psyche. Even the religiously unaffiliated somehow
“believes” in a Supreme Being.
 Even the atheists “believe” that there is no Supreme Being.

WE ARE BOUND TO BELIEVE

RAGNAR, 2013

 SPIRITUALITY IS “innately hardwired into us”.

WE ARE MADE TO “believe” AND TO BE “moral”.
 No one is exempted, we are bound to believe. The fact that we are humans
inevitably makes us “believing beings”.

The Questionnaire
In my view God….

 7% doesn’t exist
 10% doesn’t matter to me
 19% is someone I’d like to know more about
 49% is close to me
 15% don’t know

 Half of the respondents indicated that God was “close to them”.

 Almost 1/5 indicated a desire to know God more.
 This shows that even in the midst of modernism and secularism, faith matters
and religion is still relevant.

PASCAL BOYER, RELIGION: BOUND TO BELIEVE?

 “why and how is religious thought so pervasive in human societies”

 “if the relevance and case for God seems so weak why then is it so prevalent
and pervasive across all societies and throughout history?”
 COGNITIVE RESEARCH ASKS “what in the human make-up renders
religion possible and successful”
 “religious thought and behavior can be considered part of natural human
capacities, like music, political systems, family relations or ethnic coalitions.”

CONCLUSION
“RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS SEEM TO BE AN EMERGENT PROPERTY OF
OUR STANDARD COGNITIVE CAPACITIES”

 That it is a part of our human make-up

 To believe is innate
 It is part of being human.

CONCLUSION

 Similar to our desire and drive for music, visual art, cuisine, politics, economic
institutions and fashion, Religious concept and activities HIJACK our
cognitive resources.
 In other words, our brains are wired to have non-physical ‘friends’ just like we
are wired for musical, artistic, political, cuisine and fashion expression.
 All our other capacities are met and satisfied through existing things.
 Hunger - food
 Aesthetics - arts, drama, music
 Human associations - politics, organizations, clubs

CS LEWIS:

“creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A
baby feels hunger, well there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim,
well there is such as a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire, well there is such a
thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I has made for another world.” MERE
CHRITIANITY P. 67-68

WHY ARE WE BOUND TO BELIEVE?

 Boyer is showing that these different but innate capacities of morality and
religious belief integrate within us. We were made to believe and to be moral.
 “if it looks like duck, and it quacks like a duck, then maybe… it’s a duck”.
The human disposition to morality and an innate belief God lends support to
the idea that there is a God who has indeed made us this way.
 Could it be a genetic misfiring?
 Hunger - is not a misfiring of genes
 Art appreciation - is not a misfiring
 Act of kindness - is not a misfiring
 Generosity - is not a misfiring
 Religious thoughts are also not a misfiring
 There is no unique domain for religion in human minds. The evidence shows
that the mind has no single belief network, but myriad distinct networks that
contribute to making religious claims quite natural to many people.
 To snuff out our disposition to believe and instead (which many of us are able
to do) requires that we engage in “deliberate, effortful work against our natural
cognitive dispositions”.

CHAPTER 1: MANS CAPACITY FOR GOD

 Intimate and vital bond of man to God.

 But can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man…?
 Thus can have different causes:
1. Revolt against evil in the world
2. Religious ignorance and indifference
3. The cares and the the riches of this world.
4. The scandal of bad example on the part of the believers
5. Current of thought hostile to religion
6. That attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee
his call.
 Although man can forget God or reject Him, He never ceases to call every
man to seek Him, so as to find life and happiness.
 Search for God, demands of man every EFFORT to INTELLECT, a SOUND
WILL, “AN UPRIGHT HEART:, as well as the WITNESS OF OTHERS
WHO TEACH HIM TO SEEK GOD.

SALAS
1. Sola Fide
2. Sola Gratia
3. Sola Scriptura

WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD

 Created in God’s image and called to know and love Him, the person who
seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know Him.
 These are also called PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
 These ways of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of
departure:
 PHYSICAL WORLD AND HUMAN PERSON.

THE WORLD
 From the movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and
beauty.
 Rom. 1:19-20
 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it
to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his
eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have
been made.

