Before studying any particular teaching, you need to know where Catholic teaching comes from and how to tell a defined dogma from settled teaching and from a theologian’s opinion. This unit sets out the ground rules. Every later lesson is labelled with the categories you learn here, so this unit comes first.
Lessons
| Lesson | Big question |
|---|---|
| 1.1 What is revelation? | Why would God need to tell us anything? |
| 1.2 Scripture and Tradition | Why not “the Bible alone”? |
| 1.3 The Magisterium | Who decides what the Church teaches? |
| 1.4 Faith | Is faith just a feeling, or a guess? |
| 1.5 Dogma and how sure we are | Can doctrine change? |
Teachers: see the notes for this unit.
Philosophy you will need
Knowledge by testimony (why believing a reliable witness is reasonable) and the limits of what reason alone can reach.
Watch out for
Infallibility does not mean the Pope is sinless or that everything he says is infallible. Development of doctrine is not the Church changing its mind.