Our Mission Series, The Coming of Jesus is the Good News of Joy and Hope/Chapter 3: From Genesis An Accounting of the Awesome Divine Creator

Chapter 3: How Awesome Is Our Creator God!

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church has lined up for us the different supreme attributes of God as the Creator of the Universe, and of mankind. 

One attribute of God is that, being God that He is, He created all things from nothing. He is omnipotent He did not need help in creation. He did not need, thus, any pre-existent matter in order to make the universe and all beings in the universe, including man. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 5 & 6, CCC Par. 296) 

God, as Creator, created & continues to create out of his loving essence, out of his goodness, and out of his wisdom. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 5 & 6, CCC Par. 293 & 299) 

He creates out of love precisely because vis a vis man, He is our heavenly Father. (Ray Helgeson, Class Lecture 6) It was his love for us that motivated him to create us, and to sustain us in our being & existence. Later, when the creature man sinned against him he shows his infinite mercy. Upon man’s failing of God’s good will and good grace, he did not abandon man to sin but sought out to forgive and save him from his becoming permanently separated from him, and restored man back to union with him. This we are to further elaborate below. But for a head-start statement in this regard, we could say initially how this Almighty and loving God through the Power of the Holy Spirit exactly sent his only begotten Son to die for us, and to save us from sin. 

God creates out of his goodness precisely because he wanted from all eternity that his creatures share of his bountifulness and generosity, and love. In another chapter in continuation of this primary chapter on Divine Creation and Providence we demonstrate elaborately God’s multiple and manifold Divine blessings and gifts from eternity and from all times to all people of all generations, individually and collectively. The Catechism reminds people of God’s absolute type or manner of showering blessings to mankind. It talked of how God’s providence is both concrete and immediate. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 303) For as long as we follow his Son’s instruction of constant trusting in the Father’s providence, namely for as long as we do ask the Father to, “... give us this day our daily bread..”, we will never be short-changed in our prayers and in our trusting faith. God will provide for our needs overflowing and abundant graces such that he will top it off what we need and want if it is for the glory of God, and if it surely for our genuine good favors as we pray each day the Prayer the Lord has taught us. 

God creates out of his wisdom as his creation, as even some evolutionists would claim, are all arranged in good order. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 299, Wis 11:20) As Wisdom book states: “You have arranged all things by measure, number, and weight.” The Catechism teaches how even by the light of natural reason man could already arrive at the existence of a Supreme Being, who must be the only one responsible for all the marvelous things and order of nature. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 286) How truly we could echo the poem verse: ‘only God can make a tree!’ – On and on to apply to all other things of the universe, i.e... “Only God can make them lovable pet dogs!” “Only God can make the rivers ….; only God can make the sky & it’s variedly shaped & colored clouds; only God can make the mountains and the oceans; etc….!” Some evolutionists, thus, talked of the intelligible designs of nature which can only posit the existence of an Intelligible Designer, God! 

From Genesis account of God’s creation of the world two most very notable verses are the following: “Let us make man in our image and likeness...”, and “... let them have dominion over all …..” (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, Gen.1:28-31) Let us take a look at the first half of our verse excerpts: “Let us make man in our image and likeness...” Our examination of this wondrous and initial supremely benevolent and beneficial anthropomorphic regard by God in his act of creation, particularly of man, makes us inescapably call to mind and to our heart how great is our heavenly Father God, and what a great mystery of Him that he made us, human beings, and the Angels after His image and likeness; and that He has eternally deigned to grant man this dignity to live a life that is like unto God’s. 

Then going back to our top quotations, the Triune God “punctuated” his special creation of man with the above second part of the verse: “... let them have dominion over all …..” The Catechism states how God makes use of his creatures in the furtherance of his work of creation, and salvation. “God is the Sovereign Master of his plan, but to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ cooperation.” (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 306) Whether per the reasonableness & utilities of the works in science and physics, or per the creativity in the field of Arts, or per the myriad manufacturing output in the world of industry & business, or per man’s ecclesiastical contribution to the most appropriate “economy of salvation” within the Church, etc.. by these ways are exemplified and illustrated God’s above stipulated will to use man, for instance, in all of his works in the world, and in the Church of Christ. 

It is most perplexing and, is thus, essentially a mystery of God how, despite and after man’s fall from God’s grace and friendship, He let man hang on to the particular divine-like blessings and benefits, i.e. man’s essential right and the ability, -- assisted by God’s grace, -- of free will, and reign of stewardship over all things of the visible universe. 

Professor Ray Helgeson of the University of Sacramento talked about our not being “privy” to the kind of Divine affection and estimation for God’s creatures, the Angels. He was saying we could not compare between God’s love for man and for his Angels; and said this reality is for our understanding in the hereafter. 

