The Truth Will Make You Free: Catechism of the Catholic Church

Catechism of the Catholic Church

IN BRIEF (Anticipating)

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.

The Profession of Faith

#27. The Desire for God: written in the human heart built into the structure of man. But man can revolt against this tendency: forget, overlook, explicitly reject.

Causes: - revolt against evil in the world.

Religious ignorance or indifference

Cares and riches of the world

Scandal of bad example

Bad doctrine on religion

Attitude of sin making him hide and flee the call.

#30. Rejoice in praising God for that is how you are: Augustine : “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

#31. Ways of coming to know God

Proofs for the the existence God as “converging and convincing arguments” – to achieve certainty:

From creation –

physical world: movement, becoming, contingency, degrees of perfection, order and beauty

the human person: openness to truth, sense of moral goodness, freedom and the voice of conscience, longing for the infinite, happiness.

These are signs of the spiritual soul – that is irreducible to the merely material. The unique “I” is irreducible to categories of thought about the sensible world.

I not being the first cause nor last end of itself – but rather participating in Being itself.

#35. The proofs of God’s existence predispose one to faipth – i.e. to the revelation of this supreme Being Itself.

#36. Knowledge of God according to the Church. The Church holds and teaches that God, first principle and last end can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of reason, that is, we can know that He is.

#37. But in the historical condition of sin, man has difficulty knowing God by the light of reason alone.

#38. Therefore man stands in need of revelation not only about the strictly supernatural, but also about religious and moral truths not beyond the grasp of human reason. That is, with revelation, these truths are knowable with ease, certainty and no error.

IV.

#39 – 40: We name God from our knowledge of creation. All knowledge begins with sensible experience of the material world. God is completely “other” than creation (since if the world were not, He would still be[1])

#41. Since we perceive all things to be, and that God is, we can speak analogically of created things and God. God is but in a different way than anything else is. God is Being. Everything else has it.

#42. Therefore, we have to purify language of limitation

#43. Nevertheless, we can speak truly of God from our sensible and conceptual knowledge drawn from sensible things, but the IV Lateran Council [Denzinger 806] says: “between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying as even greater dissimilitude;” 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.”

IN BRIEF (recapitulating)

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.

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.

* * * * * * *

IN BRIEF (anticipating)

68 By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life.

69 God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words.

70 Beyond the witness to himself that God gives in created things, he manifested himself to our first parents, spoke to them and, after the fall, promised them salvation (cf ⇒ Gen 3:15) and offered them his covenant.

71 God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (cf ⇒ Gen 9:16). It will remain in force as long as the world lasts.

72 God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets, he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity.

73 God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. the Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him.

Article II: God Meets Man

The Revelation of God:

#51. Dei Verbum 2: “It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature.”

Man can know about God naturally by a work of ascension. But God has freely come to man by descending.

Ratzinger: Great religious figures in the world have ascended to mystical heights. But in Judeo-Christianity, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really are not ‘great religious personalities’… God seeks out man in the midst of his worldly and earthly connections and relationships; God, whom no one, not even the purest of men, can discover for himself, comes to man of his own volition and enters into relationship with him. We could say that biblical ‘mysticism’ is not mysticism of images but of words and that its revelation is not as contemplation by man but the word and the act of God. It is not primarily the discovery of some truth; rather, it is the activity of God himself making history. Its meaning is, not the divine reality becomes visible to man, but that it makes the person who receives the revelation into an actor in divine history. For here, in contrast to mysticism, God is the one who acts, and it is he who brings salvation to man….

“Those who are saved are the inward-looking souls, whatever the religion they profess. For Christianity, they are the believers, whatever level of inwardness they may have achieved. A little child, an overworked workman, if they believe, stand at a higher level than the greatest ascetics. ‘We are not great religious personalities,’ Guardini once said; ‘we are servants of the Word.’ Christ himself had said that Saint John the Baptist might well be ‘the greatest among the children of men,’ but that ‘the least among the sons of the kingdom is greater than he’ (see Lk. 7, 28). It is possible for there to be great religious personalities in the world even outside of Christianity; it is indeed very possible for the greatest religious personalities to be found outside Christianity; but that means nothing; what counts is obedience to the Word of Christ.”[2]

#52. “By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him, and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.”

