Prolegomenon to the
Revelation of Creation:
Robert Sokolowski: “In the Christian faith we are told about
ourselves, about our history, and about the world. We are told both how things are
and how they ought to be. But the teachings are coherent only when they are
taken within a setting provided by a special understanding of God. Words like
‘incarnation’ and ‘redemption,’ ‘Eucharist,’ ‘charity,’ ‘sin,’ ‘conversion,’
and ‘hope’ when used in a specifically Christian way, do not simply name things
that show up in a human experience; what they name is determined by the God who
is involved with such things. God himself, as God, does not appear in the world
or in human experience.[1]
He is not the kind of being that can be present as a thing in the world. And
yet, despite this necessary absence, he is believed to be that which gives the
definitive sense to everything that does appear in the world and in experience.
“We first learn
about the Christian God in the course of Christian living. We hear about him
through preaching,[2] we address him in
prayer, and we attempt to respond to him in our actions; however, we approach
him as one who will always be absent to us while we remain in something we now
must call ‘our present state’… The primary task of Christian theology is to
clarify how the God we believe in is to be understood. He is not a part of the
world, and yet the world has its being and definitive sense from him. What kind
of existence does he enjoy and, consequently, what kind of being does the world
enjoy in relation to him? Only when this issue is sufficiently clarified can we
approach other things – like the history of salvation, the sacraments,
Christian virtues, and the Christian moral life – in our theological
reflection.”[3]
Me: The question that is
opened with the revelation of Creation is not what about this or that truth of faith (understood as a conceptual creed), which
is to reason within creation as a
given to our senses and concepts. Rather, the question is to reason about a
Creator who might not have created; that he would not be less if he did not
create, nor would he be more if he did create, so different is the being of the
created from the being of the Creator. Creation would not add anything to his
reality. This means that he alone is what it would mean “to be.” And we know
him not by reasoning to him from this created fact or that created data but
from the consciousness of accepting the proclamation that “He Is.” This is the
kerygma: Christ lives!
The Joy of the Gospel: #165: “We must not think
that in catechesis the kerygma gives way to a supposedly more ‘solid’
formation. Nothing is more solid, profound, secure, meaningful and
wisdom-filled than that initial proclamation. All Christian formation consists
of entering more deeply into the kerygma, which is reflected ina dn constantly
illumines, the work of catechesis, thereby enabling us to understand more fully the significance of every subject which the
latter treats
Christ is the meaning of
creation:
Eph. 1, 4: “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”
Colossians 1, 15: “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, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or
Powers. All things have been created through and unto him, and he is before all
creatures, and in him all things hold together. Again, he is the head of his
body, the Church; he, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that
in all things he may have the first place. For it has pleased God the Father
that in him all his fullness should dwell, and that through him he should
reconcile to himself all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens, making
peace through the blood of his cross.”
Gaudium et spes #22: The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does
the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him
Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the
revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man
himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that
in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.
“He
Who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), is Himself the
perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been
disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was
not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in
our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some
fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human
mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin
Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.”
Me: Christ: Unique Access to the Father:
"No
one comes to the Father, but by me" (Jn 14:6)
5.
If we go back to the beginnings of the Church, we find a clear affirmation that
Christ is the one Savior of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God.
In reply to the Jewish religious authorities who question the apostles
about the healing of the lame man, Peter
says: "By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom
God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.... And
there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven
given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:10, 12). This
statement, which was made to the Sanhedrin, has a universal value, since for
all people-Jews and Gentiles alike - salvation can only come from Jesus
Christ.”[4]
18. The Kingdom of God: The Person of Christ.
“This is not the kingdom of God as we know it from Revelation. The
kingdom cannot be detached either from Christ or from the Church.
“As has already been said, Christ not only proclaimed the kingdom,
but in him the kingdom itself became present and was fulfilled. This happened
not only through his words and his deeds: "Above all,...the kingdom is
made manifest in the very person of Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, who came
'to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mk 10:45)."22 The
kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine, or a program subject to free
interpretation, but it is before all else a person with the face and name of Jesus of
Nazareth, the image of the invisible God.23 If
the kingdom is separated from Jesus, it is no longer the kingdom of God which
he revealed. The result is a distortion of the meaning of the kingdom, which
runs the risk of being transformed into a purely human or ideological goal, and
a distortion of the identity of Christ, who no longer appears as the Lord to
whom everything must one day be subjected (cf. 1 Cor 15:27).”[5]
Paragraph 4. THE CREATOR
279 "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth."116 Holy Scripture begins with these solemn words. The
profession of faith takes them up when it confesses that God the Father almighty
is "Creator of heaven and earth" (Apostles' Creed), "of all that
is, seen and unseen" (Nicene Creed). We shall speak first of the Creator,
then of creation and finally of the fall into sin from which Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, came to raise us up again.
