Chapter 12- Angels, Matter, Men

Posted on 10/28/2018 by Dick Landkamer

Chapter 12: Angels, Matter, Men

  1. The Existence of Angels
    • Angels Known from Revelation Only
      • Angels are the highest ranking beings in the created order (152-2).
        • “We see Jesus, who [as man] for a little while was made lower than the angels” (Heb 2:9).
      • Angels are pure spirits, which means they have no parts, no material element (152-2).
        • Pure, in this sense, does not mean holy (e.g., pure thoughts are holy thoughts), for that would exclude the fallen angels; they too are pure spirits, but certainly not holy spirits.
      • Human reason might lead us to the idea that creation would be incomplete without the existence of angels (152-2)
        • If there were no angels, there would seem to be a gap in being between Infinite Spirit and rational material beings whose soul is spirit.
      • We know of the certainty of angels by way of Revelation. We don’t find many details about angels in Revelation, but they are mentioned often:
        • In the Douay Rheims translation, there are 449 references to angels using the words angel, angels (328 combined), devil, devils (121 combined).
      • Have angels been forgotten?
        • “[Scripture] is so filled with their activities that is it difficult to see why in the religious awareness of so many Christian bodies they occupy so small a part – so small that many appear to have forgotten them altogether” (153-1).
        • This attitude “probably . . . has something to do with a feeling that belief in angels is unscientific. . . . This feeling is all but universal and all but meaningless” (153-2)
        • The problem is “scientism” and its influence on the general population.
    • Excursus: Scientism
      • From chapter 10: A legitimate criticism directed toward scientists, in general, is “that they have a tendency to treat questions which science cannot handle as if they were by that very fact not questions at all” (129-2).
      • This is due to the “philosophy” of Scientism: The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences [i.e., the scientific method] are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry (Source: The Free Online Dictionary).
        • Steps of the scientific method:
          • Make observations (requires the use of the senses)
          • Propose a hypothesis
          • Design and perform an experiment to test the hypothesis
          • Analyze your data to determine whether to accept or reject the hypothesis.
        • What is the problem?
        • The problem is the first step; beings having a spiritual nature cannot be observed.
          • Scientists who operate in the worldview of scientism, which seems to be the majority of scientists, ignore as non-existent whatever cannot be empirically demonstrated via the scientific method.
      • Scientism has managed to impose its worldview on the publishers of textbooks and, as a result, on the general population.
        • In light of this, there is no small irony in the fact that “the scientist . . . cannot as a scientist prove his most fundamental assumptions: that reality is intelligible, that it makes sense, that there is such is thing as causality” (“Faith and Certitude,” Dubay, p. 104). These assumptions cannot be proved valid by the scientific method.
          • Principle of causality: “Every being that comes into existence must have part of its reason [for] being outside itself” (“An Introduction to Philosophy,” Sullivan, p. 87).
      • “Scientism is not the same thing as science. Science is a blessing, but scientism is a curse. Science, I mean what practicing scientists actually do, is acutely and admirably aware of its limits, and humbly admits to the provisional character of its conclusions; but scientism is dogmatic, and peddles certainties. It is always at the ready with the solution to every problem, because it believes that the solution to every problem is a scientific one, and so it gives ‘scientific answers’ to non-scientific questions” (Leon Wieseltier, see link below).
      • Another problem with science, one that has some relationship with scientism, is that the process of peer review of scientific work is fraught with problems having their origin in fallen human nature (e.g., dishonesty), as described in the article at the link below. As an appetizer, consider this quote taken from the article: “Two of the most vaunted physics results of the past few years—the announced discovery of both cosmic inflation and gravitational waves at the BICEP2 experiment in Antarctica, and the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border—have now been retracted, with far less fanfare than when they were first published.”
    • Angels and Science
      • Science cannot prove whether or not angels exist, since science limits itself to that which can be subjected to the scientific method. This necessarily excludes the study of all non-material beings.
      • Philosophy can discuss the possibility of pure spirits; theology can discuss whether they have been revealed to us; science can add nothing to the discussion (153-2).
      • Limiting our exploration of the universe to a single method, such as science, would be like our ancestors refusing “to discover any more of the world than they could reach by horseback” (153-2).