However, since man’s essential likeness or imaging in him of the Divine consists mainly in the human attributes of knowing and loving, hence, we ought to believe how greatly beholden too are God’s Angels to the Almighty God. For we know Angels are spiritual beings, (even more than us, human beings), possessed of the abilities the spirit of knowing and loving. Surely, we are to believe how Angels-- for being pure spirits -- are surely a whole lot more capably knowing and loving in so far as they are pure spiritual beings. Yet, very much like human beings, Angels, themselves spurned God’s essence of perfection and love with the ‘disobedience’ by some of the Angels as led by Lucifer turned Satan; thus splitting the vast array of heaven’s spiritual beings in two: those that have remained in heaven and those who were cast out to damnation. In other words, even early on, we have to single out this humility attribute of the Almighty God of respecting the freedom of his special creatures, the freedom which He has given these Angels as well as each and all of mankind. God in all his bounteousness and wisdom, during the time of his creation of both the Angels and man, chose to have gifted both with this divine attribute of freedom, i.e. free intellect and will, which was the very divine image in these two special creatures. But, early on too, we are told in the Catechism of the Catholic Church to have the following observation: namely, that with the similar account of the “fall from grace” by a multitude of angels from among God’s vast army array of pure spiritual beings in the heavens, these angels turned devils were summarily condemned to Hell. We are to be awestruck by this: how it has been that “those angels-turned-bad”, upon committing their one time offense against God, headed straight and irrevocably unto their punishment of condemnation, absolutely judged and cast away from heaven or from union with the Almighty! Surely, it was by Divine Justice that “they” were hurled down to hell. But on the other hand, great praises and thanks must we render to God for when man committed his first offense against the Almighty, God chose to grant man forgiveness, -- and most of all -- the promise of redemption from man’s self-chosen tragic separateness from God back into union with God. In their primal state of original justice or original holiness, and gifted with paradisiacal preternatural gifts of immortality, integrity, and infused knowledge, our first parents – God’s pioneer human creatures – could very well have opted not to break God’s only law for them in the Garden of Eden. But the sad and tragic truth was that, like some of the Angels, they offended God: committed the act of denial of God’s will, and the very inappropriate & ungrateful act of human self-willfulness in listening more to the Devil’s tempting than to the command of God, and the act of choosing to act on their own or to choosing their own will instead of God’s. And so man committed their first sin against the good God. Nonetheless, by his infinite mercy, the One and only Omnipotent God in desiring to “... make man into our image”/Triune God’s image has predilected man for Himself, and has deigned man to His love and service, i.e. to a special place in God’s Divine affection. Unfortunately, Adam committed the deliberate act of preferring his own agenda of living that was contrary to the wishes of his Creator God. But, indeed, Dei Verbum declares, God did not abandon man; but pursued to bring him back to his grace, (Dei Verbum, # 3), and therefore, back to man’s original Divine economy of being able to know, love, and serve God his benevolent Creator. The Catechism teaches that during God’s creation of man it has already been ushered in God’s eternal wisdom & benevolence the planned salvation of man. (Ray Helgeson, Test Question Explained re: creation vis a vis redemption) How truly fortunate man is to be endowed with such “un-deserved predilection” by the Almighty! 

Thus, that God has ordained in creating man especially after his image and likeness, and has willed man for him, he has expected and demanded that man both by his divinely crafted human nature and by the Holy Spirit’s graces in Christ that he respond in reciprocity. (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 356) Fundamentally, and morally, thus, man’s response ought to be primarily the response of faith and fidelity to the truth of God, and faithfulness in living according to the commandment of love. A grateful and authentic belief in the Almighty is man’s only appropriate response. Ditto to a continuous trusting in a God, for whose day-to-day or even moment-to-moment caring & protective providence at all times and in all circumstances. Indeed, amidst plain sight poverty in the world owing mainly to man’s many sins against justice & charity, amidst the seeming un-curtailed discrepancies to the disfavor of the "have-nots", and the many blindsided acts of slight on behalf of the poor man’s often un-leveraged interests & welfare, by faith and hope man is ever under the steady cover by his Creator & Redeemer, the One God looking out for him, who has willed Himself for man, and whom man is destined man to know, love, and serve as both His creature and friend. As regards the inevitable earthly misfortunes and sufferings of his poorest people, God, however, is not going to simply turn the table between the rich and the poor, and change the world into the poor man’s world. Total change-over of the world is the divine agenda in the End-times, not in the present time. Such is the characteristic of the world, rather, of man’s fallen world until before the End-Times with the weeds crowding out the wheat, i.e. like, with the rich lording it over the poor. Yet because God is our heavenly Father, He never sleeps as he watches over all people; and forever listens to the cry of the poor. Scripture says, “Do not worry about your life – what you will eat, nor what your body will wear; … your Father knows that you need such things.” (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, Lk. 12:22-31) In our latter chapters, (Chapters 10, 11, & 12), we expound more lengthily on how God’s providence meets over and above all of man’s supplications and petitions for all his varied needs & wants, whether in living our new life in grace, or for the satisfaction of our temporal needs. Hence, to the God, who is ever on the look-out for man’s genuine and total welfare, both during his creation and fall away from this Creator-God, mankind’s appropriate response such Divine predilection of infinite love, and mercy ought to be and shall be the reciprocal un-failing loving gratitude and fidelity of hope and love, to which and for which all believing man is destined as their fruition in conversion upon realization by Christ in him of his precise mission of human Incarnation and Redemption. (The later chapters of our Good News Series touch on these.) 

