Chapter One: I Believe in God the Father (198-421)

Part One: The Profession of Faith

Section Two: The Profession of the Christian Faith

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Article 1: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”

Paragraph 1: I believe in God

I. I Believe in one God

• God is the first divine person of the Holy Trinity
• God is one what and three whos
• The other articles of the Creed depend on this first

II. God reveals His name

• to disclose ones name is to make oneself known to others
• God progressively revealed himself
• The fundamental revelation is to Moses in the theophany (visible manifestation to humans of God) of the burning bush

1. The living God
2. “I Am who I Am”
   • Yhwh – “I Am He who Is” “I Am who Am” “I Am who I Am”
     • out of respect, in sacred sripture, this is replaced with LORD (Adonai, Kyrios)
   • God reveals his faithfulness in revealing his name
   • In his sacrifice, Jesus reveals that he bears the divine name (John 8:28)
3. “A God merciful and gracious”
4. God alone IS
   • God is the fullness of being, perfect, without origin and without end
   • everything that exists does so in relation to God

III. God, “He who Is,” is truth and Love

• steadfast love and faithfulness: summarily express the riches of the divine name

1. God is truth
   • we can abandon ourselves to full trust and faithfulness
2. God is love
   • God’s only motive for revelation to human is his sheer, gratuitous love
   • his love is victorious over even the worst infidelities
   • God’s innermost secret – God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange
   • We are made in God’s image; we realize the fullness of ourselves when we love and allow ourselves to be loved. We are made from and for love.

IV. The Implications of Faith in One God

• It means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty
• It means living in thanksgiving
• It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men
• It means making good use of all created things
• It means trusting God in every circumstance

In Brief

228 “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD…” (Dt 6:4; Mk 12:29). “The supreme being must be unique, without equal. . . If God is not one, he is not God” (Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 1, 3, 5: PL 2, 274).

229 Faith in God leads us to turn to him alone as our first origin and our ultimate goal, and neither to prefer anything to him nor to substitute anything for him.

230 Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: “If you understood him, it would not be God” (St. Augustine, Sermo 52, 6, 16: PL 38, 360 and Sermo 117, 3, 5: PL 38, 663).

231 The God of our faith has revealed himself as HE WHO IS; and he has made himself known as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). God’s very being is Truth and Love.

Paragraph 2: The Father

I. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”

• in the name of, not nameS
• theology (theologia) – the mystery of God’s innermost life within the Trinity
• economy (oikonomia) – the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life
• theology is revealed through economy, while economy is illuminated by theology
• to relate, a person discloses himself by his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions

II. The Revelation of God as Trinity

1. The Father revealed by the Son
   • God is the first origin of everything and the transcendent authority
   • God is goodness and loving care for all his children
   • This can also be expresses by the image of motherhood
   • God is neither man nor woman – he is God
   • consubstantial – only one God with him
   • Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense
2. The Father and the Son revealed by the Spirit
   • a point of contention with the Eastern traditions (split in 1054)
   • Jesus announced the sending of another Paraclete (Advocate) – Holy Spirit
   • Father revealed in OT, Son revealed in NT, Holy Spirit revealed in the Church
   • Holy Spirit is of the same substance and same nature

III. The Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Faith

1. The formation of the Trinitarian dogma
   • The Trinity is the root of the Church’s living faith
   • terminology has been developed with the help of notions of philosophical origin
   • “substance” (essence or nature) designated the divine being in unity
   • “person” (hypostasis) hypostasis means “an underlying reality or substance, as opposed to attributes or to that which lacks substance.”
   • “relation”
   • Father, Son, Holy Spirit is the person (hypostasis); the substance is the nature
2. The dogma of the Holy Trinity
   • The Trinity is One
     • each is God and whole and entire in consubstantial unity
   • The divine persons are really distinct from one another
     • Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are NOT names designating modalities
     • the Father generates, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit who proceeds.
     • The divine Unity is Triune
     • This is NOT a statement of importance or time
   • The divine persons are relative to one another
     • They are both distinct from each other and wholly in each other

I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus

IV. The Divine Works and the Trinitarian Missions

• God freely created – salvation is unfolded in the creation, the mission of Christ is continued by the church
• Divine economy – the way God reveals and communicates himself. Each divine person works together and are one and the same operation, each with unique characteristics.

IN BRIEF

261 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

262 The Incarnation of God’s Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God.

263 The mission of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in the name of the Son (Jn 14:26) and by the Son “from the Father” (Jn 15:26), reveals that, with them, the Spirit is one and the same God. “With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified” (Nicene Creed).

264 “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son” (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095).

265 By the grace of Baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (cf. Paul VI, CPG # 9).

266 “Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son’s is another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal” (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).