So, God has freely come to man by descending to reveal himself: something we long for as images (#27), but have no strict right to demand. Wojtyla adds: “God allows man to learn His supernatural ends, but the decision to strive towards an end, the choice, of course, is left to man’s free will. God does not redeem man against his will.”[3] This point is huge: God reveals to us not only what we could know by natural reason, but He reveals Who He is as the very goal and purpose of our being. This gives us “autonomy,” i.e. the power to master ourselves and “own” ourselves such that we are able to direct ourselves – now “freely” – to give ourselves over to Him Who is the goal of our being.

Keep in mind Ephesians 1, 4 that reads: “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish in his sight in love. He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ as his sons, according to the purpose of his will, unto the praise of the glory of his grace, with which he has favored us in his beloved Son.” This means that Jesus Christ is the prototype of man before the creation of man. This is revealed to us, but it is up to our free self-determination to obey this Word.

Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s inner Life. He is the one divine Person with two natures: Perfect God, Perfect man. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible… All things have been created through and unto him, and he is before all creatures, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1, 15-18). This is the grounding of the eschatology that Christ is present not only 2,000 years ago and will be back at the end and in the meantime is in heaven, but that Christ is present now in the world. And further, that He would have become man even if there had been no sin. John Paul II wrote: “From the ‘beginning,’ man, male and female, shared in this supernatural gift. This endowment was given tin view of him, who from eternity was ‘beloved’ as Son, although – according to the dimensions of time and history - it preceded the Incarnation of this ‘beloved Son’ and also the ‘redemption’ we have in him ‘through his blood’ (Eph. 1, 7).

“Redemption was to become the source of man’s supernatural endowment after sin and, in a certain sense, despite sin. This supernatural endowment which took place before original sin, that is, the grace of original justice and innocence – an endowment that was the fruit of man’s election in Christ before the ages - was brought about precisely out of regard for him, that one and only Beloved, while chronologically anticipating his coming in the body.”[4]

#53. God gradually reveals Himself by deeds and words culminating in the Person of Christ.

John Henry Newman: Catholic Fullness in Catholicism: “Christ and the Common Destiny of Man” Ignatius (1988) 431.

“Now, the phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this: that great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is in its rudiments or in its separate parts to be found in heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of Angels and demons is Magian; the connection of sin with the body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is Pythagorean; and honors to the dead are a polytheism. Such is the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues from it – ‘These things are in heathenism, therefore they are not Christian:” we, on the contrary, prefer to say, “These things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.” That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor of the world has scattered the seeds of truth [spermatikoi] (my underline and parenthesis) far and wide over its extent; That these have variously taken root, and grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of Tyre, and the wisdom of the East county, and the luxury of Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of the Most High; “sitting in midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions;” claiming to herself what they said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by enabling her to draw and collect it together out of the world, and, in this sense, as in others, to “such the mild of the Gentiles and to such the breast of kings.”

How far in fact this process has gone is a question of history; and we believe it has before now been grossly exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, have thought that it existence told against Catholic doctrine; but so little antecedent difficulty have we in the matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern Mahol, or Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host came nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in very deed he died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to allow, that, even after his coming, the Church has been a treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner’s fire, or stamping upon her own, as time required it, a a deeper impress of her Master’s image.

The distinction between these two theories is broad and obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of nature would lead us to expect, “at sundry times and in divers manners,” various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to appear, like the human frame, “fearfully and wonderfully made;” but they think it some one tenet or certain principles given out at one time in their fullness, without gradual accretion before Christ’s coming or elucidation afterward. They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; we conceive that the Church, like Aaron’s rod, devours the serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fullness.”^{^[5]}

#54. Stages of Revelation: - The evidence of God in things.

