CCC: Man’s Capacity for God (26-49)
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.
Commentary:
The main thrust of this first section of catechesis comes with the first statement of the “IN BRIEF” paragraphs: “Man is by nature and vocation a religious being.” Man was created to be religious. To have communion and fellowship with his Creator God. Ever since the Fall clouded God’s image in man’s heart, man has been grasping around in sin’s darkness to find God.
However, Roman Catholic theology gives too much credit to man’s fallen nature: “‘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.’1 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.'”2
- Vatican I, Dei Filius 2; Vatican II, Dei Verbum 6
- Genesis 1:27
This has been one of the Reformation’s biggest problems with Roman Catholic dogma. While they insist that they have condemned Pelagius as an archheretic, they teach exactly the same thing they condemn using different words. The God who created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) cannot be “known with certainty” because “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). By looking to the order of the natural world, acknowledgment can be made towards a Creator, but the world tells us nothing about Him except His existence and power. Nothing about His mercy, grace, peace or steadfast love can be seen from the externals. This must come from God’s revelation in His Word.