280 Creation is the
foundation of "all God's saving plans," the "beginning of the
history of salvation"117 that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery of Christ
casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which
"in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": from the
beginning, God envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.[6]
281 And so the readings
of the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the new creation in Christ, begin with
the creation account; likewise in the Byzantine liturgy, the account of
creation always constitutes the first reading at the vigils of the great feasts
of the Lord. According to ancient witnesses the instruction of catechumens for
Baptism followed the same itinerary.119
I. CATECHESIS ON
CREATION
282 Catechesis on
creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and
Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to
the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves:120 "Where do we come from?" "Where are we
going?" "What is our origin?" "What is our end?"
"Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?"
the two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are
inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and
actions.
283 The question about
the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific
studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions
of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These
discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the
Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the
understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon
they can say: "It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to
know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for
wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me."121
284 The great interest
accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another
order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not
only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when
man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin:
is the universe governed by chance, blind fate, anonymous necessity, or by a
transcendent, intelligent and good Being called "God"? And if the
world does come from God's wisdom and goodness, why is there evil? Where does
it come from? Who is responsible for it? Is there any liberation from it?
285 Since the beginning
the Christian faith has been challenged by responses to the question of origins
that differ from its own. Ancient religions and cultures produced many myths
concerning origins. Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that
the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of
God (Pantheism). Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation
arising from God and returning to him. Still others have affirmed the existence
of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked, in
permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions,
the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is
thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). Some admit that the world was
made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it
to itself (Deism). Finally, others reject any transcendent origin for the
world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed
(Materialism). All these attempts bear witness to the permanence and
universality of the question of origins. This inquiry is distinctively human.
286 Human intelligence
is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The
existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by
the light of human reason,122 even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by
error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct
understanding of this truth: "By faith we understand that the world was
created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which
do not appear."123
287 The truth about
creation is so important for all of human life that God in his tenderness
wanted to reveal to his People everything that is salutary to know on the
subject. Beyond the natural knowledge that every man can have of the Creator,124 God progressively revealed to Israel the mystery of
creation. He who chose the patriarchs, who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who
by choosing Israel created and formed it, this same God reveals himself as the
One to whom belong all the peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself; he
is the One who alone "made heaven and earth".125
288 Thus the revelation
of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of
the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards
this covenant, the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful love.126 And so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing
vigor in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy,
and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People.127
289 Among all the Scriptural
texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique
place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The
inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in
their solemn language the truths of creation - its origin and its end in God,
its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and
the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred
Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the
principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning":
creation, fall, and promise of salvation.
Me: “(God plus the world) cannot be conceived as greater than God alone”
(Anselm with parenthesis by Robert Sokolowski[7]).
The Reform of
Consciousness: “The life of faith demands a
revolution in our sense of reality. In our consciousness, which is not only
entangled, but completely befuddled by the world, the body is more ‘real’ than
the soul; electricity more real than thought; power more real than love;
utility more real than truth. Together they form ‘the world’ – incomparably
more real than God. How difficult it is even in prayer to sense the reality of
God! How difficult, and how seldom given us, the grace of contemplation in
which Christ is more tangibly, powerfully present than the things of existence!
And then to rise, to mix with people, perform the duties of the day, feel the
tug of environment and public life and still to say, God is more real than all
this, Christ more powerful, to say this spontaneously, absolutely convinced
that it is so, how many can do this?
“Living
in faith, working in faith, practicing faith – that is what counts. Daily,
earnest exercise of faith is what alters our sense of reality. Experience of genuine reality must be our aim.[8]
But that is auto-suggestion, someone objects. To this there is not much that
can be said, little more than: You say that because you stand outside the
experience. It is true that in the reforming of the consciousness all means of
self-renewal are effective; nevertheless, it is not so much the technique that
counts, as the actual result of that renewal. Enter into faith, and you will
see clearly what it is we are striving for. And you will no longer talk of
auto-suggestion, but of the service of faith and its bitterly needed daily
exercise.”[9]
II. CREATION - WORK OF
THE HOLY TRINITY
290 "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth":128 three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture:
the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he
alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew bara - always has God for
its subject). the totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the
heavens and the earth") depends on the One who gives it being.