267 Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do. But within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paragraph 3: The Almighty

• God’s power is universal, loving, and mysterious

1. “He does what he pleases”
2. “You are merciful to all, for you can do all things”
   • “In God, power, essence, will, intellect, wisdom, and justice are all identical. Nothing therefore can be in God’s power which could not be in his just will or his wise intellect.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
3. The mystery of God’s apparent powerlessness
   • ” Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil.” 

IN BRIEF

275 With Job, the just man, we confess: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

276 Faithful to the witness of Scripture, the Church often addresses her prayer to the “almighty and eternal God” (“omnipotens sempiterne Deus. . .”), believing firmly that “nothing will be impossible with God” (Gen 18:14; Lk 1:37; Mt 19:26).

277 God shows forth his almighty power by converting us from our sins and restoring us to his friendship by grace. “God, you show your almighty power above all in your mercy and forgiveness. . .” (Roman Missal, 26th Sunday, Opening Prayer).

278 If we do not believe that God’s love is almighty, how can we believe that the Father could create us, the Son redeem us and the Holy Spirit sanctify us?

Paragraph 4: The Creator

• “Creation is the foundation of all God’s salvation plans and is the beginning of the history of salvation.”

I. Catechesis on Creation

• “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.”
• Science does a great job with understanding; Faith and a relationship with the creator are where we learn the why, and the meaning.
• God’s revelation is necessary for the understanding of creation
• Genesis 1 – 3 reveals the beginning and the end of creation. It begin and ends with God

II. Creation – Work of the Holy Trinity

III. “The World was created for the glory of God”

• God didn’t create anything out of need, but to show forth and communicate

IV. The Mystery of Creation

1. God creates by wisdom and love
2. God creates out of nothing
   • This speaks to a newness and the ability to give us light and faith where there was none.
3. God creates a ordered and good world
   • Through judeo-Christian revelation of God’s order and reason, human intellect, through science, began the process of discovery as physics, chemistry, etc.
4. God transcends creation and is present to it
5. God upholds and sustains creation

V. God carries out his plan: Divine providence

• the universe was created in a state of journeying
• that process is part of God’s plan and protected by his divine providence

1. Providence and secondary causes
   • God’s greatness is displayed in offering dignity to his creation as secondary sources of the continuing of the creation journey
2. Providence and the scandal of evil
   • There is no simple answer to the question of evil
   • God’s answer is not to take it away, but to offer himself as a conquerer and redeemer
   • The reality of physical evil stems from the free will of creation to love; with the capacity to choose to love comes the capacity to choose not to love – evil.
   • moral evil is immeasurably worse than physical evil
   • God is in no way the cause of evil. His allowing of it reflects his respect for freedom

IN BRIEF

315 In the creation of the world and of man, God gave the first and universal witness to his almighty love and his wisdom, the first proclamation of the “plan of his loving goodness”, which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ.

316 Though the work of creation is attributed to the Father in particular, it is equally a truth of faith that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are the one, indivisible principle of creation.

317 God alone created the universe, freely, directly and without any help.

318 No creature has the infinite power necessary to “create” in the proper sense of the word, that is, to produce and give being to that which had in no way possessed it to call into existence “out of nothing”) (cf  DS 3624).

319 God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory. That his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty – this is the glory for which God created them.

320 God created the universe and keeps it in existence by his Word, the Son “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Heb 1:3), and by his Creator Spirit, the giver of life.

321 Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end.

322 Christ invites us to filial trust in the providence of our heavenly Father (cf Mt 6:26-34), and St. Peter the apostle repeats: “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (I Pt 5:7; cf. Ps 55:23).

323 Divine providence works also through the actions of creatures. To human beings God grants the ability to co-operate freely with his plans.

324 The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

Paragraph 5: Heaven and Earth

I. The Angels

• There are things created seen and unseen, heaven and earth
• At creation, spirit and corporeal were created, of which humans have both
• There is an idea that we become angels when we die; at the resurrection we will be reunited with our bodies

1. The existence of angels – a truth of faith
2. Who are they?
   • Angel is their office, spirit is their nature
   • Spirit is what they are, angel is what they do
   • servants and messengers of God
   • they have intelligence and will
   • personal and immortal
3. Christ “with all his angels”
   • Christ is the center of the angel exisitence
   • they are the messengers of his saving plan
4. The angels in the life of the Church
   • angels have intercessory power like the saints
   • angels have ascended and descended mediation

II. The Visible World

• Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator
• Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection
  • the goodness of each creature must be respected
  • evil doesn’t exist the way goodness exists; evil is the absence good or the misuse of a good thing
• God wills the interdependence of creatures
  • no creature is self-sufficient
• The beauty of the universe
  • God created with order; we know them partially as laws of science
• The hierarchy of creatures is expressed in the order of the “six days”
• Man is the summit of the Creator’s work
  • this gives a responsibility of choice, to use the gifts we have been given well, and do higher
• There is a solidarity among all creatures – we all come from the same Creator and are oriented towards worship
• The sabbath – the end of the work of the six days
  • God solves formlessness in the first three days, emptiness in the next three days
  • this is representative of the building of the temple and then furnishing it
  • on the sabbath day it is blessed and God invites us into the covenant and worship
  • creation indicated the right order of human concerns
• The eight day
  • part of the reason we attend Mass on Sunday not Saturday
  • this is the new day of creation and is found in Jesus

IN BRIEF

350 Angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: “The angels work together for the benefit of us all” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 114, 3, ad 3).

