THE CATECHISM OF
THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH
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PART ONE:
THE
PROFESSION OF FAITH
Section One
"I
BELIEVE" - "WE BELIEVE"
6 We begin our profession of
faith by saying: "I believe" or "We believe". Before
expounding the Church's faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the
liturgy and lived in observance of God's commandments and in prayer, we must
first ask what "to believe" means. Faith is man's response to God,
who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a
superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus
we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation
by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of
faith (Chapter Three).
Chapter One -
MAN'S
CAPACITY FOR GOD
I.
THE DESIRE FOR GOD
7 The desire for God is
written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and
God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth
and happiness he never stops searching for:
The dignity of man rests above
all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to
converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if
man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love
continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth
unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his
creator.[1]
8 In many ways, throughout
history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for
God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices,
rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression,
despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one
may well call man a religious being:
From one ancestor [God] made
all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their
existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that
they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though
indeed he is not far from each one of us. For "in him we live and move
and have our being."[2]
9 But this "intimate and
vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 # 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or
even explicitly rejected by man.[3] Such attitudes can have different causes:
revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the
cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of
believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of
sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.[4]
30 "Let the hearts of
those who seek the LORD rejoice."[5] Although man can forget God or
reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life
and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of
intellect, a sound will, "an upright heart", as well as the witness
of others who teach him to seek God.
You are great, O Lord, and
greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without
measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this
man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the
proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a
small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage
him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our
heart is restless until it rests in you.[6]
II.
WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD
31 Created in God's image and
called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways
of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God,
not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense
of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain
certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from
creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human
person.
32 The world: starting from
movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can
come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the
Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature,
namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things
that have been made.[7]
And St. Augustine issues this
challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea,
question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the
beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See,
we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These
beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher]
who is not subject to change?[8]
33 The human person: with his
openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and
the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for
happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he
discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we
bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",[9] can have its
origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest
that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their
final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is
without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that
there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things,
a reality "that everyone calls God".[10]
35 Man's faculties make him
capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for
man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to
reveal himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome
this revelation in faith.(so) The proofs of God's existence, however, can
predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to
reason.
III.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH
36 "Our holy mother, the
Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all
things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural
light of human reason."[11] Without this capacity, man would not be able
to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created
"in the image of God".[12]
37 In the historical
conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many
difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone:
Though human reason is,
strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of
attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who
watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law
written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which
prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty.
For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly
transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human
action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. The
human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not
only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered
appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men
in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to
be true is false or at least doubtful.[13]
38 This is why man stands in
need of being enlightened by God's revelation, not only about those things
that exceed his understanding, but also "about those religious and moral
truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that
even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men
with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error". [14]
IV.
HOW CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT GOD?
39 In defending the ability of
human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the
possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore
of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as
with unbelievers and atheists.
40 Since our knowledge of God
is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by
taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited
human ways of knowing and thinking.
41 All creatures bear a
certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and
likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures - their truth, their
goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God.
Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures" perfections as our
starting point, "for from the greatness and beauty of created things
comes a corresponding perception of their Creator".[15]
42 God transcends all
creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in
it that is limited, imagebound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our
image of God--"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible,
the ungraspable"--with our human representations.[16] Our human words
always fall short of the mystery of God.
43 Admittedly, in speaking
about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression;
nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express
him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between
Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even
greater dissimilitude";[17] and that "concerning God, we cannot
grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in
relation to him."[18]
IN
BRIEF
44 Man is by nature and
vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a
fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God.
45 Man is made to live in
communion with God in whom he finds happiness: When I am completely united to
you, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of you, my life
will be complete (St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 28, 39: PL 32, 795}.
46 When he listens to the
message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man can arrive at
certainty about the existence of God, the cause and the end of everything.
47 The Church teaches that the
one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty from his
works, by the natural light of human reason (cf. Vatican Council I, can. 2 #
1: DS 3026),
48 We really can name God,
starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses
of the infinitely perfect God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust
the mystery.
49 Without the Creator, the
creature vanishes (GS 36). This is the reason why believers know that the
love of Christ urges them to bring the light of the living God to those who
do not know him or who reject him.
ENDNOTES
1 Vatican Council II, GS 19 # 1.
2 Acts 17:26-28.
3 GS 19 # 1.
4 Cf. GS 19-21; Mt 13:22; Gen 3:8-10; Jon 1:3.
5 Ps 105:3.
6 St. Augustine, Conf. I, I, I: PL 32, 659-661.
7 Rom 1:19-20; cf., Acts 14:15, 17; 17:27-28; Wis 13:1-9.
8 St. Augustine, Sermo 241, 2: PL 38, 1134,
9 GS 18 # 1; cf. 14 # 2.
10 St. Thomas Aquinas, S Th I, 2, 3.
11 Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2: DS 3004 cf. 3026; Vatican
Council
II, Dei Verbum 6.
12 Cf. Gen 1:27.
13 Pius XII, Humani generis 561: DS 3875.
14 Pius XII, Humani generis 561: DS 3876; cf. Dei Filius 2: DS
3005;
DV 6; St. Thomas Aquinas, S Th I, I, I.
15 Wis 13:5.
16 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Anaphora.
17 Lateran Council IV: DS 806.
18 St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG 1, 30.
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