CREATION THEOLOGY

Jose Morales

Contents
Chapter 1
An Introduction To The Theology Of Creation
Creation in the general context of Christian dogmatic theology
Modern dismissal of creation
Updating creation studies
Creation as a horizon for Christian theology and life
Creation in historical theology
The teaching on creation and its connexion with other Christian
mysteries
Outline of this textbook
part one: creation in general
Chapter 2
Creation In The Old Testament
The creation account in Genesis 1: 1-2:4a
Features
Structure and division
Commentary
Genesis 2:5-25
Creation in the prophetical books
The Psalms
Wisdom literature
The Second Book of Maccabees
The theological and religious meaning of Old Testament teaching on
creation
Chapter 3
Creation In The New Testament
General
The Synoptic Gospels

Acts of the Apostles

St Paul
Epistle to the Hebrews
St John
Conclusion
Chapter 4
The History Of The Christian Dogma Of Creation (I)
The notion of creation in Greek thought
Philo of Alexandria
The Apostolic Fathers and the Christian Apologists
Fourth- and fifth-century theology
The writings of Dionysius
The beginning of the Middle Ages
Scholasticism. St Thomas Aquinas
A mystical interpretation of creation
The Nominalists
Martin Luther
Chapter 5
The History Of The Christian Dogma Of Creation (II)
The beginnings of modern thought
European rationalism
Creation and subjective conscience
The impact of idealism
Renewal of creation theology in Catholic circles in the 19th century
Modern Protestant theology
Development of Catholic theology on creation in the 20th century
Chapter 6
Creation In The Creeds And The Magisterium Of The
Church
The faith of the early Church and the liturgy
The creeds
The First Council of Nicaea

The Councils of Constantinople

The Fourth Lateran Council
The Council of Cologne
The First Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council
Postconciliar Magisterium
Chapter 7
The Notion Of Creation
The act of creating
The created status of the world and of man
Creation and evolution
Creation, the work of all the Trinity
Creation and redemption
Chapter 8
The Divine Act Of Creation. Its Properties And
Consequences
Creation, a free act of God
The world was made by God out of nothing (ex nihilo)
The world was created within time
Chapter 9
The Purpose Of Creation
Created things exist for the glory of God
The glory of God and man's happiness
Chapter 10
Science And The Doctrine Of Creation
Theology and science
Dialogue between science and faith
Theology and science on the subject of creation
Two extreme hypotheses: absolute evolutionism and scientific
creationism
The origin of the universe

The anthropic principle

part two: creation as the start of salvation history
Chapter 11
The Angels
Invisible created beings
Angels in the Old Testament
Angels in the New Testament
Christian tradition
Angels in the liturgy
The teaching of the Church concerning angels
Functions of the angels
Veneration of angels
Chapter 12
The Creation Of Man And Woman
The two biblical accounts
The Priestly account
Made in the image of God
Man and woman
The Yahwist account
The creation of woman
Mankind is something special
Man and woman: equality and differences
The human being as God's image
Chapter 13
The Origin And Nature Of Man. His Openness To Grace
Theological anthropology
Modern anthropological ideas
The origin of man
The somatic and spiritual nature of man
The human soul
The origin of the soul

Essential features of the human being

The oneness of the human race
Man's elevation to the order of grace
Chapter 14
Original Sin
The fall of man
The Old Testament
The New Testament
St Augustine and the Pelagian controversy
The Councils of Carthage (418) and Orange (526)
Luther and the Council of Trent (1545-1563)
The Second Vatican Council and the Profession of
Faith of Paul VI (1968)
The effects of original sin
Chapter 15
The Problem Of Evil
Introduction
Physical evil and moral evil
The origin of evil
Evil and suffering in Holy Scripture
Jesus and suffering
The metaphysics of evil
The existence of God and the meaning of evil
An integrated view of the mystery of suffering and love
Chapter 16
Providence
God, a Creator who cares for his creation
The testimony of Holy Scripture
The philosophical notion of God's governance of the world
Providence and human life
Providence at work

Chapter 17
Man's Vocation In The Created World
Man, a being called by God
Vocation and man's task in the world
The theology of earthly realities
The autonomy of the temporal order
Work and its meaning in human life as cooperation in God's plans
Chapter 18
Man's Dominion Of Nature
Introduction
Factors causing an ecological crisis
Ecological awareness in the context of creation theology
Presumed and true causes of the crisis
Proposed solutions and remedies
Towards a theology of the earth

chapter 1
An Introduction to the Theology of Creation
creation in the general context of christian dogmatic
theology
Creation theology is a part of Christian dogmatic theology
that deals with the origin of the world and of man. This
theme, along with that of God, is basic to the Christian
notion of the value of created things and human life: 'I
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven
and earth.' The first article of the Creed expressly reminds
all believers that Christianitythe religion of redemption

par excellenceis also a religion of creation.

It therefore views the redemption of mankind by Christ in
the context of a comprehensive divine activity which gives
rise to every being and, over the course of time and
history, leads all beings providentially and solicitously to
their end, that is, to their ultimate perfection and destiny.
The creation of the world and man by God is a mystery of
faith. It is not just an empirical deduction which can neatly
fit the findings of scientific research into the origin of the
universe. 'By faith we understand that the world was
created by the word of God, so that what is seen was
made out of things which do not appear' (Heb 11:3).
The human mind, on its own, cannot take in the fact of
creation, or investigate adequately, unless it is helped to
do so by faith. That does not mean that reason is unable
to come to terms with the mystery of the ultimate origin of
the world or that it cannot in any way grasp what that
involves. It simply means that only men and women who
are believers are in a position to grasp unambiguously the
fact of creation in all its depth and with all that flows from
it.
When Holy Scripture speaks about the creation of the
world and man, and when the Church and Christians
acknowledge it in the Creed, they are not simply slating a
cosmological truth: they are making a confession of faith.
In that confession we say that there is only one God, the
sovereign cause of the world, whose impulse is love.
Divine Power and Love lie at the very basis of creation. To
create means to make a good thingto cause a good
thing to exist. To acknowledge creation is a way of
praising God.
Creation also establishes the right relationship between
God and everything that comes from his loving and all
powerful hands. A person who confesses this Christian
truth is thereby declaring that the world is not something
final or ultimate, and that its meaning is not apparent to

itself and not self-explanatory.

The question of the absolute origin of all things is essential
to and very characteristic of Holy Scripture, which, in
addition to posing the question, also provides its answer. 'In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (Gen
1:1). Biblical teachings, which express and convey God's
supernatural revelation to mankind via the Jewish people,
are very different in this regard from Greek thought. In the
course of its reflection, classical pagan philosophy never
directly asked itself the question of where the world came
from and what its reason for being is. That question was
alien, not to say unintelligible, to the Greek mind.
The Greeks held firmly to the idea of an eternal cosmos,
permanent and immutable both in its essential structure and
in its make-up. This imperishable cosmos simply exists, and
its existence is perceived as an obvious, necessary fact. So,
the cosmos is a sheer fact: the human mind and the human
imagination can reach no further. The movement which can
be seen in the cosmos is just a continuous, circular process
of birth and corruption. But the cosmos itself, taken as a
whole, was something immutable. According to this view of
things, the cosmos is therefore a necessary and immortal
being with cyclical periods, and if anyone were to ask where
it originated, the question would make no sense.
Biblical theology is quite different; it starts with an account
of the creation of the world by God. By so doing, the Bible
insists that the world is contingent, that is, it could have not
existed, for its existence is not part of God's being.
These considerations help us better understand the key
relevance of the mystery of creation in the general structure
of Christian teaching. The mystery of redemption, located at
the centre of the Gospel proclamation, absolutely implies
creation. Therefore, creation is a mere antechamber or a
neutral prologue to the history of salvation, a kind of
backdrop against which the drama of redemption unfolds.
Creation is part of the historia salutis.

'You should turn away from these vain things to a living God
who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that
is in them' (Acts 14:15). Creation is the foundation of St
Paul's catechesis. He sees it as the first step to be taken in
proclaiming Jesus Christ. The proclamation of salvation in
Jesus presupposes faith in the creation of the world and
mankind by God.
The profound connexion between the mystery of creation
and the other mysteries of Christian revelation permits us
both to link them and to differentiate them within a simple
all-embracing dogmatic perspective. Each truth or article of
faith has its own place; it sheds light on the other truths and
helps us understand them correctly. When expounding the
mysteries in a systematic way, these principles need to be
borne in mind, so as never to lose sight of the unity of the
Creed, and also to respect the rightful place of each mystery.
modern dismissal of creation
Recent decades have seen theological treatments which
have not always managed to respect the specific character
of creation theology; sometimes it has been approached in a
way which systematically denies it a well defined place of its
own in the overall presentation of Christian dogma. Some
theologians consider that this subject should be integrated
with the theology of God as such and made part of
supernatural anthropology.
Although that view seems to be losing ground, there still is a
climate of theological opinion which undervalues the central
importance of the mystery of creation and therefore does
not give it due place in undergraduate studies. It is not easy
to identify what has given rise to this attitude. However, we
will try to list some possible reasons for it.
Creation studies have been adversely affected by the
indirect influence of originally Protestant theological views
which put all the stress on redemption, leaving creation on

the periphery. The religious thought which grew out of

Luther's new ideas in the 16th century puts creation and
redemption in dialectic opposition to one another, that is,
does not conceive them as integral parts of one single divine
plan of salvation (the motive for this being to stress the key
nature of the redemption by severely undervaluing
creation). As some Protestants see it, creation is not a really
important mystery in Christian revelation. At best it has a
specific value which is obscured by redemption. Creation and
man himself are so deeply in need of restoration on account
of sin that the natural world is irrelevant from a theological
point of view. This approach veers towards a dualism of
matter and spirit, of man as a pure phenomenon or as
purely spiritual, and it has held and does hold Christian
teaching on creation to ransom by draining it of its
substance and compromising its place in the general
structure of dogma.
What has been termed the theological eclipse of creation
derives also from the split between theology and secular
science that occurred in the West during the 17th century.
Although it is true that the main philosophers and early
representatives of modern critical thought were not without
some religious motivation (many of them were believers),
the fact is that they did have a mechanistic notion of the
world, in which divine causality plays an increasingly
decorative role.
The net effect of this is to drive a wedge ever more deeply
between the world and God. The world is conceived as
complete unto itself. In works by thinkers who still retain a
vestige of Christian faith God's influence on the universe
becomes superfluous, or is treated as something that is
devoid of definite meaning. Religion and belief are corralled
inside the sphere of consciousness; and the material world
(creation as a something made by God) is left to physics and
technology. Gradually the basic determinant of things ceases
to be the fact that they are created: they are simply a part

of nature. For modern science the world is no longer

something created: it is just Nature.
This process has, at the very least, obscured people's view
of the true relationship between God and the world, and at
times it has tried to make nature an absolute, supplanting
God altogether. The short- and long-term effects of this
tendency on a theology of creation cannot but be negative.
Asserting the world and man as being of divine creation has,
thirdly, encountered serious obstacles in a cultural world
which, from the Enlightenment onwards, is particularly keen
on the idea that man is radically autonomous. A notion of
human autonomy limited just to the moral level (Kant) took
a more blatant form in the so-called Second Enlightenment
(Feurbach, Nietzsche), to the point where God the Creator
came to be perceived as a rival of man; in this intellectual
and religious environment, any teaching which argues that
man and the world are dependent on God is inevitably
regarded as a threat to the absolute freedom postulated for
the human will. At its deepest level sin means that man
denies his creaturely condition, because he will not accept
the limits such a condition implies. Man does not want to be
a creature, he does not want to be dependent, for he
interprets his dependence on the creative love of God as
something imposed from outside.
If this is the frame of reference, there is no room for
speaking about creation, about a mysterious reality of divine
and earthly dimensions; and although the extreme stances
referred to may not have obtained general acceptance,
there is no doubt but that countless men and women today
are consciously or unconsciously influenced by that
reductionist view of things. One consequence of this is that
the idea of the Father Creator has become quite blurred;
people refuse to accept a God whom man must go down on
his knees to address: they prefer to speak only in terms of
'friendship' with the man Jesus.
Finally, mention must be made of another reason why

creation studies have suffered a blow even in the sphere of

Catholic theologythe rather low standard of biblical and
even theological scholarship in some 20th-century
textbooks. Though most texts are of a fairly high standard
and manage to convey the doctrinal essentials, they often
are not well-grounded in Scripture.
Of course, it is easy to understand why they have this
defect, given the period in which they are written. But there
is no denying that the lack of a broad biblical base does limit
the theological quality of these works. Moreover, they tend
to concentrate so much on philosophical analysis of concepts
that they sometimes look more like studies on theodicy than
on creation. Creation as a mystery of faith is relegated to a
secondary level, and however well these works manage to
convey the various concepts involved in creation dogma,
that does not compensate for defective methodology.
updating creation studies
However, we can say that the so-called 'eclipse' of creation
has begun to be a thing of the past, although not a very
distant past. Conscious of the importance of this central
mystery of Christianity, the Church's theology is now
striving to highlight the importance of creation for religion;
and all the indications are that this will have very positive
results.
This renewal of creation studies has been greatly helped by
the development of scholarly exegesis in recent decades.
Sound exegesis has produced a biblical theology of creation
which opens the way to an ever more detailed and coherent
doctrinal treatment of the subject.
Contemporary theological probing of the mystery of the one
and triune God has set the stage for a doctrinal
development of the subject of creation which is rooted in the
Trinity and points the way to an eschatological
consummation of all created things. Reflection on the place

of man in the universe where he dwells, and the fact that he

is the centre of creation, make it possible to harmonize
theological and anthropological aspects of a subject which,
while seeing God as the basic reference point, must also
closely examine that creature made in his image and
likeness.
Current interest in the theology of the earth and in
ecological questions generally does not at all take from the
Christian article of faith on creation, but gives it great
theological vitality and cultural relevance.
The relationship between science and theology has an
important place in creation studies. The creation of the
world and of man has become an important subject that
draws benefit from the positive, relaxed climate that
currently obtains in the dialogue between science and
religion.
Now that the confrontation and misunderstandings that
were a feature of the past have been largely overcome, as
also the anti-religious prejudices of an ideology-driven
approach to science, contacts between theologians and
scientists have become steadily more productive. Using a
single framework of meaning, these contacts shed light on
such questions as the origin of the universe, the first signs
of life, the uniqueness of man, and the meaning and
purpose of the world. 'It is not only a matter of studying,'
John Paul II said, 'when and how the material cosmos came
into being and man appeared on the scene; it is also a
matter of discovering what such an origin entails, whether it
is ruled by chaos or blind fate or, instead, a transcendent,
intelligent and good being, called God.'
creation as a horizon for christian theology and life
The various factors we have listed indicate the growing
importance of the mystery of creation and have done an
enormous amount to rescue it from the relative obscurity

which certain sectors of theology allocated to it. Creation

deserves to be energetically proclaimed in the catechesis,
preaching and theological activity of the Church.
Contemporary man needs to hear this message. Though it
may occasionally meet resistance from an absolutist mind
and will, it is, when all is said and done, a liberating
message, because it shows a person the meaning of his or
her existence and how to go about protecting it.
The Christian for his part should foster his devotion to God,
the Father of Jesus Christ, who created heaven and earth.
Creation plays a key role in biblical spirituality and in the
piety of the early Christians, but it has not done so to the
same degree in all periods of the Church's history. The
authors of the Psalms did not confine themselves to
asserting with deep religious enthusiasm that 'the heavens
are telling the glory of God' (Ps 19:2). The idea and the
reality of creation give a strong thrust to their poetry,
elevating it and helping them to grow in love for God. It
would, in fact, be very difficult to understand biblical piety if
one were to ignore the devotion to God the Creator that
imbues it.
The notion of creation and a tender feeling towards the
Creator are also features of the earliest expressions of
Christian devotion.
In moments of calm as in times of tribulation, the Christians
of Jerusalem invoked and thanked the Creator for his
providence and the loving care he showed them. 'Sovereign
Lord, who didst make the heaven and the earth, and the sea
and everything in them. . .' (Acts 4:24). Clearly we
Christians of today need to recover this theological and
spiritual focus which is so important for a better
understanding of the Creed that we profess; we need it, too,
to be able to lead joyful lives in the presence of the Father
Creator of heaven and earth.
'Christian revelation really shows itself to have an
extraordinary richness regarding the mystery of creation,

which is a great and very moving sign of God's tenderness

towards man.... If only our reflection would lead us to
discover that, in the act of the foundation of the world and
of man, God has sown the first universal testimony to his
powerful love, the first prophecy of the history of our
salvation.'
creation in historical theology
The present structure of this area of theology as we know it
today dates from the 19th century. Of course, the basic
elements of that structure can be identified in the works of
the first Christian theologians, but the systematic form
which came to be crystallized in the textbooks of the 19th
and 20th centuries did not begin to take shape until the
Scholasticism of the 12th and 13th centuries.
Teaching on creation held an important place in the
medieval collections of Sentences, which were a direct
descendant of Patristic writings. These Sentences were
really compilations of theses, and expository treatments of
questions, made up of texts of the Fathers of the Church
and ecclesiastical writers, and collections of canons,
arranged in a systematic way.
The most important work of this kind was the Book of
Sentences which Peter Lombard (1100-60) compiled in the
second half of the 12th century. This compilation, which was
to be the basic theology textbook of the Middle Ages,
consists of four parts, dealing respectively with God,
creatures, Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. It was a kind of
outline of what became the Summas of the 13th and 14th
centuries, and a remote predecessor of the later theology
handbooks or textbooks. In his second book Peter Lombard
gave a short account of the notion of creation, which also
covered questions to do with angels, the origin of the world,
and original sin. With the exception of the Bible, the
Sentences has been the most commented-upon book in the

history of Christian theology. The earlier of these

commentaries paved the way for the Summas of theology, a
new genre which was begun by the Franciscan Alexander of
Hales at the start of the 13th century.
The Summa of St Thomas Aquinas, a mature work, treats
creation themes in a systematic way according to exact
criteria. Here the notional approach is predominant, but the
author does not ignore certain implication of what we would
term today 'salvation history'.
The material to do with creation is scattered over the first
two parts of the Summa. The first part deals with creation in
general (q. 44-9), angels (q. 50-64; 106-9), divine
government of the visible world (q. 65-70), and man (q. 7589). The state of original justice in which Adam and Eve
were made is dealt with in questions 94-102. The
commission of original sin is examined in the second part,
apropos of the sin of pride (q. 163-5).
Post-Tridentine theology developed the teaching on original
justice and the consequences of Adam's sin for his
descendants. In this way the structure gradually took shape
that we find in modern textbooks on the subject. The theses
which made up the theological subject of creation went
beyond creation proper and included material which will
later be called 'theological anthropology'. These latter
themes came to occupy a place of great importance, making
the doctrine on creation a theological discipline centred on
the human being, God's image and the master of the
created world.
In his De Deo Creatore (1842) the Italian Jesuit Giovanni
Perrone (1794- 1846) combined almost all the material of
the modern De Deo Creante et Elevante: I, De Angelis, II,
De Mundo, III, De Homine. Part III covers the creation of
man, original justice, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the
transmission of original sin and its effects for the future life
of man.
It is generally accepted that another Jesuit, Domenico

Palmieri (1829-1909), was the first to publish a theological

work entitled De Deo Creante et Elevante (1879), whose
content was reflected in textbooks up to the 1960s.
A cursory examination of those textbooks suggests that they
consisted of a juxtaposition of two subjectsDe Deo Creante
and De Deo Elevanteeach of which was fairly closed and
separated. The content of De Deo Creante is rather like a
largely philosophical introduction to De Deo Elevante: both
are works in theodicy, whose confirmation is then sought in
revelation.
Creation is depicted as a premiss to elevation; and, when
matters connected with science are dealt with, the tone
tends to be apologetical and the method one of
accommodation.
Mention must be made of the important work of
systematization which the German theologian M.J. Scheeben
(d.1888) published in 1877. This work on creation is one of
the fullest treatments on the matter to appear in the
decades around the turn of the century. Scheffczyk has
described Scheeben's work as transforming the rigid
Scholastic system into a 'living organism' in such a way that
'on the basis of the two chapters devoted to the general and
particular doctrine on creation a third and higher chapter is
constructed dealing with doctrine on the supernatural order,
in such a way that creation is shown to be the foundation of
grace, and grace as it were the perfection of creation. There
is no doubt that this arrangement was already to be found in
some Scholastic texts, but they had not got as far as to see
it as expressive of the organic unity governing the natural
and supernatural universal order.'
Scheeben's book had a very considerable influence on that
published by Michael Schmaus in 1954, which keeps to the
structure of the textbooks in use at that time but adopts a
more flexible style of exposition and includes many apposite
testimonies drawn from Patristic and theological tradition.
F. Diekamps and J.F. Sagues are two prominent examples of

the textbook development that took place in the early 20th

century. The latter, although it suffers from the Scriptural
limitations of the time, is useful for its wealth of useful data
and its conceptual and stylistic rigour.
M. Flick and Z. Alszeghy wrote a substantial textbook which
sought (successfully, to a degree) to open a new era. By
adopting a truly theological focus, they gave the subject
matter a greater internal cohesion; this helped to underline
the logical connexion between its different parts. To do this
they brought in a perspective on salvation history, which
drew its inspiration from a style most in tune with the
proclamation of the Christian faith and with the orderly
exposition of the saving mysteries in the creeds of the Faith.
I should also mention the work entitled Mysterium Salutis,
which gives a succinct exposition of the Church's teaching on
creation, by way of an introduction to a theological
anthropology (dealing with the fall of man and grace),
clearly subordinating creation to grace. Here creation
theology becomes simply a function of supernatural
anthropology.
Quite recently Juan L. Ruiz de la Pea opted for a different
approach, which gives creation teaching the importance it
has in its own right in the corpus of dogmatic theology. His
textbook deals only with matters to do with the creation of
the world by God, and themes that are seen as closely
linked to the concept of creation (experience of evil, the
ecological crisis, and relations between faith and science).
He devotes a separate volume to the creation of man and
woman and basic questions of theological anthropology.
L. Ladaria's manual, on the other hand, has a tripartite
structure which studies, in turn, the creation of the world
and of man, original sin and the fall of Adam and Eve, and
the doctrine of grace. The inclusion of all this material in one
single manual means that the space available for discussing
creation as such is limited.

the teaching on creation and its connexion with other

christian mysteries
All strictly dogmatic-theology works, that is, those covering
the triune God, Creation, Grace, Eschatology, Redemption,
the Church and Mariology, are connected with Jesus Christ,
who is the light and the centre of salvation. Revelation is not
the unveiling of an idea: it is based on and takes place
through deeds; Creation, Revelation, Incarnation,
Redemption, Church, are all Christian mysteries, and flashes
and expressions of the one great mystery of God.
Everything in salvation history points to Jesus Christ, and
therefore theology has a Christocentric structure. The
Second Vatican Council reminds us of this when it calls for 'a
more effective co-ordination of philosophy and theology so
that they supplement one another in revealing to the minds
of students with ever-increasing clarity the mystery of
Christ, which affects the whole course of human history and
exercises an increasing influence on the Church.'
This Christocentrism, however, does not make Christ a
centre that absorbs every dogmatic element. The vis
attractiva of Christ in the dynamic of Christian dogmas does
not weaken or render irrelevant or merely secondary those
articles of the Faith which are not directly Christological. On
the contrary, it gives them their full meaning and scope in
the overall divine economy of sanctification and salvation.
The pride of place which Christological statements have does
not deprive the Church of salvific relevance; the unique
mediation of Christ does not render irrelevant the special
intercessory role of Mary and her maternal role in
redemption; nor does the redemption wrought by Christ
eliminate the theological significance of creation as a
Christian mystery of the first rank.
The creation of the world and of man by God is the first
stage in the historia salutis, which develops from the
missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit. God brings into play

all his attributes in the mystery of creation, which is not only

a free effect of his omnipotence but also and above all an
exuberant expression of his Love.
Thus, creation is precursorial. It is the making of a world
inhabited by human beings who have a duty to perfect it; or,
to put it another way, it is the calling into being of a man
and a woman to whom the earth is entrusted as both a
dwelling place and as a task to be eschatologically
consummated in the final Resurrection, within a new heaven
and new earth.
In his Providence, God the Creator himself guides everything
to its ultimate perfection. He is, in Jesus Christ, the Lord of
the beginning and the end. The redemption wrought by
Christ restores a creation impaired by man's sin and flows
into the mystery of the Church, as a new creation.
The perfectibility and contingency of the visible world in
which he lives confers a mission on man which is an aspect
of vocation positively willed by the Creator. The theology of
creation has important consequences for Christian
anthropology, because it gives us, in the first place, an
accurate view of the human being, made in the image and
likeness of God. It also provides us with the outline of a
spirituality which starts from the goodness of the created
world and which contains a mandate to take earthly matters
seriously: despite sin they have not lost their value.
The great Christian ideas are therefore reflected in the
mystery of creation; if that mystery were neglected, history
would be devalued and the divine economy of salvation
would become esoteric knowledge.
outline of this textbook
As to content and structure, the textbooks on creation
currently in use adopt one or other of a number of options.
Some confine themselves to the doctrine on creation proper,
without dealing with man (this is usually left until grace is

studied). Other textbooks treat creation rather briefly by

way of introduction prior to dealing with man after original
sin.
In the present textbook I have tried to synthesize the two
approaches. I have tried to retain the improved methodology
linking cosmological and anthropological aspects. The
doctrine on creation is set squarely in the context of the
historia salutis, which must of necessity include man and
woman created by God, and in this sense it is not treated as
a separate truth. The fact that it has its own value from a
theological point of view does not, however, justify regarding
it as an autonomous section of dogmatic theology.
It seems to make sense to adopt a simple theological
perspective that takes in both the creation of the world and
the subject of man (who makes sense only if set into the
framework of creation). The human being is studied here
only briefly, because mankind as such really belongs to
theological anthropology. Naturally, the book covers matters
which are essential to an understanding of the mystery of
creation as proposed to us today by the Churchthe
relationship between creation and science; the study of
man's vocation in the created world; and theological
reflections apropos of matters which are part of the general
subject of 'ecology'.
chapter 2
Creation in the Old Testament
Belief in the creation of the world by God is clearly
expressed at all key stages in biblical tradition. We find it in
the book of Genesis, in the first prophetic writers, in the
prophets of the Babylonian Exile (sixth century bc), the
Psalms, the Wisdom literature and the second book of
Maccabees, an historical book written just before the time
when the New Testament writings began: almost all the
literary genres of the Old Testament assert the notion of

creation, each in its own way.

The first chapters of Genesis contain the basic texts on the
biblical view of the origin of the world and of man (1:12:4a; 2:4b-25). But its teaching on the subject of creation is
not confined to the opening chapters: it comes up again in
Genesis 5:1-2, where creation is linked to genealogies, and
in Genesis 5:1-7, where it forms the backdrop to the
account of the Flood.
The Prophets, Psalms and Wisdom books develop (in
different ways, and with different emphases) the basic ideas
found in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Even though a great range of
ideas and reflections is to be found in this gamut of texts,
the biblical teaching on creation does form a coherent whole.
The Prophets of the Exile (cf. Is 40ff; Jer 32:17; 33:25-26;
etc.) highlight the salvific aspects of the mystery of
creation; they draw attention to the fact that God's plan is
all of one piece; and they set creation in the framework of
the history of salvation.
The Psalms speak of creation and proclaim its mysterious
nature in tones of religious enthusiasm and praise of God
the Creator (cf. 8; 19:2ff; 33:104; 136:5ff; 148). These
hymns of the people of Israel are imbued with a faith-laden
awe at the order and beauty of the world. Joy over creation
and religious reverence towards the Creator lie at the base
of everything that is said in the Psalms (with acts of faith
more to the fore than factual statements).
The coronation Psalms (104; 136; 148) establish, also, a
link between creation and worship.
In Wisdom literature salvation history viewpoints give way
to an emphasis on the rational and intellectual aspects of
creation. Here, creation is depicted more as a particularly
fine work of God which speaks of its Creator and where
beauty and order are eminent (cf. Prov 3:19-20; 8:22-31;
Job 28-39; Sir 1:1-9; Wis 1:14; 6:7; 9:1-2; 9:9; 11:17, 2126; 12:13; 19:6-9; 19:22).

THE CREATION ACCOUNT IN GENESIS 1:1 - 2:4a

We must now examine in some detail the main creation
texts, starting with the solemn account of the creation of the
world in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. This text, which is part of the
Priestly tradition (P) tells us that:
1:
1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God was
moving over the face of the waters.
2

And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good; and God
separated the light from the darkness.
5
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one
day.
6
And God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of
the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.'
7
And God made the firmament and separated the
waters which were under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament. And it was so.
8
And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was
evening and there was morning, a second day.
9
And God said, 'Let the waters under the heavens be
gathered together into one place, and let the dry land
appear'. And it was so.
10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that
were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it
was good.
11 And God said, 'Let the earth put forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is
4

their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.' And
it was so.
12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding
seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in
which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw
that it was good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third
day.
14 And God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of
the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let
them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens
to give light upon the earth.' And it was so.
16
And God made the two great lights, the greater light to
rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made
the stars also.
17
And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to
give light upon the earth,
18
to rule over the day and over the night, and to
separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it
was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a
fourth day.
19

And God said, 'Let the waters bring forth swarms of

living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the
firmament of the heavens.'
21
So God created the great sea monsters and every
living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm,
according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to
its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22
And God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply
and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the
earth.'
20

23

And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth

day.
And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures
according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and
beasts of the earth according to their kinds.' And it was so.
25
And God made the beasts of the earth according to
their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and
everything that creeps upon the ground according to its
kind. And God saw that it was good.
26
Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after
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 earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth.'
27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them.
28
And 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.'
29
And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant
yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every
tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of
the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has the breath of life, I have given every
green plant for food.' And it was so.
31
And God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there
was morning, a sixth day.
24

2:
1

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all

the host of them.

And so on the seventh day God finished his work
which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from
all his work which he had done.
3
So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it,
because on it God rested from all his work which he had
done in creation.
4
These are the generations of the heavens and the
earth when they were created.
2

features
This majestic hymn which marks the opening of Holy
Scripture is a compactly written text, every word of which
has been carefully chosen by the sacred writer to suit his
purpose. Although it can be seen as a veritable hymn to
creation, it is primarily a narrative written with a didactic
intention and packed with teaching material. The style in
these stately verses does of course invite the reader to
adore God: they inspire religious awe; however, the main
accent is not on praise or thanksgiving but on theological
reflection.
The text is all of a piece and contains no breaks. There is no
trace of its deriving from earlier documents: it is clearly the
work of one sacred writer only. Its main features are
terseness, theological focus and deliberative use of fairly
abstract terminology. There are good grounds for thinking
that Genesis 1:1- 2:4a comes from a priestly group or
school, and was very likely composed in the sixth century BC
during the Jewish people's exile in Babylon. However, the
loots of these teachings can be traced to the earliest
traditions of Israel, which themselves derive from divine
revelation.
The sacred writer wants to proclaim and make clearly known
the fact that the universe'the heavens and the earth'is

entirely of God's making. He is not trying to convey or teach

any sort of pre-scientific knowledge of the world or of man.
The literary basis of his statements is clearly what we might
call a view of the world in line with ideas (scholarly, and
popular too) of his time.
According to those ideas, the earth is a vast area built on
columns and standing on the waters of a sea that lies
beneath it and on which it floats. The firmament, or roof of
the earth, is imagined to be a huge glass-like surface on
which stars are positioned. Above this firmament are the
upper waters, which would pour down on the earth if God
chose to open the hatches or the bolts in the roof.
As well as having this simple concept of the world, the writer
has also used other terms or images drawn from non-biblical
world views. Words such as chaos (tohu), confusion (bohu),
darkness (hoshej), abyss or primal ocean (tehom) are
reminiscent to a greater or lesser degree of descriptions
found in the religious writings of Mesopotamia (especially
the Babylonian poem Enuma Elish), Egypt (for example, the
hymn to the god Aton by Pharaoh Amenophis I) and Canaan
(Ras Ahamra texts).
But these literary devices are of secondary importance: the
biblical account has nothing of myth or legend about it; its
main purpose is to depict the world as coming from a free
and powerful action of a personal and caring God. These
borrowings I have mentioned no longer retain their original
meaning; they are used in the text to help convey revealed
teaching.
Therefore, it would not be good exegesis to interpret these
terms (cf. v. 2) by going first to the mythological figures and
descriptions of Israel's neighbours. In the biblical text they
retain none of their original meaning, and have no
alternative purpose, and should be seen as very much part
of the whole. 'The picture of the world is drawn by the
inspired writer's pen as having the features of contemporary
cosmic pictures; into these he insertswith absolute

originalitythe truth concerning the creation of all things

through the action of the one and only God.'
The cultural and profane concepts used in the second verse
are, really, accepted cosmic views and part of the basic
scholarly equipment of the priest in Israel. But Genesis did
not simply borrow a neutral image of the world from the
Ancient East and then dress it in biblical teaching. The
narrative is marked through and through by the profound
monotheism which imbues biblical revelation. This can be
seen in the fact that (unlike other cosmic accounts, which
are really theologies) God is depicted as transcendent and in
no way a material part of the origin or of the development of
the world. God creates through his Word and is always
absolutely distinct from the created world. Creation through
the Word is differentiated from other ways of understanding
how things came into being; it is an original idea, typical of
this chapter of Genesis.
Moreover, creation is brought about without any kind of
resistance: there is no scope here for the sort of struggle as
occurs, for example, in the battle between Marduk and
Tiamat in the Enuma Elish. There is no fight between God
and any enemies of his, or between two primordial and
personified cosmic principles. The chaos has no being of its
own, nor is it an adversary of Yahweh. There is no tension,
no dramatic element.
The sacred writer avoids giving any description of the act of
creation as such. He simply outlines the sequence of events.
At every step he stresses the mysterious nature of God's
creative action.
structure and division
The text describes creation as the establishment of an order
whereby the world comes into being and the primal chaos
disappears. The Word of God calls the world and man into
being: God acts directly, step by step, bringing order out of

chaos. Even the structure of the creation account shows the

sacred writer's interest in the idea of order, creation is set
into a seven-day framework. Each work of creation (except
for the creation of man: v. 26) is recounted according to the
same plan: a) each act begins with a divine word ('God
said'); b) there follows a confirmation formula ('And so it
was'); c) the writer then describes the work done and gives
a formula of approval ('And God saw that it was good').
There is a rhythmic and gradual ascent in the text,
culminating with the creation of man and woman.
God's work of creation takes place in two phases. The first
consists of three days in which God makes an ordered whole
by means of a series of separations: this is why traditional
exegesis calls this phase the opus distinctionis. God begins
by creating light to counter the darkness, which can be
conquered and controlled only through the creation of an
opposing force (vv. 3-5).
To bring about the next two separations, God begins by
making a solid structure capable of containing part of the
waters. He then makes a vault which he uses to separate
the upper waters from the lower ones (vv. 6-8). This is a
separation which is done vertically and is immediately
followed by a further separationthe third and lastwhich
is done horizontally. God then gathers the waters to form
seas and thereby separate them from the land (vv. 9-10).
This initial phase of creation ends with the appearance of
vegetation (vv. 11-15). The chaos has at last become a
cosmos, an organized structure whose regular, predictable
functioning God guarantees forever. Each element has been
given its specific place in the whole; each has its own clear
identity.
The second phase of creation is of a different sort. Having
finished his work of separation, God now proceeds to his
work of adornment (opus ornatus). The verb to separate,
which was the key verb in the first phase, is no longer used
and is replaced by new terms or by terms rarely used up to

this, such as the verbs to make and to create (bara).

God now goes on to create the heavenly bodiesthe sun
and the moon whose function is to give light to the earth
(vv. 14-19). The appearance of these two lights is in fact an
introduction to an even more important action, the making
of living beings. God peoples the sea and the air by creating
fish and birds (vv. 20-23), and then he populates the earth
with the various species of animal (vv. 24-25). The creation
of man and woman will mark the climax of the whole
creative process.
It is worth stressing the importance the sacred writer gives
to time in his account. The work of creation is divided up
over seven days. Each creative stage concludes with the
formula 'And there was evening, and there was morning,
one day... a second clay. . .' etc. Three days are devoted to
producing the elements which make it possible to measure
the course of time in the world. Time begins on the very first
day, with the creation of light. By inserting the events of
creation into a series of seven days, what the writer is doing
is distancing himself quite definitely from any sort of mythic
thought (which involves an atemporal and cyclic notion of
reality). Creation is an event which happened once and for
all. Genesis 1:1 marks the start of God's planned
development of a history which via the calling of Abraham
will continue in the covenant of Sinai and the conquest of
the promised land. That is to say, the account of the
creation of the world is deliberately connected to the history
of Israel.
COMMENTARY
1:1 The phrase 'In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth' sets the tone of the scheme and should be
taken as a general heading for the whole chapter. It is an
opening summary of everything that follows. In other words,
the narrative which follows spells out, so to speak, what is

contained in this key opening statement.

The text brings in the verb bara (= to create) from the very
start. This verb has two special features: a) its subject is
always God: never human beings or lesser deities; b) it is
not used with any preposition or accusative referring to any
material which the action of creation avails itself of: creation
is an absolute beginning of everything.
The expression 'the heavens and the earth' is a practical and
descriptive Hebrew way of referring to everything that exists
in the universe. The early books of the Bible do not contain
the notion of cosmos; that comes later.
1:2 Creation proper is preceded by the primal waters. The
sacred writer wants to retain in his account certain ancient
images to do with the origin of the universe which have
chaos, the void, waters existing prior to the things we now
see. These negative images form the background onto which
is drawn the biblical concept of creation out of nothing.
1:3-5 Creation is brought about by means of the divine
Word ('God said. . .'). This is how the writer expresses the
creative activity of God: he does not use other kinds of
description such as, for example, creation through sexual
generation or as a result of divine victory in combat. Nor
does he use here the image of forming or shaping.
The Word is irresistibly effective: what is spoken is done. For
God, to speak is to create. Creation by means of the word
establishes very clearly the fact that the Creator is personal
and freewhich makes him radically different from the world
he creates. Foreign to biblical thinking is any form of
pantheism (which has God and the world as one) or
emanentism (where the world flows out of the divine Being).
This verse includes the creation of light, the most obvious
element. 'Depicting light as a mere "creature" of God', G.
Auzou writes, 'meant not only subjecting it to the God of
monotheistic faith; it had the effect of desacralizing at one

stroke, with one word, the object at the centre of the most
important forms of worship celebrated in the more famous
temples of the ancient world. . . . For the sacred writer
everything is a "creature", a work of God. Everything in the
world is set on one side, and God alone is on the other.
Nothing exists but this world and God.'
The creation of light first also shows that the sacred writer
gives precedence to time over space in the ordering of his
account. The created world may be understood first as an
event and only secondarily as something material. The
separation of light from darkness opens the way to
succession of days.
It is significant that in the fourth verse only the light, not
the darkness, is described as being good. For the Priestly
author darkness is a negation.
1:6-10. The firmament is created to contain the upper
waters. God will in due course permit the hatches or
'windows' in this heavenly vault to be opened, to produce
the Flood (cf. Gen 7:11). The lower waters are separated
from the earth, giving rise to the continents. This brings to
an end the three separations or divisions: light/darkness;
upper/lower waters; land/sea.
1:11-13. The creation of living beings begins with the
production of vegetation, as a homogenous group of beings.
Flora comes from the earth, which the text shows to be a
source of life. Creation and generation are not mutually
exclusive. Generation is subordinate to creation.
1:14-19. The creation of animals should now follow, but the
sacred writer first brings in the creation of heavenly bodies,
specifically the sun and moon. This way he shows that all
heavenly bodies are creatures of God, that is, entities which
have basically the same creaturely condition as plants and

animals.
The heavenly bodies are, therefore, drastically
demythologized: this takes issue with the principles and
practices of astrology, which was very widespread in ancient
times. The author even avoids using the Hebrew names of
the sun and the moonshamash and yareahwhich were
divine names in the cultures neighbouring on Israel. Our
account gives them roles of shedding light and separating
day from nightclearly defined roles, which go no further
than to be authors of time.
What is being said here, then, is that 'the world is not, as
people in many places at that time thought, a chaos full of
opposing forces, nor the domain of demonic powers against
which man must defend himself. The sun and the moon are
not mysterious, inimical divinities: everything derives from
only one power, that of the eternal mind of God.' 1:20-5
Along with fish and birds we have the creation of 'the great
sea monsters', which in some Middle Eastern mythologies
were regarded as enemies of the gods. Here they are God's
creatures, and they share in the goodness of all creation.
1:26-7. The narrative reaches its climax with the creation of
man. The importance and singularity of this last step in the
creative work of God is indicated by the use of the solemn,
deliberative plural in v. 26: 'Let us make man.' Man and
woman are created in the image and likeness of the Creator.
In the same way as an image reflects its model, man
reflects God in all creation and is called expressly to manage
and govern it. The Egyptians, for example, regarded the
pharaoh as the godhead's image and representative on
earth. But, according to biblical thinking, it is not just the
king but every man and woman who is the image of God.
The text stresses this kind of theological definition of the
human beingthe image of Godapplying it to the whole
person and making him/her a very special, unique, link in
the chain of created beings.