- God revealed Himself to Adam and Eve – walked with them in the garden

- After sin, revelation continues: “Again and again you offered a covenant to man” (Eucharistic prayer IV)

- The Covenant with Noah:

- #56. After sin: men were grouped “in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations” (Gen. 10, 5; 9, 9-10…). #57. “The state of division into many nations, each entrusted by divine providence to the guardianship of angels, is at once cosmic, social, and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity, united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel. But because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.”

#58. “The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, untilthe universal proclamation of the Gospel. The Bible venerates several great figures amoang the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchizedek – a figure of Christ – and the upright ‘Noah, Daniel, and Job.’ Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to ‘gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad’(Jn. 11, 52).”

#59. Abraham: In order to gather humanity together, God calls Abram to become Abraham: ‘the father of a multitude of nations.’(“In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 17, 5): Those descended from Abraham would be the trustees of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people – The Jews.

#62. God forms his people: the Law [the Revelation of Himself]. The people of God are priestly: mediating between God and global humanity. He sends the prophets to proclaim a radical redemption, purification from all infidelities, and for all peoples.

III. Christ Jesus – “Mediator and Fullness of All Revelation”

#65. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.” Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect, and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one.

St. John of the Cross: “In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other) he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word – and he has no more to say… because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has not spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.”[6]

#66. There will be no further Revelation. “The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[7] Keep in mind that the revelation of the Word is complete, but not completely explicit. The experience of the believing Church through the centuries is a growing conceptual hermeneutic of an unchanging continuity (St. Vincent Lerins).

#67. All so-called “private revelation” do not belong to the deposit of faith. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic all of Christ or his saints to the Church.

Read the “In Brief” (#68-73).

IN BRIEF (recapitulating)

69 God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words.

71 God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (cf ⇒ Gen 9:16). It will remain in force as long as the world lasts.

IN BRIEF: (anticipating)

96 What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns in glory.

97 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God" (DV 10) in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches.

98 "The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes" (DV 8 # 1).

99 Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.

100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

Article 2 – The Transmission of Divine Revelation

#74. God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth: (1 Tim. 2, 4). That Truth is Jesus Christ in His Persona. #75. The Person of Christ sums up the entire previous revelation and transcends it in Himself. He commands the apostles to preach the Gospel, promised by the prophets and fulfilled in Himself and spoken by Him.

Remember: Jn. 17, 3: “Eternal life is to know you, the only true God and Him whom you have sent.” Also: When speaking about Purgatory, Benedict XVI commented: “What actually saves us is the full assent of faith”[8] And faith is lived in the small deeds of ordinary historical and material existence. Dei Verbum #7: “The Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline.” Since like is known by like, if the divine Son – the Person of Christ – is pure prayer to the Father, then if we pray and turn work into prayer we will be believing and hence saved.

#76. The Gospel is handed on In the apostolic preaching a) orally and b) in writing which is the inspired Scripture; continued in apostolic succession: “In order that the full an living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority.’”[9] This living succession is called “Tradition.”

Relation Between Tradition and Scripture: DV #8: Both Tradition and Sacred Scripture are the Word of God written down as well as entrusted to the apostles as teaching and example. Note that nothing was written for the first Christians. [10]

III

#84. Interpretation: done by the whole Church because the whole Church is the Subject believing, i.e. receiving the Word (Person of Christ).

Magisterium: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone [Pope and bishops in union with the pope]. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ” [DV #10].
Supremacy and absolute realism of the Word of God: #86. “Yet the Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication, and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”
Extraordinary and Ordinary: LG#25 25. “Among the more important duties of bishops that of preaching the Gospel has pride of place.[39] For the bishops are heralds of the faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people assigned to them, the faith which is destined to inform their thinking and direct their conduct; and under the light of the Holy Spirit they make that faith shine forth, drawing from the storehouse of revelation new things and old (cf. Mt. 13:52); they make it bear fruit and with watchfulness they ward off whatever errors threaten their flock (cf. 2 Tim. 4-14).Bishops who teach in communion with the Roman Pontiff are to be revered by all as witnesses of divine and Catholic truth; the faithful, for their part, are obliged to submit to their bishops' decision, made in the name of Christ, in matters of faith and morals, and to adhere to it with a ready and respectful allegiance of mind. This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff,even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.