        • Theology will never discover sub-atomic particles, and science will never discover angels.
      • Can there be a scientific objection to angels?
        • There is nothing unscientific about the idea that rational beings of a higher order than man exist (153-3).
        • There is nothing unscientific about the idea that among pure spirits some are good and some are bad (153-4).
        • There is nothing unscientific about the idea that beings of a higher order can intervene in the affairs of men (153-5).
          • We are forever intervening in the affairs of creatures lower than us as well as those creatures who are our equals.
        • “Angels are no more incredible than atoms, and a great deal more comprehensible” (154-2).
          • Note that atoms have become vastly more incredible since the time that Sheed wrote this book!
    • Angels in Scripture
      • Man’s first two contacts with angels were decidedly inauspicious (i.e., discouraging, ill-fated, unfavorable) (154-3).
        • In the first contact, a bad angel (the Devil) tricks man out of paradise (Gen 3:1 ff).
        • In the second contact, a good angel (a Cherubin) bars the way of re-entry to paradise with “flaming sword which turned every way” (Gen 3:24).
      • The meaning of the word “angel” is messenger.
        • Scripture lists many examples of angels acting as messengers to man or, as Sheed puts it, “to convey illumination from Him to one another” (154-4).
          • There are many more of these examples in the lives of the saints.
        • However, this is not their primary function (would a being whose nature is superior to man have as its primary function that of being a messenger to an inferior being)
    • Primary Functions of Angels
      • “Their chief function, their proper life-work, is to glorify God” (155-1)
        • “Adore Him all you His angels” (Ps 96:7 DR).
          • The modern translation of this verse is a bit different: “All gods bow down before him” (Ps 97:7 RSV).
          • However, the idea of Ps 96:7 DR is captured in 102:20: “Bless the Lord, all you his angels: you that are mighty in strength” (Ps 102:20 DR, 103:20 RSV).
        • Sheed references Dan 7:9-10 as an example, but that verse doesn’t explicitly say “angels” and the context of the chapter is ambiguous with respect to “thousand thousands” and “ten thousand times ten thousand [who] stood before him.” However, the same idea is found in Revelation: “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands” (Rev 5:11)
        • The glorification of God is also the chief function of man, per 1 Cor 10:31.
      • “The second great function of angels: God uses them to implement His will” throughout creation (155-3).
        • This function corresponds to the rule by which “He wills to give His gifts to creatures through other creatures so that we may learn by the receiving of God’s gifts from one another” (155-2).
        • Some examples (155-3):
          • God gives us life, but it comes through our parents
          • God gives us grace, but it comes through the sacraments
          • God gives us food, but it comes through farmers
          • God gives us knowledge of things we could not know on our own, but the knowledge comes through prophets, apostles, and the Church
      • Examples of the second chief function of angels”
        • God has placed “[angels] in charge . . . of the universe as a whole, and of the various parts of it. . . . They are responsible for the operation of the general laws by which God rules the universe” (156-1):
          • “Bless the Lord, all ye his angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word, hearkening to the voice of his orders” (Ps 102:20 DR, 103:20 RSV).
        • “[They also carry out] special interventions as God chooses to make in the affairs of men,” as can be seen in the following Scripture verses (156-1):
          • Regarding angels and nations:
            • Angels watch over individual countries, such as Greece and Persia (Dan 10:5-21).
            • During the exodus from Egypt, an angel stood between Israel and the Egyptian army (Ex 14:19).
            • An angel punished King David and Jerusalem with a pestilence (1 Chr 21:15).
            • At the last judgment, the angels will separate the good from the wicked (Mt 13:49).
        • Regarding God’s communications with man:
          • “I [Raphael] offered thy prayer to the Lord” (Tob 12:12).
          • The Incarnation was announced to the Virgin Mary by an angel so that “in this also might be maintained the order established by God, by which Divine things are brought to men by means of the angels” (Summa III, q. 30, a. 2).
        • We have guardian angels who watch over us:
          • “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10).
          • Despite the fact that the Church has not formally defined that we have guardian angels, the fact that there is a feast of the guardian angels on the liturgical calendar (October 2) indicates that it is a matter of revealed faith according to the maxim, “lex orandi, lex credendi,” and that it forms part of the Ordinary Magisterium.