1:28-31. The power man has to generate and transmit life

is a blessing conferred by God. Sexuality is natural to the
human being but there is something extraordinary and
mysterious about it.
Although there is a hiatus, a difference of levels, between
man and the animals which the text purposely emphasizes,
it is also significant that the animals and man were created
by God on the same day. The hagiographer wants perhaps
to indicate thereby that human beings share in spite of
everything the solidarity of creaturehood with the rest of the
living world. Its most direct consequence is that man has a
responsibility within creation, and the dominion he exercises
over it is not meant to be sheer exploitation: his role is to
protect and respect it.
Both man and animals are given plants for food. In the
original plan it was not envisaged that animals would be
used by man for food. This is a way of alluding to the fact
that peace reigned in the world: there was a harmony which
would later be broken as a consequence of sin. The
excellence of the completed creation is evidenced by the
statement in v. 31: 'everything . . . was very good'.
2:1-4. The start of chapter 2 is the closing part of the
Priestly document; it might be given the general title of the
sabbath of creation. These verses relate to the final stages
of God's work of creation and they also show that a
permanent relationship has been established between the
world and the Creator. God's rest on the seventh day
indicates, as it were, his attitude of protection and care for
all created things. Here the sacred author does not seem to
be referring to the sabbath as a religious institution. What
he is saying is that God from the very beginning put in place
all the things which he planned to make available to men,
both over the course of time and in eternity. This last day of
creation has no limit put on it, as can be seen from the fact
that it does not carry the concluding formula which appears

at the end of the previous days 'and there was evening and
there was morning'.
2:4a The term generations, which can also be translated as
origins (toledst), reappears later in Genesis to introduce the
lineages of Noah (6:9), Isaac (25:19) and Jacob (37:2).
Here it shows that creation is seen as an event in time and
history: without any trace of myth which could be derived
from the use of the continuous present tense.
GENESIS 2:5-25
The second account of creation, centred mainly on the origin
of the human being, is from a literary point of view older
than the first; its language is more vivid and concrete, and it
has a markedly anthropomorphic way of speaking about
God. After a brief reference to the creation of the world (v.
4b), which is taken as already described in the previous
account, the sacred writer moves on to recount the creation
of the first man (v. 7) and then the preparation of the
garden in Eden (vv. 8-17) and the creation of woman (vv.
18-25).
The account centres on the creation of Adam, which it
describes in the following way: 'Then Yahweh God formed
man from the clay of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.'
Here man does not come from the Word but this world of
ours: the hands of God shape him from the earth itself. This
account, as it were, rounds off the previous one. If the
Priestly document speaks of man as the 'image of God',
thereby suggesting a theological definition, the second
narrative prefers to refer to the human being as bodily and
visible. The writer wants to convey that the human race
received directly from God both its existence and its form,
and make it clear that the parts of the human body all
belong to this world of ours.

The general teaching running through the whole account is

that man and woman are the masterpieces of all that is
created. Adam is not only made: he is called by God to a
living relationship with God. In making man free, God has
not just created one more being like the rest, but a creature
capable of dialogue and love. He has created a person.
CREATION IN THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS
The writer prophets play a major part in making belief in the
mystery of creation ever more explicit, by using rich and
ornate expressions. The prophets of the exile deserve
special mentionparticularly Jeremiah (32:17-18; 33:25-6)
and Deutero-Isaiah (Is 40ff), who depict Yahweh, the God of
Israel, as both Creator and Saviour. The almighty Creator of
the world is also the compassionate author of the covenant
with the chosen people, and through them, with all
mankind. The teaching on the creation and its consequences
now takes on a clearly universal quality.
'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and
marked off the heavens with a span. . . ? It is he . . . who
stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them
like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to naught, and
makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. . . . Lift up your
eyes on high and see: who created these? He brings out
their host by number, calling them all by name' (Is 40:12,
22-23, God's sovereignty over the world conveys an
unconditional monotheism and is the natural framework for
the prophet's soteriological ideas and his teachings on the
choice and vocation of the people.
'Thus says God Yahweh, who created the heavens and
stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and what
comes from it. . . . I, Yahweh, have called you in
righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the
nations' (Is 42:5-6). Further on we read: 'Now thus says

Yahweh, O Jacob, he who created you, O Israel. "Fear not,

for I have redeemed you; I have called by name, you are
mine. . . ." Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, who formed
you from the womb: "I am Yahweh, who made all things,
who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the
earth, all on my own" (Is 43:1; 44:24).
Here is one of the clearest scriptural versions of a salvific
interpretation of creation. The works of creation and
redemption which are proclaimed seem not just to be
connected to each other but very closely linked in the
context of a single divine plan. 'The actions of God from the
foundation of the world onwards are linked here in a chain
of salvific events. Not only is creation recognized as the
initial event of salvation, but the history of Israel is
described as an ongoing creative action of God.'
The book of Isaiah also depicts creation as an eschatological
event, which extends from the making of the world, to its
continuation in the present, and going on to its ultimate
fulfilment. The prophet thus uses the idea of creation to
place the origin, the present and the fate of the world within
a global picture (cf. Is 27:1ff).
THE PSALMS
All the psalms which contain the idea of creation are hymns
or canticles imbued with praise of and devotion to the
Creator, and express awe and jubilation at the order and
beauty of the world. They all begin with an invitation to
praise God, and go on to list the reasons why this praise
should be offered, that is, the mighty and wonderful actions
of God in nature and historythe work of creation and the
work of salvation, respectively.
Psalm 8 is a graphic description of creation as the greatest
work of God. This psalm is one of the most artistic and
poetic passages in the entire Old Testament. 'O Yahweh, our
Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth' (v. 20). The

psalmist, from the start, expresses his joy at creation, which

is an inimitable reflection of the majesty of God, and he
repeats this conviction in the same words to close the psalm.
'When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars that thou has established; what is man
that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou
dost care for him?' (vv. 3-4). The psalmist contemplates the
greatness of all creation and focuses especially on the
dignity of man, who as God's representative directs
creation: 'Yet thou hast made him little less than God. . . .
Thou has given him dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet' (vv. 5-6). But this
reflection on man only serves to reinforce the evidence of
God's majesty. Even though any praise human lips can offer
falls far short of what is due, the sacred writer feels he must
raise his heart to God and extol the splendours of creation
and the way a loving, caring Creator continues unfailingly to
look after the world and man in particular.
Psalm 104 seems to be liturgical in origin and reference. It is
very much in tune with Genesis 1:1-2:4a and an excellent
instance of the unity that runs through biblical thinking. The
psalm really consists of an organized series of variations on
the Priestly account of creation, beginning with a jubilant
acclamation: 'Bless Yahweh, O my soul!/ O Yahweh my God,
thou art very great!/ Thou art clothed with honour and
majesty,/ who coverest thyself with light as with a
garment,/ who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent,/
who hast laid the beams of thy chambers on the waters,/
who makest the clouds thy chariot,/ and ridest on the wings
of the wind,/ who makest the winds thy messengers,/ fire
and flame thy ministers./ Thou didst set the earth on its
foundations,/ so that it should never be shaken' (Ps 104:15).
The psalmist describes the acts of creation in the same order
as Genesis 1. Light (v. 2; Gen 1:3-4), the heavens (v. 3;
Gen 1:6-8), earth and seas (vv. 7-9; Gen 1:9-10), plants

(vv. 13-18; Gen 1:11-12), the heavenly bodies (v. 19; Gen
1:14-18)all are produced in the same order in both texts.
The connexion can also be seen in the fact that the psalm
takes many terms from Genesis, including tehom (the
primordial deep: v. 6), adam (v. 23), gedelot (sea
monsters: v. 25), bara (v. 30); etc. And the key ideas of the
Priestly text reappear in the canticle, especially God's
absolute sovereignty over the world, the notion of an
original ocean which was then structured by creation, an
optimistic positive view of God's creative work, the stress on
the fact that Providence cares for all living things, the
reference to a primitive state where animals used only
vegetation as food, a non-astrological notion of sun and
moon, etc.
Psalm 136 is, like the two mentioned above, very
representative of the biblical theology of creation. This
hymn associates the creation of the world and the liberation
of Israel, which was the predominant theme of DeuteroIsaiah (see above, pp 21-22). After referring to creation
(vv. 4-9), the psalmist praises the mighty deeds whereby
Yahweh set the chosen people free from slavery in Egypt
(vv. 10-24): 'O give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, for
his steadfast love endures for ever; to him who alone does
great wonders. . . ; to him who by understanding made the
heavens . . . ; to him who made the great lights. . .; to him
who smote the first-born of Egypt. . . ; to him who divided
the Red Sea in two...; to him who led his people through the
wilderness . . .; and slew famous kings . . . ; and gave their
land ... as a heritage to Israel his servant. ... It is he who
remembered us in our low estate . . . and rescued us from
our foes, for his steadfast love endures for ever.' God has
made the universe and led Israel for the very same reason:
his steadfast love endures for ever. The psalm moves
without interruption from the creation of 'the moon and
stars to rule over the night' (v. 9) to the fact that God
'smote the first-born of Egypt' (v. 10).

Creation provides the motive to recall the key events in the

history of the Jewish people: the escape from Egypt,
destruction of its enemies, the passage of the Red Sea, the
pilgrimage in the wilderness and entry into the promised
land. For the psalmist, extolling the history of Israel and
celebrating the origins of the world are one and the same
thing.
Psalms 19, 33 and 148 also contain a strong echo of the
creation. In Psalm 148, a psalm of enthronement, we find
creation being celebrated in the liturgy: 'Alleluia, praise
Yahweh from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise
him, for his angels, praise him all his host. Praise him, sun
and moon!' This is a hymn observant Jews recite every day.
wisdom literature
The Wisdom books belong to the final stages in biblical
tradition. They contain aspects of a conceptually very
developed doctrine on creation, to be found especially in
Proverbs (3:19-20; 8:22-31), Ecclesiasticus (1:1-9), Job (3839), and Wisdom (1:14; 6:7; 9:1-2,9; 11:17, 21-26; 14:3;
19:6-9, 22). Sapiential theology is basically a theology of
creation, and the God of Israel praised in these books is
above all a Creator God.
In these passages the historico-salvific significance of
creation takes second place: the emphasis, instead, is put
on the rationality of the magnificently structured work of
God. Creation is depicted not so much in connexion with its
salvific aspects as in its proper meaning of objective truth,
considered in its own right. In these inspired books the
believing mind seems to be seeking, rather, a more rational
understanding of the mystery of creation, to uncover the
consequences of the unity and visibility of a universe which
reflects the majesty and will of God.
'Stop and consider the wondrous works of God' (Job 37:14;
cf. Ps 104:24). These words are very indicative of the

approach adopted by the sacred writer and of the attitude of

objective contemplation he wants to elicit from his readers.
Normally biblical tradition refers to the world by using words
like 'the heavens and the earth' (Gen 1:1) or simply 'all
things' (Ps 8:6), but now it incorporates into its thinking the
Greek notion of cosmos, a term which occurs 19 times in the
book of Wisdom.
What we have here is the conceptual objectivization of the
notion of 'world created by God', which is now seen as a
harmonious or stable whole placed out before us. Cosmos is
the created world perceived as a clear rational entity with
ordered movement: cosmos is creation insofar as it can be
known by the human mind. In the Wisdom books there is a
precise correlation between cosmos and rational knowledge.
Each of these notions is correlative. The believing mind
discovers God behind the order of the universe.
Here divine Wisdom is personified and taken as a creative coprinciple. This marks an important advance in biblical
teaching on creation. 'Yahweh created me at the beginning
of his work, the first of his acts of old', Wisdom tells us.
'Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of
the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water. Before
the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was
brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the
heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of
the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he
established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to
the sea its limit, so that the water might not transgress his
command, when he marked out the foundations of the
earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I
was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing
in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of
men' (Prov 8:22-31).
Wisdom is 'a breath of the power of God, and a pure

emanation of the glory of the Almighty. . . . She is a

reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of
God, and an image of his goodness. Though she is but one,
she can do all things; and while remaining in herself, she
renews all things' (Wis 7:25- 27). The revelation of this
divine principle which comes forth from the 'mouth of the
most High' (Sir 24:3) has decisive importance for the
theological and religious understanding of the relationships
between God and the world. From the statements contained
in these Wisdom books we know that God created the world
through his Wisdom and that this divine Wisdom is not a
mere intermediary of creation. Sapiential teaching points
very clearly towards the fullness of revelation which we shall
encounter in the New Testament.
These perspectives on creation are developed in the Wisdom
texts by a very explicit teaching on God's care or
providence, which protects and leads everything that he has
created towards its perfection. This teaching is not
absolutely original to this period of biblical tradition. The fact
that God loves his creation and takes care of it is referred to
frequently in the Pentateuch and the historical and
prophetical books. Isaiah says: 'Can a woman forget her
suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the
son of her womb? Even these may forget but I will not
forget you' (Is 49:15).
Throughout the Bible, God is the sovereign ruler of the
natural world (cf. Gen 8:22; Ps 19:7) and the only Lord of
history (Deut 32:39; 2 Kings 19:15; Is 5:12). But in the
sapiential books the notion of providence is finely honed.
The term pronoia (Wis 14:3; 17:2) is adopted by the sacred
writer to summarize the well-known idea that God does not
look on his creation with indifference or from a distance.
In this same context of statements about the provident
action of God, the biblical author poses the problem of evil
and sketches an explanation of it. The solution biblical
thinking offers to this very human problem, Scheffczyk

writes, is not so much one which goes along the subtle path
of rational analysis as a more explicit call to a trusting
abandonment to God the Creator. The biblical author does
not attempt to explain the mystery of evil conclusively,
much less rationalize it. But he does provide the parameter
necessary to give an angle on the meaning of evil and help a
believer come to terms with it. He tries to put across the
point that, when faced with evil and suffering, man can draw
more strength from his faith in God than from knowledge
that comes from reflection and study.
Physical evil is seen as a divine sanction and punishment
due to sin. 'Do not follow your inclination and strength,
walking according to the desires of your heart. Do not say,
"Who will have power over me?" for the Lord will surely
punish you. Do not say, "I have sinned, and what happened
to me?" for the Lord is slow to anger. Do not be so confident
of atonement that you add sin to sin. Do not say, "His mercy
is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins," for both
mercy and wrath are with him, and his anger rests on
sinners' (Sir 5:2- 6; cf. Ps 1:4ff).
Suffering is seen as a means of correction which a caring
God applies to man; God has an overview of the earthly life
of every single human being. 'In a dream, in a vision of the
night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while they slumber
on their beds, then he opens the ears of men, and terrifies
them with warnings, that he may turn man aside from his
deed, and cut off pride from man; he keeps back his soul
from the Pit, his life from perishing by the sword. Take heed,
do not turn to iniquity, for this you have chosen rather than
affliction' (Job 33:15-19, 36:21). Suffering is in part a
means of purification which God allows man to undergo in
order to produce greater good later.
It is not only physical evil that is difficult to harmonize with
goodness of created things and the positive quality God
desires for human life. The Bible is very careful to avoid any
trace of dualist thinking, any attribution of sin to a

substantive principle of evil. On the contrary, it asserts

divine causality unambiguously, even at the risk of meeting
difficulties when it comes to explaining moral evil in a way
acceptable to reason. The sacred writer offers the solution to
this dilemmadualism v. seeing moral evil as something
deriving from Godby stressing human freedom. This is an
important aspect of the account of man's original fall (Gen
3).
Man's capacity freely to choose good or evil is constant in
biblical teaching. 'Before a man are life and death, and
whichever he chooses will be given to him' (Sir 15:17).
Isaiah proclaims that man must learn 'to refuse the evil and
choose the good' (Is 7:15), and he places on God's lips the
following oracle: 'they did what was evil in my yes, and
chose that in which I did not delight' (Is 66:4).
THE SECOND BOOK OF MACCABEES
We should consider finally a text in Greek from the second
century BC which contains the last important Old Testament
testimony concerning creation. It deals with the plight of a
Jewish woman and her seven sons during the religious
persecution unleashed in Palestine by the king of Syria,
Antiochus Epiphanes, around the year 160 BC. This book of
the Maccabees makes clear eschatological statements about
the resurrection of the dead (7:9; 14:16), sanctions in the
afterlife (6:26), prayer for the dead (12:41ff), the merit
gained by martyrs (6:18ff) and the intercession of the saints
(15:12-16).
Set within the framework of a theology of martyrdom and
resurrection, v. 28 of chapter 7 contains the first explicit
biblical statement on creation out of nothing (or creatio ex
nihilo, according to the Vulgate and New Vulgate). The text
reads: 'I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and
the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize
that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus

also mankind comes into being.'

It is significant that the biblical writer chooses to include in
his teaching a broad range of truths, all rooted in the
creation or absolute beginning of all existing things, and
directed towards the consummation and ultimate destiny of
the world and of man. The unity between the mysteries to
do with the absolute beginning and end comes across very
clearly in this global view, where God is Consummator
because he is Creator, and vice versa. It is no accident that
creation and eschatology are positioned so close to each
other in these texts.
The verse quoted above echoes the faith of the chosen
people, expressing it in terms typical of Greek culture. Ex
nihilo is the Latin translation of the Greek 'ouk 'ex 'onton,
which literally means not from anything, thereby dispelling
the ambiguity of the text in Wisdom 11:17 which speaks of
creation 'out of formless matter'. Of course, that formless
matter is not the eternal matter of the Platonists, but the
chaotic mass of Genesis 1:2; however, that expression is
equivocal and calls for clarification, which is supplied by 2
Maccabees 7:28.
The teaching here has a precise ontological meaning, even
though the text is not trying to be merely speculative and is
dramatic in tone. The mystery of creation relates to the
believer's life, both in its day-to-day aspects and in its more
decisive, exceptional events. It encourages him to trust in
God and is a sign of God's faithfulness to the covenant.
the theological and religious meaning of old
testament teaching on creation
The biblical passages we have been considering can be
encapsulated as follows:
In expounding the doctrine of the creation of the world
and of man, the sacred writersespecially the Priestly text
seek to communicate and at the same time to conserve a
a)

mystery which is not entirely accessible to human reason

nor one that can be grasped by the imagination. The reader
is asked to accept the unfathomable nature of creation. The
Genesis account reveals and at the same time hides, while
always safeguarding the reasonableness and validity of its
teaching.
creation is not presented as a theoretical doctrine or
simply something that happened in the past. It is a truth
which is always present in our lives and in our being and
therefore at every point central to our existence in a world
of time. We are God's creatures, and he is our beginning
and our end.
b)

God's creative action brings into being a world which is

distinct from himself. The universe as we know it does not
include everything that exists. There is a sovereign God who
remains outside his creation. Creation in fact gives rise to
distinction between the divine Being and everything that is
not Being. God is of course in the world he created,
sustaining and ruling it, but he does not belong to the world.
c)

What Genesis proclaims about creation is aimed at

underlining the faith and hope of the chosen people in the
fact that it has been called by God and has God as its
saviour; and it seeks to ground this on a historical basis.
The Jews must be able to see that creation is the beginning
of the historia salutis, and that the God of the Patriarchs and
of the covenant is none other than the Creator of the world.
d)

The doctrine of creation implies that man no longer has to

face a world full of capricious, tyrannical divinities, who
dwell in a sacralized universe. It follows that nature has
been radically desacralized and deprived of its power to
disturb and terrorize men in an arbitrary way. The world has
come from the mind and will of a provident God and rests on
his word. Creation means victory over the anxiety which
e)

tyrannizes mankind. The doctrine of creation is demythifying

and liberating.
The Bible is a religious book and does not claim to teach
science or explain anything about the age or composition of
the universe, or the movement of heavenly bodies. It uses
simple, didactic language, in keeping with the experience
and imagery of the time in which it was written. Using
popular style and language it teaches profound truths which
transcend the form of words used by the sacred writer.
f)

chapter 3
Creation in the New Testament
general
The New Testament texts accept the teachings of the Old on
the subject of creation, but view and interpret them in a
Christological framework. In the New Testament, cosmology
is Christological, although the doctrine of creation loses none
of its own meaning and value.
Creation theology is thus reaffirmed and enriched with a
new, definitive, dimension where Jesus Christ is the horizon
and base. We are told that God revealed himself through
creation (Rom 1:20); that everything created is good (1 Tim
4:1-5). God created all things through his eternal Son (Col
1:15-20; Heb 1:2), who is his Word made flesh (Jn 1:1-4),
and whose death and resurrection made possible the
blossoming of a renewed creation. This new creation can
already be experienced by all who believe in Jesus (2 Cor
5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10), yet the final
consummation of the world according to the divine plans still
lies ahead (Rev 21-22).
The New Testament speaks of creation in many passages,
which are found particularly in the Synoptic Gospels, the
Epistles of St Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letter to the

Hebrews, and the Gospel of St John. In all these writings

creation finds its meaning, its liberation and its fulfilment in
the salvation brought by Christ, and Christ himself is
revealed in his protological role (as Word existing before the
world began) and in his eschatological role (as ultimate
recapitulation of all things) with respect to creation.
the synoptic gospels
Jesus' preaching concerning the Kingdom of God, which he
ushers in, is rooted in a biblical faith in God the Creator. This
faith is so clear in the Jewish religious climate that there is
no need for him to stress its importance. In all his teaching
he takes it as a datum, but this does not mean that he
forgets about it or relegates it to a secondary place. On the
contrary, there are many instances of his expressly drawing
on itshowing that, for him, creation is the most basic
teaching of all.
Apropos of the Pharisees' question about divorce and the
fact that Moses tolerated it, Jesus makes a key statement:
'"For your hardness of heart he [Moses] wrote you this
commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God
made them male and female." . . . So they are no longer
two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no
man put asunder' (Mk 10:5-9; cf. 13:19).
Here Jesus corrects what was laid down in the Law of Moses
in Deuteronomy 24:1,1 and to do so he makes creation the
beginning and end of the moral order. The order of creation,
which expresses the will of God, includes from the beginning
the indissolubility of marriage as a natural institution. The
New Law reactivates the original constitution of the universe
and shows itself to be connected with the pristine events of
the world.
The creation about which Jesus speaks is something that
exists in itself (because Old Testament faith still stands) yet
it is radically open to salvation. 'Come, O blessed of my

Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the

foundation of the world' (Mt 25:34). Salvation by God in
Jesus Christ happens within the framework of creation. It is
not something which just happened later, something
independent of creation. The advent and proclamation of the
Kingdom are a further manifestation of the Creator's love.
God's good creation is flooded with light and freed from all
the confining limitations that a legalistic concept of religion
might impose. There is a legitimate use to be made of the
world and men have a duty to do it. 'I thank thee, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth. . .' (Mt 11:25).
The joyful recognition of creation and the Creator by the Son
is linked also to a right use of all creatures according to
God's will. In the parables nature itself is used to announce
the Kingdom, and elements of nature will be the matter
used in the Sacraments. Jesus limits fasting (cf. Mt 6:16-18)
and declares all food clean (cf. Mk 7:19).
No one is barred from dining with Jesus, and the meals he
eats are images of the heavenly banquet. But they also
indicate the depth of his message regarding creation. 'John
came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a
demon"; the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they
say, "Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners"' (Mt 11:18-19). The Gospel does not
repudiate ordinary life and things natural: it encourages
people to take a simple, spontaneous joy in them, because
everything bears the beneficial mark of creation. The goods
of the earth should be gratefully accepted and enjoyed.
creation, wounded by sin, is cured and restored in sick
people and in those possessed by the devil. It is cared for
and loved by the One who made it. All things are carefully
watched over by the Creator. 'Do not be anxious about your
life. . . . Look at the birds of the air. . . . Consider the lilies
of the field. . .' (Mt 6:25ff). With unchanging generosity,
God endows all beings, especially man, with the goods of
creation (cf. Mt 5:43ff).

Jesus' freedom with regard to the sabbath derives from his

messianic authority, but it also speaks of a generous and
benevolent intention of the Creator: 'The sabbath was made
for man, not man for the sabbath' (Mk 2:27).
The miracles Jesus works are not only a sign that he has
ushered in the Kingdom of God and that Satan has been
vanquished; they also are a window opened on to the future
because they are an anticipation of the final status of
creation, that is, of 'the new heaven and the new earth',
when all the limitations and sufferings proper to the earthly
condition of man will disappear.
The Synoptic Gospels already contain all the elements which
will later be developed by Christian theology in controversy
with Gnostic dualism whose notion of a material world is the
product of a negative divine power. We find faith in a
Creator God whose love brings the world into being and who
is the Father in Jesus Christ of all mankind; the reality of
the historical Incarnation of the Word; the assertion that the
world is not peopled by cosmic forces that are able to
enslave men: a world which of itself does not bear the
weight of sin and culpability; and a respect for material and
earthly things which allows man to attain his ultimate goal
and live out his vocation. The New Testament theology of
the Kingdom implies a positive theology of creation, without
which many of the things Jesus said would make no sense
at all.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
The God of the Acts of the Apostles is the only God,
revealed to Israel as Creator. He appears in St Peter's
discourses (cf. Acts 2:22; 3:13; 4:10) and is even more
explicitly proclaimed in the preaching of St Paul, which often
contains very important references to the creation of the
world. 'We bring you good news, that you should turn from
these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and

the earth and the sea and all that is in them.'

In St Paul catechesis on creation is the first step in the
proclamation of Jesus Christ, so that the proclamation of
salvation in Christ presupposes belief in creation. This belief
of the early Christians is not simply acceptance of an article
of faith couched in more or less abstract terms. Acts
contains strong echoes of Jewish tradition which evidences a
profound devotion to God, the Creator of the universe and
guarantor of the safety and salvation of the chosen people.
The Christians we meet in this book are conscious of being
loved by their Creator; this we can see from the style and
language of their piety, in times of tribulation and of peace.
'They lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign
Lord, who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea
and everything that is in them, who by the mouth of our
father David, thy servant, didst say by the Holy Spirit, "Why
do the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things." '
God is full of love; he is close to men and provides for them
for the very reason that he is the Creator, who 'gives to all
men life and breath and everything'. The good things of
creation are the first indication of God's solicitude and they
reveal the Creator's role in the lives of men.
The fact of creation as here mentioned is more than a
cosmological truth: it reveals the lordship and transcendence
of God. 'The God who made the world and everything in it,
being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines
made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though
he needed anything . . ,' But this transcendence does not
prevent the believer from experiencing the nearness of God,
which is described in terms which are bold, yet gentle: 'Yet
he is not far from each of us, for "in him we live and move
and have our being".' But the Acts is not satisfied with
confessing faith in the one God, who has been revealed to
Israel as the Creator. It also stresses the need to believe in
the majesty of Jesus Christ as Lord of all things. That is to
say, every genuine relationship between men and their

Creator must bear a Christological imprint. Christ is equal to

the Father because he has equal creative power. His divine
condition as Lord begins with creation, unfolds in the
redemption and reaches its ultimate fulfilment in
eschatology, with the new heaven and the new earth.
The stress that apostolic preaching puts on the resurrection
of Jesus (cf. Acts 2:32; 3:15; 4:10; etc) reveals the ultimate
destiny of all created things; in Acts creation makes a
marked entrance into the history of salvation, being a call
and a communication from God to man in the risen Lord,
who invites all to share in his life and makes it possible for
them to do so.
'One cannot refer to the unique sovereignty of God as Maker
of all things without linking him also to the event of the
resurrection of Christ, for that event has radically changed
the history of the world.'
ST PAUL
The theology of creation is very prominent in the Epistles of
St Paul, where it is clearly linked to the pre-existence of
Christ and his role as mediator as well as to the Church and
the eschatological consummation of man and the world. We
shall examine a) the creative role of Christ; b) the assertion
that the Church is a new creation, and, c) the Pauline notion
of the new heaven and the new earth.
a) For St Paul, Christ is mediator, beginning, centre and end
of creation. Within a framework at all times theological and
one which evidences an unambiguous monotheistic outlook,
Paul speaks of the pre-existence of Christ, his creative
mediation and his missionin a wide sweep of a prototheology, creation and eschatology.
The first text of interest says:'. . . one God, the Father, from
whom (are) all things [ex hou ta panta] and for whom we
(exist), and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom (are) all

things [dia hou ta panta] and through whom we (exist).' The

Apostle is using a formula based on prepositions, which is
similar to the way Stoic philosophy is often couched, to
describe the creative action of the Father and the role of
Christ in creation. The preposition ex (from whom all)
indicates the origin of creation (the only God), while the
preposition did (through whom all) indicates the divine
mediator in the work of creation (Jesus Christ). Ta panta
(all) means the sum total of what God created.
'What characterizes this text is, firstly, that Christ appears
alongside the Father in the role of Creator. In the passage of
Romans 11:13, God (the Father) alone displays all the
functions of the Creator: the set of basic prepositions (ek,
dia, eis) refers to a sole exclusive acting subject (the
Father), a basic causality (ek), a mediating causality (dia)
and the end (eis) product of everything (ta panta). In the
text we are commenting on, the totality of created reality (ta
panta, as in Romans 11) is caused by both the Father and
the Son.
'However, the different prepositions ex and eis for the
Father; a double dia for the Son) suggest that the causality
of each is situated on different planes. The Father is the
beginning and the end; Christ is the mediator of creation,
just as he is the mediator of salvation.'
A second text comes from the Epistle to the Colossians. St
Paul says: 'He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the
first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created,
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or authoritiesall
things were created through him and for him. He is before
all things, and in him all things hold together.'
Here Christ is spoken of as the beginning and end of
creation. He is the first-born of all creation because he is
superior and antecedent to all created things. He is
moreover the exemplary cause of creation because he is an
archetype and uncreated model, and its final cause because

in Christ, Creator and Saviour, the created universe is united

in origin and destiny.
Jesus Christ is 'the first-born of all creation' because he is
the divine mediator of creation, with an originating causality
equal to that of the Father. The phrase does not, of course,
mean that Christ was created as the first creature; what it
does is accentuate the ontological and cosmological
superiority of the Word over all creation, including angels.
When the text says that 'In him all things were created' it is
speaking not simply of the creative instrumentality of Christ,
but of the fact that he is, as it were, the hidden vital
principle of all creation, or the foundation 'from which all
created things receive their being and their existence'.
'All things were created through him and for him': with these
words St Paul is referring to Christ as the goal of all
creation. This Pauline idea can be interpreted as meaning
that Jesus Christ is the eschatological Lord of all creation, or
that he is the hidden goal of creation, the final cause of
everything. In any case, these alternativesthe first static
and the second more dynamicimply a creation with Christ
as its end. There is an eternal design of God, referred to in
Ephesians 1:3ff, according to which everything was made by
Christ and everything will be for Christ.
b) The Church has a very prominent place in the Pauline
theology of creation. The Church of Jesus Christ is, in Paul,
not only a new religious society. It is a new creation. 'If any
one is Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away,
behold, the new has come.' St Paul goes beyond the idea of
the Church as a new covenant.
Running right through the Pauline corpus is a correlation
between eschatology and proto-theology, and between
salvation and creation. Both correlations refer to the
continuity that obtains between the Old and the New
Testaments. The idea that God will make the last things as
he did the first is used in the New Testament, especially in

St Paul, as a key for the interpretation of Genesis.

The contrast between Adam and Christ (cf. Rom 5:14-19; 1
Cor 15:24) is usually linked in St Paul to the idea of a
restoration of creation (cf. Rom 8:19ff; Col 1:15ff), which
had been in some way cursed. But the new creation involves
not only a restoration but a transformation of the first
creation (cf. 1 Cor 15:35ff). That is to say, the End is the
definitive achievement of what God desired from the
beginning: that he himself should be the first and the last
(cf. Rev 1:8; 21:6).
A profound awareness of sin and the need for salvation leads
St Paul to put a lot of stress on renewal in the new creation.
But his theology of creation is not at odds with his theology
of the cross (as is the case, for example, in Gnostic
thinking). The fact that the Church is eschatological, its
perfection lying in the future, does of course make for a
contrast and a tension between ecclesia and world, but
Pauline thought also has a positive attitude towards
everything God has created.
There are many passages in St Paul which suggest an
analogy between the creation of the world and Christ's work
in the Church and through the Church. Sometimes the two
mysteries are interlinked (cf. 1 Cor 8:6), sometimes the
parallelism is depicted in great detail (cf. Col 1: 15-20), and
sometimes the new man is referred to in language that
makes clear allusions to Genesis (cf. 1 Cor 15:44-49).
The need to 'stay in whatever state each was called', that is,
circumcised or uncircumcised, free or slave, etc. describes
to the oneness of Jews and Gentiles, which is of the essence
of Pauline thinking as a sign of the new creation and the
renewal of man. The fact that these groups are made one in
the Church is a kind of restoration of the original unity of
mankind and creation.
Not only are personal relationships between human beings
restored in Christ but also each human being is enabled to
establish a proper relationship with the material universe.

The hymn in Colossians 1 quoted above, which speaks of

Christ as 'the first-born of all creation' and says that 'all
things were created through him and for him', expresses an
indirect opposition to an exaggerated asceticism advocated
by false teachers.
Further on we read: 'See to it that no one makes a prey of
you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human
tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe,
and not according to Christ. If with Christ you died to the
elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you
still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to
regulations, "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch."'
Christians have been liberated from the 'elemental spirits' of
the world and are, therefore, free to use with gratitude and
spiritual discretion everything God has created.
The non-worldly attitude which Christians ought to adopt is
to be combined with an enjoyment of the world which
ignores undue legalistic restrictions. Non- worldliness will
never lead to ascetical dualism or to a purely interior sort of
devoutness. Nor should Christians' positive attitude to the
world be allowed to turn into an attempt to obtain temporal
power for religious reasons, or into a naive cultural
optimism.
c) St Paul also refers to the eschatological destiny of
creation not only in and through Christ but also in a very
direct way, in a text which is difficult to interpret and yet
which contains clear teaching: 'The creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the sons of God,' we read in
Romans 8:19-23; 'for the creation was subjected to futility,
not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in
hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its
bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the
children of God. We know that the whole creation has been
groaning in travail together until now; and not only the
creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the

Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the

redemption of our bodies.'
This Pauline text uses very realistic language and we would
not be justified in interpreting it in a purely spiritual way;
moreover, such an interpretation would not be consistent
with other passages in the New Testament, which speak of a
salvation or final glorification of the material universe.
The more correct exegesis seems to be that put forward by
S. Lyonnet, which identifies three basic ideas in these words
of St Paul:
(i) the destiny of the material universe is closely linked to the
destiny of the human being; man dragged the world into his
sin and he will cause it to share in his liberation; that is why
creation is said to desire eagerly 'the revealing [or
manifestation] of the sons of God', who are men made new
by grace.
(ii) the redemption of the universe is intrinsically linked to
the 'redemption of our bodies', that is, a direct and
simultaneous consequence of the resurrection of the flesh,
so Parousia, Resurrection, Judgment and New Heaven and
new earth have to be seen as concomitant eschatologically.
(iii) this redemption of the universe relates to the entire
universe and not just to a saved humanity.
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
The Epistle to the Hebrews also speaks, at its very outset,
about creation in Christ and it links the pre-existent Word
with the origin of all things. 'In these last days, he [God]
has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of
all things, through whom also he created the world. He
reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his
nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When
he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much
superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more

excellent than theirs.'

It is very likely that some of these statements, which have
the solemn tone typical of a profession of faith, come from
ancient hymns used in the liturgy.
The text transfers to Christ, who is the Wisdom of God made
flesh and manifested in the world, expressions which come
from Wisdom writing and are used there to refer to divine
Wisdom.
The appointment of Christ as heir of all things is related to
his being raised to heaven to reign alongside God the
Father. Because he pre-exists, it is also his role to act as
mediator in creation 'through whom also he created the
world'. The verb poiein is a translation of the Hebrew verb
bara, while world includes both space and time.
The text also says Jesus Christ 'upholds the universe [all] by
his word of power'. The words 'upholds all' seems to derive
from late Jewish religious literature, in which we find such
wording as 'You uphold what is above and what is below',
'God upholds the world' and 'The strength of his arm
upholds the world'. Hebrews is referring to the preservation
of the universe to prevent its falling back into nothingness.
It is in fact the Son who prevents this collapse 'by his word
of power'. The force that creates is also the force that
upholds or preserves. What we have here is a permanent
activity whereby the Son keeps the world in existence by his
ever active and effective Word.
st john
The theology of creation contained in St John originates in
the very prologue of the Fourth Gospel, which comprises the
first eighteen verses of the first chapter. The celebrated
text, which is very much like the text of a hymn, begins in
this way: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning
with God; all things were made through him, and without

him was not anything made that was made. In him was life,
and the life was the light of men.[. . .] The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace
and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only
Son from the Father.'
This prologue is a kind of abbreviated account of the life of
Christ, in the form of a description of the Logos, or eternal
Word, in his relationship with the world and man. The rest of
the Gospel is a narrative about the Logos in the form of a
description of Jesus' life. The assertion that 'the Word
became flesh' (v. 14) links the prologue to the Gospel
proper.
The opening words of the first verse'In the beginning was
the Word' naturally evoke the first words of Genesis: 'In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' This
is no accident. St John wants to evoke the Genesis account
of the creation of the world so that he can confirm and
develop it. The first verse of each text acts as a preface
designed to help the reader understand the work which
follows.
In this 'overture' John presents the ideas that are basic to
his Gospel, setting them in a theological frame of reference
to Genesis 1. If Genesis speaks of the creation of heaven
and earth, John expresses the same idea with the terms all
and cosmos.
Genesis starts with the creation of light, and John mentions
light and life as features of the entire creative work of the
Word. Genesis 1:2 refers to a primeval chaos covered with
darkness, so that the creation of light looks like a divine
victory over that original darkness. The prologue to the
Fourth Gospel deals with the opposition between light and
darkness: 'The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome [or, accepted] it.'
The traces or echoes of Genesis in this Gospel are therefore
obvious, but there are also important differences because

Genesis 1:1 is talking about the first moment of creation

whereas St John is referring first to the eternity of the divine
Word and then to the Incarnation; so it is easy to see 'the
unity between the divine word of Genesis 1, through which
God creates at the beginning, and the incarnate Word,
through whom God's activity and revelation reach their
fullness'.
The basic sources of the notion of the creating Word in St
John should be sought, therefore, in Jewish thinking on the
creative role of the divine Word, and also (as is true of the
Letter to the Hebrews) in the Wisdom literature of the Old
Testament where we find the Wisdom of God personified
and having a creative role (cf. Prov 8:22-31).
As well as these teachings which have such importance for
creation theology and for the Christian view of the world,
the prologue to the Fourth Gospel contains another central
message, which is found in vv. 12 and 13: 'To all who
received him [the Word], who believed in his name, he gave
power to become children of God; who [the eternal and later
incarnate Word] was born, not of blood nor of the will of
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.'
It is easy to see in these words the theme of the new birth
or regeneration which Jesus develops in his conversation
with Nicodemus (cf. 3:3-10). The word of Jesus has power
to bring about a new creation, that is, to cause man to be
reborn to a life which is not simply a natural life, a life free
from darkness, sin and death. Jesus has the power to give
eternal life (cf. 3:15; 5:21; etc.).
The theme of new creation is a basic one with St John and in
the witness the Fourth Gospel bears to Jesus Christ. If John
attributes to Jesus at the start of the prologue power as
Creator in the original creation, this profession of faith is
designed to promote belief in the message of regeneration.
If the Saviour has the power to produce new things, it is
because he has been from the very beginning the author of
life. Creation, incarnation and redemption form in St John an

orderly sequence and an historical continuity.