Although the bishops, taken individually, do not enjoy the privilege of infallibility, they do, however, proclaim infallibly the doctrine of Christ on the following conditions: namely, when, even though dispersed throughout the world but preserving for all that amongst themselves and with Peter's successor the bond of communion, in their authoritative teaching concerning matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement that a particular teaching is to be held definitively and absolutely.[40] This is still more clearly the case when, assembled in an ecumenical council, they are, for the universal Church, teachers of and judges in matters of faith and morals, whose decisions must be adhered to with the loyal and obedient assent of faith.[41]

This infallibility, however, with which the divine redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining doctrine pertaining to faith and morals, is co-extensive with the deposit of revelation, which must be religiously guarded and loyally and courageously expounded. The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful--who confirms his brethren in the faith (cf. Lk. 22:32)--he proclaims in an absolute decision a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.[42] For that reason his definitions are rightly said to be irreformable by their very nature and not by reason of the assent of the Church, is as much as they were made with the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to him in the person of blessed Peter himself; and as a consequence they are in no way in need of the approval of others, and do not admit of appeal to any other tribunal. For in such a case the Roman Pontiff does not utter a pronouncement as a private person, but rather does he expound and defend the teaching of the Catholic faith as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the Church's charism of infallibility is present in a singular way.[43] The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme teaching office. Now, the assent of the Church can never be lacking to such definitions on account of the same Holy Spirit's influence, through which Christ's whole flock is maintained in the unity of the faith and makes progress in it.[44]

Furthermore, when the Roman Pontiff, or the body of bishops together with him, define a doctrine, they make the definition in conformity with revelation itself, to which all are bound to adhere and to which they are obliged to submit; and this revelation is transmitted integrally either in written form or in oral tradition through the legitimate succession of bishops and above all through the watchful concern of the Roman Pontiff himself- and through the light of the Spirit of truth it is scrupulously preserved in the Church and unerringly explained.[45] The Roman Pontiff and the bishops, by reason of their office and the seriousness of the matter, apply themselves with zeal to the work of inquiring by every suitable means into this revelation and of giving apt expression to its contents;[46] they do not, however, admit any new public revelation as pertaining to the divine deposit of faith.[47]”

#88. Dogmas: truths (concepts) defined by the pope ex cathedra and bishops in union with him.

#92. The whole Church cannot err in matters of belief when there is universal consent (from bishops to the last faithful) on faith and morals.

#94. Growth in understanding the faith: There is growth in the experience of the Person of Christ by prayer, faith experience in deeds; in contemplation and study and from preacing (hearing the Word).

IN BRIEF (recapitulating)

98 "The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes" (DV 8 # 1).

100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

IN BRIEF (anticipating)

134 "All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ" (Hugh of St. Victor, De arca Noe 2, 8: PL 176, 642).

135 "The Sacred Scriptures contain the Word of God and, because they are inspired, they are truly the Word of God" (DV 24).

136 God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors; he acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving truth (cf DV 11).

137 Interpretation of the inspired Scripture must be attentive above all to what God wants to reveal through the sacred authors for our salvation. What comes from the Spirit is not fully "understood except by the Spirit's action' (cf. Origen, Hom. in Ex. 4, 5: PG 12, 320).

138 The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.

139 The four Gospels occupy a central place because Christ Jesus is their centre.

140 The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God's plan and his Revelation. the Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God.

141 "The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord" (DV 21): both nourish and govern the whole Christian life. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (⇒ Ps 119:105; cf. ⇒ Is 50:4).

Sacred Scripture:

#101. “Christ – The Unique Word of Sacred Scripture”

DV #13: “…The words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness became like men.”

