26 We begin our profession of faith by saying: "I
believe" or "We believe". Before expounding the Church's faith,
as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of
God's commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what "to believe"
means. Faith is man's response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to
man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the
ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter
One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet a man (Chapter Two),
and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).
CHAPTER ONE: MAN'S CAPACITY FOR GOD
I. The Desire for God
27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because
man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.
Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:
The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is
called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed
to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has
created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence.
He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love
and entrusts himself to his creator.1 ( Vatican Council II, GS 19 # 1.)
28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day,
men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and
behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth.
These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring
with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:
From one ancestor (God) made all nations to inhabit the
whole earth and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of
the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps
grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
For "in him we live and move and have our being."2
29 But this "intimate and vital bond of man to
God" (GS 19 # 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected
by man.3 (GS 19 # 1.) Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the
world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world;
the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought
hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide
from God out of fear and flee his call.4 ( Cf. GS 19-21; ⇒ Mt 13:22; ⇒ Gen 3:8-10;⇒ Jon 1:3.)
30 "Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD
rejoice."5 (Ps 105:3 ) Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to
call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search
for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, "an
upright heart", as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek
God.
You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is
your power and your wisdom is without measure. and man, so small a part of your
creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and
bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite
everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation wants to praise
you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us
for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.6
II. Ways of Coming to Know God
31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him,
the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These
are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in
the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and
convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.
These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of
departure: the physical world, and the human person.
32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency,
and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the
origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known
about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the
creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and
deity has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7
And St. Augustine
issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of
the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself,
question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond:
"See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio].
These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One
[Pulcher] who is not subject to change? 8
33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty,
his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with
his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about
God's existence. In all this, he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul,
the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely
material",9 (GS 18 # 1; cf. 14 # 2. ) can have its origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within
themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that
they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus,
in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is
the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone
calls God".10
35 Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge
of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real
intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him
the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.(so) the proofs of
God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that
faith is not opposed to reason.
III. The Knowledge of God According to the Church
36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that
God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with
certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 (Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2: DS 3004 cf. 3026; Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum 6 ) Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man
has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God".12 (Cf. ⇒ Gen 1:27 )
37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself,
however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light
of reason alone:
Though the human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by
its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of
the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his
providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet
there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful
use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between
God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are
translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and
abnegation. the human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such
truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination but also by
disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens
that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not
like to be true is false or at least doubtful.13
38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by
God's revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding,
but also "about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are
not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of
the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and
with no admixture of error".14
IV. How Can We Speak about God?
39 In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the
Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to
all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with
philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.
40 Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about
him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting
point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.
41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most
especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. the manifold
perfections of creatures - their truth, their goodness, their beauty all
reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently, we can name God by taking
his creatures" perfections as our starting point, "for from the
greatness and beauty of created things comes to a corresponding perception of
their Creator".15
42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore
continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image bound or imperfect if we are not to confuse our image of God --"the
inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"--
with our human representations.16 (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Anaphora.) Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
43 Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language
is using human modes of expression; nevertheless, it really does attain to God
himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we
must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be
expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude";17 (Lateran Council IV: DS 806. ) and that
"concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and
how other beings stand in relation to him."18 (St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG 1, 30. )
IN BRIEF
44 Man is by nature and vocation a religious being. Coming
from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely
lives by his bond with God.
45 Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he
finds happiness: When I am completely united to you, there will be no more
sorrow or trials; entirely full of you, my life will be complete (St.
Augustine, Conf. 10, 28, 39: PL 32, 795}.
46 When he listens to the message of creation and to the
voice of conscience, man can arrive at certainty about the existence of God,
the cause and the end of everything.
47 The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and
Lord, can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human
reason (cf. Vatican Council I, can. 2 # 1: DS 3026),
48 We really can name God, starting from the manifold
perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect
God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust the mystery.
49 Without the Creator, the creature vanishes (GS 36). This
is the reason why believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring
the light of the living God to those who do not know him or who reject him.
GO TO:
SECTION ONE "I BELIEVE" - "WE BELIEVE"
Copyright © 2020 by Ekklesia Katholos (Acts 9:31)
GO TO:
SECTION ONE "I BELIEVE" - "WE BELIEVE"
Copyright © 2020 by Ekklesia Katholos (Acts 9:31)
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