Renewal as a theological concept is often found in the
Fourth Gospel. The wine of grace takes the place of the
ritual water used for Mosaic purifications (cf. 2:1-11), a new
temple is foretold (cf. 2:13-22), the possibility of a new
birth is proclaimed (cf. 3:1-21), and there is the prophecy of
worship in spirit and in truth coming to replace the ancient
liturgy established by the Law (cf. 4:24), etc. John's Gospel
is, as it were, a proclamation of the advent of a new world.
The new creation contrasts, from a soteriological and
anthropological viewpoint, with the first creation, and this
fact explains why John makes such frequent use of
opposition and contrast. Light and darkness, heaven and
earth, spirit and flesh, truth and falsehood are contrary
categories which express, not a cosmological dualism, but a
background of spiritual duality which afflicts the sinful world.
The dualism reflected, for example, in the words 'the light
shines in the darkness" is not an ultimate reality, because
everything has come into being through the Logos and
nothing exists that is not caused by the Logos.
Gnostic thought sees God as a totality of goodness, and the
world as a totality of evil. Although John is pessimistic in a
relative sense, he has nothing to do with the Gnostic
approach. The fact that 'the whole world is in the power of
the evil one' has no cosmological repercussions. The
material world has come from the hands of God and
therefore it is ontologically good.
To come to know and love, God one needs to avoid the
world (in the anthropological and moral sense) insofar as it
is contaminated by sin and declares itself to be and is in fact
an enemy of Christ and his disciples.
CONCLUSION
The New Testament regards the truth of creation as a
fundamental article of Christian faith. 'By faith we

understand that the world was created by the word of God,

so that what is seen was made out of things which do not
appear.' So, the texts suggest that, although reason can
play a part in explaining and developing this teaching, it is in
the last analysis a mystery of faith.
The full meaning of God's creative activity and its objective
effect can be understood only in Jesus Christ, not only
because he is the beginning and end of creation, but also
because only his Resurrection can reveal to us the true
destiny of man and of the created world.
In the Christian view of the cosmos, the world is primarily
seen as a theatre of morality in which a created and
redeemed man has to discover and live his divine calling.
The New Testament does not establish any kind of
opposition between creation theology and the theology of
the Cross, just as it does not set creation off against
redemption. It links a religion of the Spirit with a religion
with social effects and a religion that does not forget nature.
The Christianity reflected in the New Testament writings
does not invite us to renounce creation on account of sin
and the relative emptiness that sin causes in the world.
Creation is to be taken seriously, and the believer should
thank God for not placing him in an evil world or subjecting
him to a cruel or arbitrary master.
chapter 4
The History of the Christian Dogma of Creation (I)
the notion of creation in greek thought
Christian doctrine on creation took shape gradually, through
the development of biblical teachings and in opposition to
Greek ideas of a divine cosmos, eternal and imperishable.
The Judaeo-Christian concept of a contingent world created
out of nothing by the one and only God was radically
different from Greek ideas and cosmological myths; but, in

order to give a precise conceptual form to revealed doctrine,

pagan philosophy was pressed into service (after a careful,
gradual process of refinement).
'It has been held that the early Greeks' account of the
world's origin describes the world as being generated from
something rather that created by someone."
These writers use the language of generation rather than
that of creation. The gods are usually depicted as being
physically or bodily involved with actually producing the
cosmos. The first philosophers draw on the ideas found in
this mythical world, but they develop them and conceive of
the first principles of the world as being eternal.
Plato (428-348 bc) is the first to speak expressly about an
intelligence or divine maker who shapes and rules the world,
and gives it good purpose. This demiurge constructs the
world by taking formless matter and shaping it, by using
ideas as models, while encountering a resistance in the
irrationality which had always been part of that matter.
Aristotle (384-322 bc) seems to have had no notion of the
creation or production of the universe from pre-existing
material. Aristotle's universe is dependent on the godhead,
who is its final cause, that is to say, everything is directed
consciously or unconsciously to conform to a divine
perfection. The god of this philosophy is pure, unmoving
thought which thinks only of self and is unconcerned about
the universe.
The Stoics speak of a god who makes himself out of his own
substance and who skilfully directs the entire cosmos but
who is just immanent material energy which penetrates the
rational world and is scarcely distinguishable from that world.
Common to all these conceptions is the notion that the
universe is a divine totality which includes everything that
exists and in which there is no relationship of transcendence.
One could say that Greek philosophy never managed to
develop a theory of creation in the proper sense and that,
given its presuppositions, it never could have done so. The

Eleatic principle that 'from nothing nothing comes' was

always the springboard of all metaphysical thinking in the
ancient world; this meant that it rejected the idea of the
generation of the cosmos, or else interpreted it as a mere
change from one form of being to another.
PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA
The doctrine of creation began to be elaborated during the
Patristic period, working from the Old and New Testament
texts with the help of philosophical thinking. But this
combination of intellect and faith involving the impact of
philosophy on revealed teaching was preceded by the work
of a Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, who in fact
anticipated the method and aims of Christian theology.
Philo, a Platonist, set himself the task of expounding Mosaic
religious thought by using scientific and philosophical ideas
of the Greeks which he considered relevant and which were
in vogue in the intellectual world of his time. He devoted
much of his life to writing philosophical commentaries on the
Pentateuch, of which thirty-nine tracts survive.
Some commentators argue that the source of Philo's
teachings is the Platonic theory of ideas. Others put a better
case for the centre of his system being the doctrine of
creatio ex nihilo.
An analysis of the book called De opificio mundi helps to
show that Philo based his approaches on the Timaeus
dialogue, while at the same time correcting and replacing
statements by Plato which he considered inadequate in the
light of the creationist outlook of the Bible. Whereas the
Platonic Demiurge does not at any level create, the God of
Philo is projected as Creator in the strong sense of the term
(ex nihilo) and unequivocally so.
Philo's God, moreover, does not use any intermediary
whatsoever (whereas Plato's does). The living God described
by the Jewish writer does not need to produce a world soul

in order to shape and rule the world, nor does he resort to

created gods to produce mortal beings: he proceeds directly
to create all things.
Philo uses the schema of three principles (Demiurge, ideas,
shapeless matter), which are to be found in Plato's Timaeus;
but he changes it substantially, and brings it into line with
the teachings of Genesis. The Platonic Demiurge,
transformed into the almighty God of the Bible, creates the
other two principles, which he then uses to create the world.
These two principles (ideas and matter) cease in fact to be
so, and change from originating principles to originated
principles.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND THE CHRISTIAN
APOLOGISTS
The Apostolic Fathers make clear reference to the creation of
the world by God according to the new Christian model or
paradigm. The Didache is the first text outside the New
Testament which speaks of the 'creation of men' (16,5), and
the Shepherd of Hermas makes the following statement:
'You should believe first of all that there is only one God,
who created and ordered the universe and caused
everything to pass from non-being to being (ek ton ontos eis
to einai ta panta).'
St Justin Martyr (100-65) is the first Christian writer to
propose a formulation of the doctrine of creation as an
alternative to the writings of Basilides, a Gnostic who spoke
of the world as created out of evil matter. A Platonist
philosopher prior to his conversion to Christianity, Justin was
profoundly influenced by Platonist terminology.
The most important passages from his writings are the
following: 'God, being good, created at the beginning all
things out of matter without form, out of love for men'.
'From the Word who spoke through the prophets Plato took
what was said about God creating the world by shaping

formless matter. To be convinced of this, listen to what

Moses literally said. . . : "In the beginning God made the
heavens and the earth".' 'If the world is created, then a
fortiori so are souls, and there must be a point when they
did not exist.'
In speaking of formless matter, the language is ambiguous:
hence the view that Justin does not teach the Christian
doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. However, the texts are fairly
obscure, so one needs to be cautious when interpreting
them. If Justin is read in the context his basic assumptions
and Church membership demand, it cannot be right to say
he denies the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. In spite of what
Apology I,10,2 literally says, it cannot be argued that he is
speaking of matter being co-eternal with God. The apologist
insists that only God is agennetos (unbegotten). Matter too
is his creation, even if it may perhaps have pre-existed for a
time before an ordered creation of the world.
It should be noted that the book of Wisdom also speaks of
God using 'formless matter' to create the world (11:17), and
it is clear that the expression is employed by the sacred
writer to formulate a thought different from that of Timaeus.
The sacred writer is not referring to the eternity of matter,
but to God's shaping the world out of primeval chaos.
To interpret the passages in Justin on this subject, one
needs to make a distinction between Christian faith
regarding Creation and the theologically refined statement of
this article of faith. Justin of course was an orthodox believer
but did not always manage to find exactly the right
terminology to express his belief.
The apologist Aristides [second century ad] says that the
elements of nature are not gods but 'corruptible and
changeable realities, drawn out of nothingness (ek tou me
ontos) at the command of the true God', and that only
Christians have discovered the truth, for they know the
Creator God and the Demiurge of the universe in his Only-

begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit, and they adore no

other God outside of him.
Theophilus of Antioch [second century] writes: 'God made
everything through his Word and his Wisdom. In fact,
through his Word the heavens were made and through his
Wisdom all their power. His Wisdom is most mighty. God,
through his Wisdom, set the earth on its foundations and
through his intelligence he shaped the heavens.'
Christian doctrine on the creation of the world by God was
given particularly strong and clear formulation when Gnostic
theories had to be confronted. Writers like Basilides,
Valentinian and Marcion put forward systems of thought
which, for all their differences, share the radical dualist
assertion of a creator God who brought the material world
into being in opposition to a redeemer God.
The biblical canon came to be formed partly in reaction to
the Gnostic separation of the order of creation from the
order of redemption; it deliberately proclaims that the Old
Testament, with its account of the creation of the world and
of man, constitutes with the New Testament one single rule
of Christian faith. In other words, the two Testamentsthe
revelation of creation and the revelation of redemption
must be interpreted in their intrinsic unity, which focuses on
the two centres of the Christian message.
The phenomenon of Christian Gnosticism very probably
derives from a theology of the cross expressed as radically
opposed to a theology of creation. 'The death of Christ',
writes Simone Petrement, 'was the greatest proof that
could exist that the world's judgment is not a true
judgment. . . . The death of Socrates proved it to Plato.
For there is undoubtedly a connexion between the
condemnation of Socrates and Platonic contempt for social
values and sense perceptions. The death of Christ could
with even more reason give rise to such contempt.'
Gnosticism was largely a movement of intellectual and

moral rebellion against the forces of nature and the State.

A religion of the spirit was devised to provide a pure
interpretation of Christianity, as against what was seen as
a worldly religion, and the God of this material world was
rejected as being a negative and lesser deity.
St Irenaeus (135-202), who was probably born in Asia Minor
and was bishop of Lyons from 177 onwards, is the first
Christian author to purposely develop a biblical theology of
creation. He always draws his inspiration from Holy Scripture
and generally does not approach theological themes from a
philosophical point of view. His writings and reasonings
against the Gnostics do not start from a Christology but
acknowledge a prior chronology where revelation speaks of a
creation without direct reference to salvation and the actions
of Jesus Christ.
Irenaeus rejects any approach which counterposes matter
and spirit, and which attributes the production of matter to a
principle of evil. 'All the Scriptures', we read, 'both
prophetical and evangelical. . . clearly and unambiguously
proclaim that the one and only God, to the exclusion of any
other, has made all things through his Word, things visible
and invisible, heavenly and earthly.' 'That this world', he
says further on, 'has been made by God as an act of
production and had its beginning in time, is taught us by all
the Scriptures.' Irenaeus speaks very lucidly about creatio ex
nihilo. He says: 'To attribute the matter of created beings to
the power and will of the God of all things is something
believable, acceptable and consistent. Here one has every
reason to say that "what is impossible with men is possible
with God" (Lk 18:27). Men cannot make something out of
nothing but only from matter which has prior existence. God
surpasses man in that he himself provides the matter for his
work, matter which previously did not exist.'
Irenaeus develops the doctrine of Creation and brings in the
Word and the Spirit as Creators alongside the Father. In

earlier writers, it is the one and only God who creates or

founds and brings everything to its end. Now Irenaeus tells
us that God (the Father), who is endowed with Reason and
Spirit, through the Word and the Holy Spirit, founded,
arranged and made everything that exists.' Iraeneaus
emphasises that Christ intervenes in creation: 'The Word of
God,' he writes, 'is the creator of the world. It is he, our
Lord, who became man in the latter age and has thereby
made himself present in the world. In a real and invisible
manner he embraces all creation and as the word of God he
is implanted throughout creation, directing and governing it.
He came to his own in a visible way, made flesh and placed
high on a cross to recapitulate all in himself.' Irenaeus
reestablishes the deep link between creation and
redemption, which the Gnostics denied, and he sees
redemption as a renewal of the work of creation brought
about in Jesus Christ. Creation is from the very beginning
directed towards the redemption of sin.
Tertullian (170-220) expounded the central ideas of the
doctrine of creation in his controversies with Hermogenes
and Marcion. Against the former he strove to prove
creation ex nihilo and against the latter the goodness of
the Creator and his work. 'I worship the fullness of the
Scripture by means of which He reveals to me both the
Maker and the things made; but in the Gospel I find in
addition Him who is both Minister and the Intermediary of
the Makerthe Word.
In his Apology he writes: 'The object of our worship is the
one God, who, out of nothing, simply for the glory of his
majesty, fashioned this enormous universe with its whole
supply of elements, bodies, and spirits, and did so simply
by the Word, the Reason whereby he ordered it, the
Power wherewith he was powerful. A new link between
Christianity and philosophy begins with Clement of
Alexandria (150-215), who brings out aspects already

implicit in the theological work of Justin. Clement

consciously makes use of philosophical ideas to support
his theological-religious speculation. In his teaching on
creation he brings together the basic points of Christian
doctrine, and tries to draw from them moral and spiritual
conclusions.
The following passages are very typical of his approach:
'The world was made by God's will alone, because only
God has made it on his own, given that he alone is God,
who by his mere will can create and any simple desire of
his is immediately effected. If the heavenly bodies are not
made by human agency, at least they have been created
for man. May no one of you then worship the sun, but
rather direct your desires to the sun's Creator; may none
of you consider the world divine, but rather seek out the
Creator of the world.'
'God has placed an order in the Universe with due
measure and subjected the disunity of the elements to the
discipline of unity, and in this way brings the entire world
into harmony.' 'Consecrate yourself to God as the first
fruits, so that you may not just be the work of God but
also his gracious gift.'
Origen (185-254) marks an important stage in the doctrinal
history we are examining, even though his contribution to
the theology of Creation is not as significant as his
exegetical and systematic achievements. Origen is well
aware of the limitations of the philosophy then available to
express the beliefs of the Church, and he rejects outright the
Platonic notion of the Demiurge or craftsman God incapable
of giving real life to what he produces. He also rejects the
pre- existence of matter because that would mean God was
not a true Creator of the universe. 'Philosophy' he says 'is
different from us when it says God is a kind of co-eternal
matter.' 'We refuse to venerate a hypothetical God, but
rather the Creator of this universe and of whatever invisible

things that exist.'

He sets the creation of the world in a Trinitarian and
particularly a Christological framework: 'When Genesis
speaks of a beginning it is not referring simply to time, but
to the fact that heaven, earth and all created things have
come into being in the Saviour.'
But Origen did not manage to differentiate between the
trinitarian and cosmological dimensions in creation; that is,
he failed in his speculation to make a clear distinction
between the generation of the Word and the existence of
the world. 'Just as no one can be a father without having a
child, nor a master without owning a slave, so God cannot
be called Almighty unless there should be other beings over
which he can exercise his power. Therefore, it is necessary
for created things to exist for God to show his almighty
power. If there was no time in which God was not Almighty
then those things by which he received this title must have
necessarily existed.'
The serious deficiencies in Origen's reasoning were
overcome with great conceptual skill by St Athanasius of
Alexandria.
The theme of creation had a less important, less central,
place in fourth- century Christian theology than in the prior
period. The focus was more on the nature of the Trinity and
of Christ; creation was considered a less pressing theme.
Gnosticism had lost much of its influence over the course of
the third century, and the basic notions of orthodox teaching
on the creation of the world out of nothing by a good God
seemed to be firmly established.
Yet 'even though the truth of creation ceased to be of
immediate interest, it was discussed insofar as it entered
into the Trinitarian and Christological disputes and was
affected by the decisions made regarding those questions.
Indirectly, the Trinitarian debates helped to hone the
concept of creation, because it was now possible to make a
clearer distinction between the aspects of generation and

creation in the person of the divine Logos.'

fourth- and fifth-century theology
St Athanasius of Alexandria (276-373) always paid great
attention to questions relating to creation. These were
questions which he saw as closely linked to the Incarnation
of the Word of God, and one could say that his
interpretation of the redemption was based on a very exact
notion of the cosmos. For, in Athanasius' theological focus
there is a disjunction, or a radical break, between the
absolute Being of God and the contingent existence of the
world. By their very nature all created things are unstable
and bear within themselves an intrinsic tendency to
disintegrate. The order and stability of the world comes from
the divine Logos, who keeps all creation together. The world
has not just been created out of nothing by a sovereign fiat
of God; it is maintained in existence by the unceasing action
of the Creator.
Athanasius uses Platonist thought patterns but he gives
them the nuances and distinctions necessary to ensure that
Christian teachings are not altered. He stresses the cosmic
or 'demiurgic' function of the Logos, but vigorously asserts
his divine transcendence. The divinity of the Logos is in fact
the key presupposition of Athanasius' theology. The Logos is
'the only-begotten God', who proceeds eternally from the
Father like water from a spring. There is an absolute
dissimilarity between the Logos and creatures.
The Logos is present in the world, but only dynamically, that
is, through his power. In his substance he is outside the
world. 'The marvellous truth is, that being the Word, so far
from being himself contained by anything, he actually
contained all things himself. In creation he is present
everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it. . . containing all,
yet is he himself the Uncontained, existing solely in his
Father.'

Athanasius uses these ideas as a basis for his controversy

with the Arians, and in doing so he establishes a great
ontological demarcation line between Creator and creation
not between Father and Son, which was what the Arians
claimed. The Logos is certainly Creator, but he is that, for
Athanasius, precisely because he is divine in all respects and
'the indistinguishable image of the Father'. He is not an
instrument for creation: he is creation's ultimate and direct
efficient cause. His own being is totally independent of the
creation of the world.
Athanasius points out that the Godhead itself involves a
distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The
godhead is an ultimate and necessary reality as Holy
Scripture teaches us, and it has its basis in the divine Being.
But creation derives from the will of God, which is common
and identical to all three Persons. The Fatherhood of God,
then, is prior to his condition as Creator, just as the
existence of the Son flows eternally from the very essence
of the Father.
The existence of the world, on the other hand, is external to
the essence of God and is based on the divine will. In this
will there is an element of freedom and contingency,
whereas in the Trinitarian Being and in the processions
within it absolute necessity reigns, so to speak. The
distinction which Athanasius establishes between the
generation of the Logos and the creation of the world
reflects the prior distinction between divine Being and divine
Will. This great bishop of Alexandria is the first Christian
theologian to develop a cohesive theory for clarification.
It must be remembered that in developing his theology St
Athanasius' main concern was soteriological: 'We will begin,
then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker,
for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of
creation has been wrought by the selfsame Word who made
it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between
creation and salvation.' According to the principles of Greek

philosophy, man finds his salvation in the depths of his own

being. Athanasius, instead, reminds us that salvation is to
be found in a God who is not consubstantial with man and
nature.
Cosmic theory plays a crucial role in both these views of
things. If the universe is thought to be an extension of God,
it is not surprising that human salvation is sought in the
richer and more complex aspects of man, such as the depths
of his spirit. But if one accepts that the universe was created
out of nothing (nothing being the antithesis of God), one
realizes that it is vain and useless to seek salvation within
the finite order of creation.
St Gregory of Nyssa (330-95) sets his creation theology in a
framework which presupposes the teachings of St
Athanasius and which is also open to the new questions
raised by the philosophy of Plotinus. The bishop of Nyssa
criticises philosophy while entering into a constructive
dialogue with it: 'Pagan philosophy also teaches the
immortality of the soul ... it teaches metempsychosis
transmigration) i.e. a transition from a spiritual to an animal
being. It teaches that God exists but believes him to be
material. It confesses a Demiurge though it adds that he
needs matter to make the world. It attributes goodness and
power to him but in many ways it subjects him to the force
of Destiny.'
Gregory often makes use of the terminology of the NeoPlatonist Plotinus (205-70), always giving it a Christian
sense when it is called for. The idea of emanation, which
implies for Plotinus an atemporal relationship of dependence
on the part of the lower being towards the higher being, is
at odds in principle with the notion of creation: emanation
comes from God, whereas creation comes from nothing.
Emanation is an eternal process, whereas creation is the
result of an act which happens in time. Emanation, finally,
originates from the very nature of things, but creation obeys
an act of will.

St Gregory, however, makes emanation (which is not in

itself a precise philosophical category) a divine act which
occurs freely in time, and he identifies it with creation from
nothing. 'We believe,' he writes, 'that the power of the will
of God brought things out of nothing (ek tou me ontos) into
existence.' In this way he brings into theological terminology
on creation a term (emanation), which will later be used by
others, including St Thomas Aquinas, with a precise
Christian meaning.
On another tack Gregory cautiously introduces a dynamic
view of creation, which St Augustine will develop in his
theory of the 'seminal reasons' (rationes seminales).
Gregory reads in Genesis 1:1 that God created the entire
world (heavens and earth) at the same time (in the
beginning). But he adds that the world which is spoken of
here is created not in a perfect state but in potentiality.
These words are reminiscent of the Aristotelian notions of
act and potency. But Gregory is referring to the universe or
the primal state as something which possesses a 'seminal
energy' and at times he uses the terms causes and energies
to refer to it. His thought seems closer to what the Stoics
meant by the 'principle of order' ('seminal reasons') than to
Aristotelian matter. According to Gregory, the narrative of
Genesis 1 shows that the germ of all things, sown in the
original creation, developed towards a natural and necessary
order planned by the Creator.
Movement and change are therefore intrinsic to creation.
Gregory writes: 'The uncreated Being is not susceptible to
such movements as are implied in change and alteration.
But everything that subsists by virtue of being created
necessarily involves change.'
Gregory emphasises the idea that evil does not have any
positive being; rather, it implies an absence of good. The
notion of evil as deficiency is strongly antidualist and derives
ultimately from originally Platonic principles developed in the
second century by Plotinus. Plotinus comes across as very

convinced that only the three hypostases exist (the One,

Intellect and the Soul), thereby excluding metaphysically the
existence of a hypostatic principle of evil.
Origen uses similar notions, derived from the Timaeus, while
Athanasius, St Basil, and St Gregory of Nyssa take them
directly from Plotinus. St Augustine will later develop these
ideas.
Gregory insists that evil has, at root, a moral dimension and
that it comes from a free human will. It is as if man had a
dramatic ability to draw evil out of nothing by a perverted
will. 'Evil,' we read, 'is in one way or another generated from
within, rising from the will when the soul's perception of
beauty weakens.'
Authors like St Gregory Nazianzen (330-89) refer
expressly to the perishable nature of the created world
and speak of the new heaven and the new earth:
'Scripture teaches that heaven and earth will be rent
asunder. It wishes to point to an irresistible new order of
things. We must believe St Paul when he states that the
final upheaval of the earth is nothing other than the
second coming of Christ and that the present universe will
be transformed and give way to another which is definitive
and unchangeable.'
In speaking of the end of the world, the Fathers do not
support the Stoic idea that the present universe will be
destroyed by fire. Justin and Athenagoras directly opposed
this theory, while St Basil and particularly St Gregory of
Nyssa did not imagine a created world being intrinsically
threatened by violent annihilation.
St John Chrysostom (d. 407) wrote a detailed exposition
of the Christian notion of Providence by analyzing the
biblical data and examining the concept of creation itself.
Providence he sees for the most part as the continuation
of the act of creation, which is necessary if things are to
subsist. God exercises kingship through his demiurge or

creative power, and also through a familiarity, to which is

ascribed provident action. Divine solicitude towards
created things is manifested particularly in the human
moral order, where the Christian and the theologian come
up against difficult questions raised by the presence of evil
and suffering.
St Augustine (354-430) is probably the first to provide a
synthesis of Christian thought on creation viewed as a
whole. 'There is in his work a confluence of all the traditional
currents of West and East (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa) in a new
over-view of surprising richness and intellectual depth.
Augustine shares with Ambrose the same interest in the
moral and religious aspect of the doctrine of creation. But
unlike his teacher at Milan, Augustine often brings in the
philosophical elements of ancient thinking on creation and
tries to insert them into a Christian view. Hence the two key
aspects under which Augustine reflects on the truth of
creation: one rational and ontological, the other religious
and ethical.'
St Augustine reaffirms creation ex nihilo, and in a rather
Neo-Platonic way he sees the work of creation as a graded
series of essences at the top of which is the Supreme Being
and at the bottom the frontier of nothingness, where
formless matter is located. This formless matter, the
substratum of creation, constitutes, along with time and the
eternal ideas, a central category in the Augustinian doctrine
of creation.
Augustine offers new approaches to the question of time, he
distances himself somewhat from Platonic and Aristotelian
notions, which have more to do with the physical order, and
he proposes a metaphysical and psychological interpretation
whereby time is related to the human mind and human
consciousness. In this way he helps to highlight the
difference between the eternity of the Creator and the
temporal nature of creatures, and to develop the notion that

the world and time were created together. Creation does not
take place in timebecause time forms part of creation.
'Thou art time itself who hast created it, and the ages could
not happen before thou shouldst fix them.... It is not by
time that thou precedest time, otherwise thou shouldst not
precede all ages. But thou dost precede all past ages in the
sublimity of thy eternity which is ever present.'
A very important part of Augustine's teachings is his theory
of divine ideas as exemplary causes or paradigms of
Creation. The route that begins with the ideas of Plato and
then passes through the Logos of St John's Gospel leads us
to the ideas as the bishop of Hippo understands them. For
him these ideas or eternal models of finite beings are
articulated in the creative mind of God. These all come
together in the Logos.
The Manichean revival of Gnosticism forces Augustine to deal
with the problem of evil; here he adopts and develops the
ideas of Neo-Platonist and Christian tradition. Evil is not a
positive substance; it is a lack, 'privation of good'. The
defects that can be seen in creation are, according to
Augustine, not simply permitted but even imposed by God in
the interests of the harmony of the whole. Nor does moral
evil, sin, come from a negative principle. Sin is a voluntary
choosing of a lower good involving contempt for the absolute
higher Good.
'In Augustine's line of argument', writes Scheffczyk, 'one
can see a fundamental optimism about creation which
recognizes any kind of malum as a defectus of being which
is equivalent to nothingness. But in this very notion of
nothingness, which in some passages is also conceived as
an autonomous force, which causes moral evil (De Civitate
14,13; De Genesi c. Manich. 2, 29, 43) one can sense a
certain influence of dualist views which in some way affects
his judgment on created entities, such as the body and
marriage.'
Although Augustinian theology does not usually look at

creation from the salvation history angle, and the idea of an

overall plan of salvation that begins at creation is secondary
to ontological reflections on the essence and order of
created things, St Augustine does stress the unity of
creation and redemption. 'It is thou, O Lord, not any man,
not flesh and blood, but thou, O Lord, their Maker, who dost
remake and comfort them. . . . Whose but thine hand can
procure our salvation which refashioned what it hath made?'
St Augustine establishes a close connexion between belief in
creation and belief in the Blessed Trinity. He tries to identify
the different roles in creation of each of the three Persons
and he refers to ternary structures in creation which could
be traces of the Trinity. But in this theology the nexus
between Trinity and creation is viewed from the immanence
of the Trinity, to underline the principle that the unity in
Being of the three divine Persons must also be identifiable in
their actions ad extra.
THE WRITINGS OF DIONYSIUS
The Christian writer at the beginning of the sixth centuries
known as Denys or Psuedo-Denys the Areopagite is a
mediator between the Neo-Platonism of Proclus (410-85)
and that of the Middle Ages. His theology is basically a
creation theology, marked by a degree of eclecticism, which
does not manage to construct a fully coherent Christian
system and vision. Denys' thought evidences a clear NeoPlatonist enthusiasm and a keen desire to be true to the
Christian faith.
The Dionysian cosmos is a universe of order and harmony,
arranged in a strict descending hierarchy. Deriving from the
One or supraessential God and then tending back to him,
the degrees of being (which are also levels of unity, holiness
and knowledge), are built on levels of ontological perfection.
A great stream of life and light flows out of God and spreads
through the beings of the entire universe which become

steadily less able to receive and transmit life, the further

they are from the source.
Divine Goodness, the universal cause of everything that
exists, is like a radiating light which gives all things their
existence, life and consciousness.
Creation is thus conceived as a perfectly structured whole
and a hierarchy of degrees of being, which extends from
inanimate matter to spirits or angels, who are found closest
to the inner life of God.
Denys also applies a Neo-Platonist system of hierarchy to
the organization of the Church, attributing metaphysical
degrees of assimilation to God to the various ecclesial
functionsbishops, priests, lesser ministersand the
categories of Christiansmonks, faithful, catechumens.
In this process of Plotinist emanation which Denys conceives
creation to be, the Supreme Being remains One and
Immutable. 'In freely influencing all beings and pouring
upon them a full sharing in its goodness, the divine Being
remains perfectly distinct from the rest; although it remains
One, yet its uniqueness gives rise to a plurality and takes on
multiple forms without destroying its unity'. In his book
Celestial Hierarchy we read: This divine Ray of light is never
diminished in its nature nor in its inner unity: because when
it multiplies and acts exteriorly as is fitting to its goodness,
in order to spiritualize and unify the constitution of those
beings coming under its Providence, it remains unmoved in
Itself and manifests an unchangeable identity.'
Denys is echoing here one of the most fundamental
questions in human thought, namely, the hidden oneness of
being, which in our experience of the world comes across as
multiple and separate. By drawing on Christian perspectives
he tries to develop Proclus' world in greater depth. However,
a theology where divine Light which expands like a creative
energy has this difficulty: it implies that the creative action
of God is not entirely voluntary and could even be

interpreted as a natural and almost necessary process.

Denys does not really manage to sort this problem out. He
tries to show that the irradiations from God are dependent
on the divine will, that there is no overlapping between w
hat is created and what is uncreated, and that God is always
a supra-existent, supernatural originating principle which
does not flow into the creature and does not become part of
the creature.
Denys' God communicates a unifying and enlightening
power, he causes mediations, but he does not delegate a
power to create (though in Platonism that sort of restriction
is difficult to conceive). In Dionysian ontology there is an
uncrossable frontier between creation and shared causality,
whereas in Plotinus and Proclus every being which deploys
its internal energies under the influence of the One can be
regarded as a creator.
St John Damascene (d. 749) achieves in the East a synthesis
of Christian teaching on Creation similar to St Augustine's in
the West. He is not an original thinker, he does not develop
a theological system of his own, and he is not familiar with
the works of Denys. He is particularly concerned with the
problem of harmonizing divine providence and
predestination with human freedom, and he raises questions
which the medieval authors will deal with.
There is in Damascene a clear echo of St Athanasius'
teaching on the difference between generation and creation,
although he does not speak only about the divine Logos. 'To
generate means to produce from the generating substance a
progeny similar to itself. Creation or production, on the
other hand, is to bring to be in an external way, and not
from the substance of the Creator, something whose nature
is distinct from the Creator. Generation is produced from a
natural generative power (tes gonimotetos fisikes), while
creation is produced by an act of the will (zeloseos ergon).'
the beginning of the middle ages

The Irishman John Scotus Eriugena (810-77) is the author of

a unique synthesis which seems to propose a panthetistic
view of the relationship between God and the world. A
philosopher in the garb of a theologian, Eriugena constructs
a monistic interpretation of the thought of Denys, whose
works he translated into Latin. One could say that he is a
precursor of the philosophies of identity where God and the
world are only inadequately distinct. He sees the non-dualist
intellectual option, that is, the option which does not assert
God and the world as different, as the deepest expression of
an intuitive truth underlying all commonly accepted
distinctions. It is a picture of reconciliation and synthesis
which only a few proficient souls can grasp. These
overviews, which come to be particularly relevant in the
post-Kantian period, are really wayward impulses of a
metaphysical attempt to find a unique principle which
explains and covers the real world in its totality. They
express the non-dualist alternative found in the philosophical
stream that runs from Parmenides through Giordano Bruno
and Spinoza to Hegel.
Eriugena had certainly great speculative ability and a desire
to forge a synthesis between philosophy and Christian
beliefs, but he did not succeed in preventing Neo-Platonic
immanentism from swamping the biblical notion of creation.
He never manages to properly distinguish Creator from
creation or finite from infinite. Although he strives to
safeguard the voluntary nature of divine creative activity, he
fails to distinguish clearly immanent and necessary activity
within the Trinity from creation of the world as an action of
the Trinity ad extra. The production of created beings seems
to be somehow necessarily connected to the eternal
generation of the Son.
This means that creation ex nihilo is compromised, because
in Eriugena the category of nothingness does not mean a
sheer, total absence of material cause; it means that the

only explanation for the existence of creatures is that they

share divine Being. In other words, God is here not only the
exemplary and efficient cause of created things: he is also
their original material substratum. 'Eriugena's system,'
Scheffczyk writes, 'comes across as the most ambitious and
daring attempt, since Origen, to provide a religious
interpretation of the world, by trying to combine biblical faith
and Neo-Platonist philosophy. If it does in some way respect
the ancient formulas of the faith, its spirit is a different one.
Eriugena no longer makes use of Neo-Platonist metaphysics
in the way Augustine does, simply as a tool to shed light on
the Christian truth of creation; he uses it as a system into
which a Christian content is woven, but he does not keep
the purity of that content intact.'
Eriugena's writings did influence second-rank writers to a
slight degree, but his direct influence had practically
disappeared by the beginning of the 13th century.
The theologians of the first period of medieval Scholasticism
grounded their reflections on creation on the theology of St
Augustine. But gradually medieval thought came to acquire
features of its own, even if Augustinian bases were retained.
Interest in the salvific aspects of the dogma of creationa
feature of the Patristic periodrecedes and gives way to
metaphysical reflection. Medieval writers become more and
more interested in philosophical categorization and
conceptual analysis, and this leads to many attempts to link
the biblical accounts of creation to the findings of natural
science and contemporary philosophy.
The growing attention to nature which becomes evident
from the end of the 12th century is in contrast with the kind
of attitude one detects in writers like St Augustine. Although
the bishop of Hippo does at times say that the temporal and
the profane do not separate us from God, if understood and
used in the right way, and says also that God is manifested
in this world whose order is a kind of copy of divine
greatness and perfection in terms of measure, number and

weight, he is of the view, however, that meticulous study of

external nature is vain curiosity which is not only useless but
even harmful to the good of the soul.
As time goes on, the study of nature leads scholars to see it
as 'a book' in which the Creator is no less revealed than he
is in Holy Scripture. This attitude (Platonist, basically) is
found particularly in writers of the so-called Chartres school,
who pioneered trends which matured in the Renaissance of
the 15th and 16th centuries.
The danger of highlighting a mystical-naturalistic view of the
created universe (which also involves a tendency to
sacralize it) is lessened when the unity of creation is
stressed in a positive and optimistic way; but it is still true
that this kind of approach does not produce a theology
which harmonizes a religious and salvific view of the divine
work of creation with the cosmological and rational spirit
proper to the historical and cultural circumstances of the
time.
SCHOLASTICISM. ST THOMAS AQUINAS
The thought of St Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) is also
marked by a predominance of metaphysical reflection, and
many elements of his work will find their way into the
synthesis worked out by St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74).
Anselm does not neglect the connexions between creation
and redemption. Creation, of course, has light cast on it by
the historia salutis, but only to the extent that these are two
mysteries which happen successively. Anselm does not put
forward an economy of salvation in which creation is
completed in the Saviour and his work.
The doctrine of the creation of the world by God constitutes,
so to speak, the framework of the entire theology of St
Thomas Aquinas. A creationist outlook imbues the entire
work of the doctor humanitatis, in which the created world is
produced by the free will of God from nothing, in order to

return to him through the saving and restorative action of

Christ. He does not conceive creation in a Neo-Platonist way
as a descent towards nothingbut as a single, complete
reality which is structured in a number of different degrees
of being.
St Thomas devotes a considerable number of questions in
the prima pars of the Summa Theologiae to creation as
such. These questions can be taken as falling into three
groups: 1) the making of created things (qq. 44-46); 2)
their differentiation (qq. 97-102); and 3) their conservation
and governance (qq. 103-119).
The first group of questions deals with what we might call
the fundamental theology of creation. Here St Thomas
studies creation in God and in itself, in the light of the
metaphysics of being and the nature of time. The second
group begins with general aspects of creation, and then
moves on to examine in detail the various orders of
creatures: angels, purely material creatures, and man. The
third group is devoted to the conservation in being of
created things and their divine governance. St Thomas also
reflects here on ways in which created things mutually affect
one another, and deals with matters which fatalist trends in
Islamic thought gave prominence to, such as chance, fate,
destiny and astrology.
He achieves an effective synthesis of traditional and original
elements, dominated by a positive approach to the
relationship between faith and reason, and theology and
philosophy. Unlike the Arab proponents of a theory of
double truth (what is true in theology may be not true in
philosophy, and vice versa) and of those who regard the
truth of creation merely as an article of revealed faith,
Thomas sees creation ex nihilo as a truth of reason, which
philosophy can rigorously prove. He expresses an optimistic
and sympathetic opinion that Plato and Aristotle were aware
of this truth.
But the harmony he seeks between theology and philosophy

does not blind him to the difference in these two ways of

approaching reality Evidence of this is to be seen in the
singularly novel approach he adopts as to how the world
began. Thomas does not go along with the Averroeists, who
say that rigorous philosophical arguments necessarily lead
to the conclusion that the world is eternal. This was
consistent with the rationalist style of their speculation: they
made no attempt to reconcile their position with the
creationism they were quite ready to accept on the religious
or theological plane.
Nor does Aquinas accept the position of the Augustinian
school, whose leading exponent at the time was St
Bonaventure. The Augustinians strove to show the
inconsistency of any attempt to attribute eternity to a
created thing. St Thomas invariably holds that the temporal
beginning of the world can be accepted only on the basis of
faith and cannot be proved rationally.
His theory of creation is based on two supports: 1) the
notion of God as ens a se or ens per essentiam; and 2) a
universal divine causality. The first of these two principles
derives from the Aristotelian theory of act and potency. The
second is found in his understanding of causality. The idea
of God as self-subsistent Being is rounded off in the Summa
by his explanation of efficient, exemplary and final causes.
Within this conceptual framework Thomas manages to
provide a clear definition of the act of creation and the
distinction between God and the world. Here there is an
asymmetrical relationship, because God is essential (he
must be for the world to exist), whereas the world is
accidental in relation to God and in no way alters or changes
his Being. He thus clearly distinguishes creation (the effect
of the universal cause) from the action of particular causes,
and shows that God is the maker of every type of Being and
therefore creates out of nothing. Thomas also speaks about
Trinitarian causality in creation according to the processions
in the Trinity, which he describes as knowing and willing.

But he does not mean in so doing to stress the creative role

of the divine Logos or the historico-salvific aspects of
creation. Although he alludes to traces of the Trinity in
creation, he does not accept St Bonaventure's symbolism
which tends to regard this as linked to the contemplation of
nature itself.
St Thomas adopts a different approach to the mystery of
creationthe double route of analogy and exemplarism.
Analogy allows him to speak of the similarity- dissimilarity
relationship between God and the world; exemplarism
establishes a relative autonomy of created things
appropriate to the nature of each.
The existence of the transcendent divine cause does not rule
out but rather makes it possible for all created beings to
exercise their own particular causality. By means of this
causality, which St Thomas calls 'perfective', all created
beings achieve their specific goal, tend towards their final
end and co-operate, so to speak, with God in the
government of the universe.
Thomas goes on to delineate his teachings about the
maintenance of the world in being (particularly his teaching
about divine providence); here he naturally adopts a
position which is very different from that held by the
fatalistic philosophy of the Arabs.
'The doctrine of Thomas on creation', Scheffczyk writes,
'with its skilful use of distinction, constitutes the most
balanced form of synthesis to be found in Scholastic
theology in its golden age. It cannot be denied that this
balance is achieved thanks to deliberate application of
Aristotelian principles. This fact has brought down on
Aquinas the criticism that his system is simply a
metaphysics which has nothing to do with the Bible (P.E.
Persson, Sacra doctrina, 297), and that his doctrine on
creation is really a natural theology. But that sort of
reproach is merely superficial and does not go to the heart
of the matter. Against it are such facts as the connexion he

makes between the doctrine of creation and that of the

Trinity, and its connexion, too, with the processions in the
Trinity, and also his thesis that the beginning of creation in
time is something that can only be known through faith.'
a mystical interpretation of creation
A linking of Neo-Platonist tradition with German mysticism
gives rise in the 13th and 14th centuries to a vision of
creation that is couched in terminology which could be taken
as pantheistic. The most typical writer of this tendency is the
German Dominican Johannes Master Eckhart (d. 1327).
Contrary to what Scholastic writers taught about the
participated being of created things, Eckhart says that the
being that God confers on things by creating them is none
other than the being he himself possesses. This would make
God and being identical. What God creates, he creates
within himself, and it is his own Being that expands into
other things: 'There is nothing more one and indivisible than
God and creation.'
Eckhart develops these ideas in his sermons and writings.
He is convinced that there is an ultimate unity and identity
which leaves no room for separateness. The mystic
experiences a union with God in the core of his being. Every
being, therefore, implies indivisibility from, and absolute
unity with, the divine.
In this view of things, God is not contrary to or distinct from
the world: he is the unity of all the contraries of the world.
It is not just that divine energy resides in all created things:
it is an integral part of them, and what creates them. The
Plotinist image of the One overflowing in its superabundance
is here used in the sense that the world which emanated in
this way must be of essentially the same nature as its
origin, and therefore must be a perfect substance. Creation
thus appears as not free: it results from a process of
necessary production.