291 "In the
beginning was the Word. . . and the Word was God. . . all things were made
through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."129The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the
eternal Word[10],
his beloved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth..
. all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and
in him all things hold together."130 The Church's faith likewise confesses the creative action of
the Holy Spirit, the "giver of life", "the Creator Spirit"
(Veni, Creator Spiritus), the "source of every good".131
292 The Old Testament suggests
and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit,132 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative
co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of faith: "There
exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the
giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his
Wisdom", "by the Son and the Spirit" who, so to speak, are
"his hands".133 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.
III. "THE WORLD WAS
CREATED FOR THE GLORY OF GOD"
293 Scripture and
Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The
world was made for the glory of God."134 St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things
"not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate
it",135 for God has no other reason for creating than his love and
goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his
hand."136 The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of
his own goodness and "almighty power", not for increasing his own
beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this
perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute
freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing
both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal."137
Me: Christian faith is Kerygma. It proclaims God as not part of
the world. God is in it, but not part of it. Pope Francis makes the point
profoundly: “We have rediscovered the fundamental role of the first announcement
or kerygma, which needs to be the center of all evangelizing activity and all
efforts at Church renewal. The kerygma is Trinitarian.[11]
It proclaims the Person of Christ as in the world but not of it.
Robert Sokolowski: the “is” of “God is” is different from “the
world is.” Therefore, God plus the world is not greater than God alone. The
pagan understanding of God is always in the world or intrinsically related to
it. In Aristotle, God is a substance thinking himself, and in this activity
attracts the circular motion of the spheres which move everything else. He is
first and greatest, but he is always part of the world. Plato’s “One” is
always in function of the many, and therefore is always part of the world. In
Judeo-Christian revelation of creation, we are required to think beyond the
setting of the world. This is a unique movement of the mind. The Being the
Creator is such that if everything else
we experience were not, reality would not be less. God could have been all that
there is.
Notice that we know the reality of the Creator by the action of
going out of ourselves, which is a different way of being than anything we
experience in the world. That is, we are able to experience the Being of
the Creator by experiencing ourselves as believing, i.e. as self-transcending.
By this experience of beings-in-themselves (everything through the senses) and
the self as going out of self, we distinguish the being of God from the being
of the world.
Hence, our
proclamation of God the Creator is of a being that is not part of the world.
This is the fundamental Christian distinction, and it is the result of an
interior action, a lived experience of going out of yourself. For example, St.
Exupery talks of the greatest joy he ever experienced: to purposely crash his
plane in the Sarah to give his last food to his friend in his downed plane. All
other joys pale next to that.
[1]
Jn. 1, 18: “No one has at any time seen God. The only begotten Son, who is in
the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him.”
[2]
The “kerygma:” Pope Francis: “The Joy of the Gospel” #164-165.
[3]
“The God of Faith and Reason,” UNDP 1981) 1.
[4]
St. John Paul II, “Mission of the Redeemer,” #5.
[5] Ibid.
#18.
[6] Egeria: [Revelation is a
“secret.” “A catechumen… may not enter at
the time when the bishop is teaching them the law. He does so in this way:
beginning with Genesis he goes through the whole of Scripture during these
forty days, expounding first its literal meaning and then explaining the
spiritual meaning. In the course of these days everything is taught not only
about the Resurrection but concerning the body of faith. This is called
catechetics…. (In Holy Week)… the bishop comes… and one by one they come forth,
the men with their godfather, the women with their godmother. And each one
recites the Creed back to the bishop. After the Creed has been recited back to
the bishop, he delivers a homily to them all, and says: ‘During these seven
weeks you have been instructed in the whole law of the Scriptures, and you have
heard about the faith. You have also heard of the resurrection of the flesh.
But as for the whole explanation of the Creed, you have heard only that which
you are able to know while you are still catechumens. Because you are still
catechumens, you are not able to know those things which belong to a still
higher mystery, that of baptism… Because you are still catechumens, the most
secret of the divine mysteries cannot be told to you.”