    • Orders of Angels
      • We learn from Scripture that there are various ranks (choirs) of angels (156-2):
        • We owe the names of five of the angelic ranks to the writings of St. Paul (157-1).
          • “In Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations (Dominions) or Principalities or Powers” (Col 1:16).
          • In Eph 1:21 another rank, Virtue, is mentioned along with Principality, Power, and Dominion.
        • The order of “Archangel” is mentioned explicitly twice: once in 1 Thes 4:16, and one in the letter of St. Jude (1:9).
        • The order of “Angel” occurs throughout Scripture (as noted above)
        • The Cherubim guard the entry to Paradise (Gen 3:24).
        • A Seraphim touched the mouth of Isaiah with a burning coal (Is 6:6)
      • There are various lists that order the angelic choirs, but the most common are those of St Gregory the Great and St. Dionysius (Denis) the Areopagite (Summa I, q. 108, a. 6).
        • Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones (relation to God, who is the end of all creatures)
        • Dominations, Virtues, Powers (government of the universe)
        • Principalities, Archangels, Angels (execution of the works of government)
          • The list above is that of Dionysius. Gregory swaps Virtues and Principalities.
        • The Church has said nothing formally about the various ranks of angels (157-3).
  2. Matter, Living and Non-Living
    • Infinite Spirit vs. Created Spirit
      • Recall the three orders of being that Sheed listed in the previous chapter, where we were discussing grades of being and three principles of differentiation of being (likeness to God, grade of being, susceptibility to change) (143-3). Regarding the grades of being we have:
        • Infinite spirit – God (fullness of being – God is existence)
        • Created (rational) spirit – (likeness to God and more being than matter – Angels, human souls)
        • Matter (no likeness to God; imprint only)
      • Considering infinite and created spirit, we readily see that created spirit lacks the perfection of infinite spirit (158-1):
        • Created spirit must be brought into being; it cannot account for its own existence (158-1).
        • It must be maintained in existence by God (158-1).
        • Its powers of knowing and loving are not infinite; both are capable of increase (158-1).
    • Created Spirit vs. Matter
      • Just as created spirit lacks the perfection of being that infinite spirit possesses, so matter lacks the perfection of being that created spirit possesses (158-2).
        • The gap between infinite spirit and created spirit is infinitely greater than the gap between created spirit and matter (158-2).
        • However, “owing to our familiarity with [material] things and our lack of familiarity with God, the lesser gulf [that between angels and man] impresses us more.” Nevertheless, though it is a lesser gap it is “still enormous” (158-2).
      • Comparing created spirit to matter we note these differences:
        • Created spirit has unending permanence in being (158-3).
          • Matter does not even have temporary permanence. It appears to be so avid for change that it seems as though it would rather be something else (158-3).
        • Created spirit possesses its being in one single reality (158-4).
          • Matter has its being spread out in space (it has parts) and time (experiences successive instants) (158-4).
        • Created spirit has an unlimited range of action in the created universe; it is not bound by space or time (spirit is where it acts) (159-1).
          • Matter, on the other hand, can act only upon things with which it is in physical contact (159-1).
      • One similarity between created spirit and matter is that it has different levels of excellence (recall the nine choirs, or ranks, of angels) (159-1).
  3. Differentiation in the Order of Material Beings
    • The Life Principle
      • The dominating principle of differentiation in the material order is life (159-3).
      • This principle divides material beings into two levels: animate (animal) and inanimate (non-animal)
      • “There may be borderline cases where it is difficult to tell whether [a] thing belongs to the living or non-living order, [but] there are vast fields in which we know [the distinction], and without hesitation” (159-3).
        • “In certain marginal beings, as in the case of the virus, it is difficult to tell whether all or only some of the functions [of life] are realized” (Sullivan, “An Introduction to Philosophy,” p. 119).