If the free element of the act of creation disappears, in what

way is this intimate union between God's being and that of
the universe different from pantheism? The language of
religious devotion does not have to have the rigorous
formality of speculative language, but that does not excuse
Eckhart's writings of a monistic tone which makes them
difficult to reconcile with the orthodox doctrine of creation.
Leo Scheffczyk, favouring a benevolent reading of Eckhart,
sees the German Dominican as simply the mystical
interpreter of the synthesis achieved by high Scholasticism:
'What Eckhart said had an orthodox meaning if it referred
only to the divine act of creation, to creation in the interior
of God, but not if it is meant to refer to the beginning of
creation [...]. One needs to remember here that the dialectic
of Eckhart's thought and language easily leads to confusing
temporal creation with an eternal act [...]. That he did not
defend pantheism is proven by the fact that he assigned an
efficient and final causality to the act of creation. From the
fact that God is the final cause of the world is deduced the
need for divine government; this is conceived as a care God
exercises over everything. Only if one takes the whole into
account can particular things be the object of divine
providence, with the result that the form providence takes in
particular cases is less precise than in St Thomas Aquinas.
The awareness of this infallible divine government which
attains the good of the universe gives Eckhart's theology a
totally optimistic stamp which takes the bitterness out of sin
and out of such problems in theodicy as evil, pain etc.'
the nominalists
The philosophical positions of the Nominalist writers of the
14th century (William of Ockham, Nicholas de Autrecourt
etc.) had a rather negative effect on the development of the
theology of creation and helped to bring about the crisis in
that theology which began in the Renaissance and worsened

with the Reformation. Nominalism was highly sceptical about

the usefulness of human reason in theology, and therefore it
had the effect of disturbing the balance between reason and
faith that was a feature of the 13th century. Revelation,
faith and grace shine like beaconsbut they are separated
from the empirical world and from common knowledge.
Reason begins to be edged out of the religious sphere,
which increasingly becomes the preserve of the will and
feelings.
The Nominalists usually speak of a potentia Dei absoluta
which is taken to its ultimate conclusions and which implies
a divine omnipotence which is no longer determined by the
essence of God and having no limits other than those
derived from the principle of non-contradiction. Conceived
as a theological postulate, creative omnipotence is drained
of its rational foundation. As a result of this, the connexions
between God and the world become much looser. God and
world became much more separated than is required by the
Christian distinction between the Creator and his work. 'The
individualistic and voluntaristic nature of the image which
(Ockham) forms of the world dispels the notion of ordo, with
the result that the relationship between God and the world
is something that is imposed positively and uniquely by the
will of God, and faith only accepts it out of submission to his
authority.' Arbitrariness takes over from exemplarism and
harmony.
This fragile theology of creation cannot even timidly fit into
the framework of a historia salutis. Dialectical and
cosmological considerations sweep away all others and
especially any salvation process. We are beginning to see
the tensions between creation and redemption that are
going to handicap certain sections of Christian theology even
down to our own day.
martin luther

The theology of creation put forward by Martin Luther (14831546) is a flimsy structure which is made subordinate to the
theology of redemption. Creation, for Luther, has a place on
the periphery of Christian mysteries, far away from the
centre, which is taken up, virtually to the exclusion of all
else, by the theology of the cross.
Luther accepts the dogma of the creation of the world by
God out of nothing. In his desire to be faithful to Holy
Scripture he even adopts a certain biblical literalism which
leads him to criticize the solarcentrism of Copernicus. But
faith in creation here acquires a new meaning because it is
not so much an acceptance of the objectivity and theological
relevance of the work of creation, as a believer's declaration
of the absolute supremacy of God and the insignificance of
the creature.
Creation is viewed by Luther as a certain activism, which
denies the consistency and stability of created things and
makes them depend continually and directly on the creative
divine Word. This same activism effectively eliminates
human freedom and does not give Providence its rightful
role, since no permanent, stable, created being exists that
needs to be oriented towards its end.
An enemy of reason in theological matters, Luther contrasts
with the cosmological optimism and unitary outlook of
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), who speaks of God as
'coincidence of opposites' and of the world as 'explicatio Dei',
in a sense that is free of any trace of pantheism. One can
identify in Luther a religious experience marked by tension
and opposition, which is expressed not in ontological
categories but in thought patterns which could be called
existentialist. Pessimism and division affect his image of the
world and of man. His outlook seems to be dominated by
anguish over sin and a firm conviction that the world has
been perverted and is under the control of evil.
Although what he has to say in this regard should be
interpreted in an anthropological sense, there are

cosmological undertones which imply a degree of dualism.

Creatures are seen not as reflecting the Creator but as
hiding him.
chapter 5
The History of the Christian Dogma of Creation (II)

the beginnings of modern thought

Modern humanism and modern science brought about a new
situation for the Christian theology of creation. The new
interest in man and nature means that we can no longer
speak of an exclusively theological view of the cosmos, but
that does not mean that there could be a confrontation
between the freedom of science and religious authority or
anything like that. What happened was simply that the study
of the visible world became an autonomous goal of the
culture of the time, within a perspective which saw nature as
a kind of revelation. It should not be forgotten that the two
basic principles which made modern science possiblethe
intelligibility and contingency of the created worldhave
biblical roots. If the world is intelligible, then it can be
investigated by human reason, and its contingent character
justifies and demands experimentation.
The difficulties for creation theology from the new scientific
and cultural circumstances arose because the cosmos began
to be seen more as nature than as creaturewhich led
sometimes to conceptions and systems which saw the world
as an absolute which is self-explanatory and self-sufficient.
'Nature' is now taken as including everything that exists. It
is a unity experienced 'as something profound, powerful and
vast, a living source available to us, and at the same time it
challenges us to know and understand it [...]. The concept
of nature refers to something ultimate. Behind it there is
nothing else that can be appealed to. Nature creates itself

and cannot be constrained within any other system. It is

mysterious and does not allow its veil to be removed. And it
is mysterious in principle: it bears within itself the
mysterious character of the beginning and the end, of the
primary substratum, of what is essentially impenetrable. For
that very reason it delimits any area for further questioning.'
This vision of reality takes various formsphilosophical
(Spinoza), cultural (Goethe), and theological (deism)which
together go to create a negative atmosphere for the doctrine
of creation understood in the proper sense and usually lock
horns with it.
The idea of nature as the sum total of material being and an
independent system set up with laws of its own leads one to
see it as an elaborate machine whose greatness lies not in
hidden harmonies or a plethora of forms but in the absolute
regularity of its movements. All material bodies move within
mechanical systems determined by strict laws. More and
more nature tends to be reduced to physical events, physical
events to mechanics, and mechanical events to
mathematics. Matter is conceived of as a passive, inert
mass, infinitely divisible, externally organized and
differentiated into individual bodies which alter by means of
movement.
Extreme versions of this mechanistic view of the world
speak of its material or corporeal substance as being one
and say that individualization is merely a transient
particularization of a totality. Bodies and organisms are seen
merely as modes of a single substantial res externa. This
way of interpreting reality, imbued with monism, proclaims
the autonomy of the world and avoids asserting the
existence of God, which it considers unnecessary and
superfluous.
The philosophy of the Jewish Dutchman Baruch Spinoza
(1632-73) is a consistent development of these principles.
For him the universe is an infinite and absolutely

homogenous mesh subject to eternal laws. Every event is

the necessary result of what preceded it. Eternal laws are
the only thing that matters. Necessity is synonymous with
eternity, and true rational thought is able to work its way
back from the sensible and transient modalities to
consideration of Nature sub specie aeternitatis.
This disposes of what Spinoza sees as the artificial abyss
lying between God and Nature. God's eternity unfolds
directly (without any intervening creation) in the eternal
order of the world. The universe is not something created
in time; it is eternal, and there is in fact no duality
between time and eternity. 'The modern pathos of the
immanency of the divine in Nature attains in Spinoza a
full pantheism of nature. Mathematical rationalism is what
provides the bridge. God is but nature considered in terms
of a basis of unity and a determinant of law.
The divine transcendent principle is rejected. The only
reason of being of things is the causa immanens. God is in
all things, and all things are in God.'
european rationalism
The philosophical thought of Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716)
marks an interesting chapter in the theology of creation. The
theory of pre-established harmony, which Leibnitz uses to
try to bridge the chasm between res cogitans and res
extensa opened by the philosophy which preceded him,
includes affirmation of a divine creative will which is
determined by a rational principle of 'achieving the best'.
Leibnitz' rationalism promotes optimism and the conviction
that everything real is rationally the best that it could be in
a theological and axiomatical sense.
Out of all possible worlds, that is, out of all the possible
combinations of essences reconcilable to one another, the
world that has come into being is, according to Leibnitz,
absolutely the best, because its harmony is mathematically

the most real and perfect that can possibly exist in finite
things. 'Leibnitz describes creation at times as a personal
conscious activity, at other times in terms of radiation or an
innate power in essences to exist. However, a constant facet
of his teaching, its nucleus, is that the ideas and essences
which make up our world are precisely those which exhibit a
maximum universal perfection in life, that is, a supreme
harmony.'
Theology has shown that Leibnitz' approach needs to be
rounded off by the idea that this world can be regarded as
the best of all possible worlds only if the provident plans of
God are presupposed. The absolute assertion of cosmic
optimism takes from God's freedom to create the present
world or another, different, world.
Evil and the various sorts of disorder to be found in the
world are, for Leibnitz, necessary things which all contribute
to the meaning of the whole. When one bears in mind the
fullness of being of the entire universe, the negativeness of
evil is seen to be a disharmony, a minor imbalance, through
which an infinite universal harmony grows and develops. It
could not be otherwise, in this world full of different
substances which so admirably complement one another, in
which proportion and order reign, and which is, really, the
best of all possible worlds.
The philosophical system of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
has been largely responsible for the reductionist character of
Protestant theology on creation, and has reinforced that
theology's tendency to see the doctrine of the creation of
the world by God as a secondary article of faith and in some
way irrelevant as far as religion is concerned.
Kant, as we know, was trying to make a synthesis of
rationalism and empiricism. The apriorism of innate ideas
found in continental Rationalism is linked to English
philosophy, which confines all knowledge to sense
experience. The result is an epistemological concept which
leads to a dualism of a 'sense or phenomenal' world and an

'intelligible or noumenal' world; and because there is no

communication between these, the individual is cut off from
reality and metaphysics becomes impossible.
For Kant the world, is an idea, that is, a purely mental image
which exceeds the powers of experience, and therefore its
real existence cannot be proved by reason. 'World' here
means the pseudo-rational representation of the totality of
all existing things. Cosmological notions give rise to
contradictory or antithetical propositions, in which every
thesis put forward is as valid as its opposite. These are the
so-called antinomies of pure reason, which at one and the
same time affirm and deny that the world has a beginning in
time and is limited in space; that every composite substance
is made up of simple parts; that there is a causality
following the laws of nature which is compatible with a
causality deriving from freedom; and that the world must be
dependent on a necessary being.
'Reason encounters here an unsupportable position,
submerged in an insoluble conflict of arguments and counterarguments which demand acceptance with equal force.' Kant
finds a way out of this by an analysis which drastically limits
the scope of those theses he considers philosophically
dogmatic.
He draws the conclusion that our conceptual categories give
us no access to the thing-in-itself. We can know the external
world only to the extent that it exists within the meaningful
categories of our mind. One has to make the distinction
between the thing in itself and the thing in me, which ties in
with another important distinction: between theoretical or
pure reason, and practical reason.
Knowledge of the world through observable facts belongs to
the theoretical sphere. Practical reason is not concerned with
facts but with moral values, and it judges concrete acts by
universally solid criteria. Thus, he postulates the existence
of God as the guarantor of the moral edifice, but rules out
the possibility of the Godhead being linked to the sphere of

facts and observable events. The God conceived 'within the

confines of pure reason' does not act in the world of
phenomena which we live in and experience.
Kantian philosophy in this way eliminates God from the
sphere of theoretical reason and ditches the biblical notion of
creation; creation can only be investigated by the physical
exact sciences.
These theories and notions have had considerable influence
on the theology of the 19th and 20th centuries, in which we
often find statements to the effect that the world of faith has
no connexion with the world of empirical facts, and that
religion is a matter not of knowledge but of feelings.
Georg Hermes (1775-1831), a Catholic who taught at
Mnster, developed a theology using the epistemological
and ethical principles of Kant. Hermes argued that Christian
mysteries could be 'accepted as true' by the practical
reason, but they remain impenetrable for the speculative
reason. The believer in no sense knows why they are true.
All that speculative theology can do is show that the content
of each Christian doctrine is contained in the propositions of
revelation which the practical reason has had to 'accept as
true' and demonstrate that these propositions are not at
odds with the requirements of reason, speculative and
practical.
Hermes' theology of the act of faith does not accept that the
motive for the believer's rendering free assent is the
authority of God revealing. For Hermes the motive of assent
is the moral exigency of the Kantian categorical imperative.
Within this theological framework, Hermes says that there is
a certain moral need for God's establishing the ethical
perfection of creatures as an end of creation. If the only end
of creation were the glory of God, then He would come
across as a self-seeking Being.
creation and subjective conscience

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is an eloquent

defender of these ideas, which dominated Protestant
theology in the 19th century. Faithful to the idea that
dogmatic propositions say nothing about the objects they
deal with, but instead speak only about our experience of
them, Schleiermacher builds up a theology in which
Christian dogmas are conceived of as modifications of a
believer's consciousness to which he attributes a special
'creative' capacity in the religious sphere.
In Schleiermacher the doctrine on creation is inseparable
from the doctrine on God. This theologian owes much to
Spinoza when he explains God's relationship to the world,
the connexion between natura naturans and natura
naturata, in terms of an immanence which causes
everything to subsist as if all were one and the same reality.
The idea of God is the noetic representation of the idealist
mode of being which our intellect constructs via the
category of oneness. The idea of the world is the
representation of the real mode of being constructed via the
category of multiplicity. God and world are therefore
perfectly correlative ideas, which are grasped along with the
self via sentiment. God is, then, a transcendental terminus a
quo which implies oneness, and the world is a necessary
terminus ad quem which implies multiplicity.
Schleiermacher writes: 'the normal concept of a God as a
unified and individual Being outside and above the world is
no longer the beginning and end of religion. It is only a way
of describing God which is by exception correct and always
inadequate. . . . But the true nature of religion is not this or
any other idea but rather the immediate awareness of the
Deity as found within ourselves and in the world.'
The reality of the world is purely mental, and the
inseparable association of the ideas of God and world
empties the Christian notion of creation of its content. The
distinction between God and the world becomes here merely
functional. God is the correlative unity to the world's variety

and is, as it were, forced on the mind by ratiocination.

Uncomfortable with the idea of creation, Schleiermacher
gives importance to the category of conservation. He
regards the classic doctrine of creation as contradicting the
thought forms which see God and the world as being
inextricably one; but he also thinks that the doctrine of the
preservation of the world expresses the God-world
relationship in a way that is consistent with human
experience of the continuity of being. He holds that human
self-consciousness, in its universality, can understand finite
being only insofar as it is something stable and enduring.
That is, sensed self-consciousness can experience human
life in the world only as an uninterrupted continuity of
existence in time and space. This coherence of nature
embraces self-awareness and awareness of the world and is
reflected in the doctrine of preservation, which expresses
the dependence of the world on God in terms akin to our
spontaneous manner of thinking. Unlike creation, the
conservation of the world is for Schleiermacher a reassuring
religious doctrine and one that is noetically defensible.
Schleiermacher's ideas were much criticized in German
Catholic publications. In particular they were criticized at
length by the Tubingen theologian Anton Staudenmaier, who
drew attention to the absence of an adequate philosophical
basis in Schleiermacher's system, his pantheisic tendencies
and the high degree of subjectivism which leads to not
perceiving God as the most real of Beings.
Idealist theories of the world which make it the product of
human consciousness were used as the basis of the extreme
voluntarism of the so-called postulatory atheism of the 19th
century, which sees the existence of an objective world with
its own laws as something that limits a freedom which
should be absolute.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72) writes: 'In the depth of your
soul you would like there to be no world, because if there is
world there is matter, and while there is matter there is also

weight and resistance, space and time, limitation and

necessity. But there is a world and there is matter. How
then can one escape from the dilemma of this contradiction?
How can you expel the world from your consciousness, so as
to avoid being disturbed in the happiness of your unlimited
soul? You will only do this if you make the world the product
of your will, if you grant it an arbitrary reality which
ceaselessly oscillates between existence and non-existence,
getting ever closer to annihilation.'
the impact of idealism
The idealist philosophy of Wilhelm Frederick Hegel (17701831) evidences at all times its author's deep interest in
religion, and his ideas on the subject of creation merit
mention here. Theology was in a way the cradle of Hegel's
philosophy, which always tries to find a place for such
notions as the Cross, Incarnation, Spirit, Trinity etc.
As is well known, Hegel leaves no room for the autonomy of
faith as a specific source of knowledge. Faith is, of course, a
factor in the development of the human mind, but it is
surpassed (that is, abolished yet retained) by the concept,
which is the end-product of the dialectic process.
As far as creation is concerned, Hegel's analysis is a purely
speculative attempt to construct a connexion between God
and the world. Really what Hegel tries to do is resolve the
contradiction between Neo-Platonist necessity and
nominalist freedom.
He discards out of hand any emanatist explanation of the
idea of creation, and refers instead to the traditional Old
Testament creation ex nihilo; but this biblical category is
explained as the abstract identity of the divine essence,
taken as meaning absolute negativity. The God-Spirit
encompasses creation as a moment of his thought and of his
act of being per se. Nothingness is simply the Spirit
unfolding itself from within. What Hegel does is reinterpret

and in fact cancel the Christian notion of creation ex nihilo.

Hegel's concept of the creative freedom of God bears strong
traces of nominalism; as a result of this he speaks about a
free will which is characterized even in God by
indetermination in his actions rather than by an absolute
ability to determine himself in one direction or another. This
does not prevent Hegel from arguing that creation is
necessary (in a sort of Neo-Platonist view of things). The
great idealist philosopher presents the creative action of God
as being motivated solely by a divine need to express
himself as Spirit, given that God is part of the dialectical
process.
He therefore stresses the immanence of the divine Absolute
and says that God cannot be God without including the
world, and so bypasses the fullness of perfection of the first
Cause and God's creative initiative motivated by Love.
From a formal point of view, Hegel's thought cannot be
described as pantheistic, but it is decidedly ambiguous,
given the dialectical link it establishes between necessity
and freedom, and the fact that the Trinity and the world are
depicted as two abstract moments in a single immanent
process. The unfolding of the absolute is seen as
autogenesis, with the world, as it were, one expression of
the divine becoming.
Hegelian ideas about creation always operate on a level of a
purely speculative analysis of concepts, and are always in
accord with the intrinsic dynamic of his philosophical
system. They are therefore far removed from the correct
Christian concept of creation, and Hegel's concept helps us
understand the Christian concept only through some of his
extreme contrasts.
Frederich Wilhelm Schelling (1775-1885) is the author of a
system of philosophical idealism that is much more open
than Hegel's to the reality of the world. Schelling's idealism
is characterized by a desire to retain a lively concept of God
and things, capable of constant enrichment. However, there

is in Schelling a clear foundation in idealism which never

frees his speculation from a tendency to interpret the Godworld relationship within the context of a sense of prior and
posterior. This theology becomes more and more open to an
idea of creation ex nihilo. Schelling begins his philosophizing
convinced that nothing finite can derive immediately from
the Absolute. The ground of being of finite things is to he
found in their separation or fall from infinite being.
By a long process of reflection, over various stages,
Schelling comes to perceive divine autonomy ever more
clearly, and to draw closer to the traditional notion of
creation from nothing; but this idea, for him, is a
theologumenon which he accepts only with reticence and
ambiguity.
Nor does his system clearly accept divine freedom. It
imposes God as a subtle necessity, because we are told that
access to true freedom happens only when the possibility of
creating arises. God is free only in the perspective of
creation.
It can also be argued that despite all Schelling's reference to
transcendence and his allusions to the supramundane
character of God, his system contains a notion of cosmic and
historical revelation of the divine life, and a notion of God as
the soul of the world which stamp a pantheistic seal on his
thinking.
By taking on board some priorities of the idealist philosophy
of the Mind, the Catholic theologian Anton Gnther (17831863) tried to prove that there was some kind of necessity
about God's creation of the world. Given that God is infinite
Reality, Gnther explains, he cannot be identified with the
world (which would happen if there were a process of
emanation). But God is also infinite intelligibility and infinite
self-consciousness, and this unlimited self- consciousness
necessarily implies consciousness of its own correlation, that
is, of unconscious being and being with limited
consciousness.

Divine self-consciousness requires therefore that God

possess in his intellect the idea of a finite universe whose
possible constitutional elements must be the conscious and
unconscious realities of the natural world and the limited
intelligences of the spiritual world. The idea of a possible
universe existing in the mind of the necessary and infinite
Being would also have to be the idea of a universe whose
basis must be God himself. And given that infinite Being
cannot found the world by pantheistic emanation, he can
only make it out of nothing through a free act of creation.
God is then necessarily the possible free creator of a finite
universe of spirit and matter. The activation of such a
possibility is not a metaphysical necessity in Gnther's
thought, but the creative liberty which he predicates of God
results in an overall system more nominal than real, due
largely to the impetus deriving from its philosophical origins.
renewal of creation theology in catholic circles in the
19th century
The Jesuit Josef Kleutgen (d. 1883) developed a theology of
creation notable for its critique of the opinions of Hermes
and Gnther. The main feature of this theology has to do
with the last end of creation. Kleutgen does not accept that
the glory of God (objective end) and the good of creatures
(subjective end) should be treated as two different effects of
the divine activity, but rather as a single consequence and
only effect. God is brought into the centre of creation and
objective and subjective ends of the creature coincide. If
man seeks the objective end, which is the glory of God, he
simultaneously achieves his subjective end, that is, his own
happiness. In this view of things, which owes much to St
Thomas Aquinas, God is never seen as man's competitor but
as the source and meaning of his existence.
Very important at the end of the 19th century is the
systematic teaching on creation of M.J. Scheeben (1835-88).

This German theologian combines in his synthesis a

pronounced rational optimism (which leads him to say that
the notion of creation ex nihilo is natural to the human mind
provided it is not darkened by prejudice), a sound Patristic
foundation and deep insights provided by a supernatural
perspective.
For Scheeben, creation lies at the basis of an order of beings
on different levels, where man, created in God's image,
perfects the condition and being assigned to him. Things are
brought into being, therefore, to prepare the way for their
elevation by saving grace.
Scheeben is concerned not so much with divine creative
activity in relation to the beginning of the created world as
with the metaphysical relationship between Creator and
creature, the natural prerequisite for elevation. The Godman relationship is first an ontological one which then leads
to a linking through grace. This is the root of the
anthropocentric focus of Scheeben's thought, a focus which
does not undermine the strong theocentric pitch of his
synthesis or lead him to regard man as the centre of
creation simply because he does in fact share in both the
material and spiritual worlds. This anthropocentrism is based
on the unique dignity and value assigned to man in the
divine plans.
'In Scheeben's dogmatic theology', Scheffczyk writes, 'we
can see a new awareness of the internal consistency among
all the truths of faith and which makes him aware of the
whole when dealing with matters of detail and enables him
to grasp the big picture when working on particular
questions. In his hands the rigid Scholastic system is
transformed into an organism full of vitality. In his doctrine
on creation this feature of his style can be seen in the mode
and manner that, on the basis of his first two chapters on
the general and particular doctrine of creation, he constructs
a third, consummate chapter on the subject of the
supernatural order in such a way that creation can once

again be seen as the basis for grace, and grace as the

complement of creation.'
modern protestant theology
Christian theology has always had great methodological
difficulty in finding the right place for the world alongside a
God who stands in no need of that world. This tension
becomes even more pronounced in Protestant theology,
where the proclamation of the lordship of God the Creator
involves, for deep-rooted reasons, the paradoxical
affirmation of the insignificance and even the emptiness of
all created things. This theology seems as it were to exalt a
Creator as Creator of nothing.
The thinking of the great Swiss Calvinist theologian Karl
Barth (1886-1968) is an example of these difficulties and
paradoxes. Barth strove to overcome the subjectivism of
Schleiermacher, and he was critical of the idea of the world
as merely a noetic correlative of the idea of God, and yet he
accepts the theological devaluation which Schleiermacher's
system implies.
Rejection of an ontological approach to theology leads Barth
to repudiate any type of cosmological orientation in creation
theology. The alternative Barth proposes is the proclamation
of a Christ-centred world perceived through faith.
The net effect is to accentuate theology's forgetfulness of
the mystery of the creation of the world and man. The
creature in its real and concrete being is overlooked, and
the role of the Creator is reduced to that of the mere
condition for human existence. Creation is not seen as the
objective basis of a relationship between creature and
Creator.
Consequently, the Covenant is not appreciated for what it is
a new salvific event which comes to perfect creationbut
as a basic reality within the framework of which the
meaning of creation itself must be sought. Belief in God the

Creator is then a dogmatic aspect deriving from faith in

Jesus Christ, which becomes a centre that excludes
everything else.
Religion and the empirical world are regarded here as not
connected to each other. Natural theology, which tries to
learn about the Creator by starting out from created things,
is therefore rigorously excluded, as is any universally valid
knowledge of the created world that is attained by a prior
notion of creation. Underlying these ideas one finds a
decided No to any intellectual and theological vision which
tries to establish a common framework for reflecting on God
and the physical universe. The net effect of this is that
creation becomes a theologically irrelevant affair, because in
reality the process by which Barth seeks to understand the
truth of creation by working out from the unity of Creator
and creature in Jesus Christ is found to be inconsistent with
biblical data and with the exercise of faith in the conscience
of the believer.
The Lutheran Paul Tillich (1886-1965), who taught first in
Germany and later at Harvard and Chicago, produced a
theology much influenced by German idealism and the
existentialism of Martin Heidegger. A radical notion of God
as the 'foundation of being' and a theory of participation
which echoes the philosophy of identity are the bases Tillich
uses for a creation theology in which he seems to deny any
existence to God that is independent of finite beings.
A certain pantheistic tendency is detectable especially when
Tillich examines the personality of God and his freedom to
create. To speak of a personal God, he says, does not mean
that God is a person, but that he is the foundation of
everything personal and he contains the ontological power of
personality.
Nor does Tillich accept that God is intrinsically free to create;
he thinks that creation is the outcome of a divine destiny
and he speaks not so much of creation as of divine
creativity. Tillich conceives of the process of creation in a

very Gnostic sort of way; in other words, he sets it in the

context of the myth of the Fall, by virtue of which the
creature is plunged into alienation, in order later to have his
being restored. Creation here has a rather negative
cosmological and theological value.
Another existentialist interpretation of creation is that of
Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), which reduces that article of
faith to a declaration that man is dependent on God.
What is called Process Theology, whose current proponents
include J. Cobb and D. Griffin, gives much importance to the
subject of creation. However, it provides such an extensive
reinterpretation of Christian creationist doctrine that many
familiar terms undergo substantial redefinition.
Process theologians speak of the immanent presence of the
Creator in the things he has made and they define reality
not as being but as becoming. Or at least becoming is for
them more important than being. God should not be thought
of as a causal principle which is found behind or under the
totality of the process which gives rise to the world. Finite
creatures (in this theology) contribute to the divine essence
through a free universal interchange. God the Creator is,
then, a power for perfection and at the same time he is
incomplete and in constant movement towards perfection.
Within the framework of a certain pantheism, in which the
world looks rather like the body of God, Process Theology
rejects creatio ex nihilo and the idea of a coactive divine
power; it stresses that mankind has an active share in
creation; it stresses, too, the idea that God is in the world
and not over the world; and it puts forward a reduced image
of God as befits a model for human interpersonal
relationships.
This theology is accused, among other things, of
amalgamating the divine with the empirical world-in-change,
and of confining ethics to a commitment based on ecology,
thereby eliminating the true moral and religious relationship
between God and the human being.

development of catholic theology on creation in the

20th century
In this area of Catholic theology in the 20th century most
work concentrated in producing third-level textbooks
designed to provide a concise outline of Christian doctrine.
The texts tended to be quite philosophical in style, without
adequate biblical supportvery akin to theodicy texts.
The situation has improved in recent times and we could say
that Creation theology is now reaching a fair level of
maturity. Creation is generally seen as a central mystery of
the Christian faith and a basic element in the believer's view
of the cosmos. Without losing sight of the need to show the
rational aspects of this doctrine, theology tries to take into
account the interconnection among dogmas and therefore to
show the links between creation and the mysteries of the
Trinity, Jesus Christ, Lord and Redeemer, the Church, and
Eschatology.
Advances in biblical studies have also brought about a new
situation for this theology, allowing it to develop its
scriptural base in three important aspects 1) the
importance of creation as a substantial biblical theme in its
own right and not just subordinate to the plan of salvation
and the Covenant; 2) an overall interpretation of chapters 111 of Genesis which sees them as forming a single unit and
thereby can make better sense of the various parts and see
how they interconnect; 3) the presentation of biblical
teaching as a necessary foundation for a theology of nature
and of the respect man, its master, should show the rest of
creation.
Creation theology is conscious of the need to retain and
develop the Christian notion of divine activity along
traditional notional lines: the free, temporal, ex nihilo
aspects of creation should not be undermined by
explanations which try to be more dynamic in ways that are

diametrically opposed to Patristic ideas which help to fix the

dogma.
Special importance also is being given to the study of the
world of creation in itself, to ensure that dogmatic
development include a suitable theology of the earth and
how man uses it. Material creation is the basis of human life
and it in turn is affected by the work of that creature who is
the image of God. A theology of vocation should reflect on
man-in-this-world with his temporal commitment which is
open to an eternal destiny, to sanctification and to its
consummation in Jesus Christ at the end of time.
chapter 6
Creation in the Creeds and the Magisterium of the
Church

the faith of the early church and the liturgy

Christians have always professed their faith in God, the
Father Almighty, Creator of all which exists. The confession
of this belief, which is shared with Jews, is found in the book
of Revelation in these words of praise: 'Worthy art thou, our
Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for
thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and
were created.'
Martyrs commonly proclaimed this faith in their answers to
magistrates. St Justin, for example, replies as follows to the
prefect who interrogates him about Christian doctrine: 'This
is the doctrine which teaches us to render worship to the
God of the Christians, whom we hold to be the one and only
God, he who from the beginning is the maker and shaper of
all creation, visible and invisible.' This same belief was
professed by the faithful at their baptism, when replying to
the first question put to them during the ceremony: Do you

believe in the Father, Lord God of the Universe?

The 'Creator of heaven and earth' formula, used on this and
other occasions, was not just a reaction to errors of a dualist
sort held by Gnostics, Marcionists and Manicheans. First and
foremost it expressed a positive and essential belief in the
Christian world view and its connexion with the one God.
Belief in God the Creator is also to be found in the very
earliest Christian liturgies, especially in the Eucharistic
anaphora. In the Syriac liturgy's thanksgiving passages the
benefits of creation are extolled at length. One of these
texts, from the so-called Clementine Liturgy of the Apostolic
Constitutions (fourth century), goes as follows: 'It is truly
right and just to praise you above all things, you, the true
God, who existed before all created things. You have
brought everything from nothing into being through your
only Son, whom you generated before time began by your
will, power and goodness . . .'.
In the Eastern liturgies, the thanksgiving which precedes
the Sanctus is normally applied to creation. It is repeated
once more after the Sanctus which refers to the
Redemption. The evocation of the good things of creation
then gradually came to take second place, while the
benefits of redemption came to the fore.
This evolution was particularly noticeable in the Roman
liturgy. The liturgical reform initiated by the Second
Vatican Council has managed to bring back this
appreciation of creation; a very good example is to be
found in Eucharistic Prayer IV, where we read: 'Father, we
acknowledge your greatness: all your actions show your
wisdom and love. 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.'
the creeds

The mystery of the creation of the world by God is central to

all the creeds of the Church's faith. The creeds, which
originate in the liturgy and which use terms taken directly
from Holy Scripture, unequivocally reflect belief in God the
Father, Creator and only God of the entire universe, a faith
which the Church derived directly from its Jewish origins.
The New Testament contains many examples of short
professions of faith, which were the immediate precedent
and source of the creeds. A very typical two-part formula is
found in 1 Corinthians 8:6: 'For us there is one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and
through whom we exist.' There are Patristic texts of the
second and third centuries which are the equivalent of
creeds. St Irenaeus speaks, for example, of 'only one God
the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven, of earth, of the
oceans and all that is in them'.
Unlike the Eastern creeds, which are not variants of a
primitive wording common to all, the Western creeds seem
to stem from a single early Roman creed. This symbol is
different from the Eastern creeds in that it does not mention
that the Father is the author of creation.
The oldest Eastern creeds, almost without exception, state a
belief in one God, the Father Almighty, whom they depict as
Creator of all things visible and invisible or some similar
wording. These creeds also state, in the second article, that
the Father created through the Son.
The Apostles' Creed dates from the third century and it was
used in the West. It
is constructed with a triple division
with an article for each of the divine persons. This creed is a
more elaborate version of the ancient Roman creed.
The first article, which is much shorter than the other two,
says as follows: 'I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.' The expression Creator of
heaven and earth was not to be found in the ancient Roman
creed (this distinguishes it from the Eastern creeds: cf.

above). The North African wordings were the first in the

West to refer to God as Creator of all things (universorum
creatorum).
It has been suggested that the new phrase was added to
combat heresy, to show that God was the author of
matter as well as Spirit. But Kelly says: 'In commentaries
by Western theologians there is not the least indication
that they consider it a defensive phrase against any
particular error. It could be thought of as having been
influenced by certain oriental creeds. However, this is
implausible due to the fact that to express such an idea
the word creatorem and not factorem was chosen (as the
normal Latin translation of the Greek poieten).
'The most likely explanation is that the phrase became
part of the Creed in a natural and spontaneous way. We
should remember that in the second century God's being
the source and origin of the universe was regarded as part
of his role as Father. But as soon as this title came to be
related to his fatherhood of Jesus Christ, those who edited
and commented on the Creed began to see a certain gap
or inaccuracy in the doctrinal content. The statement that
God is the universal Creator was never missing from the
Church's catechetical formation, so that it was only a
matter of a brief period before the phrase found its place
in the Creed.'
the first council of nicaea
The wording of the creed of the first ecumenical council
(Nicaea, 325) goes as follows:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of
heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light
from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made,

of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were
made.
The council was convoked, as is well known, to combat the
errors of Arius, who did not hold the strict divinity of the
second Person and his numerical equality of nature with the
Father. Influences in his teachings can be checked back to
the third-century Gnostics, notably Basilides and
Valentinian, whose theology and world view consider that
God most high and inaccessible existed on his own in eternal
solitude, and that before time in the proper sense he
produced the Demiurge, who at the beginning lived a hidden
intimate or immanent union with the Father. On deciding to
create the world, the Father uttered his Word, which from
that moment onwards moved into the state of something
uttered or pronounced and became the maker of created
things. The Gnostics therefore spoke of there being behind
the Supreme God and under him, another, lesser divinity,
who was the creator of the universe.
In a non-dualist philosophical system constructed with less
fantasy and considerably more intellectual rigour than the
Gnostic one, the Neo-Platonist Plotinus speaks of three
divine hypostases arranged in a hierarchy which he called
One, Reason and Soul. Reason proceeds from the One in the
same way as a ray of light comes from the sun and a river
from a spring; it is divine in nature and is the creator of the
visible world.
The Nicene wording takes account of the influence of these
theories on the heterodox views of Arius, who had tried to
work out a compromise between Christian Trinitarian
doctrine and Neo-Platonist principles.
The basic points of doctrinal difference between
Christianity and the Platonism of Plotinus were: 1)
Equality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Divinity with
hierarchical levels; 2) a temporal world is created by the
Triune God/an atemporal world created by the Demiurge;

3) the Logos becomes incarnate at a point in time/the

Logos is an immutable and primordial manifestation of
Reason or divine Intelligence; 4) primacy of faith over
knowledge/development of a rational mysticism; 5)
resurrection of the body/return of the soul to the divine
substance.
The Nicene creed derives from that of the Christian
community in Caesarea (Palestine); it is not therefore a
profession of faith ex novo. The structure of this creed is
directly Trinitarian, that is, it does not first profess faith in
the one God and then in the Trinity. Its structure is not: I
believe in one God: Father Almighty/Only-begotten Son/Holy
Spirit, but rather: I believe: in God the Father/in one Lord
Jesus Christ/ in the Holy Spirit.
The council uses scriptural wording, and in the Bible the
Father is usually given the title of the One God, so as to
differentiate him from false gods. This was in fact the
guideline followed by the Nicene Fathers:
St Athanasius of Alexandria refers to this fact when he
writes: 'If there is only one God and he is the Lord of
heaven and earth, how can there be any god outside of
him? . . . How can there be any other creator, since the
very God and Father of Christ is our Lord?'
When the creed confesses the 'one God, Father Almighty,
maker of all things seen and unseen' it reflects the
monotheist revelation of the Old Testament, where the one
God is counterposed to multiplicity of gods. 'This only God
does not here mean directly and formally the divine
substance: it refers to God in person, specifically the Person
of the Father, who is the Person revealed in the Old
Testament. There is not, then, in this expression any kind of
statement of the prior existence of a divine substance
common to the three Persons. That sort of language comes
later.'
In this profession of faith, which many regard as the first

dogmatic definition of the solemn Magisterium of the

Church, creation is attributed to the Person of the Father, an
attribution which does not, of course, exclude the creative
role of the Son and the Holy Spirit. In fact the creative
function of the second Person is expressly mentioned also:
'The only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father . . .
through him all things were made.'
the councils of constantinople
The council held in Constantinople in the year 381 adopted
word for word the Nicene formula on everything to do with
Creation. Unlike the Son, who is begotten, but not created,
the world is created and is totally devoid of any divine
substance.
The Second Council of Constantinople (553) established
central points of Christological doctrine but its teaching
begins with a statement on the creative activity of God. 'If
anyone does not confess that Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
are one nature (phusis) or essence (ousia), one might and
power, a Trinity one in being (homousios), one Godhead to
be worshipped in three hypostases or persons (prosopon),
anathema sit. For one is the God and Father from whom all
things are, one is the Lord Jesus Christ through whom all
things are, and one the Holy Spirit in whom all things are.'
This ecumenical council is of particular importance: 1)
because it very exactly and deliberately spelled out the roles
of Father and Son in causing things to be: 'from whom
everything' (ex quo omnia) and 'through whom
everything' (per quem omnia), and 2) it was the first council
of the Church to speak explicitly about the creative role of
the Holy Spirit.
The Sixth Council of Toledo (638) was the first synod to
attribute the work of creation to the Trinity, that is, to the
divine essence. The Council was simply taking account of the
dogmatic truth that all the ad extra actions of the Trinity are

common to the three divine Persons. The text reads:

'Credimus et confitemur sacratissimam et
omnipotentissimam Trinitatem, Patrem et Filium et Spiritum
Sanctum, unum Deum solum . . ., indiscretam essentialiter
substantia deitatis creatricem omnium creaturarum.'
The council held in the Lateran in 649 adopted a similar
wording when it spoke of the Trinity being 'the creator and
guardian of everything' (creatrix omnium et protectrix).
The Creed of the People of God published by Paul VI in
June 1968 likewise confesses the Church's faith in the
mystery of creation in these words: 'We believe in one
God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Creator of
what is visiblesuch as this world where we live out our
livesand of the invisible such as the pure spirits which
are also called angelsand Creator in each man of his
spiritual and immortal soul.'
the fourth lateran council
The Fourth Lateran Council (12th ecumenical) was held in
1215 during the pontificate of Innocent III. A constitution or
decree entitled Firmiter, which summarized the dogmatic
teaching of the assembly, is one of the most important acts
of the Magisterium in the Middle Ages. This text formulates
Catholic dogma in opposition to the errors of the
Albigensians and the Cathars. These heterodox groups,
which had a huge following in southern France since the last
decades of the 12th century, held a dualist interpretation of
Christianity: there is a divine principle which can be called
good, and an evil principle which created the visible world by
using the four elements. The good principle created the
spirits, the bad created matter. This dualist view of God, the
world and man, in line with the Gnostic theories of the third
and fourth centuries, also raised its head in later times.
The dogmatic statements in the decree which most interest
us here occur in the opening paragraphs. They are as

follows: 'We firmly believe and confess without reservation

that there is only one true God, eternal, infinite (immensus)
and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and
ineffable, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; three
persons indeed but one essence, substance or nature
entirely simple. The Father is from no one, the Son from the
Father only, and the Holy Spirit equally from both (pariter ah
utroque). Without beginning, always and without end, the
Father begets, the Son is born and the Holy Spirit procedes.
They are of the same substance (consubstantiales) and fully
equal, equally almighty and equally eternal. They are the
one principle of the universe, the creator of all things, visible
and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by his almighty
power from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out
of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the
corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then
(deinde) the human creature, who as it were shares in both
orders, being composed of spirit and body. For the devil and
other demons were indeed created by God naturally good,
but they became evil by their own doing.'
The doctrinal points which one can say are defined here are
the following:
1) There is only one divine creating principle: 'Father, Son
and Holy Spirit' which constitutes 'the sole origin of all
things'. The fact that Church tradition attributes creation to
the Person of the Father is in keeping with a biblical form of
expression and implies no contradiction of the Trinitarian
principle (also derived from Scripture) that divine works ad
extra are common to the three Persons.
2) The distinction between God and world: 'Creator of all
things visible and invisible... by his almighty power'. The
divine Being is not in any way changed by creation, nor is
creation brought about at his expense. The world is
essentially not divine.
3) Creation ex nihilo: 'He created from nothing.' This is the
first time this statement occurs in a document of the

Magisterium. Together with God's freedom in creating, and

creation in time (see below), creation out of nothing, that is,
without using pre-existing matter, is one of the essential
features of the Christian notion of creation. The council is
saying here that it rejects the notion that matter is a
negative principle which has always been available to be
used to make the visible world.
4) The fact that creation is temporal ('from the beginning of
time'): the creation of the world did not happen ab aeterno,
that is, the world has not always existed, simultaneously
with God. The council is here providing an authentic
interpretation of the statements Christian tradition makes
with reference to the beginning of the world.
5) The act of creation embraces all creatures, spiritual as
well as material; P.M. Quay comments that material beings
are not therefore the result of the creative activity of a
subsistent evil principle but rather all beings come from God
and can be considered as ontologically good; the council can
be said to have defined the existence and spiritual nature of
angels.'
6) What we call bad angels have not always been bad: 'The
devil and other demons were indeed created good by God;
however, they became evil by their own doing. The origin of
evil, both in angels and in man, is not ontological but moral,
and it has to do with freedom being used in a bad way.
The doctrine established by this council and some of the
expressions used in the Firmiter decree would later be used
to produce the Vatican I definitions of 1870 (see below).
In his In agro Dominico constitution of 1329 John XXII
censures various erroneous propositions of the German
Dominican Eckhart, on the grounds of their pantheistic
tendency. They include the following: 1) As soon as God
existed he created the world. 2) The world can be said to
have existed from all eternity. 3) When God existed, when
he generated the Son who is co-eternal and equal to him
in every way, he simultaneously created the world.

The Council of Florence (17th ecumenical; 1438-45) also

taught that 'the one and only true God, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, is the Creator of all things visible and invisible
who, at his own chosen time, in his goodness created every
creature; whether spiritual or corporeal, all were good for
having been made by the highest Good; however, they were
subject to change because they came from nothing; He
further attests there is no evil nature because every nature
as such is good.'
the council of cologne
The provincial council of Cologne held in 1860 was a synod
which proved very influential doctrinally; it can be regarded
as the immediate predecessor of Vatican I, spelling out as it
does in considerable detail Catholic teaching on the divine
Being and his creative activity. The aspects of this council's
teaching which most concern us here are to be found in
chapters 1 (The existence of God is the basis of religion), 11
(God is the only principle of all things), 12 (God's freedom
to create the world), and 13 (The purpose of creation).
The mysteries of God and of the Creation of the world are
formulated in terms which negate a number of philosophical
and theological opinions; for example: a) God needs to
create the world in order to be God; b) God is identical with
the world; c) the world comes from the divine substance; d)
reality is the product of reason and of human
consciousness; e) the end of creation is man, because it
would be unworthy of God to create just for his own glory.
The chapter concerning God provides the foundation for
what is later said about the creative activity of God and the
nature of creation. In a style which is more explanatory than
declaratory, chapter 11 recalls that creative power (virtus
creandi) is common to the three divine Persons, for all three
are acting through a single power whose source is the divine
essence.

The council goes on to say that Christian belief in the

creation of the world by God out of nothing is the best way
to rebut pantheistic theories which speak of God being
identical with the world or which see the world as an
emanation from the Supreme Being. The council grounds
these statements on texts of St Thomas Aquinas, taken
mainly from the Summa Theologiae I, 45, 6 and the Summa
contra Gentiles 1, 14.
Chapter 12 asserts God's freedom in the act of creating,
which had in some way been denied by Catholic theologians
Georg Hermes (1775-1831) and Anton Gnther (1783-1863)
under the influence of Kantian and idealist philosophy
respectively. 'God created all things,' we read, 'when he
chose to do so, moved by his goodness. For God does not
stand in need of the world either to obtain any greater
perfectionhe is absolutely perfect and self-sufficientor to
develop his own inner life by means of the act of creation
for that life is full of knowledge and love of his own infinite
essence. If one wanted to speak of a necessary coming to
be, one could say it takes place in the life of the divine
Persons, which does not need to be perfected by means of
external creation, because it is completely perfect in itself.'
The council goes on to declare that 'just as God was free to
create the world or not to create it, so he was free to create
this world or a different one.'
Chapter 13 deals with things to do with the purpose and end
of creation, and after stating that 'God was moved by his
goodness freely to create the world' (Deum bonitate sua, ut
libere mundum crearet, motum esse), explains that there is
no contradiction of any kind between the objective end of
created things, which is the glory of God, and the subjective
end of man, which is happiness. The council says: 'man's
happiness and the glory of God are deeply bound up with
one another. For when men promote (God's) glory, they
increase their merits and thereby their happiness.'

The so-called Colocense provincial council, which took

place in Hungary in September 1863, went along with the
teachings of the synod of Cologne and it too set down a
marker for the First Vatican Council in what it had to say
about Creation. Here is its most apposite statement: 'We
confess with the Fourth Lateran Council that God is a
supremely simple Being, completely indivisible, infinite in
substance and perfect, and that he has said of himself: "I
am who am" (Ex 3:14). Although he is entirely selfsufficient and the source of his own happiness, he was in
the beginning, and by his free will, not only the shaper but
the creator and arranger of heaven and earth, of things
visible and invisible, all of which he made not out of his
own substance by way of emanation but by truly creating
them from nothing. And it is not acceptable to think that
he was, through this creation, in any way limited or
divided or diminished or changed: he remains eternally
the same, distinct and different from all his works, even
though he is within them in the immensity of his
substance, the power of his influence, the
wise government he enacts, in such a way that in him we
truly live and move and have our being.'
the first vatican council
The First Vatican Council (20th ecumenical; 1870) examined
in the Universal Church the same themes as did the
provincial council of Cologne a decade earlier.
The first chapter of its Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic
Faith entitled 'God the Creator of All Things' defines
Christian doctrine on God and Creation, in the light of
modern errors which deny the existence of God or deny his
transcendence (materialistic atheism and pantheism); which
acknowledge that God exists but do not accept that he was
free to create or that he takes an interest in the world of
men (deism); and the error of ontologism, which by

regarding the divine essence as the proper object of human

knowledge, concludes that there is a kind of pantheistic
identity between God and creature.
The text is divided into three articles and it says the
following: 1) 'There is but one God living and true, Creator
and Lord of the heavens and the earth, almighty, eternal,
immense, unfathomable, infinite in intellect, will and every
perfection. Being a unique spiritual substance, absolutely
simple and immutable, he must be understood as really
distinct from the world, completely free within and of
himself and ineffably superior to everything which exists or
that can be conceived as outside himself.' 2) 'This one and
only true God, of his own goodness and almighty power, not
for the increase of his own happiness, nor for the
acquirement of his perfection, but in order to manifest his
perfection through the benefits which he bestows on
creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel, "from the
beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both
orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal," that is,
the angelic and the earthly, and then (deinde) the human
creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being
composed of spirit and body.' 3) 'By his Providence God
protects and governs all things which he has made,
"reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
and ordering all things well" (Wis 8:1). For "all are open and
laid bare to his eyes" (cf. Heb 4:13), also those things which
are yet to come to existence through the free action of
creatures.'
The council underscores the personal and transcendental
nature of God and thereby takes issue with philosophical
approaches, particularly idealist ones, which see the
supreme reality as an infinite being immanent in the world
and which becomes complete through contributions made by
finite beings.
It is also opposed to the idea that the divine essence exists
through a process of evolution. It solemnly restates the

traditional teaching that God and the created world are

distinct.
The second article almost literally repeats the core text of
the Fourth Lateran Council (see above) adding the words
'with the most perfect free intent' (liberrimo consilio).
After asserting the clear distinction between God and the
world, the council then draws the two closer together by a
brief and effective exposition of the doctrine of Providence,
whereby God looks after the world he has made and guides
it to its final goal.
In sum, the council teaches the following: a) the world is
completely distinct from God, who is its Creator; b)
everything that exists in the material and spiritual order was
created by God out of nothing, that is to say, in every
respect without exception; c) the universe is the excellent
work of a good and wise God, who in making all things acts
with total freedom; d) things are not eternal; they had a
beginning; e) God conserves and governs all creation by
means of his Providence; f) the purpose of the universe is
for the glory of the Creator, who made the world in order to
communicate his goodness and perfections.
the second vatican council
The Second Vatican Council (1962-5) provided, both
explicitly and implicitly, an entire Creation theology, which it
expresses not in a formal and intellectual mode but primarily
as a theology of the loving action of the Triune God, of the
goodness of the created world, and of human activity as a
perfecting of the work of Creation.
The council's main concerns have often been described as
'pastoral', but that does not mean they lack doctrinal
content. By 'pastoral' the council means anything that has to
do with Christian doctrine related to the world, that is,
everything to do with the Gospel's expression in real life,
bringing about a change in man and in the world, making a

better world where the public values of the Kingdom of God

prevailjustice, peace, truth, harmony, compassion etc.
'In the teaching of Vatican II, the Church's awareness of
itself is fundamentally united to the awareness of creation.'
The relationship between God and man, and between the
Church and the world, as described by the council imply a
creation theology which hinges on four main questions.
a) The mystery of creation. The council sets the whole work
of creation in a framework of a religious awe, which should
lead believers to adore and praise God. Deum creatorum
venite adoremus: this invocation used by Paul VI captures
the conciliar spirit very wella spirit primarily of gratitude to
God for the goodness of creation. 'The eternal Father,'
Lumen gentium says, 'in accordance with the utterly
gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and
goodness, created the whole universe.' The Ad gentes
decree teaches: 'God in his great and merciful kindness
freely creates us and moreover, graciously calls us to share
in his life and glory. He generously pours out, and never
ceases to pour out, his divine goodness, so that he who is
creator of all things might at last become "all in all" (1 Cor
15:28) thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our
happiness'.
All the solemn Magisterium prior to the council is clearly
echoed in these texts, which seek moreover to make people
aware that the world has been created by the Creator's
love and not just by his omnipotence and that devotion to
God the Creator of the universe and of man should imbue
the believer's spiritual attitudes and his behaviour generally.
This Christian view of the created world as a mystery to be
contemplated is conscious that 'the heavens are telling the
glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork'
and is confident that any success the human mind may have
in penetrating the secrets of the universe need in no way
conflict with the convictions of believers. The council sets its

creation teaching in a wide perspective where reason and

faith, science and mystery, are in harmony. A Christian
should not adopt a merely defensive attitude to the sort of
questions profane wisdom may pose to his beliefs. Paul VI
said: 'Let us have no fear that our faith will fail to
encompass the explorations and the achievements of man
regarding the created world; let us not think that we,
followers of Christ, are to be excluded from contemplating
the earth and the heavens, and fail to share the joy of their
gradual and wonderful disclosure. If we are with Christ on
the way, we are with him in the truth and in life.'
Drawing its support from the mystery of creation and its
unfathomable riches, the council not only speaks about how
Christian doctrine and scientific theories complement one
another in the context of a unified conception of reality; it
also suggests guidelines to help develop links between
theology and science.
b) Christocentric outlook. The council proclaims the
mystery of creation from a standpoint which has Jesus Christ
centre-stage. 'The Word of God, through whom all things
were made, was made flesh, so that as a perfect man he
could save all men and sum up all things in himself.'
Conciliar teaching stresses the importance of Christ's role as
Firstborn of all creation, to express the purpose of divine
creative activity; but the Christological aspects of this
mystery do not drown out its own proper significance (unlike
instances where Jesus Christ is given such central
importance that everything else seems superfluous).
The Christological observations the council makes do not
deprive the creation mystery of its specific dogmatic value,
nor is the redemptive work of Jesus proclaimed to the
theological detriment of his work as creator. The council sets
the truths of creation and redemption in a dogmatic
structure in which each reinforces the other.
Jesus Christ, Creator of the universe alongside the Father

and the Holy Spirit and 'a perfect man, entered world
history' and is the goal of that same history; he enables
every human being to accept his or her vocation and to
respond to it; and at the end of time he will bring this
creation to fulfilment.
c) Theology of man, God's creature and perfector of
creation. The goodness of a creation that has come from
the generous hands of God is reflected in the council's
teaching about the positive nature of all reality and of man's
life and destiny. The council adopts what could be called an
optimistic view of the world; it sees God's providence at
work in history, and yet it is mindful of man's inclination
towards evil and the serious extent to which sin exercises
dominion over him.
The conciliar documents outline a theology of work which
sees work as the result of man's cooperation with the divine
work of creation and redemption. This is a theological point
of great application which seeks to get beyond secularist
views of human activity, while at the same time entering
into a dialogue with those views. The idea that man's work
cooperates with God to steer creation in the direction God
wants, to bring it to fulfilment, is something that comes
across very clearly in the teaching of Paul VI, who interprets
Gaudium et spes along those lines. John Paul II brings this
thinking further in his encyclical Laborem exercens, where
he writes: 'The word of God's revelation is profoundly
marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the
image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the
Creator.'
The theology of work implies, as the council sees it, that
there is a rightful autonomy of earthly realities. This means
that culture, science, economics, politics, and all the other
sectors of human activity have a relative yet valid
autonomy, a goodness and order of their own, and also laws
of their own. Working out from these principles, the

Gaudium et spes constitution sets down markers for

Christian approaches to questions raised by politics,
economics, culture, etc.
The autonomy of earthly realities taught by the council does
not mean that the created world is independent of God. It
means that 'created things and society itself have their own
laws and values, which man must gradually discover and put
to an ordered use.' This autonomy is in line with the will of
the Creator and opens up a rich and responsible arena for
man in this world and which is closely linked to his heavenly
vocation. d) Creation and eschatology The connexions
between the mystery of Creation and the eschaton involve
four central ideas:

Jesus Christ is the Beginning and End of creation;

God is leading the created world towards its final
fulfilment by the exercise of his Providence;

the world will be renewed at the end of time, when

the new heavens and the new earth come;

the expectation of a new and definitive earth should

not lessen our real efforts to perfect the present world.

postconciliar magisterium
The papal Magisterium in the years since Vatican II has
done much to expound and develop the main aspects of
Creation doctrine.
The Creed of the People of God, published by Paul VI in June
1968, proclaims in its opening words the Christian faith on
creation: 'We believe in one God, the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit, Creator of what is visiblesuch as this world
where we live out our livesand of the invisiblesuch as
the pure spirits which are also called angelsand Creator in
each man of his spiritual and immortal soul.' This profession
of faith restates the Church's teaching and puts special
stress on the existence of angels and on the divine creation

of the human soul, two dogmatic points which were being

ambiguously interpreted at that time.
John Paul II has given a lot of attention to teachings on
creation; he seems to see the subject as the matrix of his
whole teaching programme. Two series of addresses to
general audiences (towards the end of 1979 and in early
1986) are especially to be noted in this regard. From
September 1979 onwards John Paul systematically
developed what he called a theology of the human body,
based on what is said in Genesis about creation. In these
addresses the pope deals with subjective and objective
definitions; the fact that mankind comes from a single pair;
man and woman in the perspective of the Redemption; the
body and sexuality in the context of the human being as a
whole; and creation as a basic doctrine of Christianity.
The 1986 audiences (8 January-23 April) deal with creation
as a mystery of faith, revealed in Holy Scripture and
Tradition; as the work of the Trinity, and as calling the world
and man into being; as a revelation of the glory of God and
as the framework for the rightful autonomy of created
things. Man and woman are also dealt with, as beings made
in the image of God, with knowledge, freedom and moral
consciousness.
The many papal texts on the subject of creation in the past
twenty years point to the central importance of this truth of
faith, and are an indication of the increasing attention being
paid to it by Catholic theology.
chapter 7
The Notion of Creation
the act of creating
The Christian idea of creation is exact and definite. It refers
to the creative act whereby God makes everything that
exists. We are talking here not about creation as the effect

or product of the divine creative act, but the act itself of

creating (sometimes called active creation).
The doctrine of creation correctly explains the connexion
between God and the world. Many incorrect notions or
descriptions of this connexion have been put forward; over
the course of human thought, many writers, both religious
and profane, have imagined God and the world to be one
and the same thing (Stoics, Spinoza, etc.). Others think that
there is a difference but they say that the world is a
necessary emanation of God (a mythical emanatism, in
which the world is formed materially from the divine being
or some of its parts), or a more refined philosophical
emanatism of the Neo-Platonist type (whereby the world has
a necessary and an atemporal relationship of dependence
with respect to God).
Christian theology claims, on the contrary, that creation is a
divine act implying a radical and absolute change from nonbeing to being, and in this way answers the question
whether being is prior to or greater than non-being.
Creation can, then, be defined as the production of the
entire being of things in their entire substantiality. In the act
of creating, God produces the existing thing insofar as it
exists. Given that what exists does so by virtue of its act of
being, which is the ultimate perfection in every existing
individual. To produce what exists insofar as it exists means
to produce it totally.
Creation by God is then a religious truth with many
ramifications and also an ontological reference which puts us
directly into contact with the great mystery of being and its
ultimate cause.
Active creation can also be defined as the emanation of all
being, brought about by God. Emanation here is simply the
same as the original production. What emanates by virtue of
the divine act is production, that is, not this concrete being.
If it were the latter, we would have generation. Generation
is a process (cosmological and empirical) quite different

from creation. In generation there is a generating being

which communicates its own nature to the generated being,
but it does not absolutely produce that new being, as
happens in creation.
Generation confers a form, but it presupposes matter. It is a
change whose final outcome is a new thing. Creation is
much more perfect than generation, because it has as its
final outcome the entire being of the created thing, and
implies no movement of any kind. The act of creation
involves then three basic things:
The Creator undergoes no change or modification of any
kind as a result of creating: that is, he does not lose or
acquire any perfection. The divine being is not affected by
creation.
We have here a Christian truth concerning the unchangeable
nature of God. From its philosophical point of view NeoPlatonism saw the importance of this principle and
formulated it by stating that the originating principle of all
beings (the nous) remains unchanged when by emanation it
gives rise to the real world as we know it. The higher Being
loses or gains nothing when it produces the lower being, just
as man loses nothing of himself when he casts his shadow
on the ground.
Christian theology conveys this feature of the act of creating
by stating that creation is not something in God; it exists
only within us through our creaturely condition or
relationship of dependence. Creation is something real in the
created being, by way of relationship only, because what is
created is done without movement. In the created being
creation is a real relationship with the Creator as principle
and origin of its being and of other expressions of its interior
structure.
a)

What is created is really and completely distinct from the

Creator. Creation implies that, although the Creator and the
b)

creature can both be considered under the common notion

of being because a creature has participated being, it does
not have being on the same level with God, nor does it
share in the divine being as such. The idea of creation
reflects notionally the absolute difference between Creator
and creature that obtains in reality.
The theology of St Thomas Aquinas uses the idea of
participation in stating its concept of creation. By
'participation' the saint means possessing in a limited and
imperfect way something which is found in another in a
total, unlimited and perfect way. He speaks of two kinds of
participation: predicamental-univocal and transcendentalanalogous. In the first kind, all the participants are the
same on the level of formality where their essential
content is concerned, in such a way that the participant
does not exist in itself, but only in the participants. Each
man/woman, for example, participates in humankind, and
humankind does not exist as such outside of concrete men/
women; and in each man/woman it is found in all its
essential content.
Transcendental participation is the participation of the
creature in the Creator, who, because he is Being by
essence, possesses all perfections. Alongside the fully
perfect Being are found other beings with various degrees
of perfection. They are all beings, but they are not Being.
They have the act of being, but they are not the act of
being. These beings which are not Being itself have
participated being.
The basic difference between creature and Creator is,
then, that between being- by-participation and Being-byessencewhich is the most important division to be found
in reality. In creation there exists a basic causal
dependence, where the cause is God (beingesseby
essence) and the effect is the created thing (beingens
by participation).

The result of creation means that created things

participate in esse, by which they are in act. Esse is for St
Thomas radical energy and supreme perfection. Only God
is the esse, that is, the act of all acts, the only one which
rules in a pure limitless reality. For esse has no essence to
circumscribe it. The creature, on the other hand, has esse,
and does not just exist; it exists in a definite mode, that is
to say, limited by an essence. The notion of participation
implies total dependence of the creature on God.
God, unlike the creature, is divine. On being created, the
creature is really ontologically different but not unrelated to
God, and therefore can be said to have its own existence,
making it profoundly distinct from the Creator.
God and the creature do not overlap, and created being
does not appear at the expense of the Creator as would
happen if they were not completely distinct. One of the clear
and central statements of Christian doctrine is the
proclamation of God's transcendence and the creature's
limited and worldly status.
God is the first or universal cause living and acting at a
transcendental level and on a very different plane from the
creature whose causality is secondary.
As Creator, God is, as it were outside creation and creation
outside God. It can also be thought that God, by his power,
is within creation and that creation is within him. St Thomas
Aquinas states: 'God is found in every part of the universe in
a total sense just like the soul in every part of the body.'
However, while God is singularly immanent in creation, it
does not at all take from his transcendence due to his
relationship with all creation to which he has given
existence. When we say God is in everything, it is not meant
that the world is akin to God's body. God is all, but not
everything is God.
God's presence among creatures is termed immensity and
justifies a triple description of how God is present in all

created beings, namely, by essence, by presence and by

power. It is an overall essential or basic presence, that is,
one by which the creator Being confers the total foundation
to the being of others.
This divine presence has no connotations of pantheism or
monism between Being itself and other but, on the contrary,
presupposes the greatest possible difference between God
and the created world. Participation means that God as
transcendental cause reaches deeply into created beings and
brings them radically into relationship with himself such that
he does not make them part of himself. The concept of
participation does not allow created being to be simply
placed beside God's Being as just another unit of a series.
Further, it expresses the greatest dependence of the
creature on the Creator and the greatest difference between
them.
It has been often said that God's presence in creatures is
like the fire which heats an object. The heat of the object is
not the same as the fire it comes from, but if the fire
disappears so does the heat of the object.
This divine presence entails that God has all created objects
in his sight, and all are gently but strongly within his power.
The type of pantheism characteristic of the German
philosopher K. Krause attempts to reconcile theism and
pantheism at a speculative level. He says everything is in
God. God is simultaneously immanent and transcendent. He
is immanent because he is found within things, though not
in an absolute way. All natural substances, however, are
God himself. He is also transcendent in so far as the world is
dependent on him and he does not depend on the world.
God is not identical to matter, because in his indivisible unity
he holds an infinite number of possible types of beings.
For both modern and ancient pantheists the world is within
God but God is more than the world. The world's processes
and matter become direct expressions of God's life when he
is in creator mode. In these processes we can see God's

creation in the act of creation itself. What God creates is not

totally external to himself. This theory doesn't do justice to
divine transcendence and engages God in the world's
development in a physical way.
c) What is created is created in its totality Christian creation
never in any way involves a pre-existent or formless matter,
or any prime matter that God uses to shape the world.
When we say that God creates the world out of nothing or
out of non-being we mean that no matter previously existed
to be used as a basis for creation. We mean that there was
no concomitant cause of any kind. By saying that something
is made out of nothing, we really mean that something is
made after nothing. We are using a language of change and
movement because we do not have words to describe that
unique and singular act which is creation in the Christian
sense.
The meaning of creation is disfigured or understated when
one omits from the discussion all reference to the creative
act as we have just described it, and also by identifying
creation as something absolute which is always in a process
of gestation, or else conceives it as a process in which the
divine being is somehow essentially part and parcel of it, or
as a way in which God makes room for the world at the
expense of his own being, or as a symbolic concept devised
to give meaning and direction to human life.
Those theologies which adopt a historico-salvific view of
creation and interpret it in absolute terms to the exclusion of
any cosmological perspective, run the risk of erasing the
distinction between what God did at the beginning (creation)
and what he is doing now (re-creation through grace). Recreation, understood in this way, would cancel out creation.
the created status of the world and of man
It is quite a basic understanding that things are not what is

ultimate, all-that-there-is: they are creation, that is, a

divine production. The world rests on the wisdom of God
and on his creative power. The world is indeed very real:
but it is a created reality. It does not belong to itself nor is it
autonomous: it is God's property and he is in charge.
The world, therefore, necessarily carries a creaturely seal on
it which marks its inner nature and make-up, and which
brings with it certain consequences.
In the first place created things can be compared to God as
a product to its producer, because both created things and
fabricated products came from a plan or design. That is why
creatures are said to come from God by way of divine
knowledge.
What this principally means is that man finds himself living
in the world with a nature that has been given hima
nature which he did not ask for and did not himself design.
Thus human nature and man's status as a creature are one
and the same. If man were not a creature, one could not
say that there was such a thing as a stable human nature
that is equal in all who have it.
The fact that created things came from God's mind allows us
to speak of their intelligibility, that is, their ontological
clarity, whereby nature and reality arc things which can be
grasped by the human intellect. 'We see the things you have
made, because they are; and they are, because you see
them.'
Secondly, it must be said that in spite of everything the
created mind cannot fully grasp reality, because reality has
been conceived and produced by an intellect greater than
ours and therefore it has a mysterious, unfathomable
quality. The human mind cannot plumb the depth of being,
nor can it fully know the divine master who is reflected in all
these things he has made. We can never plumb the full
depth of things.'
Thirdly, just as the nature of things is based on a creating
intellect, their contingency (the fact that they could possibly

not have existed) also speaks to us of a free creating will. If

the creating intellectual plan explains the knowability of
things and their relative transparency to the human mind,
the creating will endows them with that goodness which is
an essential aspect of their being.
In the case of man, his creaturely condition gives him an
impetus or irresistible thrust towards his self-fulfilment and
the attainment of his goal as willed and designed by the
Creator. Man's last end is intimately connected to the
dynamism in his God-given nature.
Given that where there is intellect there is freedom, men
and women are capable of arriving at free decisions, but we
also desire our end with the same elementary need a stone
'desires' to fall. By virtue of his created nature, man cannot
but desire to be happy. He has a natural desire for
happiness, that is, he desires it by his very nature and not
by a decision of his own which could be different. The desire
for happiness is our own act of volition. In this connexion
Thomas Aquinas says that 'the will freely desires happiness,
even though, at the same time, it seeks it necessarily.' It is
all a consequence of the fact that a man is a creature.
creation and evolution
Evolution is one of the ideas which has most influenced
science and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. It derives
mainly but not exclusively from the biological theories of
Charles Darwin (1809-82) in his book The Origin of Species
(1859).
Darwin held that in plants and animals one species derives
from another by means of an evolutionary process based on
natural selection. Unlike J.B. Lamarck (1744-1829), who
thought that changes in species were caused by external
environmental factors, Darwin thought that they were due to
the survival of the genetically stronger individuals. In this
context he argued that the races of men are the outcome of

a process of natural selection in other biological species.

There is no doubt but that Darwin's theories opened up new
fields of biological research and drew the scientific world's
attention to the fact of evolution (incontrovertible when
properly understood). Unfortunately his theories seemed to
argue for a materialistic view of the origin of the world and
of man and to be in fact putting forward a profane
alternative to the Christian notion of creation. For some
people evolution was not just a more or less well-founded
scientific theory but an ideology which implied denying the
existence of God.
Yet, despite this, evolutionist ideas indirectly had positive
effects in the fields of biblical exegesis and theology, such as
ever more explicit recognition of the autonomy of science,
and of the principle that the Bible should not be read as a
scientific book. These ideas also led to a growing
appreciation and awareness of the way secondary causes
act, and they lead people to see that, although the various
types of living beings owe their origin ultimately to God, that
does not mean that all of them were created directly.
The acceptance and understanding of Darwinian ideas in
various scientific nut cultural circles have, however, tended
to erase the Christian concept of man, to sever the origin of
life from its maker, to blur the notion of human nature and
to present the human being as a product of evolution, to
remove from Nature any notion of purpose, to make an
apotheosis of science and destroy any relationship it may
have with religion.
The baneful influence of this approach can be seen in lots of
contemporary theories which argue that God is a product of
the human mind, and that evolution is an absolute and allembracing phenomenon which should be taught as a religion
and a science. Evolution provides the answer to everything
and has come to occupy the place of creation as understood
by Christian tradition. If this approach is taken, then
evolution and creation become mutually exclusive notions

and there is no room for dialogue between theology and

science in this whole area.
The Church thinks that 'the truth of faith about creation is
radically opposed to theories of materialistic philosophy
which see the cosmos as the outcome of an evolution of
matter arising from chance and necessity'.
Theology and believers today have to face the fact that
whereas the Christian religion is not really in conflict with
science and its proven findings about the fact of evolution, it
may well collide with certain evolutionist attitudes which are
part of the modern mind-set. There are people who have the
vague idea that this universe 'simply developed' and took
shape by a kind of semi-divine process of evolution.
There are few people who support absolute evolution, a kind
of new religion based on a monistic idea of nature which is
opposed a priori to the notion of creation. Even though the
radical evolutionist idea of dialectical materialism may still
survive (in a few pockets) as also other materialisms (which
see matter as eternal, uncreated and always in movement),
such views are not widely held nowadays in the natural
sciences.
Almost everyone agrees nowadays that religion and science
are different spheres of knowledge which should try to
understand one another, and that the theory of evolution if
correctly understood is not at odds with, is not an obstacle
to, the Christian notion of creation, though it is also true
that it cannot be used to support it.
More and more people are coming round to the view that
creation and evolution are responses to different questions
and therefore belong to different levels, one descriptive, the
other metaphysical; thus:
a) Evolution is an empirical concept, deriving from pure
observation in response to the question, What is the origin
of things as they now exist in time and space? Creation is,
however, a theological (or metaphysical) concept relating to
the radical, ultimate, cause of everything that exists.

Evolution always presupposes something that changes

and develops. Creation shows why and for what purpose
that something exists which is capable of change and
evolution.
One can say, then, that 'the theory of natural evolution,
provided it is understood in a way that does not exclude
divine causality, is not in principle at odds with the truth
concerning the creation of the visible world, as presented in
the book of Genesis.' The Christian notion of creation is not
compatible with a creative evolution but it would admit a
creation which evolves.
To show that evolution and creation are distinct and not
incompatible notions does help to clear matters up for both
Christian theology and scientific thought. But it is not
enough to say that these two ideas are not at odds with one
another. One needs to go further and try establishing their
mutual connection.
One cannot just say, for example, that creation is a past
event whereas evolution belongs to the present. That would
be equivalent to saying that God acts only at the very start
of things and then simply lets evolution take its course. This
would be a Deist approach, which exiles God the Creator
from the present world.
So, one needs to avoid making an absolute separation
between creation and evolution; and one also needs to avoid
what some theological currents are doing linking creation
and evolution to the point of making them identical. Such
theories involve a being pre-existent to creation, but here
God can appear as the formal cause of creation, that is,
sharing the same category of being. They confuse first cause
and second cause.
b)

Some people have given this interpretation to the views of

the French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955),
even though the fact that he does not present his ideas in a
formal, systematic way makes it difficult to determine their

true theological import.

Correctly to understand the connexion between evolution
and creation, one needs to have a very clear concept of the
creationist idea, which is that God did not choose to create
the world as perfectly finished, but rather something with a
capacity to develop (typical of everything contingent) and
that it is at all times being guided by divine Providence.
Michael Schmaus writes: 'God has chosen that things should
develop from an initial original state towards their present
state, and in line with this desire of his they will keep on
developing in further ways. The world was not created as
perfectly finished, but in a state of constant flow. God has
given the world a being which flows continually. The world is
on its way to the state foreseen by God. The theory of
evolution not only is not in contradiction to the doctrine of
creation; in fact it dovetails with it very nicely. All that
revelation says is that the world was created by God.
Evolution does not begin from below but from above; that is
to say, God himself is its point of departure. We do not know
in which state of evolution God created the world. We must
believe that God created the first and not very numerous
seeds of all the evolving forces, and believe too that he gave
existence to the spiritual realm by means of a special acta
realm which, due to its specific characteristics, cannot arise
from matter by processes of evolution. Besides, it is for
philosophy and the sciences to work out the degree of truth
there is in the theories of evolution. These theories highlight
the power and wisdom of God. Only God can create
something, which in turn is endowed with creative powers.'
creation, the work of all the trinity
Like every external (ad extra) divine activityas distinct
from the two divine processions, which are immanent and
necessarycreation is a free act of God, and therefore
common to the Three Persons.

The Second Council of Constantinople (553) teaches: 'There

is one God and father, from whom are all things, and one
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are made, and
one Holy Spirit, in whom all things come'. This teaching is
couched in typical biblical language, reminiscent of what St
Paul says in 1 (Corinthians 8:6, even though no mention is
made of the Holy Spirit.
The Lateran Council of 649 speaks of the Trinity, 'creating
and preserving all things'. And the Fourth Lateran Council
says that 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the one and only
principle of all things, Creator of all things visible and
invisible.'
Fourth-century theology is the first to notice Genesis 1:1-3
and formulate very clearly the creating action of the Triune
God. St Athanasius of Alexandria writes: 'The Trinity is a
source of total power and order. By nature it is one and
indivisible and it also acts as one. The Father does
everything through the Logos in the Holy Spirit.'
In most of the early symbols of the faith, creation is usually
attributed to the Father, who is the source and origin in the
Trinity: 'I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator
of heaven and earth.' However, it does not say that creation
is proper or exclusive to the Father. Creation is simply
attributed to him by a justified appropriation due to the fact
that the Father does not hold or receive power from
another. But this does not mean that creative power cannot
be affirmed in the other two Persons.
What we have here is the same theological procedure as
that by which redemption is attributed to the Son, the only
divine Person who became incarnate in order to save men,
and sanctification is attributed to the Holy Spirit, who has a
special mission in this regard after Pentecost.
The creating role of the Son is expressed in the Epistles of
St Paul, the Gospel of St John and the Letter to the
Hebrews. St Paul speaks of Jesus as mediator, beginning,
centre and end of creation. The passage of 1 Corinthians 8:6

attributes a creating action to both Father and Son.

St John refers expressly, in the prologue to his Gospel, to
the creating word, that is, the Word of God, 'by whom all
things were made'. The Letter to the Hebrews links the preexistent Word to the origin of all things: 'through whom
[Christ] also God created the world'.
The creative power and role of the Holy Spirit is testified to
in Holy Scripture, and it is dealt with at length in the
Patristic tradition, which usually refers to this power and role
when expounding the divinity of the Paraclete. The liturgy,
too, bears witness to them: the hymns Vent, Creator
Spiritus (ninth century) and Vent, Sancte Spiritus (13th
century).
In his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem (1986) John Paul
II puts a good deal of stress on the Spirit as Creator. This
document is principally centred on the theme of the oneness
of the divine actions of creation and redemption, viewed as
a whole in the light of the Holy Spirit.
The active presence of the Spirit in the creating act indicates
the start of the salvation that is to come, whose guarantor
and cause the Spirit is from the very beginning. The pope
says: 'Here is what we read in the very first words of the
book of Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth . . . and the Spirit of God (ruah Elohim) was
moving over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:1ff). This biblical
concept of creation includes not only the call to existence of
the very Being of the cosmos, that is to say, the giving of
existence, but also the presence of the Spirit of God in
creation, that is to say, the beginning of God's salvific selfcommunication to the things he creates. This is true first of
all concerning man, who has been created in the image and
likeness of God' (no. 12).
The unity that exists between creation and redemption, due
precisely to being bound together by the Holy Spirit who
gives rise to and sustains all created things and brings them
to fulfilment, helps us to see that there is no need to

undervalue the visible world and the nature of man so as

they can attain what their vocation in the order of grace
requires.
The oneness of God's ad extra activity goes right back to the
divine essence, which is common to all three Persons:
'Creation, that is, the production of the being of things, is
fitting for God by reason of his being which is also his
essence which in turn is identical in all three divine persons.
Therefore, creating is not the act of any single person but
common to the Trinity.'
The oneness of God's creating activity is also explained by
the fact that the three divine Persons all think, love and act
as one. Given that God is love, light and life, the almighty
love that exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit creates all
things according to a plan imbued with Goodness, and
actuated by the Father in the Son and communicated by
both to the Holy Spirit.
One could say that in all created things there is a certain
trace or vestige of the Trinity, because in each there exists
something which is necessarily connected to the Blessed
Trinity as to its cause. This does not mean, however, that
created things are symbols of the triune God, or that they
do not have a being and a causality of their own. They are
not direct reflections of God nor theophanies of the divinity,
as a pantheistic view might hold.
creation and redemption
The mysteries of creation and redemption are inseparable
from one another in Christian doctrine and in the Christian
view of the world. Christianity is a religion of redemption but
it is also a religion of creation: these two revealed truths
form, as it were, the two foci of a dogmatic ellipse.
If creation provides the foundation or ground of being for
things, redemption grounds their regeneration and ultimate
meaning. The God of creation is revealed as the God of

redemption, as the God who is 'faithful to himself' (1 Thess

5:24) and faithful to his love for man and the world, which
he revealed on the day of creation.
There cannot in fact exist in Christianity a coherent faith in
redemption that is not at the same time faith in creation,
just as Exodus would be very difficult to understand in the
Bible without Genesis.
The oneness of creation and redemption is not simply that of
two successive facts in coordination. They should be seen,
rather, as two constituent and intimately connected parts of
one and the same divine plan. This is the way the Old
Testament sees them. In Psalm 74:12, for example, we
read: 'God my King is from of old,/working salvation in the
midst of the earth./Thou didst divine the sea by thy might;/
thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters./
Thou didst crush the heads of Leviathan. Thou hast fixed all
the bounds of the earth;/thou hast made summer and
winter.'
Creation is interpreted here as a saving event and the
beginning of a work which leads to the Covenant, while at
the same time, inversely, the events of salvation are
described as creations of God's. 'We tell to the coming
generation the glorious deeds of Yahweh, and his might, and
the wonders which he has wrought. He established a
testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.'
Exodus is outlined and interpreted especially in Isaiah as
an act of creation. Is 51:1516: 'I am Yahweh your God,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar Yahweh
Sabaoth is his name. And I have put my words in your
mouth, and hid you in the shadow of my hand, stretching
out the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth,
and saying to Zion, "You are my people".' Is 44:24: 'Thus
says Yahweh, your Redeemer, who formed you from the
womb: "I am Yahweh, who made all things. . .";' cf.
45:12; 27:1: 'In that day Yahweh with his hard and great

and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing

serpent. . .'. 'At the end of the age the Creator will
destroy the forces of evil.'
The prologue to the Fourth Gospel is a sort of outline of the
history of salvation in which the Word made flesh is seen
also as a mediator in creation. Christ is at one and the same
time Redeemer and creating Word.
The cosmic role of the Son was already referred to by St
Paul, who in Col 1:14 speaks of a double relationship of
Christ with the world (and therefore of unity between
creation and redemption).
St Irenaeus of Lyons goes so far as to say that 'as the
Saviour pre-existed it was fitting that what was to be
saved should be created'. In this way he is asserting,
against the Gnostics, that creation is the beginning of
salvation, and that the recapitulation of all things in Christ
is not something that can be counterposed to creation: it
is in fact the very goal of creation.
St Gregory of Nyssa writes: 'The establishment of the
Church is a re-creation of the world. In the Church there
is a new heaven, as the prophet says (Is 65:17). There is
also a new firmament which is, as St Paul tells us, faith in
Christ (1 Tim 3:15). A new earth is formed, which drinks
the rains that fall upon it. Man is created again, because
in his new birth from on high he is renewed according to
the image of his Creator. There is also a new light. . .'
The Church's liturgy often echoes this unity between
creation and redemption. Here are some examples:
'O God who wonderfully created man and even more
wonderfully renewed him . . .' (from the offertory of the
Mass in the Roman Missal of St Pius V).
'Father, we acknowledge your greatness: all your actions
show your wisdom and love. 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. Even when he

disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not

abandon him to the power of death, but helped all men to
seek and find you. Again and again you offered a covenant
to man, and through the prophets taught him to hope for
salvation. Father, you so loved the world that in the
fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our
Saviour' (Eucharistic Prayer IV).
'Let us call upon God, our Father, who wonderfully created
the world, and even more wonderfully redeemed it and
continues to keep it with unfailing love' (from the
intercessory prayers of the Vespers of the 3rd Sunday).
'O king of nations, come to save us whom you formed
from the dust of the earth' (Magnificat antiphon from the
Vespers of 22 December).
There are, then, three central theological statements that
need to be established:
a) Redemption is not just something added on to creation by
God as if sin had taken him unawares and caused him to
change his plans.
It is essential to the unity of God's overall plan that the
mystery of the redemption, revealed in the 'fullness of
time' (Gal 4:6), be found present already in God's plan of
creation, in such a way that by creating the world God is
already including its redemption.
b) If creation and redemption were not to be interconnected,
redemption would seem to be something which annuls
creation, as if God were correcting some mistake of his.
If these two mysteries are seen just as events coming one
after the other, that could leave some justification for the
Gnostic idea that the act of creation and redemptive activity
are opposed to one another. The catastrophe of sin would
have given creation a death-blow, and redemption could not
be considered as a renewal or elevation of the created
world, but rather a creation of a new world, a different world
from the original.

Creation itself contains salvific elements. The purpose of

creation is not just to make manifest God's perfections.
God's saving action does not begin after man's original fall,
as if what happened prior to that event had no salvific
meaning or purpose.
Even the oldest account of creation (Gen 2:4b-25) does not
try to provide a cosmogony: it tries to show that God's work
of creation is the start of the salvific link between God and
the chosen people.
Creation is the first salvific event. This is seen from the
intention of the author of the Pentateuch who begins his
account of salvation history (from Abraham to the conquest
of the promised land) by providing an account of creation.
Creation as the first salvific event reaches its climax in the
covenant. The creation-redemption link throws light on
important aspects of Christian faith such as the mystery of
grace building upon nature in the world and in man, and the
fact that there is only one true end for the human persona
supernatural one.
c)

chapter 8
The Divine Act of Creation. Its Properties and
Consequences

Christian doctrine sees the act of creation as 1) being free;

2) making the world out of nothing (ex nihilo); and 3) taking
place within time.
creation, a free act of god
Created things did not derive from God necessarily, in the
way, for example, the Son proceeds from the Father; nor do
they emanate from the divine being, in the way a ray of light
comes from the sun or a spring comes from a source.
a)

There is nothing outside God or within him that obliges him

to create. His freedom in creating is a direct consequence of
his divine transcendence and of the radical distinction
between God and the world. God does not need the world in
order to be God, and the attribute of Creator does not
belong to the essence of the Godhead as do other entitative
attributes like simplicity, holiness, immutability, eternity,
goodness etc. or operative attributes like wisdom, love,
justice etc.
The world exists because God wills it to exist. He could have
not willed it. He could have willed this world or another,
different, world. Creation is a free gift of God, and a free
expression of his goodness and love.
'Omnipotence includes a power-to-create; but it can also be
said to be a power- not-to-create, insofar as God and
nothing are compatible: God, absolute fullness of life, does
not necessarily need to create anything; he can continue to
live with nothing else existing, in such a way that if he does
make something it is a free creation. The concept of power
always implies the concept of free power. Power is not a sign
of divinity in the sense that God in order to be God would
necessarily have to create. God is an absolutely free being
vis--vis non-being and with this freedom he can affirm
nothingness or deny it; he can affirm it by allowing nothing
else to exist; he can deny it and suppress it by means of
creation. God is very much in charge. True divine
omnipotence lies precisely in this: it is an omnipotence
which nothing nor no one can disturb.'
The Church began to put stress explicitly on God's freedom
to create at the time of the Arian controversy in the fourth
century. To establish the difference between the way the
Son proceeds from the Father and the way the world
originates, it refers to the Son by the words 'begotten, not
made' (genitum, non factum), meaning that whereas the
generation of the Son by the Father is an eternal and

b)

necessary procession, the making of the world is voluntary

and free.
The First Vatican Council (1869-70) says that God brought
about the creation of the world by means of 'an absolutely
free decision' (liberrimo consilio).
These declarations are firmly based on Holy Scripture, which
at all times conveys the idea of God being sovereign and
free when he creates the world and man. Creation as the
result of a divine decision is to be seen already in the
biblical texts which deal with the origin of the world. God
calls things into being by means of his word: 'God said, "Let
there be light"; and there was light.' 'By the word of Yahweh
the heavens were created.'
Psalm 104 gives a poetic description of the separation of
waters and land: 'At thy rebuke they [the waters] fled; at
the sound of thy thunder they took to flight' (v. 7). God
'determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them
their names'. The book of Wisdom states that God made all
things through his word (cf. 9:1).
The deliberation over the creation of man described in
Genesis 1:26 very much gives the impression of there being
a personal divine decision, and no suggestion of necessity.
Also the fact that God freely and graciously establishes his
covenant with men seems to show creation, which is a
prerequisite for the covenant, to be a free divine act. The
total gratuitousness with which God acts in the area of
salvation history, by exercising mercy towards those he
chooses to (cf. Rom 9), should also be extended to the
creation of the world.
c) Over the course of the history of philosophical and
religious thought many reasons have been put forward
which seem to argue that creation did involve necessity as
far as God was concerned. God had to create, so these
theories go:
1) to enrich his own inner life;

to enable him consciously to perceive, as he perceives

himself, things distinct from himself, and in this way
increase his own perfections;
3) because of an inevitable expression of his goodness, given
that his happy and good nature morally obliges him to
create, so that other beings should exist and also be happy;
4) the proponents of process theology think that there is a
direct connexion between the creation of the world and
God's own happiness: according to them, it is via creation
that God's life is enriched and deepened. If God had not
created the world, he would have been responsible for a
certain ontological impoverishment of himself. These writers
start out from the idea that there is a symmetrical
relationship between God and the world, in such a way that
God affects the world and the world affects God.
A defective notion of God, which did not take account of the
absolute perfection of the divine Being, led some 19thcentury idealist thinkers to support similar views. The
provincial council of Cologne was referring to these when it
said: 'God does not stand in need of the world either to
obtain any greater perfectionhe is absolutely perfect and
self-sufficientor to develop his own inner life by means of
the act of creationfor that life is full of knowledge and love
of his own infinite essence. If one wanted to speak of a
necessary coming to be, one could say it takes place in the
life of the divine Persons, which does not need to be
perfected by means of external creation, because it is
completely perfect in itself.'
Underlying these and similar pantheistic ideas lies the notion
(which cannot be applied to the Godhead) that no state of
unsurpassable and perfect happiness can exist.
The theory that the unfolding of divine consciousness
requires that the world be brought into existence belongs to
philosophies which wrongly identify God's method of
knowledge with human cognitive processes. It should be
said that God was aware in his own essence of the world as
2)

a possibility and that he does not need to perceive things

distinct from himself in order to attain his perfection. The
existence of objects external to subjective consciousness is
only necessary for the development and fulfilment of that
consciousness in the case of man.
It has been said that the existence of any world whatsoever
is better than the non-existence of a world and so it is
foolish to hold that God might not create. Being God he
could hardly be mistaken or foolish. From the principle that
'goodness by its nature spreads' (bonum est diffusivum sui)
it is also argued that in its fullest sense this means that out
of the superabundance of his love God must necessarily
create the universe, because whatever is motivated by
infinite love will happen necessarily and at the same time
freely.
These views seem to suggest that God has a kind of 'moral
obligation' to create the world, though it is not possible to
ascertain the precise nature of this obligation, whether it be
to himself or to other beings. It leads to the paradox of
saying that the act of creation is a free decision and at the
same time an unfree decision on the part of God.
It is true that God desires to express his goodnessthe
inner dynamic and the fullness of his Being leads him to do
sobut he does not love the things that he decides to
create out of his goodness by pure necessity.
'The fact that this God, who stands in no need of us, should
have willed to bring us into being, brings us face to face
with the mystery of his love. Our contingency and that of
the world, given God's freedom to create or not, is absolute.
But this absolute contingency does not come across as
something absurd, as happens in certain currents of
existentialism. Man knows that he is not superfluous and
meaningless in this world, because the sufficient reason of
his existence is to be found in the infinite love which freely
wills him to exist.'

d) If God acts freely in creating the world, then the so-called

theory of absolute optimism cannot be valid. Proposed by
Leibnitz towards the end of the 17th century and originally
outlined by Peter Abelard (12th century), this theory argues
that God's goodness and wisdom require the Creator to
create the best of all possible worlds. Leibnitz starts from
the position that in the creation of the world God must
produce all the best possible options open to him, and
therefore he must produce to his utmost capability.
This argument applies to God things which are true only of
man. A human being, by nature subject to unceasing
change and improvement, always prefers what is best to
what is less good, because the better a thing is, the more it
will contribute to his perfection. But God cannot be
perfected in any way, and he has no need to optimize his
work of creation by applying so-called criteria of perfection.
The idea of the best of all possible worlds, besides, involves
a contradiction because, since the world is finite, there could
always be one which is more perfect. Newman writes:
Indeed how far does the whole world come short in all
respects of what it might be! It is not even possessed of
created excellence in fullness. It is stamped with
imperfection; everything indeed is good in its kind, for
God could have created no thing otherwise, but how much
more fully might He have poured His glory and infused His
grace.
Why is it that He did not surround himself with spiritual
intelligences and animate every material atom with a
soul? Why made he not the very footstool of His Throne
and the pavement of His Temple of an angelic nature, of
beings who could praise and bless Him, while they did Him
menial service? Set man's wit and man's imagination to
the work of devising a world, and you would see, my
brethren, what a far more splendid design he would
submit for it, than met the good pleasure of the

Omnipotent and All-wise. Ambitious architect he would

have been, if called to build the palace of the Lord of All,
in which every single
part would have been the best conceivable, the colours all
the brightest, the materials the most costly, and the
lineaments the most perfect.
However, it is correct to speak of a 'relative optimism' in
connexion with the world created by God. That is to say, the
universe is a divine work and it is therefore completely in
line with what God had in mind when making it. God did not
have to overcome any obstacles or face any risks in
producing the world the way he wanted to. The divine idea
or pattern has been followed exactly, and the world has the
precise degree of perfection God wanted it to have. So, one
can say that, bearing in mind the plans God had, this world
is the best possible world, and that God has arranged
created things in the way best suited to their nature and
purpose.
To say that, in line with God's plans, the universe is an
excellent work of God is equivalent to asserting that created
things have a meaning, both as individuals and taken as a
whole. The fact that divine freedom pursues a good end
argues very much for that optimistic and positive view of the
world and of man that is characteristic of Christianity. The
world is not a bit of flotsam heading for destruction nor has
human life been destined to a tragic end.
These considerations are backed up by the fact that the
world as it has come from God's hands is good, as Genesis
says: 'God saw everything he had made, and behold, it was
very good.'
e) God's freedom in creating connotes the idea that there is
in the divine mind a model or exemplary cause of creation.
The book of Proverbs suggests as much when it speaks of
divine Wisdom in these words: 'Ages ago I was set up, at
the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were

no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs

abounding with water. Before the mountains had been
shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had
made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the
world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when
he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm
the skies above, when he established the fountains of the
deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the
waters might not transgress his command, when he marked
out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like
a master workman.'
The text indicates fairly clearly that God's thought decided
the shape his creation would take, in the same sort of way
as a craftsman's thought influences what he makes.
The First Vatican Council (already mentioned) supports the
idea that God went about creating with a previously
determined intention and model: 'To manifest his perfection
through the benefits which he bestows on creatures,
God ... by a completely free decision created both orders of
creatures in the same way out of nothing, the spiritual world
and the corporeal universe.'
This plan for creation is contained in the eternal divine
ideas, which are therefore the exemplary cause of creation.
The exemplary cause is included within the efficient cause,
given that it is the form or idea according to which a thing is
made. It is in effect the idea or archetype the agent has in
mind before production. It is an internal, not an external,
model.
Christian teaching about divine ideas as the model for
creation has links with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle,
which the theologians of the Church have used to express
their own thinking. Plato speaks of ideas as objective
realities, immutable and perfect, which are also the
archetypes of the objects which make up visible reality.
Platonist thinkers of the second and third centuries like Philo
place these ideas in the logos. St Augustine was probably

the first to import these notions into Christian theology by

considering them within the divine mind (Logos) as models
of created things: 'There are certain ideas and archetypal
forms which are contained in the divine mind, and in
keeping with these everything that can be born and die has
been formed.'
St Thomas Aquinas reinforces this by bringing in the
Aristotelian notion of exemplary causes, which he also
identifies with the divine essence. As he puts it, 'Every agent
acts for an end, and a free agent "such as God the Creator"
could not tend to an end without a prior conception of this
end and of the beings he will use to achieve it.'
Given that the eternal Father sees how imitable his divine
essence is in that fruitful knowledge whereby he generates
the Son, the eternal ideas take on an ordered pattern in his
Son as the divine Logos. The Logos is then, as it were, the
artistic and creative thought of God, and the ideas contained
in him are a kind of bridge between Infinite Being and finite
things.
The fact that God is the exemplary cause of creation allows
us to speak of a relative likeness between the Creator and
his creatures. We can, then, know God through what he
created, and can predicate to the maximum degree of the
divine Being the perfections which we notice in created
things.
The unity of ideas in the mind of God also implies that the
entire created world constitutes a cosmos, that is, a totality
of beings related to an overall plan. It is a cosmos imbued
with rationality and meaning because God does not act in an
arbitrary or extravagant way. God does not engage, so to
speak, in excesses of self-will nor in arbitrary decisions
which would put at risk the relative autonomy of created
beings.
All created things evidence a consistency that is willed and
underwritten by their Creator, as also a dignity deserving a
respect inspired by everything that is not man-made and

that therefore carries a certain aura of mystery.

the world was made by god out of nothing (EX NIHILO)
a) When we say God created ex nihilo, we are not saying
something completely different from 'God created freely'.
The two statements are very closely connected. Creation
from nothing means that, in his free creative action, God is
not conditioned by anything outside himself, that is, by any
prior condition which could limit his full freedom. Divine
omnipotence and love are expressed both in the fact that he
creates freely and in the fact that he creates out of nothing.
Therefore, nothing exists independently of God and there is
nothing that can be confused with him. God's freedom
excludes any kind of monism. Creation through the Word
excludes any sort of emanantism and any resistance by what
is created. Creation out of nothing also excludes any kind of
dualism, because the sum total of everything that exists has
come from God's hands.
Creation out of nothing is a mystery of faith. We do not
have the least empirical evidence for it, and our imagination
in fact finds it difficult to cope with. 'Man is not only
incapable of creating out of nothing: he is also unable to
imagine it. When he thinks or speaks about creation he has
to use images, symbols and metaphors. This sort of
language does not manage to provide a full idea of creation,
though it can bring us to its threshold.'
Human creativity resembles divine creativity in some
respects and is therefore of some little help in throwing light
on creation. But it is different from the latter because it is
finite, and above all the imaginative ideas that make this
possible necessarily derive from worldly considerations
which form the natural environment of the subject who
creates. Without a worldly scenario human creativity cannot
exist.

b) The fact of the creation of the world out of nothing is

present in the Bible implicitly and explicitly although some
texts admit of various meanings and are not easy to
interpret.
1) The Old Testament describes God as the Lord of all that
exists and as the only Lord, who exercises his power in
every corner of the universe, both in the physical order and
in the spiritual and moral order. It is this notion of absolute
sovereignty that makes it possible to speak of creation ex
nihilo. We read in the book of Esther: 'O Lord, Lord, King
who rulest over all things, for the universe is in thy power
and there is no one who can oppose thee if it is thy will to
save Israel. For thou hast made heaven and earth and every
wonderful thing under heaven, and thou art Lord of all, and
there is no one who can resist thee.'
The book of Wisdom says: 'Because the whole world before
thee is like a speck that tips the scales, and like a drop of
morning dew that falls upon the ground. . . . For thou lovest
all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things
which thou hast made, for thou wouldst not have made
anything if thou hadst hated it. How would anything have
endured if thou hadst not willed it?'
Written in a context of piety and reverence towards God the
Creator, these pages imply that everything that exists has
been made ultimately by the power and love of God.
2) The opening verse of Genesis solemnly declares that 'In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth', and
the text goes on to describe God's work of creation in terms
of imposing order on chaos, which God does by a series of
separations (light from darkness; higher from lower waters;
earth from sea). The text does not mention creation ex nihilo
(this expression comes much later, in the second book of
Maccabees). But in describing the creation of the world as a
work performed by the Word of God, chapter 1 of Genesis is
already giving an indication that this is creation out of
nothing.

From among the various ways he could have depicted

creation (as birth, struggle, origin from a source, divine
craftsmanship, an oral statement) the sacred writer has
chosen production by the Word, because that helps to
convey a clear idea that no pre-existing elements are
involved.
'God said.' The sacred text uses this very effective way of
conveying the idea of creation out of nothing. The divine
command to produce something new ('Let the earth put
forward vegetation': Gen 1:11) is very different from the
command God uses for his own direct action: 'Let there be
light. In the second case God is speaking directly to the
created things which he has made, and there is nothing prior
which leads one to think in terms of changing some
previously existing matter. Added to this is the fact that the
Hebrew verb bara is being used, a verb the Bible normally
keeps for some exceptional act of God. Yahweh is always the
subject of the verb bara never human beings or other
divine beings. This verb is never used with a preposition or
in the accusative case referring to material from which the
created thing would come. Although caution should be used
here and one should not injudiciously translate bard simply
as create out of nothing, it is fair to say that the two ideas
are related.
3) The biblical passage which explicitly describes the creation
as being made out of nothing is 2 Maccabees 7:28. The
second book of Maccabees dates from the second century BC
and was written in Greek. During the cruel persecution
inflicted by king Antiochus Epiphanes (168 bc), a Jewish
mother exhorts her sons to stay true to the Law and not to
fear the martyrdom the king threatens to carry out. The
mother says to her youngest son: 'I beseech you, my child,
to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that
is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of
things that existed.'
In the Greek this goes, 'Ouk ex onton epoieson auta o

theos' (not out of anything), which the Vulgate translates as

ex nihilo. The New Vulgate has opted for a more literal
translationnon ex his, quae erant.
c) The leading Patristic writers of the first three centuries
speak expressly of creatio ex nihilo. We find this in Hermas
(Pastor, 26), Tatian (Address to the Greeks, 5-6), St
Irenaeus (Ad. haer. 1, 22, 1 and 4, 20, 2), Theophilus of
Antioch (To Autolicus, 1, 7-8; 2, 4) and Tertullian (Apol. 48,
7). Creation out of nothing allows them to assert, among
other things, the existence of a personal God endowed with
an all-powerful will, and thereby reject philosophical
rationalism and Gnostic mythology.
Among the writers mentioned, with the possible exception
of Hermas, the expression creatio ex nihilo acquires a
metaphysical content and meaning, wording deliberately
chosen as an alternative to Greek notions of eternal matter.
d) The expression ex nihilo does not appear in Magisterium
dogmatic texts until quite late on. We found it for the first
time in the confession of faith dictated to the Waldensians
(1208) and particularly in the Firmiter decree of the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215): 'We confess . . . one and only
principle of all things Creator of all things visible and
invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who, by his almighty
power, from the very beginning of time has created both
orders of creatures, the angels and the visible universe.'
The wording reappears in the Decree for the Jacobites
(Council of Florence, 1441) and the dogmatic constitution
Dei Filius (First Vatican Council, 1870).
The Second Vatican Council makes no mention of creation
ex nihilo but it does in a number of passages refer to
creation by the Word and to creatio continua, which implies
the ex nihilo teaching.
e) Creation out of nothing means that the created thing is
made by God in its entirety, that is, no pre-existent matter

is used: 'Non de Deo et non ex material'. Being qua being is

produced. The human mind finds it difficult to grapple with
this fact as it has no supporting images to convey this
notion in its Christian sense. Creation happens
instantaneously; no movement is involved, because no
becoming is involved. In the absence of other language, we
use the language of change and say that God creates out of
nothing, as if creation meant changing something into
something else. What we are really saying is that creation
means that now there is being where previously there was
none. The act of creation brings about, as we already know,
a radical dependence of the created thing on the Creator
and excludes any sort of reciprocity, tension, symmetry or
bipolarity between them. Creating the world does not imply
any sort of self-limitation on God.
Some contemporary theologians who part company with
creation ex nihilo by giving the expression only a symbolic
meaning hold that divine creativity is identical to human
creativity, or that creation is taking place continually here
and now, or that creation stands for the power of human
language to overcome nothingness and conquer reality.
f) Creation is a religious and metaphysical notion and
therefore not something one can experience; it cannot be
proved by the scientific method, either mathematically or by
experimentation.
There are scientists these days who are trying to study the
creation of the universe by means of the laws of physics,
attempting to see right back even before the first instant of
creation. This ambitious programme is also an impossible
one, because in fact it sets out from the postulate that there
was a spontaneous birth or self-creation of the world,
coming out of what they call 'nothing'.
The 'nothing' these applied physicists are talking about is
not the 'nothing' of Christian doctrine, but the vacuum that
physics studies. The postulate mentioned above is in fact an

idea which cannot be associated with real or possible

experiments. Besides, it means attributing to physical
theories on space, time, matter and the vacuum a
philosophical meaning which they do not possess.
The very most that could be proved would be something
about the origin of the universebut not at all about
creation. Recent works on cosmology which accept the Big
Bang theory (an incredibly dense concentration of primitive
matter blowing up and starting a chain reaction which led to
the formation of the world) try to explain the Big Bang in
terms of particle physics. Some scientists think that the
'tunnel effect' of quantum cosmology may explain the
emergence of subatomic particles out of a vacuum and
thereby provide a coherent explanation for the creation of
the universe out of nothing. They fail to take account of the
difference between creation and change, and the fact that
creation is a theological concept, and therefore beyond the
reach of empirical science.
g) God is the only Creator of everything that exists and he
has made the universe without intermediaries. That is to
say, only God is able to create; this ability to create is not
communicable to created things.
The Fourth Lateran Council definition which affirms 'a one
and only principle of all things' should be interpreted as
ruling out any soft of co-operation by creatures in the work
of creation. Long before that time Christian theologians had
been conscious of that fact, and it is fair to say that St Cyril
of Alexandria (d. 444) was speaking for all when he said: 'It
is repugnant to divine glory to think that any other being
could create and call into being things which did not exist.'
The fact that God is the only Creator is at odds with
dualism, which argues that there is an evil principle which
gave rise to matter. It is also opposed to the Greek idea of
intermediaries in creation, or demiurges to whom God the
Most High gives the function and power of creating the

world. In some currents of Jewish thought certain angels

had the power to create.
That God is the only direct Creator of all that exists follows
from the biblical concept of God, who creates by the
strength of his word, without encountering any resistance
from pre-existing matter or from other beings as possible cooperators.
The power necessary for drawing a being out of nothing calls
for an infinite, divine power which, by definition, cannot be
passed on to any created thing.
Some authors hold that God can give his creative power to
creatures, which would in that case be instrumental causes
of creation and not the principal cause. But the
communication of such power is not possible, because the
instrumental secondary cause does not participate in the
action of the higher or first cause but rather, through a
capacity proper to it, it makes the preparatory and real
contribution to producing the effect of the higher cause.
Therefore, no cause can work in a preparatory or
instrumental way in the production of being in general, for
the simple reason that creation does not presuppose
anything that has to be pre-arranged by the action of an
instrumental agent.
So-called secondary causes can communicate being to other
creatures, but they always do so under the action of the first
cause, that is, God, and in subordination to him. For
example, parents give being to children, but they cannot be
called creators. The action which gives rise to the being of a
child is not a creation but a generation.
h) The conservation of the world by God the Creator is an
important aspect of the mystery of creation. If creation
proclaims the absolute distinction between God and the
world, conservation can be said to bring the two together,
because it means that the Creator is not indifferent to or
forgetful of what he has made. The world exists not only

because it was created by God but also because God looks

after it and maintains it in being.
The fact that something is a creature refers not only to its
origin but also to the inner structure of its being which, on
account of its contingency, needs continuous divine help in
order to continue to exist. 'It is a necessary truth to say,
both by faith and reason, that God keeps his creatures in
existence.'
Holy Scripture implies that God conserves the universe: it
uses expressions which should not be taken as having only a
purely symbolic meaning, although one is not justified in
reading into them the same meaning they will later be given
by a developed theology.
'When thou takest away their breath, they die and return to
their dust. When thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are
created.' 'How would anything have endured if thou hadst
not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by thee
have been preserved.' It is a direct route from biblical
statements like these to the doctrine of the conservation of
the world by the Creator which later theology will formulate.
St Athanasius of Alexandria writes: 'Seeing that if left to
itself all created nature would wither away and dissolve, and
to prevent that happening, so that the universe should not
return to nothing (to non-being), after having created
everything by means of his Word and having given creation
being, God did not abandon it to its own changes and
impulses which could have destroyed it; but rather in his
Goodness and by his Word, who is also God, he governs and
maintains creation, thereby enabling the creature to subsist
stably and solidly.' St Gregory the Great says that 'the being
of created things is so dependent on God that not for a
single instant could they subsist but instead would return to
nothing if they were not kept in being by the action and
power of God'.
God's conserving action is sometimes compared to that of
the sun which is a source of illumination. Just as the

permanence and continuity of the sun's action are necessary

for illumination not to cease, so the being of created things
needs to be conserved in order to prevent them falling back
into non-being. This is not just a metaphor. It is a
consequence of the fact that a created thing does not have
being from itself but by participation in the Being of God. A
created thing is not able on its own to keep being part of the
real world.
Conservation means that God does not take back his
creative Word, and that the divine activity which began at
creation does not cease to have its positive effect. God's
love does not allow him, so to speak, to annihilate the world,
allowing it to fall back into nothingness. Conservation
therefore is a creatio continua, involving a direct and
positive influence exerted by the Creator.
Deist notions (to the fore in the 18th century) saw God the
Creator as taking no interest in the world: once he made
things he left them to fend for themselves.'"
The order of the universe involves on God's part not just the
conservation of the diversity of created beings, but also the
movement of those beings. This is not something that is
defined in Catholic faith, but it is fully consistent with
believers' convictions regarding God's creative action and its
scope.
Holy Scripture gives us good grounds for this idea of
concursus divinusthat God is involved in the actions of his
creatures. 'Yahweh, thou will ordain peace for us, thou hast
wrought for us all our works,' says the prophet Isaiah. St
Paul makes the same point when he writes that God 'is
working in all' and that he is at work in us 'both to will and
to work for his good pleasure'. St John brings in the allegory
of the vine and the branches to get across the fact that God
influences the very roots of the human being.
The Old Testament usually attributes to divine causality the
physical and spiritual effects that take place in our world.

God causes the elements of nature to operate and the daily

activity of groups and individuals. He causes life and death,
well-being and temporal ruin, when that happens. God
brings about both conversion and hardening of hearts.
There is an important truth in all these biblical observations
but they should not be interpreted absolutely literally. Holy
Scripture is quite clear on the point that divine causality
affects everything. But this key idea is sometimes expressed
in such a way that creatures might seem to have no
causality of their own, as if their actions were only apparent.
It is God who makes the causality of all created beings
possible, but these beings act on their own according to an
endowed causal capacity. Divine causality is the ultimate
foundation of created causality, but it does not cancel or
interfere with the latter. God acts on his level, which is
transcendental or primary. Created beings act on their level,
which is predicamental (categorial) or secondary. Their
actions are on different levels and one can say that the
effect produced is entirely God's and entirely the creature's.
'Divine Providence', we read in the Catechism of the Council
of Trent, 'not only maintains and governs all existing things
but also, with hidden effectiveness, sets in motion and
activity all that is capable of it in the world, not destroying
but enhancing the action of secondary causes.'
Thomist writers usually explain the need for the concursus
divinus in this way: (i) every non-divine being is related to
God as participated being to essential being; that is, there is
an essential, intimate and direct relationship with the Being
of God, who is the principal mover of the creature; (ii) divine
influence is necessary for the created being to pass from
potency to act, and for one created being to move another.
This explanation means that God does not cause evil or any
imperfect action. God causes the action which, due to some
natural or moral defect, is a base for evil.
Man is also moved by God in his free decisions, because God
moves each creature according to its nature. Man is always

responsible for his actions. The warnings and counsels which

God gives in the Bible through the prophets imply that
human beings are free and are responsible for their actions.
'Through his intervention in the activity of the creature, God
does not make himself responsible for the sin of creatures.
In every sinful action one must distinguish the action as
such, the being of the action, the ontological content of the
action and the absence of good in that action. Insofar as the
action is a being, insofar as it has ontological content, God is
its principal agent. The creature, on the contrary, is
responsible for this action being infected by a lack of
goodness, in a qualitative way, caused by a deviant attitude,
by an orientation which does not lead man towards God, but
takes him away from God. God allows that fault to arise, but
it is not he who makes that fault.'
The inner free movement of the human being is not altered,
and God, on moving the person's will, does not use any
force at all, because he moves it in keeping with the
inclination (towards good) that is proper to it.
The Church's liturgy reflects these principles in the wellknown prayer which goes: 'We beseech you, Lord, that by
your inspiration you set our actions on course and with your
help assure their continuity, so that all our acts and deeds
being initiated by you may, once begun, be brought by you
to their completion.'
One can say, finally, that the divine concursus with the
movements of created beings is a consequence of Love.
Dante expresses this in the concluding stanzas of the Divine
Comedy, when he finds himself before the throne of the
Trinity; 'Our best imaginings are of no avail. But my desire
and my will turned like wheels moved by the very Love
which moves the sun and the other stars.'
the world was created within time
a) To say that the world was created within time means that

it had a beginning and does not exist from all eternity. What
we have here is a truth of faith defined by the Fourth
Lateran Council, which teaches that God created creatures
'from the very beginning of time' (ab initio temporis). The
First Vatican Council uses these same words, but it does not
simply echo them: the cultural and philosophical situation
was very different from that of the 13th century, and the
First Vatican Council had to take issue with pantheism and
similar notions. To do so, it did not confine itself to
repudiating these errors, but elaborated a whole doctrine
about creation.
The existence of the world from all eternity is not a notion
repugnant to human reason on a purely speculative level,
even though conclusive arguments cannot be made for this
theory. What it says is that God could have created the
world ab aeterno and yet be its almighty Lord as the spring
which is the source of the stream and yet is in some way
simultaneous with it; another example is the sun, which
gives rise to rays which are one in time with their cause.
Against all his predecessors Aristotle defends the thesis that
the world has no beginning and will never have an end. He
criticizes Plato in particular, who seems to teach in Timaeus
that the world had a beginning but will never end. The
Aristotelian doctrine on the affinity between generated and
destructible, and between not generated and imperishable is
well known. The world never began and therefore will not
perish.
b) The question as to whether creation could or could not be
ab aeterno was discussed at great length by Arab, Jewish
and Christian philosophers/theologians, especially from the
12th century onwards. The Augustinian tradition,
represented in the Middle Ages mainly by St Bonaventure,
defends the idea that the non-eternity of the world can be
proven rationally and is not something affirmed by faith
alone. St Bonaventure puts forward five reasons for non-

eternity: an infinite number of days would already have

occurred; it would involve an infinite series of accidentally
related causes, which is impossible; it would deny the
principle that to the infinite nothing can be added; it would
mean it would be possible for the infinite to be grasped by a
finite faculty; and it would involve the co-existence of an
infinite number of beings at one and the same 'time'.
St Thomas does not accept the validity of these arguments
and says that neither of the propositions 'There have always
been creatures' and 'The cause of everything must precede
in duration its effects' can be proved. The first, because the
effect is necessary if the agent acts by necessity, but God
does not act by necessity of nature. The second, because
what it says happens only in agents which act by
movement, not in those who act instantaneously. The noneternity of the world is not therefore demonstrable; it is
something we know only by faith.
There are authors who hold, in spite of all this, that the idea
of an eternal world involves a contradiction. For example, A.
Staudenmaier says: 'Just as the eternal is uncreated, so
what is created is temporal, for the concept of time is
essentially and necessarily within the concept of the world,
with the result that the idea of an eternal world involves a
contradiction, for only God is eternal. Temporality does not
lose its essential features even when in retrospect it appears
to approach eternity; therefore, even if the age of the
present world were to be counted in millions, billions or
trillions of years, that would not bring it even a step nearer
eternity, just as time infinitely increased never manages to
become eternity. For the same reason, the world would not
have ceased to be temporal even if God had enacted the
idea of the world the moment after he conceived it.'
A contemporary theologian writes: 'Detailed analyses of
time, so profuse in philosophy in recent times (starting with
Bergson) seem to argue in favour of the temporal nature of
the world and are compatible with the positive evaluation of

the world which the Christian faith always promoted. Thus,

one finds that if we now are conscious of time flowing and
can even "measure" that flow, that is so because it stems
from a source. The infinite, the eternal, is immeasurable at
any point in its duration.'
c) To say that the world is eternal would considerably
change the global message of the Bible. Genesis speaks
clearly about the world having an absolute beginning and
therefore not being co-temporal with God. The first verse of
the book is a very good example of the criticism the Bible
directs at atemporal notions of the origin of things. 'In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (1:1).
The words in the beginning refer to a beginning of the world
which happened within time or with time. It expressly
rejects any cyclic or eternal idea of creation.
Proverbs 8:22-26 and Sirach 24:9 tell us that divine Wisdom
existed prior to created things and was begotten before any
creature. Psalm 90 proclaims: 'Before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the
world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God' (v. 2).
The Fathers of the Church usually contrast the temporality
of the world to the generation or eternal procession of the
Son. St Basil writes: 'God is the blessed being, ineffable
goodness, the object of the love of all rational creatures,
beauty pined for, the beginning of things, the source of life,
the light of the mind, unfathomable wisdom; he who in the
beginning created heaven and earth. And you, human
creature, do not believe that the visible world never had a
beginning, and if bodies move circularly in the heavens,
without our being there to see clearly where the encircling
begins, be careful not to think that the nature of those
encircling bodies never had a beginning.'
St Augustine is the author of a classic passage on this
subject. In The City of God we read: 'Sacred and infallible
Scripture tells us that in the beginning God created heaven

and earth in order. Now, unless this meant that nothing had
been made before, it would have been stated that whatever
else God had made before was created in the beginning.
Undoubtedly, then, the world was not made in time, but
together with time. For, what is made in time is made after
one period of time and before another, namely, after a past
and before a future time. But there could have been no past
time, since there was nothing created by whose movements
and change time could be measured. The fact is that the
world was made simultaneously with time, if, with creation,
motion and change began.'
The eternity of God's immutable will to create does not
mean that the world is eternal. An act of the will and its
content or object can exist independently. The world begins
to exist not when God conceives the idea of world but when
he puts that idea into effect. Something similar also happens
in the human being. People can do something at a particular
point but using ideas and decisions which they previously
formulated in their minds.
Some people see a difficulty in fixing on a concrete moment
in eternity when the world began to exist. However, one
needs to remember that eternity must not be conceived of
as an 'empty' time capable of receiving the world. The
instant at which the universe began is not determined in
relation to eternity but in relation to time which measures
its duration. 'We can say that the world began to exist x
years ago, but we cannot say that God, after x years,
created the world.'

d)

That the world should exist in time, that is, in a situation

of change, succession of stages, and limited duration, fits in
very well with its contingency.
It is also in keeping with the idea of creation as the
(temporal) beginning of a history of salvation. Time is
important in the Christian view of the cosmos and
e)

Christianity has never allowed itself to be trapped in the

dilemma: either time exists or eternity exists. Both exist.
There are divine actions which go to make up the historia
salutis, which means that Christianity is based on and
expressed in such 'events', as Creation, Revelation, the
Incarnation and the Church. The sacraments, for example,
are simply the continuation in time of the great deeds of
God in both Testaments.
Even atemporal repetition, which is the law of the life of the
cosmos, is subject to historical reality 'constituting a sort of
timeliturgical timewhich in some way takes on the
rhythms of nature and inserts them to produce the gradual
growth of the body of Christ, from the Ascension to the
Parousia'.
The world had a beginning and it will have an end. Jesus
(cf. Mt 5:18; 13:40) and St Paul (cf. 1 Cor 7:31) speak of
the world coming to an end, which should not be understood
as annihilation but as renewal (cf. 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21-22).
The Greeks thought that the world was a divine being and
therefore everlasting and not subject to corruption. Those
modern authors who regard the universe as an incarnation
or body of God, like process theologians, think that the
world is imperishable.
The corruptibility of the present world and its transitional
nature are aspects of Christian doctrine on creation. But
they do not imply that material creation will end with a
catastrophe; rather, the present world will undergo a
transition (of a kind we cannot fathom) into 'a new heaven a
new earth'.
f)

chapter 9
The Purpose of Creation
created things exist for the glory of god

We now pose the question as to the ultimate purpose of

the universe: Why was the world created? This question
should not be confused with that of the final destiny of
created thingstheir future consummation or transformation.
Christian doctrine teaches that 'the world was made for the
glory of God' (D. 1805), and that God created things 'not to
intensify his happiness nor to acquire it but to manifest his
perfection through the benefits he bestows on creatures' (D.
1783). This is a teaching defined by the First Vatican Council.
'The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament
proclaims his handiwork." When Holy Scripture and the
Church speak of the glory of God, what is usually being
referred to is in general terms a manifestation of the divine
presence, and the excellence and total perfection of God. By
speaking of the glory of God we mean his ineffable beauty
and the awesomeness and overwhelming impact of his
infinite being.
Glory is, then, something that God possesses within himself
(intrinsic glory) and the praise which created beings should
render to God by actively worshipping him and by passively
reflecting in themselves the divine perfections. God desires
to be glorified by his creatures and to direct those creatures
to his own glory.
A created being is enriched by creation but that is not
strictly speaking the purpose of creation. 'The divine
intention does not consider it as a last end since God's
creative will wishes ultimately to spread his divine
goodness.' To say that the world exists in order to share in
the divine goodness is the same as to say that it is created
for the glory of God. The Roman Catechism suggests this
when it teaches: 'Nor was he [God] impelled to create by
any other cause than a desire to communicate his goodness
to creatures. Being essentially happy in himself, he stands
not in need of anything.' The Catechism of the Catholic
Church says: 'The glory of God consists in the realization of
this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for
a)

which the world was created.'

In Holy Scripture the glory of God is something absolute
and a centre towards which everything is drawn. Although it
appears to be an essential aspect of the divine being, it is
not static. It is, on the contrary, a source of divine initiative
and a light towards which all creation converges. The glory
of God should above all be proclaimed, acknowledged and
accepted by created beings, in accordance with the nature of
each.
'Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of
the earth [...], whom I created for my glory, whom I formed
and made,' we read in the oracles of the prophet Isaiah. The
author of Sirach exclaims: 'He set his eye upon their hearts
to show them the majesty of his works. And they will praise
his holy name, to proclaim the grandeur of his works.'
The awesome manifestation of divine glory, with deep
connotations of salvation for the chosen people, is central to
the theophany at Sinai. 'The glory of Yahweh settled on
Mount Sinai. . . and on the seventh day he called to Moses
out of the midst of the cloud.' The unique attraction of the
majesty of God impels Moses to make a daring and
impossible request: 'Moses said, "I pray thee, show me thy
glory." And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass
before you. . ., but you cannot see my face; for man shall
not see me and live".'
The theme of the glory of God frequently reappears in both
the Old and the New Testaments. Even the seraphim cover
their faces before the splendour of Yahweh. After seeing
God and remaining alive, Jacob is full of awe and gratitude.
Moses and Elijah will be witnesses of the transfiguration of
Jesus, along with the apostles Peter, James and John. In the
New Testament the glory of God is made manifest in Jesus.
His miracles are epiphanies of the messianic glory of our
Lord, who is the only one to have seen the face of the
Father and truly to be in a position to speak about his glory.

b)

The praise and glory of God by the creature is the necessary

correlation of these divine manifestations. The first
invocation in Jesus' prayer is: 'Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed by thy name.' St Paul sums up the great
plan of the divine economy when he writes to the
Corinthians: 'All things are yours, whether . . . the world or
life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and
you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.'
c) All inanimate and non-rational creatures manifest the
divine perfections in their wonderful diversity and with mute
eloquence invite men to praise God, just as they themselves
praise him in their own way: 'Blessed art thou in the
firmament of heaven and to be sung and glorified for ever. /
Bless the Lord, all the works of the Lord, sing praise to him
and highly exalt him for ever. / Bless the Lord, all waters
above the heaven, / Bless the Lord, stars of heaven. / Bless
the Lord all rain and dew. / Bless the Lord, all winds. Fire
and heat, dews and snows, ice and cold, nights and days,
light and darkness, seas and rivers bless the Lord, sing
praise to him and highly exalt him for ever. / All things that
grow on the earth, bless the Lord, and highly exalt him for
ever. / Bless the Lord, all birds of the air, all beasts and
cattle.'
Apropos of the glory which non-human creatures render to
God, E. Peterson writes: 'When we find in the Psalms that
the animals and mountains burst out in hymns of praise to
God, it is not just poetic licence or inanimate matter taking
on life in a human mode and as such lacking validity but
rather something whose real basis is at the centre of all
creation, right from the cherubim and seraphim down to the
most humble and insignificant worldly object, since as the
Gospel says the entire creation is filled with the glory of God.'
St Francis of Assisi's Canticle of Brother Sun provides an
excellent testimony to the feelings which the sight of
divine glory as reflected in Nature should stir in a believer.

He says: 'Most High, all-powerful, good Lord, Yours are

the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing. / To
You alone, Most High, do they belong, and no man is
worthy to mention Your name. / Praised be You, my Lord,
with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is
the day and through whom You give us light. / And he is
beautiful and radiant with great splendour; and bears a
likeness of You, Most High One. / Praised be You, my
Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven You
formed them clear and precious and beautiful. / Praised
be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the
air, cloudily and serene, and every kind of weather
through which You give sustenance to Your creatures. /
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through
whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful
and robust and strong. / Praised be You, my Lord, through
our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and
who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and
herbs. / Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give
pardon for your love and bear infirmity and tribulation. /
Blessed are those who endure in peace for by You, Most
High, they shall be crowned. / Praised be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no living man
can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed
are those whom death will find in your most holy will, for
the second death shall do them no harm. / Praise and
bless my Lord and give Him thanks and serve Him with
great humility.'
We need to remember that created beings are not only
revelations or manifestations of God; they also cloak the
divine glory: God hides behind them. The world is not just a
direct theophany of the Godhead. Nature gives us only an
in- exact and very inadequate notion of God. The Godhead
does not lie in the elements of nature, and we would have to
imagine the colossal energy which water, air and fire are

capable of releasing, in order to get a very pale idea of the

unimaginable strength and unique beauty of God's being and
its divine attributes.
d) Man should consciously and freely render to God the
glory which the rest of the visible universe renders him
objectively and unconsciously.
The human being, endowed with body and soul, is clearly a
very noble gift from God, and therefore has a particular
obligation expressly to recognize the divine goodness and
majesty, which are the source of all that is good. The role
most proper to rational creatures is that of serving, praising
and exalting God; man in his freedom can choose no better
thing than to do this.
'Worship, therefore, is the principal mission of created
beings. There is no situation, no time, when worship is not
the principal mission of man. In worship, man recognizes
that God is the unconditional Lord of life and of history.
Whoever worships becomes an instrument of divine
lordship. Worshippers are servants of the Kingdom of God.
Or, to put it more precisely: the man who adores God
fosters the development of his dominion in the world.'
Man's adoration of God takes place within the framework of
the true and genuine praise which Jesus Christ and the
Church render most perfectly to the Father: 'Christ always
associates the Church with himself in this great work in
which God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. The
Church is his beloved Bride who calls to her Lord and
through him offers worship to the eternal Father.'
This worship of the Father is not a simply theoretical or
intellectual affair. It does of course imply that one puts God
at the very centre of one's life. But it is full of practical
implications because it requires that 'worshippers in spirit
and in truth' make a real effort to spread truth and love
throughout the world.
This is precisely the option that runs contrary to what Satan,

'the prince of this world', tries to make men do. What Satan
does is to try to usurp the glory clue to God and to get men
to do so also. They do this when they seek as absolutes
pleasure, money, power and knowledge. Prometheus and
Faust are symbolic of these attempts at usurpation and
idolatry, which are condemned to failure but which can bring
ruin upon those who engage in them.
The Christian spiritual tradition is nourished by a creative
theocentrism, which not only seeks the glory of God in the
first place but which is also aware that this glory is also
man's. The Imitation of Christ says: 'Son, I ought to be
thy supreme and ultimate purpose if you truly long to be
blessed. By this intent your love will be purified, that love
so often wrongly turned in on self and created things.'
Blessed J. Escriva teaches in The Way: 'It is good to give
glory to God, without seeking foretastes.' 'Deo omnis
gloria. All glory to God.' 'If life's purpose were not to give
glory to God, how contemptible, how hateful it would be.'
The glory of God has been the motive force behind of
countless Christian initiatives and enterprises, both
individual and collective, and has been and is unrivalled in
the Church as an effective motivation of personal
sanctification and genuine transformation of the world.
e) The humanism of the 15th- and 16th-century
Renaissance began to spread the notion that to say that the
glorification of God was the ultimate purpose of creation and
of man implied a humbling of man and an erroneous
judgment that God is selfish. The ultimate aim of creation, it
argued, was not God, but the happiness and perfection of
the human being.
These ideas were given a systematic expression by G.
Hermes (d. 1831) who, under the influence of Kantian
ethics, thought that the expression of human dignity was
the supreme law of our life and what gave the world

meaning. Hermes' basic principle is the postulate that we

should judge God's manner of acting by the moral demands
that practical reason places on man. If he wants to conform
to these demands, man must tend, in everything he does, to
promote the happiness of others, and never subordinate
them to himself. Therefore, God, in creating, should not
seek his own advantage but ought to try to attain the
happiness of rational creatures as his main goal.
These opinions do not sufficiently take account of the fact
that man's dignity is a created one and can only be upheld
and asserted along with its uncreated foundation, on which
it depends. For a created being to attain its perfection and
to act appropriately, its high dignity needs the support of
the dignity of God. Any attempt to attain false autonomy or
emancipation would clash with the serious demands of being
human, would do violence to his nature, and lead ultimately
to his degradation.
'The presuppositions on which Hermes and Gnther based
their theory about the purpose of creation cannot be
sustained in a Christian way, and the assertion that the
world is in the last analysis meant for itself (that is, for
man) is not only opposed to a spirituality which has been in
place for centuries but also renders impossible any free
extroverted divine and human action, that is, revelation and
faith, respectively. For this to obtain and result in man's
salvation it is essential that man should not be teleologically
enclosed within himself, but that he should turn towards
God; to put it as the Council did: man should know he was
created for the glory of God.'
God has chosen to create the universe in order that his
perfections be known and loved, that is, for his external
glory. The happiness of created beings is closely linked to
the glory of God because to the degree that man glorifies
God, his merits and happiness increase. And God provides
more proofs of his goodness and increases his glory, the
more good things he gives to man. If we ask ourselves,

however, about the order of these two purposes, we must

reply that the primary purpose is the glorification of God;
and to that the happiness of the human being is directed.
Divine glorification is higher than the happiness of the
creature.
'It should not be deduced from this that God's goodness
towards us is thereby lessened. The good things that God
has given us do not decrease as a result of being directed to
his glory. On the contrary, the more we strive to seek with
them the glory of God, the richer and happier will we be. For
God does not seek his glory in the world in the way
someone tries to get something he does not yet possess.'
God stands in need of nothing and he acts towards man in
the most disinterested and lavish way possible.
f) 'He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of
his nature.' Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of the
glory of God, because in the incarnate Word we are able to
truly appreciate what God is. The glory of God shines forth
in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as
these are made known to us by the Church. Schmaus
writes: 'The glorious Christ is the culmination of the
objective glorification of God, since in the glorious nature of
Christ the holiness, truth and love of God can be seen with
infinite clarity and intensity. In him the perfect form of God's
lordship is made manifest. The Lord is the centre of Creation
suffused with divine light and warmth.'
The Second Vatican Council teaches that the last end of the
world is the glory of God and adds that it is a glory in Christ,
for only he can strictly be called the end of creation. 'In him
all the fullness of God was placed to dwell, and through him
to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in
heaven' (Col 1:18).
The Church tells us about the mystery of God the Father
giving himself in his only Son, and she strives in Christ to
render 'all honour and glory of the Creator, the Father of the

universe' because 'he appointed him, through whom he

made the world, to be the heir of all things, that he might
restore all things in him.' The canon of the Mass ends with
the following prayer: 'Through Christ, with him and in him,
to you God the Almighty Father, in unity with the Holy
Spirit, may there be honour and glory for ever and ever.'
The fact that Christ is the last end of creation does not mean
that he is the only end. The Second Vatican Council's
constitution Gaudium et spes reminds us that man is also,
under God, the end of creation, because he has been made
in the image of his Creator, has been endowed with the
ability to know and love Him, and has been made lord of all
visible creation 'to rule it and make use of it while glorifying
God', in such a way that 'through the subjection of all things
to man the name of God would be held as majestic in all the
earth.'
Proclaiming the glory of God to be the end of the created
world does not conflict with asserting the excellence of man,
nor does it empty that excellence of meaning. In fact, the
glory and centrality of God are the only guarantee of and
necessary condition for human greatness.
the glory of god and man's happiness
The glory of God and the good of created beings should
never be regarded as two different effects of the creative
work of God. In the Holy Scripture divine glory has a very
important salvific-Christological component. God sometimes
seems to reject a glorification and worship which do not
redound to man's benefit. An oracle of the prophet Isaiah
says: 'When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my
eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will
not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves;
make yourselves clean; remove evil from your doings.'
In Micah we read: 'He has showed you, O man, what is
good; and what does Yahweh require of you but to do
a)

justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your

God?'
The worship of God should not be separated from the
welfare of man, just as the first commandment of the divine
law cannot be separated from the second: 'You shall love
your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and
with all your strength, and your neighbour as yourself.'
The redemption wrought by Christ had what we might call
its 'theological' moment, because Jesus became man out of
love for the Father and as a response to the Father's love,
which men had rejected. It also has an anthropological
moment, because he became incarnate out of love for men;
so there is no opposition at all between these two great acts
of love. In giving glory to God, Jesus carries out the work of
human salvation. The second work is marvellously included
within the first. The Second Vatican Council expresses this
very exactly when it says, 'From the liturgy, therefore, and
especially from the eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us
as from a fountain, and the sanctification of men in Christ
and the glorification of God to which all other activities of
the Church are directed, as towards their end, are achieved
with maximum effectiveness.'
The end of free created beings is therefore in line with the
Creator's purpose. Man's happiness is included in the glory
of God. By seeking the glory of God, through knowing and
loving him, human beings attain their own end, so that
objective end (glory of God) and subjective end (human
happiness) are completely bound up with one another;
man's supreme happiness is to glorify God by knowing and
loving him. This means that the glorification of God does not
take place at the expense of created beings: their true
happiness lies precisely in giving glory to God. Giving glory
to God is not something extrinsic to man. A human being
does not become estranged from himself when he affirms
and seeks God: in fact it is only then that he is fully himself.

b)

When he acknowledges God's glory and promotes it, man

attains his own happiness. His being and his vocation
require him to respect this order. Man comes from God and
carries God's seal within himself. So, he can assert and
understand himself only on condition that he acknowledges
this imprint of the living of God and submits to his will. By
doing this he is being most true to his own being. When he
offends God, he is at the same time offending his own
human dignity, which comes from God.
The Second Vatican Council teaches: 'The dignity of man
rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion
with God. The invitation to converse with God is addressed
to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it
is because God has created him through love, and through
love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully
according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love
and entrusts himself to his creator.'
Man cannot attain his perfection if he closes himself off. He
attains it when he rises above himself, when he gives
himself to God and makes himself available to God. If,
through sinning and not repenting, he denies that God is the
Lord, he is simultaneously denying the very core of his own
personality and falls into a destructive alienation. St
Augustine says: 'You have made us Lord for yourself and our
heart is restless until it rests in you.'
c) A human being should never see God as a rival, even if he
is sometimes tempted to do so. A man-centred humanism
has more or less consciously grown out of a false dilemma:
God or man; one or the other. Over the past three centuries
the dialectic of this humanism closed to divine
transcendence initially held a functional notion of God but it
has eventually reached the point of regarding him as a mere
condition or limit to man's life. First it turned God into a sort
of decoration, with no involvement in human affairs. Then
he became an interior moral condition which explains the

possibility of human freedom and happiness. This was

followed immediately by a pantheistic notion of God as the
ideal limit of the development of mankind. Post-Kantian
thinkers brought the notion of man's autonomy as far as it
could goapproaching an atheism which regards human
freedom as incompatible with the idea of a God who has
objective existence.
At the end of this evolution of thought, Ludwig Feuerbach
thought that he had discovered God to be the main reason
for human alienation, and Karl Marx announced that the
notion of God was nothing other than the ideological
projection of that alienation or dehumanization of man. The
self-confessed atheism of these stances is not just a weapon
to be used in the war against the bourgeoisie. It is a vision
of God as the personal enemy of man, against whom man
must fight to assert his own will.
Underlying these errors, which see God as man's rival, is the
idea that God is stealing from man the autonomy that is his
right. Man in rebellion does not realize, does not want to or
cannot understand, that God is not alien to him. Guardini
writes: 'Rebellion has taken place because man has cast God
in the role of an other. And God is not an other, he is God.
Only if he recognizes this can man understand creation and
understand himself. God is the only being of whom I cannot
say that I am he, which is what in the last analysis every
desire for autonomy implies; but also he is the one of whom
I cannot say that he is the other over against me, which is
actually what any kind of heteronomy involves.
'For any other being the proposition would be valid: he is not
I, that is, he is other. But applied to God, this proposition
has no validity and precisely the fact that the proposition
has no validity is what the being of God means. In
connexion with what we were saying previously, God is
made to be another, the greatest other, the absolute other.
If that were really true, man would have to engage in a
tragic struggle for his liberation, and Nietzsche would be

right. God, however, is not other, because he is God.'

The God or man dilemma does not make sense. It is a
mirage. When man gives himself to God or builds his life
with God as the centre, not only is he not alienated, but he
has found harmony and purpose in his life. Only in God can
one live a truly human life. St Irenaeus says: 'Man's life is in
seeking God now and the vision of God in the hereafter.'
God is man's purpose and life. God's commandment in
Paradise, telling Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the
tree of knowledge, reveals this profound truth: it is not a
threat of death but a warning and a guide to enable man
and woman to know themselves and to be able to find their
happiness in God by doing his will.
Worshipping God makes man happy and good, and those
who try to expel God from human life commit a crime which
has terrible consequences on the human person. 'Without
Christ man is incapable of understanding himself completely.
He cannot grasp who he is, nor what his true dignity is, nor
his vocation, nor his final destiny. That is why Christ must
not be excluded from the history of man in any part of the
globe, in any geographical longitude or latitude. Excluding
Christ from history is an act against man himself.'
chapter 10
Science and the Doctrine of Creation
theology and science
In the modern age the relationship between theology and
science has been marked by a certain tension, which at
times went as far as hostility. Depending on the point of
view adopted by protagonists and commentators, the
accounts of this relationship differ. At the start of the 20th
century it was quite common for writers to refer to a
confrontation between modern science and theology's
religious view of the world. Others preferred to describe the

position as a truce called in the religious and cultural milieux

since the crisis of the 17th century. As time went by,
matters worsened as contacts between science and theology
grew fewer and fewer. However, in recent decades the
position has changed considerably. There is a growing
awareness that these are two different ways of looking at
reality and that they should not be unaware of each other;
in fact, although their approaches are different, there is a
noticeable convergence of the two. Many people are
convinced that religion without science could easily close in
on itself and find it difficult to explain reality fully, while a
science which refused to pay attention to religion would
prove unable to make sense of the object of its research.
The historical hostility and suspicion with which faith and
science view one another need to give way to a conviction
that they are in fact complementary; not that their areas are
cordoned off from one another: rather, they both occupy the
same area but differ in their relationship to it and their
functions within it. The connexion between them should not
be one of indifference but one whereby each recognizes the
relevance of the other. Conflict will not be avoided by simply
keeping them apart (that is not possible and anyway it
diminishes both); they need to be properly linked together
within man's world with the purpose of a better overall
understanding.
dialogue between science and faith
Many factors have helped to bring science and religion closer
together in recent times.
For one thing, the connexion which some historians of
science claim to have discovered between the biblical view
of the cosmos and that of science has contributed to fruitful
dialogue. In many parts of the contemporary intellectual
world, the suggestion is made that Christian teaching on
creationwith its emphasis on the rationality of the Creator

(who therefore makes a universe that is intelligible) and on

his freedom (which produces therefore a contingent world,
the nature of which can be discovered only through research
and experimentation and not by mere speculation)has
helped create the very framework essential for the birth and
development of scientific knowledge. For many it is quite
valid to speak of 'an organic continuity between Christian
revelation and modern science'.
It is not necessary to go along with this view entirely in
order to say that both faith and science have to do with real
objects, which are totally imbued with rationality, even
though their methods are necessarily different. On the other
hand, it is true that both of them, faith directly, science
subsequently, seek the answers to the ultimate meaning of
things.
Another contributor to the convergence of science and
religion on this point is the fact that scientific positivism has
become a thing of the past. Modern science is tending to
have a more realistic view of the world and to accept that
there are limits to the kinds of answers science can provide
and many scientists in fact are asking questions to which
only a theological answer is possible.
Theology for its part has managed to shed its defensive
attitudes (which originated in the 17th century) which were
underpinned by questionable biblical exegesis. The growing
recognition of the interaction between theology and science
in social life and the search for unitary explanations of the
universe, with religious or scientific monism a thing of the
past, augur well for a new chapter in relations between faith
and the positive sciences.
When the Royal Society in England was founded in the
middle of the 17th century, it had as a principal aim to keep
faith and scientific reason apart, in order to avoid all
possible conflict. In 1940 Albert Einstein said that science
without religion just limps along, and religion without
science is blind, which just shows how much things have

changed since then, because his outlook is now shared by a

majority of scientists. Many people nowadays see that
science can purify religion of possible errors and
superstitions, while religion can help science to avoid being
doctrinaire.
John Paul II said in 1982: 'It is true that science and faith
are two different orders of knowledge, each autonomous in
its methods, but they ultimately meet to show that reality
has its origin in God.' It is not possible for science and faith
to really contradict one another, since everything ultimately
derives from God the Creator.
'If it is true that in the past there were serious clashes or
misunderstandings between representatives of science and
those of the Church', the Pope has said, 'these difficulties
have now really been overcome, thanks to recognition that
mistakes in interpretation were the underlying cause of
strained relations between faith and science, and thanks
particularly to a greater appreciation of their respective
spheres of knowledge.' Conflict caused by overwhelming
self- confidence on the part of scientists and undue
interference by ecclesiastical authorities is now to all intents
and purposes a matter of history.
Time has led to the appreciation of the greatness and the
limitations of science, particularly in the present century
when science has produced spectacular results: in the
atomic era science lost its innocence and has ceased to be,
if it ever was, a disinterested quest for knowledge and for
human well-being. Modern science has in the main ceased
to be an exercise of wisdom and has become basically a
technology closely linked to the irrational exercise of power.
Theology can help scientists to see their work as an activity
with moral implications, and which can do a great deal to
improve the quality of human life the world over. Without
getting involved in matters outside its competence or
claiming any out-dated hegemony over science, theology is
in a position to provide useful guidelines.

'In the past,' John Paul II has said, 'the defenders of modern
science fought against the Church under such slogans as
Reason, Freedom, Progress. Today, in view of the crisis over
the meaning of science, the many threats to its freedom,
and the doubts that many have regarding progress, the
battle fronts have been reversed. Today it is the Church that
is the defender. She is the defender of reason and of science
declaring them to be capable of attaining truth . . . ; and
the defender of scientific freedom, thanks to whom science
can maintain its dignity as a human value; and, finally, the
defender of progress in the service of a humankind which
needs to protect its reason of being and its self-respect.'
theology and science on the subject of creation
The Bible's teachings and approaches to the creation of the
world by God at the beginning of time have always been
something science has been very aware of and responded to
in one way or another. One could even say that the
advancement of science in the West carried a creationist
stamp. On the other hand, scientists' notions of the universe
in the various stages of European culture have influenced
long-held Christian ideas about the place of man in the
cosmos.
It has been rightly said that prior to the 18th century,
Western culture was so bound up with the idea that the
world was created by God that any alternative notion about
the origin of the world was scarcely imaginable. Prior to the
Copernican revolution of the 16th and 17th century, the
accepted cosmology was like a worldview ingrained in the
mind-set of Western man.
The earth on which man lived was thought of as a fixed
platform, unique in type and located at the centre of the
universe. Anyone could see that the sun rose and went
down, and the moon and the stars followed their course for
the benefit of our planet. But the old distinction between

perennial heavens and the earth disappeared with

Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. The earth was now in the
midst of the heavens, lost among the stars so that the
eternal and the transitory had come to be mixed in together.
What had most effect from a religious point of view was the
fact that, suddenly, an overall vision of things (cf, for
example, the cosmos of the Divine Comedy) was put
completely at risk of not being replaced by any other view
which would give man the confidence that he had a welldefined place in the universe. Although images about the
world which believers had held were now rejected by
astronomy as out of date, they still fitted in with man's
ordinary experience of life and had great symbolic and
practical value.
During the years when modern science was establishing
itself, relations between theologians and men of science
were fairly normal. The underlying religious faith of both
made dialogue and mutual respect easy. The famous Galileo
affair changed all this and led to actions and attitudes of
confrontation both at a practical and a theoretical level.
Theories in support of heliocentrism and therefore of the
movement of the earth around the sun had been put
forward by the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus in
1543. Attacked by Protestant leaders on the grounds that
they opposed the tenor of Holy Scripture, they were initially
received with a certain indifference and even benevolence
by Catholic theologians, who saw them simply as conjecture
or hypotheses arising out of scientific research.
This peaceful scene lasted for several decades until Galileo
Galilei (1564 1642) stated that heliocentrism was not just a
theory (still, at that time, unprovable) but a certainty.
Galileo's clash with the ecclesiastical authorities of the time
led to the famous trial which began in 1616 and ended in
1633 with the censure of the heliocentric theory which this
famous physicist had spread as if it had been demonstrated.
For many the Galileo case has since become a symbol of

what they claim to be a basic opposition between religion

and science, which Popes Paul VI and John Paul II have tried
to alleviate. 'The essential point at issue regarding the
Copernican view, it has been rightly said, is not whether this
particular theory has been definitively established but
whether the final decision on its truth and certainty could be
made by anybody who is not officially authorized to interpret
revelation.'
Both the attitude of the censors and that of Galileo himself
are pointers to what really happened. The representatives of
the Inquisition refused to accept (hat a layman had a right
to interpret Holy Scripture. Galileo, for his part, saw (and
described) his own views as 'divinely inspired' and branded
his opponents as ignorant of sacred science. Both sides
became entrenched; however, the popular idea of Galileo as
a 'martyr' for freedom of thought is a gross simplification
and fails to square with the facts.
The new subjectivist epistemology, the fragmentation of
human experience, and non-cognitive notions of religion
which became dominant throughout the 18th century led to
an even deeper divorce between faith and science. Early in
the 19th century Pierre de Laplace (d. 1827) was arguing
that the creation of the world was an unnecessary theory for
explaining the universe.
Victorian England was at the centre of this debate in the
19th century. While there were prominent scientists who
saw no incompatibility between the two areas, there were
otherslike T.H. Huxley (182595)who did all they could
to stoke the furnace, in order to undermine the cultural
influence of the Church. Darwin's theories from 1860
onwards did lead to a crisis of some magnitude, but they
also helped to clear the air because they helped to show that
it was not science in general that was opposed to religion
but only certain kinds of scientific conclusions and
approaches. Newman had written in 1874: 'Doubtless
theologians have before now meddled with scienceand

now scientific men are paying them off by meddling with

theology. With you I see nothing in the theory of evolution
inconsistent with an almighty Creator and Protectorbut
these men assume with an abundance of scorn of us and
superciliousness, that religion and science are on this point
contradictory, and on this audacious assumption they
proceed dogmatically to conclude that there is no truth in
religion.
The cultural climate has changed since then, and although
anti-religious prejudice has not disappeared, conditions are
now more conducive to fruitful dialogue.
two extreme hypotheses: absolute evolutionism and
scientific creationism
In recent times certain trends in popularizing science have
promoted evolutionism as a secularized alternative to the
biblical notion of creation. A materialistic view of the
universe is put forward which argues that the cosmos has
been evolving over some fifteen thousand million years,
turning matter into living beings and then developing
consciousness.
With a zeal and dogmatism more suited to preachers of
religion, the promoters of these ideas (which are stated as
achievements of science) are in fact only offering
philosophical premises in the guise of scientific facts.
Although evolution is an hypothesis for which there are
grounds, clearly this kind of radical evolutionism, which tries
to explain all aspects of the universe and of man as being
entirely the result of material and organic processes, is
unacceptable from a scientific point of viewgiven that their
theories of natural selection and mutation do not entirely
account for the appearance of new forms or from the point
of view of belief, because the creation of the world by God
leaves no room for profane alternatives.

a)

b)

So-called scientific creationism should not be confused

with what is usually simply called creationism, which is the

equivalent of the Christian doctrine of the creation of the
world and of man out of nothing at the beginning of time.
Scientific creationism developed in American fundamentalist
Protestant groups and has little following outside the United
States. Strict creationists hold a literal interpretation of the
Genesis accounts of creation; and since 1920, when they
organized public campaigns to ban the teaching of evolution
in public schools, they have moved from a defence based on
the Bible to one which tries to base itself on science.
Although not all those who promote this kind of creationism
adopt the same position on all questions, most of them
speak of the evolutionist hypothesis as being mere
speculation, claim that the Bible is scientifically accurate,
interpret the six days of creation as real 24-hour periods,
take the Flood literally, etc.
The pseudo-scientific nature of these approaches has often
been exposed in recent decades. Scientific creationists have
embarked on an impossible project, which above all fails to
appreciate the religious nature of Holy Scripture. At no point
does the Bible claim to teach science as such, even if what it
has to say is not at odds with known scientific facts.
St Augustine, even in his time, clearly taught that, in
Scripture, the Holy Spirit was not trying to tell us anything
about the course of the sun and the moon; he sought to
make us Christians, not mathematicians or astronomers. In
other words, the Bible is not a scientific tract, and does not
claim to be. It is a religious book, which does not provide
any sort of technical/scientific information. 'Divine
Revelation', says John Paul II, 'does not as such provide any
scientific theory of the universe, and the assistance of the
Holy Spirit in no sense goes as far as to guarantee
explanations which we might wish to make regarding the
physical constitution of the real world.'
Scientific creationists do not just alter the meaning of the
biblical texts in an effort to bridge the gap between reason

and faith in a way which is unacceptable; they set up an

unjustified opposition between creation and evolution.
Christian belief in creation and a coherent account of
evolution are the best refutation of exaggerated theories of
the kind we have mentioned. In the framework of a
creationist faith that is open to being enriched by science, it
becomes much easier to explore many frontier questions
about the world and man.
the origin of the universe
The existence and origin of the universe is a central issue in
the world of science today. Advances in astrophysics in the
20th century have led to a steady growth of interest in these
questionsfor example, how did matter come to be
structured, how did the cosmos come to be the way it is?
The cosmology produced by modern astrophysics tackles
these questions directly and tries to elucidate the world's
origin even though, of course, it cannot offer any ultimate
explanation of reality without going beyond its proper limits
as a science.
Some contemporary scientists speak of the universe having
an uncaused origin, as if it always existed in a static or
permanent state. Stephen Hawking, for example, says in
this connexion: 'the world is eternal, it is totally selfcontained and uninfluenced by any external entity. It was
not created nor will it be destroyed. It simply is.'
The dominant scientific hypothesis in recent decades states,
on the contrary, that the universe began to exist at a
particular point, a point which it describes very graphically
as a 'big bang' resulting from a non-dimensional point
source of pure energy and unimaginable density.
This theory was implicitly put forward by Alexander
Friedman, a Russian, in 1922, who was the first to speak of
an expanding universe. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest,
filled out this conjecture somewhat in 1927, when he

proposed the idea that the universe originated from the

explosion of a primary atom of enormous density and at an
extremely high temperature. Edwin Hubble was in a position
to show in 1929 that the universe is expanding, and that the
galaxies are distancing themselves from each other at very
great speed. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, two
Americans, finally succeeded, in 1965, by using a huge
radiotelescope to detect some microwave radiation said to
have been emitted by that fantastic initial explosion.
In its more developed form, the Big Bang theory holds that
at the beginning there was no time nor matter nor space. A
universe then suddenly emerged out of a point of
mysterious, indescribable energy, and within a second that
emerging universe was as big as our solar system. In three
minutes, the cosmos had become a kind of fusion bomb,
synthesizing hydrogen, helium and lithium from a very
dense, hot cauldron of elementary particles. When the
universe got to 300,000 years old, it would have cooled
enough to allow the formation of atoms, and before it
reached the age of nine million years the atoms had given
rise to the first galaxies.
Hubble proved by experiment that the light from the more
distant galaxies is perceived as being of a smaller
wavelength just as, for example, the noise a car sounds
quieter the more it recedes from the hearer. This fact would
be the equivalent of an echo of the big bang. The hypothesis
contains the idea that the universe, which is currently in a
state of continuous expansion, will some day cease to exist
by going into reverse and ending up in a point, or through a
general process of cooling down. Modern physics and
biology have in fact worked out basic laws which support the
idea of a world being limited in time.
The Big Bang theory, which is based on a knowledge of such
cosmic 'fossils' as particles, radiation and the chemical
composition of the stars, has become the basic cosmological
model in use today.

One might be tempted to use the notions of Big Bang and

creation to conclude that the Christian idea of creation,
which is an object of faith, has now been proved by science.
However, the fact is that there is no real parallel between
the two notions, nor do they have any direct connexion with
one another. It is just not possible to prove scientifically or
by experiment that the world was created out of nothing, for
creation cannot be expressed by means of physical laws.
Of course, we can say that science for the most part points
to the universe being special by positing that it did have a
beginning, and that Christian faith is in harmony with the
idea that the cosmos arose at a particular moment a billion
years ago. The point has been well made that 'without
falling into an undue coalescence . . . , there is no reason for
scorning such confirmation as the experimental sciences
might offer to theology'.
the anthropic principle
The term anthropic principle refers to the global and
unifying fact that the numerical values of the physical
interactive forces in the world are such as they are in order
to produce the basic conditions for life to exist. If we
observe the universeso the theory goesand identify the
countless accidents of physics which have conspired to bring
about the appearance of man, it would seem, so to speak,
that the human being would have to at some point come
into being.
At each stage in the development of the cosmos there were
many different ways the elements of nature could follow a
determined option, and each time they opted for the only
route which would, eventually, lead to the emergence of
man.
The defenders of the anthropic principle argue that the Big
Bang happened some billion years ago, because that is
approximately the time needed for intelligent life to develop.

To reach our present situation, first an early generation of

stars had to develop; then these stars turned some of the
original hydrogen and helium into elements like carbon and
oxygen, out of which man was ultimately made.
The stars then exploded as supernovas, and out of their
fragments other stars and planets were formed, including
our solar system, which would be about five thousand
million years old. During the first one or two billion years of
the earth's existence, temperatures were too high to allow
the development of any complicated structure. The
remaining three billion would be the timeframe of a long
process of biological evolution, which led from the simplest
organisms to the human being.
The anthropic principle implies, basically, that accident or
chance is not the dominant force of nature; instead, natural
processes are found to be channelled in some way in line
with a plan. The existence of indetermination and random
events in the evolution of the cosmos would not rule out the
presence of an ultimate principle of order. In fact it is known
that physical systems which have become unstable tend to
recover at a higher level of organization.
Obviously the points involved in the anthropic principle are
more in line with the doctrine of creation than the theory of
chance. However, one should not rush into thinking that it is
an outstandingly clear proof of theological principles.
chapter 11
The Angels

invisible created beings

Angels have a prominent place in the Christian economy of
salvation. They arc the invisible world created by God, a
world close to the divine Trinity, and one bordering, so to

speak, on the visible universe, which has man at its centre.

'The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that
Holy Scripture normally calls "angels" is a truth of faith."
When we confess in the Creed that God made heaven we
are not referring to the vault of heaven (the firmament), and
starry space, but rather to all those beings whom we cannot
see and who are particularly near God and who praise him
unceasingly.
They are in heaven and they make their presence felt on
earth. They are with God and also with men. 'We can see
that the greatest of saints and men of God have had a
familiar relationship with them right from St Augustine to
John Henry Newman.'
The angels are in the news. Modern literature has taken note
of them, and they have been the subject of recent
statements by the Church. Nowadays they need to be
spoken about because they are a dimension of the Christian
faith, testified to in those biblical texts which reflect both the
broad outline and the details of salvation history, and
because many people these days do not find it easy to
accept that there are these invisible beings who have
missions connected with the workings of divine Providence.
For some people of a rationalist frame of mind, angels and
demons are just personifications of cosmic forces or
psychological phenomena; for others they arise from
people's curiosity about what happens after death, or are
the product of spiritualist mediums or theosophy.
Something Newman wrote (in 1831) has great relevance
today: 'There have been ages of the world, in which men
have thought too much of Angels, and paid them
excessive honour; honoured them so perversely as to
forget the supreme worship due to Almighty God. This is
the sin of a dark age. But the sin of what is called an
educated age, such as our own, is just the reverse: to
account slightly of them, or not at all; to ascribe all we

see around us, not to their agency, but to certain

assumed laws of nature.'
It is the conviction of the Church and of believers that the
universe created by God contains beings, spiritual and free,
whom he made at the beginning of time. The existence of
angels cannot be proved by arguments from reason,
because God is under no compulsion to create. However, it
seems very fitting and very likely, in view of the great
variety to be seen in the physical world, that there should
exist a world of spiritual beings. It is very difficult to imagine
man to be the only form of spiritual existence in all creation.
One could say that creation would lack completion and
perfection if in this whole created scheme of things there
were not some superior beings and other inferior ones, some
visible and others invisible.
Angelic beings are a part of that architecture which the
human mind (albeit guided by the sort of sobriety which is
called for when speculating on such matters) intuits in the
make-up of the universe. Angels are not outdated inventions
of a pre-scientific or romantic outlook, or decorations
devised by a religious or poetic imagination. Nor do they
imply a Christian concession to paganism or to animist
notions of the world.
Angels have quite a prominent place in the Gospel, where
they constantly testify to the presence of God in Jesus, from
the Annunciation to the Resurrection and the Ascension.
They also represent in the New Testament a sign of the
heavenly liturgy, which envelopes the Trinity in unending
praise. There are also bad angels, with the result that the
work of Christ is manifested, beyond the sphere of the
visible, as a great battle with the prince of this world and his
cohorts which results, after their apparent victory on Good
Friday, in their (virtually final) defeat on Easter morning.
We invoke the angels in the penitential act at the start of
the celebration of the Eucharist, as intercessors whom God
has given us to stir us to repentance and help obtain divine

pardon for our sins. The angels also help Christians in their
spiritual improvement. Angels see Christians emerge from
the darkness of sin and rise to join them in the life of grace;
Christians then outstrip angels to reach to the glory that the
Incarnate Word has reserved for redeemed mankind.
angels in the old testament
The Old Testament does not offer a developed or easily
understood angelology. Referring to them in differing ways,
it speaks fairly frequently about angels as messengers God
uses in his contacts with human beings. The sacred books
do not deal with angels as such or in their own right, nor do
they spell out what angels are, but the Bible describes them
certainly as real beings: they are not symbolic but an object
of faith.
Angels are to be found at all levels in biblical tradition. The
angel of the Lord and angels are mentioned in the
Pentateuch narratives. An angel appears and blocks the
entrance to the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:24), prevents Isaac
being sacrificed (Gen 22:11), gives directives to Jacob in his
dream (Gen 31:11), leads the Israelites to the promised
land (Ex 14:19; 23:20; 32:34), wards off the curse of
Balaam (Num 22), gives Moses the revelation of the burning
bush (Ex 3:2), etc. Angels visit Abraham (Gen 19:1), and
Jacob sees groups of these divine messengers on the ladder
at Bethel (Gen 28:12). The 'commander of the army of the
Lord' (Josh 5:13-15) and the 'destroyer' of Exodus 12:23
are also angels There are accounts (for example, Gen 1819, Ex 3:2ff and Judg 6) where God and his angel may be
taken as one and the same. However, many interpreters
think that there is in these instances a distinction between
the Lord and his envoy, and that the apparent identity
between the two is due to the fact that 'if the angel speaks
as he were God himself, if he proclaims his message in the
first person, he is really doing what every messenger does

repeating word for word what the one who sent him said.'
The Psalms normally refer to the angels by names such as
the Mighty (cf. Ps 78:25, JB note), the sons of the Gods (cf.
Ps 89:6, JB note; cf. Ps 29:1, JB note). These heavenly
beings constitute God's court or council. Unlike the Ugarit
version of this court, the angels who make up Yahweh's
court in the Bible are not divinities, but spiritual beings
created by the only God and subject to him.
The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, respectively, speak
about seraphs (Is 6:2-7) and cherubs (Ezek 28:14), who
are angelic figures within the sphere of the divine glory.
The seraphim get their name from the verb to burn,
evoking the connexion between angel and fire (cf. Judg
13:20), while the cherubim symbolize the clouds which
surround God in the highest. Both names reflect natural
images which convey qualities that are attributed to the
angels.
The biblical texts written after the Exile individualize certain
angelsan interesting development of Jewish angelology.
This must reflect some Babylonian influence, which probably
also inspired new ways of depicting the beings that surround
the throne of God. 'The visions of the Proto-Zechariah',
writes A. Caquot, 'provide very accurate indications of the
evolution of angelology at the time of the return from exile.
The angel of the Lord has now become a prominent and welldefined personality. He is like a presiding minister of the
heavenly court to whom the messengers sent by God to
patrol the earth report (cf.
Zech 1: 11), with a certain degree of autonomy which
permits them to intercede for Jerusalem (cf. Zech 1:12).
The individualization of the angels leads to their being
assigned personal names. The book of Tobit gives the name
of Raphael to the angel who cures Tobit the elder and
Sarah, the wife of his son (Tob 3:16); it is a functional
name, meaning 'God has healed'. The book of Daniel,

composed around the year 160 be, mentions two other

angelic namesGabriel, strength of God, 'interpreter of
visions (Dan 8:16; 9:21), and Michael, the defender of the
Jewish people, who confronts their enemies in the final
battles, and whose name means who is like God, and who
typifies, so to speak, the profession of faith contained in
Exodus 15:11.'
Rabbinicial literature and the apocryphal books of the Old
Testament speculate at enormous length about angels. In
these texts angelic beings are found everywhere and in
great numbers. Their invisible nature is made compatible
with their enormous brightness. They are so awesome
that they easily overcame the enemies of Israel. They
have wings which enable them to move at will between
heaven and earth. They are aware of everything that
happens and for this reason are depicted covered with
eyes. They are immortal, but God can destroy them.
Theirs is a form of knowledge much superior to man's.
These angels of Judaism are not comparable to other
analogous beings found in such religions as the
Zoroastrianism of Iraq. The archangels of that religion are
aspects of the one and only God, whereas the angels of
the Jews are creatures of God. New Testament angelology
is a more sober affair which practically eliminates any
accommodation to a popular or an educated imagination.
Although the Bible refers to a devil on a number of
occasions, the place and role it attributes to him are very
restricted. The strict monotheism of the Jewish religion
could not easily make room for a figure which might be
taken for an autonomous incarnation of the forces of evil or
a serious rival of the only God. What neighbouring peoples
attributed to the influence of devilsdiseases, plagues, death
the sacred authors attribute directly to God. The universal
and sovereign cause of all that happens on earth, Yahweh
inflicts leprosy on Miriam, Moses' sister (Deut 24:9),

