Lesson 2 Part 1 A Creation PDF

Welcome to a new day of learning! 1 2 PRAYER BEFORE STUDY St. Thomas Aquinas Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your brilliance penetrate into...

Welcome to a new day of learning! 1 2 PRAYER BEFORE STUDY St. Thomas Aquinas Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your brilliance penetrate into the darkness of my understanding and take from me the trouble in which I have been born, an obscurity of both sin and ignorance. Give me a sharp sense of understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations, and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Deliverance Prayer: St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. 3 Let’s have a review :) The Object of Faith: The Most Holy Trinity 4  Fides Fides Qua Quae The act of believing in God and the divinely The faith which is believed; the articles of revealed truths; the virtue of faith, that makes faith, the revealed truth; the Catholic faith the act of faith possible; faith that strengthened defended by the martyrs the martyrs. Subjective Objective THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN I believe in God the Father Almighty CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH (The Apostles’ Creed) I believe in one God the Father Almighty, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE (The Nicene Creed) God made everything. Creation is the first act of God’s revelation. Creation is the Work of the Holy Trinity. Although we say that the work of the Creation is the Father’s, he did this indivisibly together with the Son and the Holy Spirit. “All things have been created through [Christ] and for him.” (Colossians 1:16) “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created: and you renew the face of the earth.” (Psalm 104:30) God created the world ex nihilo He did not need any previously existing materials or help from anyone: this shows his omnipotence and his wisdom. God created the world ex amore. Out of love. God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness. This love is natural to God. The universe was created IN STATU VIAE Everything that God created is in the state of journeying, toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained. Through his Divine Providence, God protects and governs all things which he has made. God the Creator is not like a watchmaker or an architect, who, after doing his work, leaves it alone. God not only gives us existence but sustains us at every moment.  GENESIS :gignesthai “to be born”; “origin” The first book It does not give Uses the literary of the Jewish scientific form of and Christian explanations on religious myth Scriptures. the origin of the to speak about world. reality.  The Book of Genesis provides us with two accounts of Creation. FIRST ACCOUNT PRIESTLY ACCOUNT Genesis 1:1-2:3 SECOND ACCOUNT Gives a description how God created the YAHWIST ACCOUNT universe in six days and rested on the seventh Genesis 2:4-25 day. Emphasizes God’s relationship to all human beings represented by Adam and Eve. First Account of Creation 1.) GOD IS THE ORIGIN OF EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY THAT OF LIFE 2.) CREATION IS ORDERLY AND GOOD 3.) HUMANKIND IS THE SUMMIT OF GOD’S CREATION 4.) HUMANS ARE 5.) HUMAN SEXUALITY 6.) REST IS GODLY STEWARDS AND PROCREATION OVER ALL BELONG TO THE DIVINE CREATION ORDER OF CREATION. Second Account of Creation 2.) THE HUMAN BEING IS BOTH BODY AND SOUL 1.) WE ARE 3.) EDEN IS THE ORIGINAL CONNECTED TO LOCALE OF HUMAN EARTH BEINGS EDEN:– “pleasure” / “delight” (Hebrew) ADAMAH: “Earth,” “Soil,” ”Land” – “a royal garden” (Persian) 4.) HUMANS HAVE 5.) MAN AND THE VOCATION TO WOMAN 6.) HUMAN LOVE CARE AND COMPLEMENT AND MARRIAGE ARE CULTIVATE THE EACH OTHER DIVINELY ORDERED WORLD  Atheism Total rejection of the existence of God. Even Catholics can become atheist in the sense of praxis. Materialism You believe in God, you profess your beliefs in others reject any transcendent origin for Him, but you practically think and do something evil right after you go to the mass. the world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed. (ex. Evolutionism and Big Bang Theory) Pantheism everything is God, that the world is God, or that the CHALLENGING development of the world is VIEWS ON GOD the development of God. AS CREATOR Deism (CCC 285) Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watchmaker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself. Dualism/Manicheanism Gnosticism Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation According to some of these conceptions, the arising from God and returning to him. Still others have world (at least the physical world) is evil, the affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or Evil, Light and Darkness, locked in permanent conflict. left behind. 21  THE HUMAN PERSON THE HUMAN PERSON: IMAGO DEI (GEN. 1:26-28) Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 23  THE PERSON BODY: SOUL: material composition of the principle of vivification. person. It is corruptible It is immortal. 24  APPETITIVE responsible for perception, imagination, and movement, and so is present in other animals too, but not in plants This sort of soul lacks reason but, unlike the vegetative, can be THREE ELEMENTS OF influenced by it. HUMAN SOUL RATIONAL It is only the Human Person further divided into the scientific who possesses the rational VEGETATIVE element, which enables us to capacity that makes him/her contemplate or engage in theoretical responsible for nutrition and growth, and which is also activity, and the calculative or free. deliberative element, which enables found in plants and other us to engage in practical or political animals. activity. 25 THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis §10 “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.” 26 CONSCIENCE CCC 1777 Enjoins the person at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil (synderesis) It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking. 27 TWO TYPES OF CONSCIENCE CALLOUS SCRUPULOUS fails to see a sin, when it is tends to see sin, when there is actually there. actually none. 28 FREEDOM CCC 1730 “God created man God willed that man should a rational being, be 'left in the hand of his conferring on him own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord the dignity of a seek his Creator and freely person who can attain his full and blessed initiate and control perfection by cleaving to his own actions.” him. Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts 29 FREEDOM (CCC 1731;1734) The power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. Makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts. 30 FREEDOM The person can only be free if he/she subordinates his/her freedom to truth. ST. JOHN PAUL II -The Acting Person 31 Angels: A truth of the faith “Angelos” – messenger They are personal, free, and spiritual beings who do not have a body like ours. Angels play a major role in the history of God’s dealing with human beings. God placed over each of us a Guardian Angel under whose protection and vigilance we may be enabled to escape the snares of our enemy. War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. (Rv. 12:7-8) How you have fallen from the heavens, O Morning Star, son of the dawn! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high.… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol to the depths of the Pit” (Is 14:12–15). God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but condemned them to the chains… and handed them over to be kept for judgment. (2 Peter 2:4) The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6) The fallen angels were naturally good but became evil by their own doing. The irrevocable character of their choice made their sin unforgiveable.