Our next class will be Sunday, October 20.
(No class this coming Sunday.)
Last time:
At our last class meeting, we finished our overview of the Four Levels of Happiness. Level 4 happiness can completely satisfy because its true source is God, who is perfect and eternal Truth, Love, Justice, Beauty, and Unity. We completed worksheets to summarize the characteristics of each level of happiness and encapsulate the crises.
We discussed how to avoid a sort of "mini-crisis" with Level 4 that can keep us from entering fully into Level 4, caused by doubts about God's existence or His goodness. The response is from both reason and faith. Rationally, if God is God, then He has all perfections, and therefore, He is able to fulfill all our highest desires. Since He is perfect and unconditional Love, He will want to do so. Thinking on these things can help us avoid the mini-crisis, but trusting in these truths also takes prayer, grace, spending time with God.
Another kind of crisis can occur if we believe God exists and loves us, but don't allow Him into our lives. We can avoid this by humble surrender and responding to His love, e.g. praying, seeking His grace in the sacraments, seeking counsel from those who are close to Him, etc.
We then discussed questions about the Four Levels, and watched a video that covered many more questions posed by other students. We practiced discerning to what level various things that make us happy (the list from our first class) belong, by considering the motivation behind each thing.
We completed a Preference Test (handout), which allows us to experience indications of God's existence in our own desires. As Aristotle showed, our desires point to reality. The near-universal desire of human beings for the transcendent points to the fact that they do exist, in a really real personal God.
Next, I presented two proofs of the existence of God: the Kalam argument recently reworked and popularized by William Lane Craig (easy to understand and remember) and the Argument from Contingency, based on St. Thomas Aquinas (more complex but also more watertight).
Homework:
Living Level 3 -- Write down the names of a few people that you can impact positively. Write down one or two ideas for doing so for each person on your list. Begin to put these ideas into practice. (It doesn't have to be anything huge. Examples could be as simple as a smile or listening to someone going through a hard time.)
If you missed the class and want to catch up,
- Make sure you understand the Four Levels of Happiness summarized in the chart.
- Read the FAQs for answers to many common questions.
- Read the "Second Way" and "Third Way" sections from the simple presentation of St. Thomas's Five Ways, here.
- Email me your questions or bring them to class.
Please see the resources post at the class blog for links to the above and more, for example:
- What evidence is there for God from science?
- Articles with details about the arguments for the existence of God.
Class schedule:
Please see the calendar at the class blog.
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions or concerns.
Blessings,
Suchi / Mrs. Myjak