We are going to conclude this presentation about creation, specifically about God’s creation of man with a foundational statement from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “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 toward this covenant, the first and universal witness to God’s all-powerful love.” (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 288, p. 75) From the total Divine Plan within the Mystery of God, and regarding God’s mystery of Incarnation and Redemption, the truths and the realities surrounding all visible creation are eternal divine purposes and schemes of the ever loving and wise God so that man may become a manifestation of God’s love for his people by their enabled abilities to love God back, both for His glory and for man’s sharing of the divine glory and full fulfillment as His creature. In retrospect, it is within this context and meaning that man is able to answer his initial and even on-going questions: like “Where do we come from?”, “What is my origin?”, “Where am I going?”, and “What is our end?” What is the meaning of my existence? (CCC Par. 282, pp.73-74) Man’s honest reckoning of creation, including and specially of his own creation by A Creator, by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, couldn’t but lead man to exclaim feelings and convictions, and the believers to the belief in such un-imaginably wondrous and infinitely generous Maker and Father of mankind and of the universe. The following final quote from the Catechism most aptly ends our presentation on Creation: “Creation is the foundation of all God’s saving plans, the beginning of the history of salvation 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.” (Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, CCC Par. 280)

Related topic on Creation and God's Covenant

Title:  Essay On Article One, “I Believe In God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” and Article 3 "He Was Conceived By The Power Of The Holy Spirit, And Was Born Of The Virgin Mary.”

(A relating between the topic Creation from Article 1 and the topic God's continuing Covenant with Man from Article 3 of the Creed)

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides the following foundational statement: “... the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and the forging of the covenant of the one God with his People... 1(CCC, Par 288, p. 84) as a grand part of his act of creation and self revelation, God manifests his special predilection for man. To this special love of God for man should man draw his ultimate questions: “... like 'Where do we come from?', 'What is my origin?', 'Where am I going?', 'What is our end?', and ‘what is the meaning of my existence?' (CCC, Par. 282, p. 82) Still, “Divine Providence”, as the Catechism further states, “consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end.” (CCC, Par 321, p. 94)

God is the Creator of all things, including and especially of man. In creation, God revealed and manifested his omnipotence, wisdom, and love. (CCC, Par. 296-309, pp. 87-92) Paragraph 380 of the Catechism highlights how the Roman Missal speaks about God's special deal for man in addressing the 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.”2 (CCC, Par 380, p. 107) The Catechism speaks how: “Revelation (wonderfully) makes known to mankind the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin, namely: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.” (CCC, Par 384, p. 108) Then, by creating man, God even more demonstrated to human understanding how good he is. Early on, thus, the first pages of the Bible recorded God of our faith revealing himself as He who is, who makes himself known as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6) The Catechism sums up this defining identity of God, namely: “God's very being is Truth and Love.” (CCC, Par 231, p. 69) Thus, altogether is implemented, revealed, and re-worked out God's omnipotent and wise economy of love for man and for the salvation of man. It is for this fundamental reason that man reckons with his Creator God: that God created man out of his Divine love. And that, “Faith in God leads us to turn to him alone, both because, He is our first origin and our ultimate goal; and neither do we prefer anything to him and substitute anything for him.” (CCC, Par 229, p. 69)

 “Although man was already set by God in a state of rectitude, enticed by the evil one, man still abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God and sought to attain his goal apart from him.” (CCC, Par 415, GS 13 & 1, p. 117) Precisely because of his fall experience, the Catechism's paragraph 418 states that, “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.') By his son 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. (CCC, Par 416, p. 117)

But it was not God who did “... make death,” and who delights “in the death of the living... It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world.” (CCC, Par 413, Was 1:13; 2:24, p. 117) Tragically, with the fall and with man's contracting of the original sin, man lost his most benefiting and healthy union with God, i.e. God's friendship and all the windfall blessings that came along with it. Moreover, after first God created man and the rest of the universe for man, and despite his having known beforehand man would have fallen to sin per the Devil's messing interference with man, God did not abandon man. But out of his eternal love for man per the proto-evangelion via the new Eve, he announced early on his desire to reunite the fallen man to himself.

