The opening
article of the Apostles’ Creed
is also the most fundamental: It
lays the foundation for
everything else we believe as
Christians.
It is remarkable
how many truths of faith are
implied in the simple sentence,
“I believe in God, the Father
Almighty, Creator of heaven and
earth.” Each of these truths has
been questioned in the course of
the Church’s history, and each
is being challenged today. That
is why as Catholics we have no
choice in the modern world: We
must know exactly what we
profess in the first article of
our Creed.
The method we
plan to follow will be carried
through the Pocket Catholic
Catechism. After a short
introduction, like the present
one, we will look at a series of
truths that underlie each
principal area of our
reflections, always attempting
both to understand what we mean
by what we believe, and how this
faith should be lived out in
actual practice.
Faith
To believe means
to accept with our minds what
someone tells us is true. We
believe because we trust a
person’s knowledge, that he
knows what he is saying, and his
honesty in telling us what he
knows. When the person we
believe in is a human being, we
call it human faith. When the
one we believe in is God, we
call it divine faith.
The expression,
“I believe in God,” therefore,
has two meanings. We first of
all believe God because
we know from reason that God
exists and that He, more than
anyone else, should be believed.
He can neither deceive, because
He is all-good, nor be deceived,
because He is all-knowing. But
we also believe in God
because we accept on His word
all that He has revealed to us
about Himself and about His will
for the human race.
It is important
to emphasize that our knowledge
about God comes not only from
faith in His own self-revelation.
We can also know God from reason,
by reflecting on the wonders of
His creation. St. Paul could not
have been clearer about the duty
everyone has to know God from
observing the world that He has
made. Speaking of the pagans of
his day, Paul insists that “what
can be known about God is
perfectly plain to them, since
God Himself has made it plain.
Ever since God has created the
world, His everlasting power and
deity - however invisible - have
been there for the mind to see
in the things that He has made.
That is why such people are
without excuse” (Romans
1:19-21).
Faith is, indeed,
a form of knowledge. It is
reasonable knowledge because we
know from reason that God exists.
We can also prove by reason that
He has revealed Himself to us
because of the miracles He
performed to make His
revelations credible to our
minds. But faith provides us
with superior knowledge, far
above what we could ever know by
our naked reason alone.
That is why a
believing child of six is wiser
than an unbelieving genius of
sixty. Or, as St. Paul described
the unbelievers of every
generation, “the more they
called themselves philosophers,
the more stupid they grew” (Romans
1:22). Certainly it takes
humility of mind to accept
divine revelation, but the
reward of faith is lucidity of
mind for which there is no
counterpart in human erudition.
Attributes
of God
When we speak of
God’s perfections, we call them
“attributes” because we
attribute to Him such qualities
as belong to the divine nature.
Yet all the while we realize
that these perfections in God
only dimly correspond, in human
language, to various properties
in creatures.
In reality, the
divine attributes are identical
among themselves and with the
divine nature. But in our human
way of thinking there are
different attributes because
they are like the differences we
see in creation, which itself is
a manifestation of the
indescribable greatness of God.
The Apostles’
Creed gives only one attribute
of God: that He is almighty.
Since apostolic times, however,
the Church has identified no
less than fifteen divine
attributes and, by now, a
library of literature has been
written to explain what they
mean.
God is absolutely
one because He is the
only Being who must exist, and
because there are not many gods
(polytheism). He is not just one
chief god (henotheism), nor
merely the good god along with
an evil god (Manichaeism).
He is the true
God because He really exists and
is not a figment of the
imagination projecting our own
fears or desires.
He is the
living God whose life is His
very essence. He is the being
whose inward activity is
identical with His nature.
He is eternal
because in God there is nothing
past, as if it were no longer;
nothing future, as if it were
not yet. In Him there is only “is,”
namely, the present. That is why
when Yahweh first appeared to
Moses in the burning bush and
Moses asked Him for His name,
God told him, “I Am Who Am” (Exodus
3:14).
God is immense
because He is beyond all
measurement. He encompasses
everything, while He alone
cannot be encompassed by
anything.
He is
incomprehensible because He
is not limited in any way. God
is not confined either in the
manner of a body or of a created
spirit.
God is
infinite not only because He
has no limitations, but because
He has within Himself the
plenitude of all perfection. He
is all-knowing, all-powerful,
and has absolute fullness of
being.
God is unique
because there neither is nor can
there be another God. He must
have no equal.
God is pure
spirit. He has no body or
spatial dimension. In our own
language, He is a spiritual
being who thinks and who wills.
He knows and He loves. He is in
the deepest sense a personal
God, and not some impersonal
force or cosmic energy.
God is totally
simple because there are no
components or parts in Him, like
body and soul or substance and
accidental properties. Thus
Christ said of Himself, “I am
the way, the truth and the life”
(John 14:6).
God is
unchangeable because He
eternally possesses the fullness
of being. There is nothing He
can acquire that He does not
already have, nor lose what He
already has.