THE HUMAN PERSON

 Openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and
the voice of his conscience, with his longing for the infinite and for happiness,
man questions himself about God’s existence.

WORLD AND MAN

 They participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end.
 Man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and
final end of all things, a reality that everyone calls GOD!
 Man’s faculties make him capable of knowing a personal God.
 The proofs of God’s existence can predispose one to faith and help to use that
faith is not opposed to reason.
 Church, holds and teaches that God can be known with certainly from the
created world by the natural light of human reason.
 We need God’s revelation.

REALITY
 The church is confident in the possibility of speaking about God to all men…
 Knowledge of God is limited also our language about Him.
 All creatures, resemblance to God, especially MAN, created in…
 Perfections of creatures reflect the infinite perfection of God.
 God transcends all creatures.
 We must purify our language in describing God, or in knowing Him.
 Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
 In speaking about God like this, our language is using human models of
expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, although unable
to express him in his infinite simplicity.

CHAPTER 1: SUMMARY

1. Man is by nature and vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward
God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God.
2. Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he finds happiness.
3. When he listens to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man
can arrive at certainly about the existence of God, the cause and the end of
everything.
4. The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known
with certainly from his works, by the natural light of human reason.
5. We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of His creatures,
which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect God, even if our limited language
cannot exhaust the mystery.
6. Without the Creator, the creatures vanishes (GS 36). This is the reason why
believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring the light of the living
God to those who do not know him or who reject Him.

DIVINE REVELATION
By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of His works

Divine revelation
 First of all, it is a divine revelation.
 Divine, because it is God’s revelation.
 It is not an ordinary revelation because God Himself is revealing.

CATHECHISM FOR FILIPINO CATHOLICS

CFC 101 what is “Revelation”?

 Revelation is God’s personal loving communication to us of who He is and
His plan to save us all in His Love. It is God’s reaching out to us in friendship,
so we get to know and love Him.

1. September 8 - birthday of Mary

2. Feast of the Holy Rosary
3. The Saints
4. December 8 - Feast Immaculate Conception
5. Christmas

God the father - creator

God the son - savior
God the holy spirit -

FIRST PART
 Revelation is God’s personal loving communication to us
 It was God’s decision to reveal himself.
 It was God’s initiative.
SECOND PART
 Revelation is God’s personal loving communication to us
 God did not introduce himself from a distance, God personally came to make
himself known to us.
 Hebrews 1:1-2
 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the
prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son, whom he
appointed heir of all things. Through whom he also created the worlds.
 God became incarnate to “personally” involve himself with us.
 In Jesus we see God journeying with us.
 God is indeed Emmanuel because God is with us.

THE NAME “JESUS”

ENGLISH
 “Jesus” - this name traces its roots from the Hebrew JEHOSHUA which
means, “YAHWEH IS SALVATION”

LATIN
 “Lesus” - it carries the same meaning as the Greek “lesous,” which means
“YAHWEH IS SALVATION”

GREEK
 “Lesous” - from the translation of the Aramic word “Yeshua”. The Apostles
used this name for Christ when they wrote the Greek New Testament which
means the same, “YAHWEH IS SALVATION”
WHY DID GOD HAVE TO DO ALL THIS?
 God “personally” and “lovingly” revealed himself because of his love.
 The only reason is LOVE.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS IS THE ULTIMATE

MANIFESTATION OF GOD’S GREAT LOVE FOR US.

GOD WHO IS LOVE, COMMUNICATES IN LOVE, SAVES MAN BECAUSE

OF HIS GREAT LOVE.

GOD’S REVELATION REVOLVES IN LOVE.

FIRST PART
 Revelation of God’s personal loving communication to us…
 AGENT - GOD
 RECIPIENT - MAN
 MEDIUM - LOVE (LOVING COMMUNICATION)

SECOND PART
 Of who he is and his plan to save us all in his love.
 What is it that God communicates to us?
 Who he is = God’s identiy
 = his own person, i.e. “personal”
 Hebrews 1:1-2
 What is the content of God’s revelation?
 His plan = salvation
 Reason = love

THIRD PART
 It is God’s reaching out to us in friendship, so we get to know and love him.
 This is a friendly communication.
 Not forceful or domineering.
 Friendly, so that we can know God deeply.
 And in knowing him, we may love him.
 God communicates in love. So that we may also learn to love.

DIVINE REVELATION
 Agent - God
 Recipient - Man
 Medium - love (loving communication)
 Purpose - to know him and to love him

GOD TO MAN
 Reveals himself lovingly as a friend.

MAN TO GOD
 Know and love him

NAGPAKILALA NA ANG DIYOS AT PATULOY NA NAGPAPAKILALA.

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT THROUGH THE PROPHETS.

AND ULTIMATELY IN JESUS CHRIST IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

 Summit of God’s revelation.
 Complete God
 Jesus - False Prophet.

MATAGAL NANG NAGPAKILALA ANG DIYOS

QUESTIONS:
 Kilala mo na ba talaga ang diyos?
 Kilala mo na ba talaga si Hesus?
 Ano ang pagkakakilala mo kay Hesus?
 Kilala mo ba talaga kung sino ka?
 May nakakikilala ba sa iyo?
 Kilala ka ba nila?
 Kilala mo ba talaga ang iyong sarili?

OPEN SELF BLIND SELF

Information about you that Information about you that

both you & others know. you don’t know but others do
know.
HIDDEN SELF UNKNOWN SELF

Information about you that Information about you that

you know but others don’t neither you nor others know.
know

ONLY GOD KOWS YOU FULLY

HINDI MO NGA ALAM ANG MANGYAYARI SA IYO BUKAS.

ANG DIYOS LANG ANG NAKAKAALAM NG LAHAT TUNGKOL SA IYO.

IS KANG MALAKING MISTERYO.

THE TRUTH IS….

 Only God knows you fully because God himself made you.

SIYA GUMAWA SA IYO. SIGURADO ALAM NIYA O KILALA NIYA ANG

KANYANG GINAWA.

MADE IN HIS IMAGE

YOU ARE GOD’S IMAGE.

IMAHE KA NG DIYOS.
PICTURE KA NG DIYOS.

NAKIKITA BA SA IYO ANG IMAHE O MUKHA NG DIYO?

DO YOU STILL MIRROR THAT IMAGE?

 When you do drugs.
 When you abandon your parents.
 When you cheat during exams.
 When you cheat in your relationship.

IF YOU CHEAT TODAY, YOU WILL CHEAT FOREVER!

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW YOURSELF MORE FULLY?

 Begin to know who God is. In knowing God, you will have a full
understanding of your being.

HOW WILL YOU KNOW GOD, IF YOU ARE NOT EVEN COMING CLOSER
TO HIM?

KELAN LAST MONG SIMBA?

KELAN LAST MONG PAGBUKLAT NG BIBLIYA?

KNOW GOD FIRST.

YOU WILL KNOW YOURSELF BETTER.

HOW TO KNOW GOD?

 Mt. 16:13-20
 Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples,
“who do people say that the Son of Man is?” they replied, “some say John the
Baptist, other Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets”.
 He said to them, “but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter said in reply,
“you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
 Jesus said to him in reply, “blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly father.
 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the
keys to the kingdom of heaven.

HOW TO KNOW GOD?

 You can never know God.
 Unless it is granted to you by God the Father in Heaven.

REVELATION
 Ask God for the grace to know him.
 And in knowing him, you will know yourself too.

YOU NEED THE GRACE OF GOD. (ask fo it in prayer).

THE REVELATION OF GOD

 By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works.
 Order of Knowledge, man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers:
 Divine Revelation.

I. GOD REVEALS HIS “PLAN OF LOVING GOODNESS”

 It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make
known the mystery of his will.
 His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the
Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine
nature.
 God wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created.
 He revealed himself to us..
 The divine plan of revelation…
 Is realized simultaneously “by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound
up with each other” and shed light on each other. It involves a specific divine
pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually.

II. STAGES OF REVELATION

 God’s manifesting Himself to Adam and Eve.
 The covenant with Noah
 God chooses Abraham
 The forming of the people of God through Moses and Prophets.