More: He became man; i.e. a divine Person lived a human life. So also a divine Word was expressed in a human word. As there is only one divine “I,” so also there is also only one divine Word. Keep in mind: Actiones sunt suppositorum = Actions are not performed by the nature but by the Person through the nature. Therefore, everything Jesus Christ did is the action of a divine Person, not the action of a “nature.” The nature is the way He did it.

#103. Therefore we venerate Sacred Scripture as we venerate the Body of Christ. That’s why the Mass is the presence of Christ in the Word and in the Bread. Sacred Scripture is a divine Word, not human word. It is key to keep in mind that the divine and the human are not natures that are in parallel but both are joined in the one Person. Only the divine Person acts but through the medium of the humanity: “We are reminded firmly that there exists a specific will of the man Jesus that is not absorbed into the divine will. But this human will follows the divine will and thus becomes a single will with it, not however, in a forced way but by way of freedom. The metaphysical duplicity of a human will and a divine will is not eliminated, but in the personal sphere, the area of freedom, there is accomplished a fusion of the two, so that this becomes not one single natural will but one personal will. This free unioin – a mode of union created by love - is a union higher and more intimate than a purely natural union. It corresponds to the highest union which can exist, the union of the Trinity.”[11]

Inspiration:

#105. God is the author of Sacred Scripture. “The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”

Canonical (inspired) texts, whole and entire with all their parts have been chosen within the faith of the Apostolic age.

# 107. “Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore ‘all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind’ (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).”

#108. “Still, the Christian faith is not a ‘religion of the book.’ Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word’ of God, ‘not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living.’ If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ the eternal Word of the living God [the “I” of the divine Son], must, through the Holy Spirit, ‘open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.’”

III

#109-110. The reader must be attentive to what the human authors wanted to say and therefore what God wanted to say through them. Therefore, the sacred author’s intention demands taking into account: the conditions of their time and culture; literary genres of the time; modes of feeling, speaking and narrating.

#111. The text must be interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written. How?

1) Be attentive to the whole of Sacred Scripture; i.e. read the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament (Christ). Christ is the interpretation of all the prophecies and He is the new Moses (Cf. Deut. 18, 18).

2) Read within “the living Tradition of the whole Church.” Scripture has been written “in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture.”

3) Be attentive to the “analogy of faith” = the coherence of all the truths of faith (one truth of faith will not contradict another).

Senses of Scripture

#115. Literal- all senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.

Spiritual: - allegorical: events in the VT as presaging Christ: crossing the Red Sea = Christ’s victory and Christian Baptism; moral: events recorded instruct us how to act.; anagogical: to see reality and events recorded in terms of eternal significance.

#118. The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.

#120. The Canon of Scripture: It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.⁹⁰

This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament and 27 for the New.⁹¹

The Old Testament

#121. The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.

122 Indeed, "the economy of the Old Testament was deliberately SO oriented that it should prepare for and declare in prophecy the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men."⁹³ "Even though they contain matters imperfect and provisional,⁹⁴ The books of the OldTestament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God's saving love: these writings "are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way."⁹⁵

123 Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. the Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism).

The New Testament

124 "The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the writings of the New Testament"⁹⁶ which hand on the ultimate truth of God's Revelation. Their central object is Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church's beginnings under the Spirit's guidance.⁹⁷

125 The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures "because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Saviour".⁹⁸

126 We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:

1. the life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up."⁹⁹
2. the oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed."¹⁰⁰
3. the written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus."¹⁰¹

127 The fourfold Gospel holds a unique place in the Church, as is evident both in the veneration which the liturgy accords it and in the surpassing attraction it has exercised on the saints at all times:

The unity of the Old and New Testaments

128 The Church, as early as apostolic times,¹⁰⁴ and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God's works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.¹⁰⁵ Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.¹⁰⁶ As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.¹⁰⁷

130 Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfilment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone."¹⁰⁸ Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God's plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

* * * * * *

IN BRIEF (Concluding)

135 "The Sacred Scriptures contain the Word of God and, because they are inspired, they are truly the Word of God" (DV 24).