          • “Unlike organisms, a virus cannot survive on its own. It is only active when replicating within a host, using a host’s resources and food” (Wikipedia)
        • There are also cases where it is difficult to tell if a being that once had life still possesses life:
          • Diatoms are single-celled plants that come in over 25,000 varieties. Richard Hoover writes of his work with diatoms: “I added water to diatoms that had been dried on paper in 1834. I was astounded when they began to swim – revived after nearly 150 years of slumber” (Richard Hoover, quoted in The Evidential Power of Beauty, Dubay, p. 156).
      • The reality of the distinction between life and non-life “strikes us most violently when we see what happens when life goes out of a living body. It rots” . . . and we should never confuse this with the erosion experienced by inanimate matter, a rock, for example (159-3).
      • Clearly, “[a] living being is one which has within itself some principle by which it operates . . . in fulfillment of its nature” (160-1).
        • Hence, “living things act from some power or necessity within them . . . and initiate action . . . [whereas] non-Living things are only acted upon” (160-1).
      • Those operations having their source within the nature of a living being differ from one being to another according to each being’s nature (160-2).
        • “For it is clear that to be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, does not belong to a body as such; since, if that were the case, every body would be a living thing, or a principle of life” (Summa I, q. 75, a. 1).
    • The Major Divisions of Being in the Created Universe
      • In regard to living material beings, we note certain basic powers that constitute a “life principle”(160-2):
        • Self-initiated movement (anchored in plants, unanchored in animals)
        • Nutrition
        • Growth
        • Reproduction
      • This “life principle in a material being is called its soul” (160-3).
        • Note that “animate” is derived from the Latin word “anima,” soul. For this reason, we say that living material beings are animate (“souled”) whereas non-living material beings are inanimate (not “souled”).
        • See Summa, v.1, q. 78, a. 1 for a list of powers of the soul (vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive, intellectual)
      • The presence of a soul accounts for the activity of a living material being while it is alive; its absence accounts for the decay of the living material being after it dies (160-3).
        • This raises an issue that Sheed doesn’t address until page 162, that is, the nature of the souls of non-rational material beings (i.e., dogs, cats, horses, etc.).
          • We know from Scripture that all living beings have “souls”:
            • “In [His] hand is the soul (or life) of every living thing” (Job 12:10).
          • However, not all souls are spirits. The souls of non-rational beings are somehow “‘immersed’ in the matter of the animal’s [or plant’s] body”; hence, they are “material” souls (162-2).
          • The concept of a material soul is analogous to a simple electric light circuit connected to a battery. Every component of the circuit is a material thing.
            • If the circuit is closed without being connected to the battery, there is no “life” in the circuit (the light remains off).
            • When the circuit is closed with the battery as part of the circuit, the circuit has “life” (the light turns on) until its material soul, the battery, dies.
      • It follows from all of this that the division of being in the created universe based on the life principle is (160-4):
        • Spirit (e.g., angels)
        • Living matter (animals and plants)
        • Non-living matter
  4. Levels of Life in Material Beings
    • The Order of Living Material Beings
      • “At any level, life is a great glory: but living matter is still very much matter” (160-4). Hence, we would expect to see life as it is in created spirit to be progressively restricted in material beings as we work down through the various orders of material beings.
      • Recall the principal operations of spirit: to know and to love. These operations are life in its fullest form. We rank material beings according to the degree in which some aspect of these operations are found.
      • From the bottom up we have:
        • Plants: Plant life demonstrates these operations only in the most rudimentary sense, though it could be said that a plant “loves” the sun, “knows” where it is, and moves toward it. But this seems to be no more than a figure of speech (161-1)
        • Animals: There is a wide variation with animals, but even in the highest animal “we see that the knowledge of an animal (and therefore the love of an animal, since there is always a proportion between love and knowledge) is only a good imitation” of the powers of knowledge and love found in spirit (161-1).
          • “Spirit can know the universal and the abstract (concepts that are not material realities): the animal seems to know only the individual and concrete, and this is so much less that it can only by courtesy be called knowing at all” (161-2).
        • Man: In man we see the true powers of knowledge and love as found in spirit.
    • The Power of Abstraction: Limited to Spirit
      • Man has the ability to identify the universal characteristics of a class of beings having multiple varieties.
      • These universal characteristics of a class of beings define the nature of the beings that belong to that class. The ability to recognize these universal characteristics is called the power of abstraction.
      • Common examples of abstraction:
        • We can abstract from the different varieties of trees the qualities that all of the varieties possess. We could call this universal concept of trees “treeness.”
        • Similarly, we can abstract the universal “triangleness” (or triangularity) from a variety of unique three-sided geometrical shapes.
        • When someone speaks of a dog, the concept of “dogness” immediately comes to mind without there being a need to specify the particular type of dog.
      • The process of abstraction produces the universal as a concept. Note that abstraction is something different from recognition.
        • Note that abstraction is something very different from recognition. That is, a dog, for example, clearly recognizes the difference between a horse and a rabbit. But such recognition does not involve the concept of a universal horse or a universal rabbit.
      • Spirit can know the universal and the abstract (161-2)
        • When we say that the dog is a useful animal, we are speaking of a general notion of dog, the “universal” dog.
        • Spirit can see the universal dog, matter (the eyes) cannot, the reason being that the universal dog is not a physical reality; it is a spiritual reality.
        • Matter is limited in its contacts to the individual and concrete and, therefore, it cannot know the universal and the abstract (162-1)
        • There is nothing to suggest that (non-rational) animals possess the intellectual power of abstraction (162-2).
          • Nothing indicates that, in their knowing, they can go beyond the individual and the concrete (162-2).
          • Nothing indicates that, in their knowing, they can rise above the purely material to extract the essence of a type of being.
        • Hence, “nothing that the animal’s psyche does takes us so obviously out of the range of matter that we are forced to postulate a spiritual principle” (160-2), and there is nothing in Revelation to support such a notion.
        • Therefore, there is no reason to think that the animal’s soul is not merely a material thing that is exclusively “‘immersed’ in the matter of the animal’s body” (162-2).
      • Conclusion: Not even the highest non-rational material beings are able to transcend the sphere of matter:
        • They have no permanence, as opposed to the permanence of spirit.
        • Their knowledge is exclusively limited to the individual and concrete as opposed to spirit’s capability of abstracting the universal from a class of beings.
        • Their “love” is no more than the satisfaction of instinctive material desires as opposed to spirit’s capability for sacrificial love (“agape”).
        • Their being is spread out in space (having parts) and time (constantly changing), as opposed to spirit which possesses its being in one single reality (158-4).
        • They can only act upon things with which they are in physical contact, as opposed to spirit’s unlimited range of action in the created universe (spirit is where it acts). (159-1)
        • Clearly, there is a gulf between spirit and matter, but it is a gulf that has been bridged at one point – man (163-3).
  5. Man: Union of Spirit and Matter
    • What is Man?
      • “Nothing is more fantastic than the variety of answers man has proposed to [this] simple question” (163-1).
      • Fortunately, God has given us the answer. In the Book of Genesis we find two principal statements about the makeup of man:
        • “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Gen 1:26).
        • “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7).
      • There is, therefore, a two-fold element in man: the slime of the earth and the likeness of God.
        • Hence, “matter is part of the very nature of man” (163-2)
        • It is the very function of man to join the two worlds of spirit and matter into one universe, and he does so by belonging essentially to both of them (163-2).
          • Man is not the center of the universe around which all things revolve, as he sometimes thinks. However, he is at the center of the universe in the real sense that he is the single point of contact between the higher world of created spirit and the lower world of matter (163-3).
        • It is a pity that man is much more aware of the lower world than the higher world. Angels from the higher world (demons) can tempt him and insects from the lower world can bite him, but man is more concerned about insects than the devils who can lead him to eternal damnation (164-1).
        • “We must recover our total view of the universe if only in order to know where we are – and that in the interest of sanity” (164-1).
      • In the next chapter, we will see what man made of himself; here we are concerned with man as God made him (164-1).
    • Man’s Spiritual Soul
      • Because man has a living body, there must be a principle in him that gives life to his body; that principle is the soul (164-2).
      • “Man, then, has a soul; so has a dog, so has a cabbage: and man’s soul does for his body what their souls do for theirs, make it a living body” (164-2)
        • However, man’s soul is a spirit, whereas “[the souls of other material beings] are material, limited to matter, not producing any operation that goes beyond matter” (164-2).
        • Man’s soul, because it is a spirit, “does not only the things that souls do, but [also] the things that spirits do” (164-2).
        • With his intellect man knows, and in his knowing he is capable of abstraction. With his will man loves. All of this is done as spirit does it (164-2).
        • “Man consists of two essential parts – a material body and a spiritual soul” (Ott, “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma,” 96).
          • Trichotomism (the idea of man’s composition being matter, an animal soul, and a spiritual soul) was rejected by the 8th General Council of Constantinople (869-870), which “laid down the Catholic dogma that man possesses only one single spiritual soul” (Ibid., 97).
      • Man, having a body, is an animal (in the sense of being animated matter). Because his soul is a spirit, he is a rational animal (164-2).
      • “How are we to conceive a union of two “beings,” one of them in space [the body], the other not [the soul]?” (164-3)
        • Sheed should have “beings” in quotes in the first sentence in 164-3, for the reason he states in the next sentence.
      • Note that the union of man’s body and soul is “is not just any kind of union, but a union so close that the two constitute one being” (164-3). It is a substantial union rather than an accidental union.
        • “Matter and form . . . are complementary principles. One could not come into existence without the other. This means that in the case of man the soul could not have come into existence except as the form of the human body. It means also that to speak of the body is to speak at the same time of the soul, for without the rational soul which makes it alive it is not a human body. . . . The unity of man is so profound that it is wrong to think of soul and body as though they were two separate beings. They are rather two distinct aspects, each implying the other, of the same being man” (Sullivan, “An Introduction to Philosophy,” p. 121)
    • The Soul Animates the Body
      • How is the soul (having no size) in union with the body (which has size)?
        • The body is not “thinly buttered all over with soul,” nor is it like a “sponge interpenetrated with soul . . . [nor is the soul] shaped like the body so that it can have a point by point contact with each part of the body” (165-1).
        • Once again, the imagination cannot help us here. It simply introduces a difficulty that doesn’t exist: How can a soul having no size fully occupy a body that has a considerable size? (165-2).
        • The answer to the imagination’s question lies in recognizing a limitation found in matter that is not found in spirit (165-2).
          • Spirit possesses more being than matter because it has fewer limitations than matter, and limitations diminish being. Specifically, in this case, it lacks the limitation of size; hence, the soul is outside of space (165-2).
          • Because the soul possesses more being than the body it is greater than the body (165-2).
        • The intellect reduces the imagination’s question to how can the greater occupy the lesser, and the answer is simple: The soul fully occupies the body due to its superior being and energy (165-2).
          • Recall that a spirit is where it acts. Though a spirit is not in space, it can act upon a being that is in space. Thus, the soul acts upon every part of the body and gives it life (165-2).
            • This is analogous to the presence of God in every part of the universe giving existence to each being (165-2).
        • Analogy of a flame (the “soul”) heating a pot of water (the “body”) (166-1)
          • The flame is, in a sense, in every part of the water, though it doesn’t occupy the same space as the water (166-1).
          • The flame energizes the water. If the flame were invisible, an onlooker would think the water was the energetic thing (166-1).
          • All of the movement of the water is due to the superior energy of the flame (166-1).
        • Applying the analogy to the a specific case: the separation of a body part (166-2)
          • A finger cut off from the body can no longer be supported by the soul and it dies (166-2).
            • The soul’s powers are restricted to the body. It cannot make contact with any other material being (166-2).
            • Consequently, if a finger is cut off from the body it no longer has access to the life-giving powers of the soul that reside in the body (166-2).
        • A limitation of the analogy (166-3)
          • The flame and the water are two separate realities, each of which can exist without the other, whereas the soul and body are two aspects of a single reality (166-3).
          • When soul and body are separated, both suffer loss (166-3).
            • The body ceases to be a body (it decays) (167-1).
            • The soul survives, but with a large part of its powers idle for lack of a body on which to operate (167-1).
  6. The Question of Man’s Origin
    • The Lord God Formed Man
      • Let us return to the creation account for a more detailed look at man’s origin:
        • “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7, DR).
      • Note the brevity of the statement about man’s creation. The word “formed” tells us of the fact but not the process (167-2).
        • Was it instantaneous, or did it occur over some period of time? (167-2).
        • Did it begin with an animal body that successively evolved as one generation followed another under the special guidance of God? (167-2).
          • Neither Scripture nor Tradition exclude an “evolutionary” process that is guided by God (167-2).
          • However, both exclude an unguided process (167-2).
        • “Whether God formed the body of man in one act or by an unfolding process, it was God who formed it. But man does not come into being until God creates a human soul: if anyone should teach that [the human soul] evolves from some lower form, he would not have to wait long for the Church’s comment” (167-2).
        • The Church has not made a definitive statement on these questions other than what is found in Pius XII’s encyclical “Humani Generis,” which was written in 1950, which addresses the erroneous concept of polygenism (a human “race” with multiple origins).
    • The Human Race
      • The creation account in Genesis is not concerned about the manner in which man came into existence; that is not of first importance (168-1).
      • What is of first importance are these points:
        • “God formed man . . .”
          • God made the first man.
        • “. . . of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7).
          • Man is a composite being (matter and spirit).
        • “God created man in his own image” (Gen 1:27).
          • The first man was made in the image of God.
          • “In rational creatures wherein we find a procession of the word in the intellect, and a procession of the love in the will, there exists an image of the uncreated Trinity” (Summa I, q. 93, a. 6).
        • “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen 2:18).
          • God made men and women to be complementary (helpers), hence, suitable (fit) for one another in the order of marriage.
        • “The rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Gen 2:22).
          • The first woman was made from the flesh of the first man; thus, what has been said of the first man is true of the first woman also.
          • Consequently, they are of equal dignity, both being made in the image of God.
        • “Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh’” (Gen 2:24).
          • From the first moment of their existence as man and wife, “Adam sees them as father and mother, and this by the revelation of God” (169-1).
            • Note: Modern Bibles enclose verse 23 in quotes but not verse 24 thereby making verse 24 part of the narration. However, in a very natural way verse 24 can be seen as a continuation of Adam’s words in verse 23. Consequently, Sheed justifiably attributes verse 24 to Adam, under the inspiration of God. The verses are quoted above as understood by Sheed and as found in older translations, such as the Douay Rheims.
          • It is God’s will that the human race is continued via the cooperation of the sexes (“cleave to his wife”) (169-1).
          • Marriage is an institution of permanency (“become one flesh”).
        • “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28).
          • The first command to the man and woman is to bring forth offspring 168-1).
          • Unity of the human race: The first woman came from the first man. Therefore, all of mankind comes through Adam (168-2).
          • Note that mankind is the only creature that has an active participation in God’s act of creation (169-1)
            • This is our greatest glory in the natural order (169-1).
            • Angels do not procreate; there is no race of angels (169-1).
            • Animals reproduce, but they do so without any rational choice (169-1).
    • The Soul Is Created by God
      • Why is it that we do not generate our children’s souls? We do not generate them for the same reason that there is no race of angels (169-2).
        • The soul is mightier than the body in being, because it is spirit (169-2).
        • Because spirit has no parts, there is nothing that can be separated from a soul so as to be passed on to a descendent (169-2).
        • Hence our power of active participation in God’s act of creation by way of reproduction is entirely “bound up with the lesser perfection of our material bodies, and the angels do not envy us” (169-2).
        • Nevertheless, even though the power of procreation is bound up with our lowliness, “in our lowly way we can glory in it” through our willed participation in God’s act of creation (170-1).
  7. Law and Providence
    • God’s Will Is the Law of the Universe
      • God willed the universe into existence.
        • “He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created” (Psalm 148:5).
      • The universe He created is His self-expression in created being; it mirrors God.
        • “The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the creator” (CCC 341).
        • “It belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others” (summa III, q. 1, a. 1).
        • The universe is necessarily ordered because the universe mirrors God, and “God is not a God of confusion” (1 Cor 14:33).
        • Since God is the supremely rational being, a chaotically complex universe would not be a fitting expression of the Divine Nature. Such a universe “would not have conveyed God but betrayed Him” (140-3).
      • Because the universe is ordered, it is necessarily governed by law, for order requires a system of laws.
        • “Physicist Eugene Wigner confesses that the mathematical underpinning of nature ‘is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.’ Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, ‘Why nature is mathematical is a mystery…The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.’”