351 The angels surround Christ their Lord. They serve him especially in the accomplishment of his saving mission to men.

352 The Church venerates the angels who help her on her earthly pilgrimage and protect every human being.

353 God willed the diversity of his creatures and their own particular goodness, their interdependence and their order. He destined all material creatures for the good of the human race. Man, and through him all creation, is destined for the glory of God.

354 Respect for laws inscribed in creation and the relations which derive from the nature of things is a principle of wisdom and a foundation for morality.

Paragraph 6: Man

I. In the image of God

• Only man is capable of loving his Creator; this is a unique dignity
• Humans are created for our own sake; everything else in creation is for our stewardship. Meaning, we can use creation but not other men.
• We are capable of self-knowledge and ask questions about our condition
• We are capable of self-possession; we can hold ourselves or give ourselves freely
  • people can not be used or taken without their consent
• Made in the image of God – we are someone, not something
• The human race forms a unity in a common Creator – we are all brethren

II. “Body and Soul but Truly One”

• Humans are both corporeal and spiritual – both body and soul
• You do not exist on accident – without exception
• the distinction between the soul and spirit – spirit is we are made for God, soul can be freely raised to the heights with God
• The heart is the depths of one’s being, where we choose God

III. “Male and Female He Created Them”

1. Equality and difference willed by God
   • “Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity”
   • God is neither male or female
2. “each for the Other” – “A unity in two”
   • Man and women are made for each other – however they are complete humans within yourself.
   • We are created to be a communion of persons
   • they are equal as persons
   • The body reveals that we are complimentary. The reproductive system is the only incomplete system in the human body

IV. Man in Paradise

• God created us good, in harmony, and in friendship
• through Jesus, we are destined to be lifted higher than the first Adam
• God did not create death – death enters creation through sin
• we are called to be stewards – not masters; master of self is priority
• leisure, love, and labor have also been twisted by sin

IN BRIEF

380 “Father,. . . you formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures” (Roman Missal, EP IV, 118).

381 Man is predestined to reproduce the image of God’s Son made man, the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), so that Christ shall be the first-born of a multitude of brothers and sisters (cf Eph 1:3-6; Rom 8:29).

382 “Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity” (GS 14 # 1). the doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.

383 “God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning, “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons” (GS 12 # 4).

384 Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.

Paragraph 7: The Fall

• In addressing sin, we must first remember that God is infinitely good and that there is a super abundance of grace
• the consequence of sin is the death of Jesus

I. Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more

1. The reality of sin
   • sin is an abuse of the freedoms of God
   • it is the rejection of God
   • Sin is wanting what we want and not caring what God wants
2. Original Sin – an essential truth of faith
   • Adam is the source of original sin; Jesus is the source of grace
3. How to read the account of the Fall
   • although the language is figurative, it is a historical truth

II. The fall of the Angels

• by the envy of the devil, death entered the world
• angels are unable to repent, in the same way man cannot repent after death
• God created the angels, like all creation, as good. It is their rejection of God that makes them fallen
• it is a mystery as to why the diabolical is allowed to exist by providence

III. Original Sin

1. Freedom put to the test
   • in order to love, you have to be free; God created us free
2. Man’s first sin
   • the tree symbolically shows the freedom given, and the choice of self over God
   • true freedom is the freedom to do what I ought to do
   • sin comes from disobedience, and mistrust of God
3. The consequences of Adam’s sin for humanity
   • we are still created in God’s image; we are good and beautiful, but broken, not depraved, but deprived
   • original sin is contracted not committed
   • part of the understanding of original sin is a mystery
4. A hard battle
   • we must remember original sin to stay alert to our brokenness and, more importantly, the gift and grace of faith

IV. “You did not abandon him to the domain of death”

• immediately after the fall, in Genesis, God promises the triumph over evil
• Mary = New Eve
• immaculate conception
• If Mary was given protection and grace, why didn’t God do that from the beginning?
  • mostly, this is a mystery
  • also, we trust that God intends a greater good

IN BRIEF

413 “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil’s envy that death entered the world” (Wis 1:13; 2:24).

414 Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.

415 “Although set by God in a state of rectitude man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to attain his goal apart from him” (GS 13 # 1).

416 By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.

417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin”.

418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).

419 “We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “by propagation, not by imitation” and that it is. . . ‘proper to each'” (Paul VI, CPG # 16).

420 The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).

421 Christians believe that “the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator’s love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one. . .” (GS 2 # 2).