John Henry
Newman comments: “Even to the last, they (the catechumens) were granted nothing beyond a formal
and general account (my underline) of the articles of the Christian faith; the exact and fully developed
doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, and still more, the doctrine of
the Atonement, as once made upon the cross, and commemorated and appropriated
in the Eucharist being the exclusive possession of the serious and practiced
Christian… (The ancient fathers) received them as the fulfillment of our Lord’s
command not to give that which is holy to dogs, nor to cast pearls before
swine… They also considered this caution as the result of the most truly
charitable consideration for those whom they addressed, who were likely to be
perplexed, not converted, by the sudden exhibition of the whole evangelical
scheme…. ‘Should a catechumen ask thee what the teachers have determined, (says
Cyril of Jerusalem) tell nothing to one who is without. For we impart to thee a
secret and a promise of the world to come. Keep safe the secret for Him who
gives the reward. Listen no to one who asks, ‘What harm is there in my knowng
also?’ Even the sick ask for wine, which, unseasonably given, brings on
delirium, and so there come two ills, the death of the patient and the
disrepute of the physician.’ In another place he (Theodoret) says ‘All may hear
the Gospel, but the glory of the Gospel is set apart for the true disciples of
Christ… What is the blaze of Divine glory to the enlightened, is the blinding
of unbelievers. These are the secrets which the Church unfolds to him who
passes on from the catechumens, and not to the heathen. For we do no unfold to
a heathen the truths concerning Father, Son and Holy “Spirit; nay, not even in
the case of catechumens, do we clearly explain the mysteries, but we frequently
we frequently say many things indirectly so that believers who have been taught
may understand, and the others may not be injured;” J.H. Newman, “The Arians of
the Fourth Century,” UNDP (2001) 47-51.
[7] Robert Sokolowski, “The God of Faith and Reason,” UNDP
(1981) 8.
[8] “When Jesus
reassures the frightened disciples that it is indeed he and no ghost, Peter
ways: “Lord, if it is thou, bid me come to thee over the water.’ What do the
words reveal” The desire for proof, and we admire the boldness of that desire,
for if it is a ghost that stands there, the proving will be fatal; it is also
evidence of faith, for Peter does believe. And finally, it is an example of
that great, undaunted will to union with Christ which is the apostle’s
profoundest trait. So Jesus calls: Come! Peter, his eyes deep in the eyes of
the Lord, steps overboard and sets his foot upon a wave. The water bears his
weight. He believes, and his faith lifts him to the circuit of that power which
flows from Christ. Christ himself does not ‘believe,’ he simply is who he is, God’s Son. To believe
means to share not what Christ believes, but what he is. Thus Peter
participates in this power, is part of Jesus’ act. But all divine action is
living action that rises and falls. As long as Peter’s gaze holds that of the
Master and his faith remains one with the divine will, the water carries him….
(Then) Peter drops his eyes. Contact with the divine strength is severed,
and he starts to sink… Lord, save me!” (Romano Guardini, “The Lord,”
Gateway (2002) 231-232.
[9] R.
Guardini, “The Lord,” Gateway, (2002) 233.
[10]
Realism: “Furthermore, the 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, Keynote Address, Synod
Oct. 6, 2008.
[11]
That is, the announcement is the
revelation of the Being of the Son of the living God: pure relation to the
Father as obedience and glorification. The announcement is the revelation/call
to go out of self as response. The response is the act of faith: “Here I am
because you called me” (Isaiah). The “Being” of the Son is not like any other
being. It is constitutively relational. It is nothing in itself (Himself). Pope
Francis, The Joy of the Gospel
104: “On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over
and over: ‘Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is
living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.’ This
first proclamation is called ‘first’ not because it exists at the beginning and
can then be forgotten or replaced by other more important things. It is first
in a qualitative sense because it is the principal
proclamation, the one which we must hear again and again in different ways, the
one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of
catechesis, at every level and moment….
105: We must not think that in catechesis the kerygma gives way to a
supposedly more solid proclamation. All Christian formation consists of
entering more deeply into the kerygma which is reflected in and constantly
illumines, the work of catechesis, thereby enabling us to understand more fully
the significance of every subject which the latter treats. It is the message of
the infinite which abides in every human heart. The centrality of the kerygma
calls for stressing those elements which are most needed today: it has to
express God’s saving love which precedes any moral and religious obligation on
our part. It should not impose the truth but appeal to freedom; it should be
marked by joy, encouragement, liveliness…
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