138 The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.

139 The four Gospels occupy a central place because Christ Jesus is their centre.

140 The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God's plan and his Revelation. The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God.

* * * * * * *

IN BRIEF (anticipating)

176 Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words.

177 "To believe" has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it.

178 We must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

179 Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

180 "Believing" is a human act, conscious and free, corresponding to the dignity of the human person.

181 "Believing" is an ecclesial act. the Church's faith precedes, engenders, supports and nourishes our faith. the Church is the mother of all believers. "No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother" (St. Cyprian, De unit. 6: PL 4, 519).

182 We believe all "that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed" (Paul VI, CPG # 20).

183 Faith is necessary for salvation. the Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (⇒ Mk 16:16).

184 "Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come" (St. Thomas Aquinas. Comp. theol. 1, 2).

#142. Revelation: the very Person of the Son of God. Faith: (#143) By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of faith". See points #176-#177. DV #5 is a development from the previous Magisterium in that it speaks about the response of the whole self to God. Since Revelation is the total gift of the Person of the Son to us on the Cross, then the response is the total gift of ourselves to Him. DV #5: “ ‘The obedience of faith (Rom 16, 26; cf. Rom 1, 5; 2 Cor 10, 5-6) must be given to God as he reveals himself. By faith man freely commits his entire self to God, making ‘the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals.’”

#144. Notice that faith is an act of “obedience.” Obedience is from ob-audire. To hear (not to see: hence the grave epistemological twisting of the computer culture insists on seeing as the principal medium and the reduction of reality to the cyber. Reality (that is the Word of God) is disguised in the visual image.[12]

#145, Abraham – Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen": "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Because he was "strong in his faith", Abraham became the "father of all who believe."

Mary - "Blessed is she who believed"

#148. The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.” Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed.

#149. Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God's word, and so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith. John Paul II recognized her as even greater than Abraham: “At the foot of the Cross Mary shares through faith in the shocking mystery of this self-emptying. This is perhaps the deepest ‘kenosis’ of faith in human history.”[13]

II. "I Know Whom I Have Believed"¹⁶

To believe in God alone. To believe in = to trust a person. It is a handing over of the self. To believe = to know something by the use of the faculties of intelligence and will.[14]

150 Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature.¹⁷

To believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God

151 II. "I Know Whom I Have Believed"¹⁶

To believe in God alone

150 Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature.¹⁷

To believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God

#151. For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his "beloved Son", in whom the Father is "well pleased"; God tells us to listen to him. The Lord himself said to his disciples: "Believe in God, believe also in me." We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is himself God, the Word made flesh: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. Because he "has seen the Father"[15], Jesus Christ is the only one who knows him and can reveal him.

#152. The Holy Spirit: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12, 3). Consider again: Mt. 11, 27: “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Therefore, in truth, only God knows God completely

#153. Faith is grace: “When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come ‘from flesh and blood,’ but from ‘my Father who is in heaven’ (Mt. 16, 17). The deep reason why the act of faith demands to motion of the Holy Spirit as “grace,” is the metaphysical constitution of the human person as image and likeness of the divine Person Who is pure relation from and to the Father. Constitutive relationality demands that the human person be engendered/affirmed/loved by another in order to be at all and have identity. Only in this way can the human person proceed to a free autonomous act. The psychological ramifications of this are immense. There is no such thing as a person alone.[16] The psychic dystopia of society here and now is well documented and explained in the recent book “Alone Together”[17] by the ethnographer Sherry Turkle.

#154. Faith is a human act: Trusting in God and accepting His Truth is not contrary to reason nor freedom. To the contrary, it leads to the supreme achievement of both. In fact, without faith as an act of self-transcendence, reason cannot be fully reasonable since it is not exposed to transcendent being. “What is essential is that reason shut in on itself does not remain reasonable or rational….”[18] Consider the Regensburg Address in 2006. An objective assessment of this is given by St. Thomas: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”[19]

#156. Motives of credibility are helpful here: miracles of Christ and the saints; prophecies; the Church’s growth and holiness; her fruitfulness and stability

#157. Faith is certain: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”[20]

#158. “Faith seeks understanding:” Faith, as the going out of self to receive the Person of Christ within, transfigures the ontological self by achieving actuality in the image of the divine Person of the Son. The believing person radiates light which is perceived by reason which sees everything in this new light and finds “meaning” of everything else in it.