God is
transcendent not only
because He surpasses all other
beings, but because He is
completely distinct from the
world. He is the Totally Other.
He is
perfectly happy in and of
Himself, without dependence on
any other being for beatitude.
God is finally
the most sublime because
He is beautiful in the highest
degree. Beauty is that which
pleases when seen. That is why
the Scriptures condemn those who
are seduced by creatures: “They
have taken things for gods. Let
them know how much the Lord of
these excels them, since the
Author of beauty has created
them” (Wisdom 13:3).
The Catholic
Church speaks of the foregoing
attributes of God as internal,
because they pertain to God as
He is in Himself. In today’s
world, in which atheism is so
prevalent, we must be clear in
our understanding of who the one
true God is.
However, we must
also recognize what are called
the relative attributes of God.
These are the divine perfections
in relation to the world He has
made. Among these, the Apostles’
Creed mentions only His
omnipotence or almightiness. By
this, we mean that He cannot do
anything that would deny His
nature, like tell a lie; nor can
He act in a contradictory
manner, like changing His mind.
We know, of
course, that God is also
omniscient because He knows all
things past, present, and
future. He is all-good because
He wants only to benefit the
creatures that He makes. And He
is even all-merciful in
forgiving human beings, provided
they repent for the offenses
they have committed against
their loving Lord.
The Holy
Trinity
Our
Christian faith tells us that
God is not a solitary being. He
is the eternal community of
three Divine Persons: Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Every
society outside of God, whether
among the angelic hierarchy or
among human beings, exists only
because of the Holy Trinity.
Revelation tells
us that there is in God a true
fatherhood that belongs to the
First Person alone. From all
eternity, the First Person has
been generating the Son, who is
not a mere attribute of God, but
a distinct Person. This is clear
from the opening words of the
Fourth Gospel: “In the beginning
was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word
was God” (John 1:1). Proceeding
from the Father and the Son is
the Holy Spirit.
In the language
of the Credo of the People of
God, “The natural bonds
which eternally constitute the
Three Persons, who are each one
and the same Divine Being, are
the blessed inmost life of God,
thrice holy, infinitely beyond
all that we can conceive in
human measure. We give thanks,
however, to the Divine Goodness
that very many believers can
testify with us before men to
the unity of God, even though
they know not the mystery of the
Most Holy Trinity.”
We Christians are
specially blessed in believing
that there is only one God, but
also that He is a triune
plurality. Our destiny is to
share in the happiness of this
heavenly society.
At this critical
period of humanity, the world is
more socially conscious than
ever before in history.
Christianity offers today’s
believers both a timeless and
timely understanding of the
Trinity as the perfect model for
living in a loving community.
Creation and
Providence
In the Apostles’
Creed we affirm that God is the
Creator of heaven and earth.
Saying this, we profess that He
made the world out of nothing.
He started with nothing, out of
which He created the world, and
He parted with nothing of
Himself to bring the world into
actual being.
Consequently, the
world had a beginning. This is
repeatedly stated in the Old
Testament. “Aeons ago,” the
Psalmist tells the Lord, “you
laid the earth’s foundations,
the heavens are the work of your
hands” (Psalm 102:25) And St.
Paul praises God the Father
because “Before the world was
made, He chose us, chose us in
Christ” (Ephesians 1:4).
God did not have
to create the world. The cause
of all that He created is His
divine and loving will. No
necessity to create arises from
God’s goodness. It is true that
the desire for
self-communication belongs to
the nature of goodness, but this
is perfectly fulfilled within
the Trinity by the mutual
self-giving by each of the Three
Divine Persons. God’s goodness
is, of course, the reason why He
communicates of His being to
creatures. But He does this of
His own free will and without
compulsion even by His own great
love.
All Three Persons
are equally and uniquely the
Creator of the universe. As the
work of creation, however, shows
a similarity with the properties
of the First Person it is
usually referred to the Father
by “appropriation.” Thus in the
Apostles’ Creed.
Yet in referring
creation to God the father, we
are also professing belief in
the fatherly providence of the
Holy Trinity. Providence is the
all-wise plan of God for the
universe, and the carrying out
of this plan by His loving rule
or governance.
Our response to
divine Providence is to see in
every person, place, and event
in our lives the providential
hand of God. Everyone and
everything in every moment is a
manifestation of his
providential care. He wants us
to enjoy or endure, to remove or
sacrifice some creature by which
He intends to lead us to our
eternal destiny.
Angels and
Human Beings
It is the common
teaching of the Church that God
created angels and human beings.
