2.- The Creed
Chapter 1: The Creed
¶26. What is Faith?
· Hebrews 11:1-3
o “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Because of it the ancients were well attested. By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.”
· Man’s response to God.
· God reveals himself to man.
· Through faith, God gives man a guiding light towards the ultimate meaning of his life.
The Desire for God
¶27. Man’s Desire for God.
· Man searches for something outside of himself. As described in Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, 8b, 13c-14.
o “Vanity of vanities, says Quoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! What profit has man from all the labor which he toils under the sun? …The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing…A thankless task God has appointed for men to be busiest about. I have seen all things that are done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and a chase after the wind.”
· Man is not in control of the reality around him. Ecclesiastes 1:15-18.
o “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is missing cannot be supplied. Though I said to myself, ‘Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge.’ Yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that his also is a chase in the wind. For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief.”
· Only in God will man find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.
·
¶28. Man is a religious being.
· All cultures in the world reflect a religious experience. Man has an innate desire to express his yearning for transcendence (moving away of himself towards the Eternal).
· Abraham is our Father in Faith. God chose him as a mediator to call all nations to Himself (cf. Acts 17:26-28).
¶29. Man can forget or overlook God’s calling by…
· …witnessing evil in the world.
· …religious ignorance.
· …religious indifference.
· …ambition.
· …scandal by hypocrisy amongst believers.
· …a society that is hostile to religion.
· …sin makes us hide from God.
o Genesis 3:8-10. Adam hides from God.
· When [Adam and Eve] heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God then called the man and asked him: “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.
o Jonah 1:3. Because of his sense of unworthiness, Jonah, took a boat to Tarshish, away from God’s presence and avoiding His calling to prophesy in Nineveh.
¶30. Even when man may forget or reject God’s calling, God never ceases to call every person to himself.
· God knows that only in Him man will find true happiness.
· St. Augustine. Important quote in CCC ¶30
Ways of coming to know God.
¶31. Proofs for God’s existence.
Based on natural science: philosophy
Brings certainty to the truth of God’s existence.
¶32. The World teaches us about God.
· Contemplating the world.
· Nature bears the mark of its Maker. As an artist leaves a mark in his work, so God shows us an order in creation.
· He is the origin and end of the world. We must not fear science, which teaches us how God’s work is ordered.
· St. Paul teaches us (see quote in ¶32).
· St. Augustine challenges us to look at the world (see quote in ¶32).
¶33. The Human Person teaches us about God.
· Ps. 8:5-6, 10.
o “What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor…O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth.”
· Vatican II; Gaudium et Spes 14.2
o “Man is not deceived when he regards himself as superior to bodily things and as more than just a speck of nature or a nameless unit in the city of man…So when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being led astray by false imaginings that are due to merely physical or social causes. On the contrary, he grasps what is profoundly true in this matter.”
¶34. The First Principle.
· Man in search for cause and effect.
· Participation in Being.
o All things are caused by another.
o Infinity is not a solution.
o This Being we all call God.
¶35. Man’s search for God brings him to God; but in order for God to enter into a relationship with man, He reveals Himself to man.
· The rational search for God helps us attain faith. Faith is not opposed to reason.
The Knowledge of God According to the Church.
¶ 36. The Church believes that God can be known by the natural light of human reason.
· Man is created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-28)
o “Then God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.’ God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God bless them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.”
¶37. Man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God.
· The human mind may be distracted from knowing God. (Pius XII)
o The senses may deceive us.
o The imagination may distract us.
o The disorder appetites: Consequence of Original Sin.
¶38. It is necessary for God to reveal himself.
· Vatican II; Dei Verbum 6
o “…to share with us divine benefits which entirely surpass the powers of the human mind to understand.”
o God reveals to us, “those things, which in themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, can, in the present condition of the human race, be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty, and without the contamination of error.”
· St. Paul, Romans 1:20
o “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”
How can we speak about God?
¶39. The Church believes that it is possible to speak about God, even when the mystery of God exists above and beyond the totality of human comprehension.
¶40. We can only speak of God from our circumstance as creatures of God.
¶41. In the same way that art resembles the artist, so all creatures resemble their creator.
· All things say something about God.
· Especially Man, who was created in his image and likeness.
o By reflecting on our perfections we find God’s perfections and attributes.
· To know who GOD is, we need to take the perfections of creation as our starting point.
· Aristotle’s Transcendentals. Perfections that exist in all Beings.
o Truth
o Goodness
o Unity
o Beauty
¶42. Because God is beyond his creatures, we must purify our language to the greatness of the perfections we perceive so that we may not confuse God’s image. Our language must represent the true image of God.
· Our language will always fall short to express who God is.
· It is better to express what God IS NOT, than to say WHAT HE IS.
o Inexpressible
o Infinite
o Invisible
o Incomprehensible
o Ungraspable
o Unending
o Etc.
© 2000-2008 Juan Carlos Aguirre Borchardt