#159. Faith and science: There can be no discrepancy or contradiction since it is the same God who reveals who is the creator of all things. Today, Joseph Ratzinger suggests the congruence of the theological epistemology of the Trinity and the Quantum success of the “New Physics,” as well as the inclusion of evolution in the larger view of the faith where all things have conspired to develop the human person for the confrontation with the Word of God and his free assent or denial.

#160. The Freedom of Faith: Since faith is a gift of the whole self to the revealing God, it can only be a free act or it is nothing.

IN BRIEF (concluding)

176 Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words.

177 "To believe" has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it.

178 We must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

179 Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

180 "Believing" is a human act, conscious and free, corresponding to the dignity of the human person.

182 We believe all "that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed" (Paul VI, CPG # 20).

183 Faith is necessary for salvation. the Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will e saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (⇒ Mk 16:16).

184 "Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come" (St. Thomas Aquinas. Comp. theol. 1, 2).

The Credo

The Apostles Creed: “I believe”

I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary
Under Pontius Pilate He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

The Nicene Creed: “We believe”

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered died and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.

[1] This is known as the “Christian Distinction.” The mythical gods of pagan religion are never conceived as capable of being without the world. The Judeo-Christian Creator is such that if the world were not created, God would not be less; and now that it is, He is not more. See R. Sokolowski’s “The God of Faith and Reason” UNDP (1982) 12-20.

[2] J. Ratzinger “Truth and Tolerance” Ignatius (2004) 42-43.

[3] K. Wojtyla, “Love and Responsibility,” Ignatius (1990) 27.

[4] John Paul II, “A Theology of the Body,” Pauline Books andMedia (2006) 505.

[5] John Henry Newman, “Essays Critical and Historical,” XI: Milman’s View of Christianity (1871), vol. 2, 232-233.

[6] “The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 2, 22, 3-5.

[7] Dei Verbum #4.

[8] J. Ratzinger, “Eschatology,”CUA (1988) 231.

[9] Dei Verbum #7.

[10] Henri de Lubac “The Christian Faith,” Ignatius (1986) 23: Document [perhaps of St. Ambrose] written in 380-390: “I want you to be well aware of this: the Creed must not be written down…. Why not? Because we have received it in a way that was not meant to be written. What then must you do? Remember it. But, you will say, how can we remember it if we do not write it down? You will remember it all the better… When you write something down, in fact, certain that you can reread it, you do not take the trouble to go over it every day, meditation on it. But, when you do not write something down, on the contrary, fearing to forget it, you do take the trouble to go over it every day…. Go over the Creed in your mind; I insist, in your mind. Why? So that you may not fall into the habit, by repeating it aloud to yourself, of starting to repeat it among the catechumens or the heretics.”

[11] J. Ratzinger, “Journey to Easter” Ignatius (1987) 101.

[12] “(T)he Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life;” Benedict XVI, October 6, 2008.

[13] John Paul II, “Mother of the Redeemer,”#18.

[14] Cf. Joseph Pieper, “Faith, Hope, Love,” Ignatius (1997) 19-85.

[15] Mt. 11, 27.

[16] J. Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius (1987) 79-81.

[17] Sherry Turkle, “Alone Together,” Basic Books (2011).

[18] J. Ratzinger, “A Christian Orientation in a Pluralistic Democracy?” in Church, Ecumenism and Politics Crossroad (1988) 218.

[19] St. Thomas, STh. II-II, 2, 9.

[20] John Henry Newman, “Apologia pro vita sua” (Longman, 1878) 239.

The Truth Will Make You Free

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Catechism of the Catholic Church

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