In the early thirteenth century,
the Church had to formulate the
Lateran Creed (1215) to defend
the faith against the
Albigenses, who claimed there
were two gods. The good god
created spiritual beings, while
the evil god created the
material world. The Lateran
Creed declares:
We firmly
believe and profess without
qualification that there is
only one true God . . . the
Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit . . . They are
the one and only principle
of all things - Creator of
all things visible and
invisible, spiritual and
corporeal. By His almighty
power from the very
beginning of time, He
created both orders of
creatures in the same way
out of nothing, the
spiritual or angelic world
and the corporeal or visible
universe. And afterwards He
formed the creature man, who
in a way belongs to both
orders, as he is composed of
spirit and body. For the
devil and other demons were
created by God good
according to their nature,
but they made themselves
evil by their own doing. As
for man, his sin was at the
prompting of the devil
(Fourth Lateran Council,
1215).
It will be useful
to number the statements of
faith professed in this
important creed:
-
Only one God
created the entire universe,
spiritual and material,
angelic and human.
-
This one God
the Creator is the Holy
Trinity, by whose almighty
power all things came into
existence.
-
Time began
with the creation of the
world. Why? Because time is
the measure of change, and
only with the origin of
creatures did change come
into being.
-
First God
created the spiritual world
of angels, who are persons
with an intellect and will;
then the material world,
which is perceptible only to
the senses.
-
Afterwards,
God created man, who is like
the angels in being able to
think and to love, and like
the tangible world of matter
on which he walks and which
he breathes. Man’s soul is
spiritual and naturally
immortal; his body is
material and naturally
mortal.
-
The devil
(Greek = diabolos,
slanderer) and demons (Greek
= daimon, evil god)
were originally good angels.
Proudly refusing to obey
God, they were cast into
hell. They became evil by
the misuse of their free
wills.
Seven centuries
after the Lateran Creed, Pope
Pius XII returned to the subject
of man’s origin. In the
meantime, various theories of
evolution posed the question of
how the human race began.
According to the pope (Humani
generis, August 12, 1950),
“The teaching of the Church
leaves the teaching of evolution
an open question, as long as it
confines its speculations to the
development, from living matter
already in existence, of the
human body. The Catholic faith
obliges us to hold that souls
are immediately created by God.”
In the same
document, Pius XII took issue
with those who espouse the
theory of polygenism. Proponents
of this theory claim that since
evolution is an established
fact, all human beings now on
earth do not descend from one
human pair, but from different
human ancestors. These
“conjectures about
polygenism…leave the faithful no
such freedom of choice.
Christians cannot lend their
support to a theory which
involves the existence, after
Adam’s time, of some earthly
race of men, truly so-called,
who were not descended
ultimately from him, or else
supposes that Adam was the name
given to some group of
primordial ancestors.”
In technical
language, only monogenism (mono
= one) and not polygenism (poly
= many + genus = race) is
compatible with the Catholic
faith.
Original Sin
There was no
major dissent from the biblical
teaching about the fall of Adam
until the rise of Pelagianism in
the last part of the fourth
century. Pelagius denied that
Adam was endowed with the
supernatural life of grace,
which he lost for himself and
his descendants by his sin of
disobedience. To counteract this
error, a series of Church
councils were held. Not only was
Pelagius condemned, but several
popes confirmed the Catholic
doctrine on original sin,
stating:
-
Adam was the
first man. He was created
immortal. His bodily death
was a punishment for sin
(Pope Zozimus I, 418).
-
Adam’s sin
was injurious not only to
Adam, but also to his
descendants. Moreover, it
was not only the death of
the body, which is
punishment for sin, but sin,
the death of the soul, that
passed from one man to all
the human race (Pope
Boniface II, 531)
A thousand years
later, the Protestant reformers
brought back Pelagius’s ideas.
As a result, the Council of
Trent issued its famous
Decree on Original Sin.
Published in the same year
(1546) that Martin Luther died,
the conciliar definitions spell
out in the plainest language
what the Catholic Church teaches
on this fundamental mystery of
our faith:
Loss of Original Justice. “The
first man Adam immediately lost
the justice and holiness in
which he was constituted when he
disobeyed the command of God in
the Garden of Paradise.”
Death and Subjection to the
Devil. “Through
the offense of this sin he
incurred…the death with which
God had previously threatened
him and, together with death,
bondage in the power…of the
devil” (Canon 1).
Communication and Remission of
Original Sin. “This
sin of Adam, which is one by
origin, and which is
communicated to all men by
propagation…is taken away
through [no other remedy] than
the merit of the one mediator,
our Lord Jesus Christ, who
reconciled us to God in His
blood” (Canon 3).
Baptism Confers Merits of
Christ. “Through
the sacrament of baptism rightly
conferred in the form of the
Church, this merit of Christ
is…applied to adults and infants
alike” (Canon 3).
Concupiscence Remains After
Baptism. “Concupiscence
or the tendency to sin remains
in the baptized; but since it is
left to provide a trial, it has
no power to injure those who do
not consent and who, by the
grace of Christ Jesus, manfully
resist” (Canon 5).
In the light of
the foregoing, we see that our
first parents were originally
gifted three times over:
