Catholicism For Dummies. Rev. Kenneth Brighenti
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_c275af61-601c-501d-aea8-733800e9711c.png" alt="check"/> Experiencing the fallout of Adam and Eve’s sin
Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has sought to discover the origins of the world and of the universe itself. Where did we come from? How did we get here? These questions inevitably lead to others, such as who are we? And where are we going?
Catholics believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth because that’s what Divine Revelation (as found in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition — see Chapter 2) tells us. This belief is supported by our human logic and science, which tell us that time and space had a beginning, whether we call that moment creation or the Big Bang. Catholics also believe that because of Adam and Eve’s Original Sin, all of us have a wounded sinful nature. We all face judgment at the end of the world, and Catholicism has certain beliefs about what the end of the world will look like.
In this chapter, we explore what Catholicism teaches about the moment when the material world came into existence, the moment when the devil and sin were introduced, and what we know about the end of creation.
Making Something Out of Nothing
Technically speaking, creation is the act of making something out of nothing, or creatio ex nihilo in Latin. (Changing something into something else is called transmutation and is a different subject entirely.) Catholics believe that God created the earth and the heavens, meaning that He made them out of nothing.
To grasp how profound this concept is, consider what scientists do in a laboratory. They mix elements to come up with new compounds, and they combine compounds to make all sorts of materials. And when they produce something that has widespread applications, such as plastic, their efforts revolutionize how people live. Their efforts can seem truly miraculous at times.
But who made the elements themselves? Who created the stuff out of which all other stuff is made? To literally make something out of thin air is something no scientist can do. Moving a potential thing into actuality is what a creator does, and Catholics believe that the Creator of heaven and earth is God.
The first chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells us that in the beginning nothing existed but God. His first act of creation was to make light: “and God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). If plastic has revolutionized the way we live, how much more revolutionary was the creation of light? (Keep in mind that scientists tell us the beginning of the physical universe took place after what they call the Big Bang. That super-stellar explosion just happened to cause an enormous amount of — you guessed it — light.)
Breathing Life into the World: Creationism or Evolution?
A great battle has been waged for centuries between those who call themselves pure creationists and those who call themselves pure evolutionists. The Catholic Church has solemnly defined that God is the Creator of the universe. At the same time, the Church has never condemned any modified version of evolution that allows for a Creator and for the spiritual creation of the immortal soul. Theist Evolution would be a better term than Intelligent Design.
Pope Benedict XVI often used the phrase “both/and rather than either/or” to describe Catholicism. He maintained that it does not have to be a choice between creationism versus evolution; instead, it can be both of them. An all-powerful God could create, and do so by means of modified evolution that is reasonable and intentional. Divine Providence is the idea that God created a plan by which life begins and develops.
Order does not happen by itself. If you throw marbles in the air, they do not land spelling words. Chaos is what happens when order is removed, and without a guiding design and plan, all of creation would be in chaos. Intelligent design and order are obvious everywhere we look. Consider these examples:
Every human being has human DNA, which is distinct from animal DNA. We can use DNA to determine paternity or who committed a crime.
Seasons are predictable enough that farmers know when to plant and when to harvest.
Chemists know what elements combine with other ones to form stable and safe compounds.
Studying the order of our universe got a man to the moon and offers medical science the ability to treat deadly diseases, but Catholics trace it all back to the Creator. Evolution is still a theory and not a proven law of science. But as long as room is made in that theory for the intelligent design of a Creator, nothing is intrinsically wrong with evolution. Only when evolution kicks God out of the equation is it an offense to religion (as well as illogical). Likewise, the Catholic Church does not insist that the world was created in six chronological days because the literal interpretation of the Bible is not the only one. Metaphor, analogy, allegory, parable, and other forms of figurative language are also part of Scripture and valid types of interpretation.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE APES?
Did human beings come from apes? If God could create something out of nothing, He could create man out of apes or He could create man from the dust of the earth. Whether using an ape or dust, at one point God breathed into man and woman an immortal soul that made them in the image and likeness of God.
During the 1960s and 1970s, many textbooks taught our children that we evolved from apes as fact and not theory. Homo Sapiens are a unique class of beings, distinct from apes just as dogs are distinct from cats. Neanderthals may have resembled humans and apes, but they were not of our species. Some may have initially co-existed with our first ancestors, but they died out (just as some species do today). Human beings survived and are distinctively different from apes. British scientists working in genetics discovered that all human beings currently alive can be genetically traced to one human female via mitochondrial DNA. The newspapers nicknamed her “Eve” after the first woman and the mother of all the living in the Book of Genesis. The bottom line: However long it took and whatever process was used, it was God who designed and directed the creation of human beings.
Angels and Devils: Following God or Lucifer
The Catholic Church teaches that before the first human beings (Adam and Eve) were created in the Garden of Eden, God created beings known as angels: beings with no bodies. Angels are pure spirit. An angelic nature consists of an angelic intellect (mind) and an angelic will (heart). In this section, we explain Catholic beliefs about God’s creation of angels — and how some of them decided to become devils.
Infused knowledge, eternal decisions
You and I are a union of body and soul. Our souls are where our rational intellect and free will reside, but our souls depend on our bodies to retrieve all necessary data. Like the memory in a brand-new computer, a soul begins life on earth with a totally clean and blank intellect and needs input from your keyboard (your body). As the body transmits that data to the soul, humans gain what is called acquired knowledge.
Angels