HRE2O1 - Religion UNIT 5 Notes
Unit 5: Profession of Faith
Chapter 1: The Seven Characteristics of Faith
What is Faith?
Faith is easy to define but difficult to understand. Faith is trust in God
that is rooted in love, despite the absence of proof. It is trusting God when all
the evidence says God cannot be trusted or that God does not exist. It is more
than a simple belief in God’s existence. It is difficult to understand how
anyone can possibly have faith until we understand that faith is a gift that
develops over a lifetime.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is a publication on the
essential teachings of our faith. It contains over 2800 numbered “paragraphs.”
It identifies seven characteristics of faith.
The Seven Characteristics of Faith
1. Faith is a gift, not a personal achievement won through our own efforts
(CCC153).
a. We don’t create faith by ourselves. We receive it from God once
we open our palms in prayer. Faith is obtained and sustained with
humility.
2. Faith requires freedom, not force (CCC160).
a. Neither God nor anyone has the authority to make you trust God.
You do that when you’re ready.
3. God is always calling you to a life of faith (CCC163).
a. And when you heed the call, it is not the beginning of faith; it is
the birth of faith and your life long journey toward eternal life.
b. Consider the following analogy. Your mother cared for you in her
womb before you were even born - before you could see her.
Likewise, God cared for you before you ever knew God existed.
The moment you became aware of God’s presence was like the
moment of birth. At that point you could perceive God, however
dimly, just as you could perceive your mother so many years ago
through the developing eyes of a newborn baby. (A newborn can
, only see his mother clearly when he is just inches away from her
face.)
c. A newborn is instinctively drawn to its mother after it is born
because of the sound of her voice, which it has heard for weeks.
The familiar sound of her voice continues to give the baby
comfort after it has been born into an unfamiliar world. The
mother’s voice is the voice of love. At first the voice was muffled
but once the child was born, the voice was clear and familiar.
People who feel that they don’t have faith, are like children in the
womb. The voice of love that they hear through friends and family
is actually the muffled voice of God, the source of all love. People
of faith look past the particular expressions of God’s love in the
words and actions of family and friends and perceive God himself.
4. Faith continually seeks to make sense of an unpredictable world
(CCC158).
a. You might not realize it, but you gravitate towards love, real love.
There are a lot of things that substitute for love, such as
popularity, sex, frugs, alcohol, narcissism (inflated sense of one’s
importance) and so on. But these things are not love because
they cannot provide stability or security. Only love can provide real
security and everyone wants security. We often choose the poor
substitutes for love when we feel insecure, lose patience and
experience despair. Faith anchors us when things are out of
control. It reveals the God who stands firm like a rock behind the
apparent chaos of life.
5. Faith supports science with a conscience (CCC159).
a. Science guided by the scientific method and natural law (the
moral law we can perceive with reason), is God’s gift to humanity.
God created us to wonder at the natural world and God gave us
the ability to think about it and explore it in an ethically
responsible way.
6. God speaks to all of us constantly through the eternal truths of the
Bible (CCC157).
a. Not everyone feels as though they have faith - as though they
have been “born again.” But that’s ok because they have still
heard the sound of God’s voice countless times and so the seeds
of faith have already been sown. We hear God’s voice in the Bible
, when we learn of God’s deep love for us and in God’s desire that
we love others as God loves us.
7. Faith is a process, not a product (CCC162).
a. Your faith is constantly growing throughout your lifetime. It is
never completely finished like a product on the shelf. An
important area for daily faith development is your conscience.
b. Everyday we hear God’s voice when we struggle to make the right
moral choice, which means we struggle to do the loving thing.
We feel integrity and security when we act with love because we
remain true to ourselves. We feel a loss of integrity when we act
out of fear, knowing that we can be better than that. When we
listen to God, who speaks to us through our conscience, we feel
more human, more like our true selves and our faith grows.
Activity
● Choose one of the two videos that you just saw.
○ Video 1: A Blind Teenager
○ Video 3: Science and Religion
● Identify three new things that you learned and why those new points of
learning are meaningful.
○ Your physical appearance is not the most important thing about
you, it doesn’t reflect who you are. We must realize that our true
selves, the person God loves us for, is not based on how we look
but on our personality. God is willing to love and forgive us for our
sins.
○ You can’t see God but he’s really there. To walk by faith and not by
sight is significant for us to realize that faith is much stronger
when you are used to not seeing something or someone, but
believing in it or them. Faith helps people when they are at an
all-time low and it is powerful.
○ God is the answer to why everything is in the world. Having a
relationship with him helps people understand themselves
further. To have knowledge about the origins of our world can
coincide with our beliefs in God. Despite religious beliefs and
scientific research presented, the two concepts may unite.
● Ask two questions about the content of the video. (What unanswered
questions did the video raise?)
Unit 5: Profession of Faith
Chapter 1: The Seven Characteristics of Faith
What is Faith?
Faith is easy to define but difficult to understand. Faith is trust in God
that is rooted in love, despite the absence of proof. It is trusting God when all
the evidence says God cannot be trusted or that God does not exist. It is more
than a simple belief in God’s existence. It is difficult to understand how
anyone can possibly have faith until we understand that faith is a gift that
develops over a lifetime.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is a publication on the
essential teachings of our faith. It contains over 2800 numbered “paragraphs.”
It identifies seven characteristics of faith.
The Seven Characteristics of Faith
1. Faith is a gift, not a personal achievement won through our own efforts
(CCC153).
a. We don’t create faith by ourselves. We receive it from God once
we open our palms in prayer. Faith is obtained and sustained with
humility.
2. Faith requires freedom, not force (CCC160).
a. Neither God nor anyone has the authority to make you trust God.
You do that when you’re ready.
3. God is always calling you to a life of faith (CCC163).
a. And when you heed the call, it is not the beginning of faith; it is
the birth of faith and your life long journey toward eternal life.
b. Consider the following analogy. Your mother cared for you in her
womb before you were even born - before you could see her.
Likewise, God cared for you before you ever knew God existed.
The moment you became aware of God’s presence was like the
moment of birth. At that point you could perceive God, however
dimly, just as you could perceive your mother so many years ago
through the developing eyes of a newborn baby. (A newborn can
, only see his mother clearly when he is just inches away from her
face.)
c. A newborn is instinctively drawn to its mother after it is born
because of the sound of her voice, which it has heard for weeks.
The familiar sound of her voice continues to give the baby
comfort after it has been born into an unfamiliar world. The
mother’s voice is the voice of love. At first the voice was muffled
but once the child was born, the voice was clear and familiar.
People who feel that they don’t have faith, are like children in the
womb. The voice of love that they hear through friends and family
is actually the muffled voice of God, the source of all love. People
of faith look past the particular expressions of God’s love in the
words and actions of family and friends and perceive God himself.
4. Faith continually seeks to make sense of an unpredictable world
(CCC158).
a. You might not realize it, but you gravitate towards love, real love.
There are a lot of things that substitute for love, such as
popularity, sex, frugs, alcohol, narcissism (inflated sense of one’s
importance) and so on. But these things are not love because
they cannot provide stability or security. Only love can provide real
security and everyone wants security. We often choose the poor
substitutes for love when we feel insecure, lose patience and
experience despair. Faith anchors us when things are out of
control. It reveals the God who stands firm like a rock behind the
apparent chaos of life.
5. Faith supports science with a conscience (CCC159).
a. Science guided by the scientific method and natural law (the
moral law we can perceive with reason), is God’s gift to humanity.
God created us to wonder at the natural world and God gave us
the ability to think about it and explore it in an ethically
responsible way.
6. God speaks to all of us constantly through the eternal truths of the
Bible (CCC157).
a. Not everyone feels as though they have faith - as though they
have been “born again.” But that’s ok because they have still
heard the sound of God’s voice countless times and so the seeds
of faith have already been sown. We hear God’s voice in the Bible
, when we learn of God’s deep love for us and in God’s desire that
we love others as God loves us.
7. Faith is a process, not a product (CCC162).
a. Your faith is constantly growing throughout your lifetime. It is
never completely finished like a product on the shelf. An
important area for daily faith development is your conscience.
b. Everyday we hear God’s voice when we struggle to make the right
moral choice, which means we struggle to do the loving thing.
We feel integrity and security when we act with love because we
remain true to ourselves. We feel a loss of integrity when we act
out of fear, knowing that we can be better than that. When we
listen to God, who speaks to us through our conscience, we feel
more human, more like our true selves and our faith grows.
Activity
● Choose one of the two videos that you just saw.
○ Video 1: A Blind Teenager
○ Video 3: Science and Religion
● Identify three new things that you learned and why those new points of
learning are meaningful.
○ Your physical appearance is not the most important thing about
you, it doesn’t reflect who you are. We must realize that our true
selves, the person God loves us for, is not based on how we look
but on our personality. God is willing to love and forgive us for our
sins.
○ You can’t see God but he’s really there. To walk by faith and not by
sight is significant for us to realize that faith is much stronger
when you are used to not seeing something or someone, but
believing in it or them. Faith helps people when they are at an
all-time low and it is powerful.
○ God is the answer to why everything is in the world. Having a
relationship with him helps people understand themselves
further. To have knowledge about the origins of our world can
coincide with our beliefs in God. Despite religious beliefs and
scientific research presented, the two concepts may unite.
● Ask two questions about the content of the video. (What unanswered
questions did the video raise?)
