The Gift of Life: Death & Dying, Life & Living DVD set offers a vision of hope and a view of reality that counter the cultural norms that view death as a tragedy, or the end of living, or an entry into harsh judgment and retribution. These videos are out-takes from the video series and presented here for your enrichment. A new video will be presented every Monday.
English Transcript
Let’s play for a few moments with the Mysterium Tremendum, which is another word for God. We tend to think of God with our newly found rational consciousness as a thing, as an object, someone you can relate to outside yourself. So, this point of departure is just inadequate. It may not be absolutely wrong because God can be known in some degree, but in a very limited degree, by reason, but the chief gift of reason would be that religion and God are not irrational or unreasonable, but what they are is what the Scripture and the early Greek Fathers say that God is calling us to – calling us to a relationship that changes according to our level of faith – not necessarily our level of beliefs, because beliefs involve a series of doctrines that are concepts and ideally these concepts point to the relationship.
Relacionarse con Dios
Consideremos por un momento el Mysterium Tremendum, que es otra forma de referirse a Dios. Tendemos a pensar acerca de Dios con nuestra recientemente descubierta conciencia racional como si fuera una cosa, un objeto, alguien con quien podemos relacionarnos que está fuera de nosotros. Sin embargo este punto de partida es simplemente inadecuado. Puede no estar totalmente errado porque Dios puede ser conocido, hasta cierto punto, por medio de la razón, pero el don más importante que podría brindarnos la razón sería comprender que la religión y Dios no son irracionales ni contrarios a la razón, sino que son, lo dicen las Escrituras y los primeros Padres Griegos, un llamado de Dios a una relación que va cambiando según nuestro nivel de fe – que no necesariamente se corresponde con nuestro nivel de creencias, porque las creencias implican una serie de doctrinas, que son conceptos e idealmente esos conceptos se refieren a dicha relación.