The Catechism has this further synopsis of the above inter-related truths, thus: “... When Christ became incarnate and was made man, he recapitulated in himself the long history of mankind and procured for us a "short cut" to salvation, so that what we had lost in Adam that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. (CCC, Par. 185, p 58) Thus, it is the Christian faith that “the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator's love; (that though) man has fallen into slavery to sin (yet he) has been set free by Christ, (who) was crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one.. “ (CCC, Par 421, GS 2 & 2, p. 118). God accomplished this redemption of man precisely when he sent his Son; who became man, and, like stated above, died and rose from death truly in order that man can receive through the Son his new human life.

Nonetheless, God willed that man's freedom not be taken away from him even despite his having fallen from grace. God would not allow man, notwithstanding his divine offense against Him, his Creator, become reduced to an automaton or a robot because of his sin. For from the beginning of his act of creating of man, he has deigned him as a human being made unto his image: possessed of the free will and mind. Moreover, Divine Providence has been ordained that it works also through the actions of creatures. To human beings God grants the ability to cooperate freely with his plans. (CCC, Par 323, p. 94) Thus, that God has ordained to create man especially after his image and likeness, and has willed man for himself; he has expected and demanded that man, both by his divinely crafted human nature and by the Holy Spirit’s graces in Christ, respond in reciprocity.3 (CCC, Par. 356 & 357, pp. 101-102 ) Fundamentally, and morally, thus, man’s response ought to be primarily the response of faith and fidelity to the truth of God, and faithfulness in living according to the commandment of love. A grateful and authentic belief in the Almighty is man’s only appropriate response. Ditto to man’s continuous trusting in a God for his day-to-day or even moment-to-moment caring & protective providence for mankind at all times and in all circumstances. Having died with Christ, and having received a new life by the grace of Christ's total redemptive act, man, even before his parousiac individual resurrection upon Christ's final return, has become God's new creation. Thus, by faith and hope, all men, including the poor, are ever under the steady cover by the Creator & Redeemer. He is the One God, who is looking out for man always, who has willed Himself for man as ransom, and to whom belongs, by Divine destiny, design, and plan within Christ's paschal mystery of redemption, to be known, loved, and served by man as the God, who is both his Creator and truest Friend. Therefore, shall man be empowered, indeed, with fidelity and trust in God, amidst plain sight poverty in the world owing mainly to man’s many sins against justice & charity, amidst the seeming un-curtailed inequities and misfortunes around him, or amidst the many blindsided acts of unfairness and partiality between men due to deprivations and poorness of stature in some.

Initially, and eternally, however, all this Divine Economy of man's salvation is an altogether united working of the Trinity. God does his creating of man via his three Persons. It was God the Father's role to generate man; it has been the Holy Spirit's role to sanctify man, both before the fall of man and after the post fall time, namely, during and after the Son's redemption of the fallen sinned man. Both Scriptures and the Church teachings declare this Trinitarian character and nature of the work of human creating and mankind's re-creation in Christ, the Son. (CCC, Par. 290-294, pp. 85-87) Now in particular, during this interval period from the time of Jesus until before his final return as Lord and King, the Holy Spirit is designated and made busy with the business of reminding the people of God, Adam's descendants, of the teachings of the Son, which actually is the realization in Christ by the redeemed people of God of all that the Father has conveyed as his message plan and mandate for his Son, as commanded by the Father to be delivered to and lived on by everyone who follows his Son in the order of salvation. In plain terms, he accomplished this redemption of man by his sending his Son to become man, to die, and to rise from death precisely so man can receive the new life: the Good News of the Gospel in the Son. Eventually, it has been through the Holy Spirit, upon Jesus' return to the right hand of the Father in heaven that God's work of conversion of the sinful man into holiness in Christ continues. Thus is God's work of absolute creation from the beginning of the universe unto eternity made manifest and celebrated by the new born Church for God's greater glory?

1CCC, Par 380, p. 107, Image Book Edition, April 1995, Broadway, NY, NY 10036

2Roman Missal, EP IV 118

3Ray Helgeson Class Lecture 6, fall 2011, Univ. of Sacramento/CCC Par. 356, 357, pp. 101-102