      • Having been brought into existence by God’s will, the universe must have His will as the rule of its operation, its law (170-3).
        • In other words, God has willed that everything is and that everything is in a particular way.
      • Because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), every expression of God’s will must be an act of love (170-3).
      • Therefore, God’s love, expressed in created being, is both the sole reason for the existence of the universe, and the rule of its operation.
    • A Dual System of Law
      • The law of the universe is actually a dual system consisting of both physical law and moral law (171-2)
        • Physical law is that which determines how all things in the universe must act. The laws of the natural sciences comprise the physical law of the universe (171-2).
        • Moral law is that which determines how all created rational beings in the universe should act out their free will in order bring about their perfection (171-2, 172-1).
        • Material beings cannot act contrary to the physical law, for it will always prevent such contrary actions when attempted, and the physical law is absolute in its consequences (171-2).
          • Putting one’s hand in a fire for more than a moment will always result in the fire being applied to the hand and will result in the burning of the hand.
        • Rational beings can act contrary to the moral law, for it never prevents such contrary actions; it does not coerce the response of a rational being; there is an “element of choice” (171-2).
          • This fact “implies that we are free to choose whether we will do this or that” (171-2).
          • However, what is meant by our freedom of choice is that our will is free from coercion in making its choice (see 179-2, 183-1).
        • Like the physical law, the moral law is also absolute in terms of consequences.
          • For example, bearing false witness will unfailingly damage one’s soul (171-2).
      • “[To know the physical and moral law] is to know the reality of things: to act in accordance with it, is to act by the reality of things. And that is sanity” (171-2). It is freedom, as well.
        • “If you continue in my word [i.e., act uprightly], you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth [i.e., acting in accord to what is true] will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32).
    • Divine Providence
      • “We call ‘divine providence’ the dispositions [i.e., God’s plan] by which He guides His creation toward [an ultimate] perfection” (CCC 302).
      • “God’s laws are there to enable the universe as a whole and each being in it to achieve what God meant it to achieve” (172-1).
        • When a thing has become what God intended it to become, it has reached its state of perfection, which means it has attained the realization of that which is desired as its end.
        • Stated alternatively, that which is what it was intended to be is in a state of perfection or completeness.
          • “Everything which is desired as an end, is a perfection” (Summa I, q. 48, a. 1, ad. 4).
          • “Whatever is act [as opposed to potency] is a perfection and is good in its very concept” (Aquinas’ Shorter Summa, p. 126).
        • Note that we are speaking here of natural perfection, not moral perfection.
      • “It would not have been consonant with God’s all-wisdom and all-knowledge to bring something into existence which would escape His control and by its own aimlessness mock Him rather than mirror Him” (172-1).
      • Hence, the universe grows toward its perfection having within it some beings (non-rational) that have no choice but to act according to the nature God gave them and other beings (rational) having the capability of acting contrary to the nature God gave them (172-1)
      • It would seem as though the latter could frustrate the harmony and perfection that God ordained for the universe. However, He who rules all things “knows what He will do to turn their discord into concord, so that the harmony is not wrecked” (172-1).
        • An individual can reject God’s purpose for himself, as did the Pharisees:
          • “The Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him” (Lk 7:30).
      • We must not think of God as a counterpuncher who reacts to every unrighteous act of ours by a righteous act of His (172-2).
      • “Just as the spirit [i.e., soul] can dominate every part of the body by . . . being [outside of] space, so God can dominate every part of time by being outside of time” (172-2)
        • “He acts in the spacelessness of His immensity, and the timelessness of His eternity: we receive the effects of His acts in space and time” (173-1).
        • “He acts in the singleness of His simplicity, and we receive the effect of His action in the multiplicity of our dispersion [over time and space]” (173-1).
      • “He lets us choose, but He has His own way of acting upon our choice: and all in a single, timeless operation of wisdom and love” (173-1).
        • “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).
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About Dick Landkamer

In my day job, I'm an IT Analyst (BSEE, University of Nebraska) for Catholic Charities of Wichita. Outside of my regular job, I have a passion for theology (MA Theology, Newman University), sacred music, traditional church architecture, logic, philosophy, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and a host of other related things.
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