punishes those who violate the Law (Num 11:1ff), sets

serpents loose among the people (Num 21:6), frees Israel
from its enemies (Judg 2:14; 3:8), etc.
Under the name of the adversary or Satan, the devil
appears in the prologue of the book of Job but not exactly in
the same form as we later find in the New Testament and in
Christian tradition. The trials Job suffers seem to come
directly from Yahweh, and Satan in the poem is simply a
docile instrument of the Most High. It is true, however, that
'behind this (the devil's) apparent service of God one can
detect a hostile attitudehostile, if not to God, then at least
to man. Satan seeks to harm not only the property and
physical well-being of Job but also his soul and his sanctity.'
In other places Satan also plays the part of the tempter who
is not listened to by God (cf. Zech 3:1-5); or he is seen as a
lying spirit (cf. 1 Kings 22:19-22). At all points the Bible
tries to ensure that the transcendence of God is safeguarded
and that there is no trace of dualism.
The devil does play a very important role in the Genesis
accounts of the origins of mankind. Genesis does not
mention his name, but his personality is clearly delineated
and no risk of dualism is run. The serpent, a creature of
God, will have to pay the consequences of bringing about
our first parents' downfall. At the same time he is a being
endowed with a knowledge and adroitness that Adam and
Eve do not possess, and he seems to be motivated by
hatred for God and envy of human beings, even though he
projects himself as their friend. One of the purposes of the
biblical narrative is to expose his trickery."
angels in the new testament
The New Testament books take the existence of angels for
granted and at no point provide explanations or
observations on their nature or activity. Nor do they focus
on the angels as such or have anything particular to say

about their ministry. The angels are simply there, and they
act in the service of the new and definitive economy of
salvation. Their co-operation in the shaping of this stage of
salvation history, in which they carry out God's commands
regarding men, is to be seen particularly in the book of
Revelation; in the infancy narratives re counted in Matthew
and Luke; in the Acts of the Apostles; and in the first three
chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. St Paul refers fairly
frequently to the principalities and powers, meaning the
fallen angels, but he has little to say about the good angels.
St John rarely refers to them in his Gospel or in his epistles.
The holy angels are generally referred to in the New
Testament by expressions such as angels of God (Lk 12:8;
Jn 1:51) or angels of the Lord (Mk 1:20; 2:13; Lk 1:11;
2:9; Acts 5:9). They are spiritual beings created by God,
who inhabit the divine world. They do not flow nor emanate
from the Godhead, but they attend on him at all times, and
in particular whenever he intervenes to save mankind.
The angels transcend the visible and temporal world. They
have no body nor sex. 'The sons of this age', we read in the
St Luke's Gospel, 'marry and are given in marriage; but
those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to
the resurrection from the dead neither marry . . .' (Lk
20:34ff).
Following the traditions found in the Old Testament, the New
speaks of the myriads of angels (Heb 12:22; Rev 8:11;
9:16), but mentions only the already known names of
Gabriel (Lk 1:9) and Michael (Judg 9; Rev 12:9).
The sacred writers symbolically describe the angels by using
images taken from the common expressions of nature, such
as wind and flame. God 'makes his angels winds, and his
servants flames of fire' (Heb 1:7).
What these words tell us is that form and energy principally
describe the angels' make-up. In the Gospel of Mark we
read that at the end of time people 'will see the Son of man
coming in clouds with great power and glory' (13:26), and

the same idea occurs in connexion with angels: 'when the

Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty
angels' (2 Thess 1:7; Mt 25:31).
An angel's presence includes a glory which surrounds him
and which is a kind of extension of divine glory (doxa). It is
a presence which is described in terms of epiphany: the Son
of man will come 'in his glory and in the glory of the Father
and of the holy angels' (Lk 9:26). The same evangelist
says: 'an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory
of the Lord shone' (Lk 2:9). When it wants to describe the
appearance of an angel, the New Testament speaks of his
white garments, his radiance and his shining brightness (cf.
Mt 16:5; Acts 1:10; Jn 20:12).
To sum up, we can say, in the words of H. Schlier, that the
New Testament sees 'the angels of God as the holy elect of
heaven, as an invisible creation made up of free creatures
obedient to God, endowed with intelligence and activity,
sight and language, who exist in countless numbers, who
are nameless, and take the form of spirit, brilliance, light
and flame.'
Continually turned towards God, these beings surround his
throne and render him unceasing praise. Of them Jesus says
that they 'always behold the face of my Father who is in
heaven' (Mt 18:10). 'A simple word used by Gabriel, when
he introduces himself to Zechariah, enables us to see that
worship is the office of all the angels, even of those who are
sent to serve men, and that such worship is linked to their
nature: "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God;
and I was sent to speak to you" (Lk 1:19).'
The angels co-operate, so to speak, in the actions of God
and of Christ within salvation history. Their ministry is to be
seen even in the Old Testament, in the service of Moses and
of the Law, where their activity prefigures what they will do
for Jesus and his work of salvation. 'The Nativity accounts
touch at different points on the ministry of angels. St
Matthew sees them exercising it when they tell Joseph to

protect the Child. St Luke shows them as messengers who

prepare the hearts of men for Jesus' action and tell them
that it is he who brings salvation.'
The service rendered by angels is mentioned in the
Synoptics, at three key points in Jesus' public life. When our
Lord has resisted the devil's temptations, we read: 'then the
devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to
him' (Mt 4:11). On another occasion it is Jesus himself who
refers to the protective power of angels when he says to
Peter in the garden of olives: 'Do you think that I cannot
appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than
twelve legions of angels?' (Mt 26:53). Finally, Jesus' prayer
'Thy will be done' (Mt 26:42) brought an angel from heaven,
to comfort and console him prior to his passion (cf. Lk
22:43).
Angels are also the first witnesses to the Resurrection and
explain Jesus' Ascension. They prove to be very active in the
spread of the Gospel and the consolidation of the Church.
Cornelius is invited by an angel to seek out Peter (cf. Acts
10:3), and it is an angel who frees the Apostles from prison
(cf. Acts 5:19; 12:7).
But the angels are both actors and ministers in the events
which mark tin- start of the eschaton. The voice of an
archangel proclaims the Second Coming (cf. 1 Thess 4:16)
and it is angels who set the stage for the judgment (cf. Mt
13:39), after assembling the elect 'from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other' (Mt 24:31).
Impressive though they are, angels are on a lower level
than Jesus, the only Son of the Father: 'He sat down at the
right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much
superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more
excel- lent than theirs' (Heb 1:3-4).
In the order of grace and in terms of the eternal destiny
which the Incarnation of the Lord opens up for man, it can
be said that they (men) surpass the angels (cf. Heb 2:16; 1
Pet 1:12; 1 Cor 6:2ff), in the sense that the assumption of

human nature by the Word sets that assumed nature above

the nature of angels
New Testament demonology is typically very precise and
sober. There is no speculation as to the names of demons,
their hierarchy, nature and sin. Various names are used to
denominate one single personality who is expressly
identified with the serpent of Genesis: 'the great dragon,
that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan' (Rev
12:9; cf. Jn 8:44). The Synoptics speak indiscriminately of
Satan (Mark), the Evil One (Matthew) or the Devil (Luke). At
other times we find him called enemy, tempter, or
Beelzebub. He is also called the prince of this world (Jn
12:31) and the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4).
The first act in the public life of Jesus is a confrontation with
Satan. 'Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted by the devil' (Mt 4:1). These temptations have a
great significance: at the very beginning of his messianic
activity, Jesus has to make a choice; he has to choose
between the ways of God and other ways which, although
they seem to make sense, would in fact take him away from
his mission.
This struggle between the devil and Jesus will continue right
through his public life, even as far as the cross. The great
majority of the miracles of Jesus signify not only that he is
the expected Messiah, who has power and authority to
forgive sins, but also that man has been freed from the
tyranny of Satan. It is mainly by his death that Jesus
reduces the devil to powerlessness (cf. Heb 2:14), even
though at first sight that death might seem to indicate the
victory of the enemy.
The twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation completes, so
to speak, the Genesis account and summarizes all the
Bible's teaching about the devil and his role in salvation
history. Before describing the battle between the Church
and the Beast, who is the symbol of the Antichrist and the
incarnation of the mystery of evil, the sacred author tells us

'that this gigantic struggle is just the last phase and as it

were the development in time of another invisible struggle
which gives the human drama its true dimensions; and at
the same time it reveals to us the victory which will finally
be won.' Conquered by Michael and above all by Christ, the
devil pursues the Woman (the new Eve) and, failing to catch
her, 'went off to make war on the rest of her offspring' (Rev
12:17). This last phase of the struggle will end with the
definitive defeat of Satan (Rev 20:10).
christian tradition
The angelology of the Fathers of the Church follows on
directly from that contained in Judaeo-Christian books such
as the Ascension of Isaiah, I and II Enoch, the Testament of
the Twelve Patriarchs, the Gospel of Peter, etc. To these can
be added the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas,
which are included among the so-called Apostolic Fathers
(second century).
The angelology in this pre-Patristic period is a very
imaginative one, with long descriptions and a strong taste
for speculation. It will undergo a purification of method and
content by the next generation of Christian authors.
The considerable development of Judaeo-Christian
angelology arises from the fact that the main writers
customarily use angelic epithets to designate the Word of
God and the Holy Spirit. Thus, for example, Hermas and
II Enoch liken Michael (the leading angel) to the Word,
and Gabriel to the Holy Spirit, on the basis of the
Annunciation as narrated by St Luke. Another JudaeoChristian tradition, however, likens the Archangel Gabriel
to the Second Person, in the same scene. Some authors
see the Son and the Holy Spirit as seraphim who are t he
most superior of all the angels, or give the Holy Spirit the
name of Prince of Light.

The works referred to above usually speak of the angels as a

first creation prior to that of all other created beings. These
angels are fiery spirits and of colossal size. There are many
levels of angels, and while the higher orders form the
heavenly court, the lower spirits have charge of the visible
world, not only by controlling natural phenomena but also
by governing human communities They are messengers of
God and also executors of divine punishment.
The Pastor of Hermas teaches that these are two types of
angels, a doctrine which will be echoed by Origen, St
Athanasius of Alexandria and St Gregory of Nyssa. Hermas
says: 'Man relates to two angels: the angel of justice and
the angel of evil. The angel of justice is quiet and peaceful.
When he enters your heart he speaks immediately of
justice, of holiness, of temperance and of every good work.
When these thoughts arise in your mind, you must know the
angel of justice is within you. The angel of evil, on the other
hand, is irascible, filled with bitterness and unruly passion.
Recognize him by his works.' Further on he adds: 'Do not
fear the devil. . . . He can only cause you to fear, but it is a
baseless fear: do not be afraid, he will flee far from you. He
cannot overcome God's servants, those who place all their
trust in him. He can fight but can never win. If you resist
him, he will flee.'
The rule exercised by the angels and their role in the
material world is a theme often touched on in Patristic
writing, as for example Athenagoras, Origen and Gregory of
Nyssa. St Thomas Aquinas echoes these ideas when he
says: 'All corporeal beings are governed by the angels.'
There are important Fathers, such as St Irenaeus of Lyons,
who do not give much mention to angels in their theology.
Irenaeus always sets them on a lower level than men, which
forces him at times into a complicated exegesis of biblical
passages which seem to say the opposite.
Thus, just as the Jewish writers stressed the role of the
angels as ministers of God's revelations, promulgators of the

Law, and protectors of these divine gilfs, Christian writers,

'with the only exception of Denys the Areopagite', speak of
these assignments as having to do with the preparatory
nature of the Old Testament. They are activities which cease
with the coming of Christ, given that Jesus takes personal
control of salvation history. This is a theological point made
as early as St Paul (cf. Gal 4:1-6; Col 2:8), who contrasts
the communication of the Law by angels with the revelation
of the Gospel by Jesus Christ. The Epistle to the Hebrews
underlines this and says that 'it was not to angels that God
subjected the world to come . . . [but] in putting everything
in subjection to him [Christ], God left nothing outside his
control.'
The coming of Christ has not, however, brought the ministry
of angels to an end. They perform in pagan nations a
spiritual role in helping people to recognize and obey the
natural law and discover the traces of revelations within
their teach. It is also true that Origen, St John Chrysostom
and Eusebius of Caesarea lake a pessimistic view of the
effectiveness of this angelic activity. As Eusebius sees it, the
incarnation of the Word of God was designed to come to the
help of the angels because things had become fairly
desperate. Commentaries of this sort, which can easily lead
to the imagination running riot, have had no followers in the
tradition of the Church.
There are better grounds for ideas about the invisible
presence of angels at the liturgical assembly of Christians.
Participation of angels shows the official and solemn
character of Church worship. These ideas are based on
Hebrews 12:22-24 and passages in the book of Revelation.
Angels are present at the readings and the homily which
mark the start of the eucharistic celebration. Origen
observes that they are drawn to the reading of the
Scriptures and take pleasure in Holy Writ. The person
giving the homily should not forget that the angels are

listening to him and judging him. 'I have no doubt in

affirming that the angels are present in our assemblies,
not only in a general way in the whole church, but also in
an individual way. These are the same angels of which the
Lord has said "continually gaze upon the face of my
heavenly Father". There are really two churches, one
angelic and the other human. If our words accord with the
intention and a thought of the Scriptures, the angels
rejoice and pray with us.'
But the angels are especially associated with the very core
of the eucharistic sacrifice. The Mass is in fact a
sacramental participation in the heavenly liturgy, the
worship officially rendered to the Trinity by the assembly
of an invisible creation. The Eucharist enters heaven
escorted by the angels. St John Chrysostom says, 'The
angels surround the celebrant. The sanctuary, all the altar
space is filled with heavenly powers, who approach to
honour Him who becomes present on the altar.' Further on
we read: 'Direct the choirs among whom you are about to
enter. Though you have a human body, you are deemed
worthy to celebrate with the heavenly powers the common
Lord of all.'
The author called 'Denys the Areopagite' (sixth century)
gives in his work (Celestial Hierarchy a detailed angelology
highly influenced by the Neo-Platonist view of the world.
Denys speaks of a supra-celestial world of the Trinity which
illuminates the world of the angelic hierarchies and then,
later, the world of the hierarchical Church. In this global
vision of the universe, angels occupy an intermediary
position between the life of God and the Church which they
cause to shine and who act as its exemplary cause.
Denys is the source of the meticulous, imaginative
division of angels into three orders, each made up of
three choirs. Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones form the

highest order and dwell in the shadow of the Godhead.

The middle order is composed of Dominions, Forces and
Potentates. The powers, archangels and angels form the
third rank.
These angelic beings bring divine revelation to man, and
through them tin- hierarchies of the human world and of
the Church are enabled to rise towards God via
purification, enlightenment and union.
Although always led by theological concerns, Scholastic
authors successfully applied strict logic and metaphysical
thought to the subject of angels. St Thomas Aquinas' work
in this field in particular provides a complete ontology of
angel, built up on Thomistic philosophy.
St Thomas' angelology is centred on God and is in fact a
study of the wonderful gifts the Creator has given these
spiritual creatures of his. Focusing on his subject from this
angle Thomas tries to identify what it means to be an angel.
Angels are purely spiritual beings. They contain no bodily
element, no matter of any kind. They are separate forms or
substances, by nature immortal. Given that matter is the
principle of individuation, angels are not strictly speaking
individuals: each angel constitutes a species.
Because they are spiritual forms, their faculties are also
spiritual. They therefore have understanding and will.
Whereas man's intellect deals with being abstracted from
matter, that of angels relates to immaterial being. An
angel's will follows the direction his knowledge dictates. It is
directed towards every known good; it is not limited and it
can love God above all things. Therefore a sin committed by
an angel involves that full knowledge of God of which an
angel is capable, and also full consent. 'Thus Thomas has
established a fundamental difference between men and
angels from the points of view of being and knowledge.
Therefore there is a minimal relationship between them.
This approach goes contrary to that of St Bonaventure who

sought to increase the number of relationships between the

heavenly hierarchy and the human world.' Angels'
superiority over men is purely formal: angels and humans
are in fact two distinct categories of beings and belong to
orders that cannot be compared one with another.
This separateness of angels and humans is, in St Thomas, in
line with his desire to take a position against that of
Averroes, who regarded lower intelligent beings as definitely
inferior in the sphere of knowledge, and who therefore held
that heavenly intelligences controlled earthly ones. 'Thomas
took care lest the Christian concept of angels be absorbed
by the separated substances of Averroes and his medieval
followers. Therefore he so fittingly established the
subordination of angels to God and their clear difference
from men.'
angels in the liturgy
Angels' intimate association with what is called the heavenly
liturgy (implied by Holy Scripture in many passages)
explains why they are mentioned in the Church's worship,
especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.
Angels are invoked alongside the Blessed Virgin and the
saints in the penitential rite at the start of Mass: 'and I ask
Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you,
my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.'
Angels are usually mentioned in the preface and in the
prayer beginning Almighty God, we pray that your angel'
which the celebrant says, bowing slightly, liter the
consecration in Eucharistic Prayer I.
The praise of God contained in all the prefaces ends in the
hymn of praise sung by the angels. The mention of this
praise can be traced back to the early Christian idea that the
salvation received from Christ involves gaining admission to
the assembly of the blessed angels in heaven. 'You have
come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the

heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal

gathering.' It is as if the preface allowed us to hear those
praises, which are offered to God the Father through Christ:
'Per quem maiestatem tuam laudant angeli.'
The liturgical reform put in place by Paul VI in line with the
principles established by the Second Vatican Council has
extended the references to angels in the prefaces. The
Roman Missal of 1970 devotes an entire preface to praising
God for the existence and ministry of angelic beings. Angels
are also mentioned in the body of the new first preface of
the Ascension and are given a prominent place in the special
preface for Eucharistic Prayer IV.
The classic final statements in prefaces, which usually
mention angelic choirs by name, have been retained in all
cases and also included in many of the Missal's new prefaces.
Reference to choirs of angels appears in the new common
prefaces 1 and 2, in almost all the Sunday prefaces, in the
first Lenten preface, in the two Advent prefaces and at the
Epiphany.
It is in the Latin rite prefaces where angels and saints first
appear side by side, in a deliberate parallel in such a way
that it is not possible to interpret angels as symbols or as
personifications of cosmic forces. Angels are referred to as
true companions of saints, distinct from humans, of course,
but able to take their prayers and carry them to God.
In different prefaces we read: 'Et ideo, cum Sanctis et
angelis universis, te collaudamus . . .' (second preface of
Lent); 'Unde et nos, Domine, cum angelis et Sanctis
universis, tibi confitemur . . .' (first preface of the Passion
Sunday, and the seventh Sunday preface); 'Et ideo, cum
angelorum atque Sanctorum turba, hymnum laudis tibi
canimus . . . (fourth Sunday preface); 'Et ideo cum angelis
et Archangelis, cumque multiplici congregatione
Sanctorum. . .' (first preface of saints), etc.
The third prayer after the consecration in the Roman canon
reads: 'Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this

sacrifice to your altar in heaven.' The liturgy set out here

upholds the idea that a gift cannot be regarded as being
fully given until the person to whom it is given makes it his
own. In the book of Revelation there is mention of an altar
in heaven, where the angel mingles in- cense with the
prayers of the saints (8:3-5). This must have been what
inspired the text of the third prayer, to give the offering the
form of a supplication that God will truly make it his own.
Finally we should refer to the fact that the new Roman
Missal contains two liturgical feastsfor the three
archangels and for the guardian angelswith their own
masses and offices.
the teaching of the church concerning angels
Doctrine on angels solemnly defined by the Church consists
of five main statements:
a.
b.
c.
d.

angels exist
they are beings with a spiritual nature
they were created by God
they were created at the beginning of time
e. the bad angels, or devils, were created good but
through their own action became bad.

a) The existence of angels is expressly acknowledged in the

Church's statements of faith, or creeds, from the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed onwards (381), in which we
confess that we believe 'in one God . . . Creator of heaven
and earth, of all things visible and invisible'. The same
confession is made in the creeds devised by the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215), Second Council of Lyons (1274),
and the Councils of Florence (1441) and Trent (1564). The
First Vatican Council (1869-70) speaks of 'angelic creatures'
as being part of the creative work of God.
At all stages of history there have been those who deny the
existence of angels. The Acts of the Apostles (as also the

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus) tells us that the

Sadducees 'say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor
spirit'. Using very different religious and cultural
presuppositions, the Enlightenment rationalism which gained
ground from the 18th century onwards, also denied the
existence of angels. And of course materialism's view of the
world leaves no room for any kind of spiritual dimension.
Many contemporary writers refer to angels but they regard
them as products of literary imagination and projections of
human aesthetic awareness, which would use the idea of
these mysterious beings as a peg on which to hang
speculation and fantasy. And some Protestant scholars
reject the existence of angels, whom they see as a biblical
myth which now calls for a new interpretation. Outstanding
among these is the Lutheran Rudolf Bultmann, who set in
motion a demythified biblical theology from which angels
are severely excluded or left as an optional extra for
believers. In this connexion we should also mention Paul
Tillich, the American theologian, who does not accept that
angels and devils are real, independent beings, but rather a
part of the infrastructure of the possibilities of the forms of
being. For Tillich devils are forms of diabolical being while
angels are graphic representations of the perfection of being.
The encyclical Humani generis (1950) was referring to these
and similar opinions when it said that 'some question
whether angels are personal created beings'. Paul VI's
Profession of Faith, also known as the Creed of the People
of God (promulgated in June 1968, in connexion with the
Year of Faith), includes early on an important reference to
angels: 'We believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, Creator of what is visiblesuch as this world
where we live our livesand of the invisiblesuch as the
pure spirits which are also called angels' (no. 8). The holy
angels are also mentioned later, when they are said to
share in 'the divine governance of things' (no. 29).

b) The fact that angels are pure spirits without any bodily
element is clearly (aught by the Fourth Lateran Council
(1215), in whose Firmiter decree we read that God 'created
both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing,
the spiritual or angelic world and the corporeal or visible
world. And afterwards he formed the creature man, who in
a way belongs to both orders, as he is composed of spirit
and body.'
The fact that angels appear in the Bible as having bodies
and can be licitly depicted in images as taught by the
Second Council of Nicaea (787) should not lead one to think
that they in fact are in any way corporeal (which for a while,
some Christian writers held as a private opinion). But the
fact that it is permissible in Christian art to depict angels as
having bodies (stated by the Church in reaction to the
iconoclasts) does not mean that 'spiritual bodies' need be
attributed to them.
Angels were created by God out of nothing. They are
creatures. They are not aspects of God or emanations of his
being. Nor are they divine intermediaries between God Most
High and the visible world. They are part of creation, which
has visible and invisible dimensions to it. This doctrine of
faith is stated in the creeds and is emphasized particularly
by the Fourth Lateran Council (see above).
Holy Scripture does not give an account of the creation of
the angels but 'by depicting them as depending entirely on
God it implicitly teaches this truth'. Biblical teaching on
angels is always to be found in a strictly monotheistic con
text.
c)

The Fourth Lateran Council also defines the angels (like

the material universe) as being created at the beginning of
time: simul ab initio temporis. God did not create them from
all eternity.
Whether the angels were created prior to the material world
d)

or at the same is of secondary importance from a dogmatic

point of view. The council makes no reference to this point.
The word simul which the decree uses simply indicates that
God willed into being both these spirits and also humans. It
seems to be just a word which has nothing specific to say
about when exactly the angels were created.
The doctrine that God created all angels good and that the
devils were responsible for their own perversion was defined
for the first time by the Council of Braga (561), which said
that the devil was first a good angel made by God, and that
his nature was the work of God: he did not spring 'from the
darkness as the beginning and substance of evil'.
This teaching is already to be found well developed in
Patristic writings of the fourth century, particularly in St
Athanasius' Life of Anthony, where we read 'It must be
realized that the demons are so called not because they
were always demons. God, in fact, created nothing evil. The
demons were also created good but once they fell from their
heavenly wisdom and set out to wander the earth they
deceived the pagans with fantastic inventions, and then,
envious of us Christians, they do their utmost to impede our
entry to heaven; for they do not wish us to attain the place
from which they fell.'
The Church's teaching on the bad angels can be summed up
as follows: (i) Like all the angels, devils were created by
God. (ii) 'The devil and the other demons were created by
God good according to their nature, but they made
themselves bad by their own doing'words of the Fourth
Lateran Council, which condemned the error of the Cathars,
who claimed that devils came from an absolute principle of
evil. (iii) The demons led man into sin: 'as for man, his sin
was at the prompting of the devil'. (iv) Ever since sin
entered the world, the devils have had a degree of power
over mankind: sinful man is in some way 'in bondage to the
power of him who from that time had the empire of death,
e)

that is, the devil'. This control exercised by the devil is only
relative and does not imply that the devil has any rights
over man. It simply derives from circumstances which are at
present favourable to Christ's enemy, (v) The devils are
damned forever; that is, because it is intrinsically impossible
for them to reform or change for the better, there can be no
kind of divine amnesty which can set Satan and his angels
free from their predicament. The punishment they are
undergoing is not, then, a temporary one.
The existence of fallen angels forces us to speak of there
being an angelic sin, but it is very difficult to work out what
it was and in what circumstances it was committed.
However, as only God is incapable of sin, so the possibility of
an angel being able to sin is not theologically surprising.
In recent years there has been a lot of debate as to
whether the devil has any real existence, and this has led
to the Church's making a number of statements on the
matter. The debate was detonated by a provocative book
written by a German Catholic exegete, Herbert Haag,
entitled Farewell to the Devil, in which he went as far as
to deny that the fallen angel whom Holy Scripture calls
Satan was a personal being at all.
Haag sees the devil of Scripture as being a symbol which
personifies the forces of evila view which has been
severely criticized by many theologians, including J.
Ratzinger and L. Scheffczyk. These authors accept that
there is a lack of balance, and even at times
extravagance, in some strong statements on the figure
and activity of Satan, and grant that over the course of
Christian history it is possible to detect a tendency which
attributes to the devil an effectiveness he does not in fact
have; but they regard the assertion of the devil's
existence as being Catholic doctrine.
With an eye, undoubtedly, to the stance taken by Haag
but without specifically naming him, Paul VI in November

1972 made the point that 'those who refuse to accept the
reality of the devil's existence distance themselves from
the teaching of the Bible and of the Church: some
attribute an autonomous existence to him as if he were
not a creature of God like any other; others attribute a
pseudo- existence to him as nothing else but the mind's
attempt to personify the unknown cause of our
misfortunes.'
The document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith in June 1975 on the Church's teaching on the
devil, speaks in similar terms, at the same time calling
attention to the difficulty of interpreting Scripture on this
point, and making it clear that the Christian assertion of
the existence of Satan is to be found not at the centre of
revealed doctrine but on its periphery. 'The position of the
Catholic Church on demons is clear and firm. The
existence of Satan and the demons has indeed never been
the object of an explicit statement of the Magisterium, but
this is because the question was never put in those terms.
Heretics and faithful alike, on the basis of Scripture, were
in agreement on the existence and chief misdeeds of
Satan and his demons.
'For this reason, when doubt is thrown these days on the
reality of the devil we must, as we observed earlier, look
to the constant and universal faith of the Church and to
its chief source, the teaching of Christ. In effect, the
existence of a world of demons is revealed as a dogmatic
fact in the teaching of the Gospel and in all hearts of a
living faith.'
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 'Behind the
disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive
voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death
out of envy (cf. Gen 3:1-5). Scripture and the Church's
Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or
the "devil" (cf. Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9). The Church teaches
that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God.'

The Bible's testimony on the activity of the bad angels and

their negative and disruptive role as regards man's salvation
is usually couched in symbolic language given the difficulty
of coming to grips with the subject. The texts suggest that
human beings have to contend on the spiritual plane not
only with beings of flesh and blood (cf. Eph 6:12) but also
with evil 'principalities and powers', which stand for the
rebellion and resistance the world offers to the divine order,
and are enemies of man in everything to do with his eternal
vocation and destiny.
They are beings who 'pervert God's creation and try to harm
human beings even bodily, to the point of sometimes taking
possession of their physical and psychic powers, and
alienating them even from their very selves (diabolical possession). As the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31) and the
god of here below (cf. 2 Cor 4:4), the Evil One frustrates the
hopes and desires of mortal man, or inveigles him into
aiming beyond his status, as the serpent did in Paradise:
"You will be like God" (Gen 3:5). In this sense the devil is
the father of lies (cf. Jn 8:24), who inverts the truth about
man, blurring the clear difference between yes and no, and
upsetting the order God established in the world. So, he is
the tempter of the human creature, and yet he only has
power over man when man consents to it.' 'Scripture
witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Je- sus calls
"a murderer from the beginning" (Jn 8:44), who would even
try to divert Jesus from that mission received from the
Father (cf. Mt 4:1-11).'
functions of the angels
The angels of Judaeo-Christian revelation a) adore God in
heaven and b) carry out specific tasks to do with the
salvation of men.
a) The

angels always see the face of God, adore him and give

him glory in heaven. This praise of God constitutes their

perfection and happiness. In fact the supernatural state of
happiness which we call 'heaven' consists in seeing, loving
and adoring God. We can say that the essence of being an
angel is to worship God.
In this way angels carry out the most important and most
profound goal in all creationthe glory of God. 'Praise
Yahweh, all his angels, praise him, all his host.' The Sanctus
of the eucharistic liturgy is simply an echo of what,
according to the prophet Isaiah, the angels say in heaven:
'above him stood the seraphim. . . . And one called to
another and said, "Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts; the
whole earth is full of his glory."'
The Church's liturgy, the primary purpose of which is
doxological (that is, to give praise), is a kind of reflection of
the heavenly liturgy, which the Church tries to copy. In the
Letter to the Hebrews we read: 'You have come to Mount
Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in
heaven.'
Without ceasing to praise and contemplate God, angels
take part in salvation history as God's messengers in his
care of men. 'Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to
serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?' It
is angels' function, then, to express and carry out the
protection God exercises towards creation and every single
human being. 'He will give his angels charge of you to guard
you in all your ways.'
The tradition of the Church has developed the doctrine that
God assigns a guardian angel to every human being.
Referring to children, our Lord says that 'in heaven their
angels always behold the face of my Father who is in
heaven'. The holy angels guarantee and anchor our hope in
God, help us to strive against adversaries who are more
b)

powerful and subtle than flesh and blood, and guide us

towards our final goal. As divine instruments 'in God's
governance of things' angelic beings serve the plans and
initiatives of Providence.
The testimony of Christian theology and piety as regards
guardian angels and their activity is abundant and
convincing. Origen says that 'the individual angel that
everyone, even the least in the Church, has, joins his prayer
to ours and uses his power to obtain our petitions.'
St Thomas Aquinas echoes this teaching and devotes a long
article in his Summa Theologiae to establish the existence
and functions of guardian angels.
Spiritual literature also speaks about the guardian angel and
his role in a Christian's life. In Blessed Josemaria Escriva's
book The Way (1933), we read: 'Have confidence in your
guardian Angel. Treat him as a lifelong friendthat is what
he isand he will render you a thousand services in the
ordinary affairs of each day' (562). 'You are amazed that
your guardian Angel has done you such obvious favours.
And you should not be amazed: that's why our Lord has
placed him beside you' (565). 'If you call upon your
guardian Angel at the moment of trial, he will protect you
from the devil and will bring you holy inspirations' (567).
veneration of angels
Veneration of angels has grown up gradually in the Church,
by a process which was particularly slow during the early
centuries. Awareness that adoration in the strict sense
should be reserved for God alone, and the exaggerations of
those who attributed quasi-divine power and dignity to
angels, account for the initial reserve of many Fathers of the
Church towards the veneration of angels. They felt they had
to take issue both with those who adored angels and with
those who dismissed them.
St Augustine insists, for example, that the cult of latria or
total submission must be given only to God, but he says

that saints and angels can be the object of a quite legitimate

homage inspired by the respect and charity which Christians
owe them.
The Second Council of Nicaea (787) defined that it is licit to
make images of angels, and that these images may lawfully
be venerated.
The Roman Catechism explains that 'the veneration and
invocation of the angels is not in conflict with the one cult
due only to God. . . . The Holy Spirit himself commands us
to honour parents, the elderly, and those who govern etc.
With ever greater reason should angels be honoured as
God's ministers in the government of the Church and of the
whole of Creation. We should therefore invoke the angels
because they are constantly in the presence of God and
because they joyfully assume the patronage of saving those
who have been en trusted to them.'
chapter 12
The Creation of Man and Woman

the two biblical accounts

The biblical account of creation pays particular attention, as
one might expect, to the creation of the first man and the
first woman. In the Bible the human being is depicted as the
crowning act and centre of God's work of creation. The
sacred books give us instruction on the origin of man, as a
key question that must be put to God, who has created man
and is the only one who can give a satisfactory answer to
the question.
At least four times the Bible asks the question: What is
man?, and it does so in the context of the basic teachings
that are found in the opening chapters of Genesis. Man's
appearance here is not simply an extension of the process of
creation. On the contrary, it forms a certain discontinuity

with any presiding creative act and is depicted as being the

result of a plan and a special initiative of the Creator.
'In the cycle of the seven days of creation,' John Paul II has
said, 'a well- defined series of steps is in evidence. But man
is not created in a mere natural chain of events; the Creator
seems to pause before calling him into being, as if to reflect
in his own mind before making the decision: "Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26).'
The so-called Yahwist account of the creation of the human
being is arranged in three phases in which God intervenes in
different ways to achieve one ultimate outcome. He does so
'first in the creation of Adam (cf. Gen 2:4-7), then, in the
making of Eve (cf. Gen 2:18-25), and finally in the
conception and birth of Adam and Eve's son "with the help of
Yahweh" (cf. Gen 4:1-25). This concludes the outline
describing how mankind is set on its earthly way.'
In order to understand the biblical notion of the origin and
nature of man and woman we need to examine in detail the
two accounts which open the book of Genesisthe Priestly
account (P) contained in Genesis 1:26-28, which we touched
on briefly earlier, and the Yahwist account which is found in
Genesis 2:4b-25.
Different in terms of when they were written, where they
came from and the kind of language they use, these two
narratives complement one another and go to make a
unified whole, which conveys revealed teaching about the
origin of man. Scholars are of the view that the Yahwist
account goes back to the ninth century BC, and the Priestly
one only to the sixth century. The two accounts are distinct
from one another, but they should not be regarded as
completely independent, given that the Priestly writer acted
in an editorial capacity, using and reflecting on the
information contained in the Yahwist account.
The Yahwist account reflects the culture and theology of
the early times of the monarchy, whereas in the Priestly

account one can find forms of thought and turns of speech

typical of the period of the Babylonian captivity. However,
both narratives contain very ancient literary elements
common to all Middle East cultures, and re-interpret them
in the light of faith in the one true God who has revealed
himself through Moses and the prophets. The last writer
of the Pentateuch had no difficulty in combining these
traditions about the origin of the world, and therefore was
able to pass them on first to Israel and then to the Church
as the inspired word of God, in a harmonious literary work
and in an apparent chronological succession.
the priestly account
The verses from the Priestly source which we have to
examine here (Gen 1:26- 28) tell us:
God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after 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 earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps over the earth.'

26

So God created man in his own image, in the image of

God he created him; male and female he created them.

27

And 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.'

28

The divine words 'Let us make man [the human being]' are
a kind of formal introduction which indicates, among other
things, that what is about to happen has a specially
important place in the work of creation. They describe a
decision and they announce an action which is going to
happen immediately. Some biblical scholars have tried to

interpret the plural 'Let us make' as referring to the Trinity,

or as implying a joint activity on the part of God and the
heavenly court (such a court is to be found, for example, in
certain passages in the Old Testament like 1 Kings 22:19
and Job 1:6ff). But these explanations are unacceptable.
The first is a dogmatic interpretation, which is difficult to
justify in this context; the second is unaware of the Priestly
writer's conviction that creation is an exclusively divine
activity in which there is no room for intermediate beings or
collaborators stride sensu.
The plural 'Let us make' is very probably a deliberately
chosen wording, whereby the sacred writer is inserting a
certain distance between the human being and everything
that God has made heretofore.
The most important and remarkable part of this verse is
what follows: 'Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness.'
made in the image of god
Christian theologians and exegetes have spent a great deal
of energy on establishing what these words image and
likeness mean as used here in respect of man. At first
interpreters could be divided between those who took the
words image and likeness as meaning the same thing, and
those who thought the sacred writer deliberately meant to
refer to two different things. Some writers have proposed
interpretations which take image as referring to specific
spiritual qualities (rationality, moral consciousness, a
capacity for the supernatural, immortality, a reflection of the
divine logos, a trace of the Trinity, etc.). Others take image
to mean somatic qualities (facial features, harmony of the
body, erect figure, etc.).
St Irenaeus of Lyons (130-200) was the first to distinguish
between image and likeness as indicating respectively man's
natural and supernatural similarity to God. This distinction

was held by both Eastern and Western Fathers, and lasted

up to the Middle Ages.
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) worked out a theology in
which the notion of man as the image and likeness of God
occupies a central space. Clement says that the likeness
that Genesis speaks about was only fully present in Christ,
and that the rest of mankind is only an image of God, which
is less than a likeness. St Augustine (354-430) did not
stress the difference between image and likeness. He saw
the image of God as being in the inner man, but he (unlike
Tertullian) did not entirely ignore the body. Augustine says:
'by "image" is meant principally the soul, but the image of
God is also reflected in an upright body.' St Thomas Aquinas
(1225-74) gives considerable attention to the theme of the
image of God in created man. Genesis 1:26 suggests to him
differences like vestigium (inanimate, non-rational beings),
imago creationis (human rationality, a reflection of divine
rationality), imago similitudinis (human rationality, a
reflection of the Trinity: memory, intelligence, love) and
imago recreationis (man in the state of grace). For Thomas
Aquinas man is an imperfect image of God, as indicated by
the expression ad imaginem: 'the preposition ad indicated
closeness, which is possible only for beings which are
distinct.' Only Jesus is the perfect image of the Father.
The image of God in rational creatures is not just static: it is
a principle which directs them towards God. The body, St
Thomas says, is in some ways like an image, but in itself
and globally it is merely a vestigium. The basis and root of
the image of God in man is reason or intellectual knowledge.
A rational creature should therefore exercise its dominion
over creatures in a reasonable way. It is part of divine
Providence towards other creatures that they should be
ruled and guided to their end by man.
Karl Barth (1886-1968) is very representative of the
position taken by Protestant theology on this question; he
minimalizes the relevance of the image and interprets the

words of Genesis 1:26 as simply pointing to the difference

between Creator and creature.
There are no well-founded grounds for thinking that the
biblical writer linked the image of God in man to any
particular spiritual or physical quality. All man and not just
part of his being is the image of God, according to Genesis
1:26. Being in the image of God is a constitutive aspect of
the human person and of his body-soul composition.
It is very likely that, as is common in the Mesopotamian
cultures of his time, the biblical writer regards the function
of the image of God is to call the model to mind. This means
that 'insofar as he is the image of God, man has a
representative role: he is God's vizier in Creation, his alter
ego: as such he has royal authority over the rest of created
beings, over whom he presides and whom he governs in the
name of God the Creator, as his delegate.' This authority is
exercised over non-human creation, but not over man
himself.
Another valid way of interpreting what is meant by God's
'image' is to see it as something which defines humans as
having a direct relationship to God. They (man, woman)
have reference to God and God has reference to them. One
can say that the Creator wants to be reflected in Adam as in
a mirror; that he has created a creature to whom he can
speak and who is able to listen to him and reply to him.
'Persons are created by God to converse with, so that from
then on the Creator and the creature can speak.'
man and woman
'Male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27). Unlike
Genesis 2 (see below), the Priestly writer refers to the
creation of woman in an extremely brief, laconic way. The
two terms usedzakar/male and uneqebar/femaleclearly
suggest that sexual difference stems from the moment of
the creation of mankind. The human being is fully complete

only with the differentiation of the sexes. One cannot speak

of the essence of human beings without reference to two
sexes.
Biblical thought is radically opposed to any sexless concept
of the human being. 'A mythical sexuality is therefore ruled
out, but at the same time sexuality and man himself is kept
as sacred precisely because since the 'adam is male and
female there is reflected in it the image of God. Sexuality
and therefore the human body is most highly esteemed.'
The text also tells us that mankind exists in community
community of man and woman, and of human beings among
themselves. It is the purpose of the human being to live with
other human beings. This is a condition which derives from
creation itself.
'God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and
multiply"' (Gen 1:28). For the Bible everything that has to
do with life is sacred. The biblical texts which touch on
human sexuality are imbued with a spontaneous, patent
respect. The description and activity of the couple to which
the sacred writer now turns his attention is centred on
fertility, to which both man and woman are jointly called.
This fertility is a gift from God, and the outcome of his
blessing. Its source is in the Creator and it is also a vocation.
Human sexuality is evaluated very differently from the way
sexuality is considered in animals, although the capacity to
procreate derives from a divine blessing in both cases.
Conjugal union is part of God's plan for the world, and in
procreation too man and woman act as images of God. In
this way human sexuality expresses the dignity with which
the Creator has endowed man.
'Through these texts we clearly see what is the immediate
source of the sacredness of marriage, love and fruitfulness.
It is not a mythological archetype, as the neighbouring
pagan peoples imagined. It is the creative word of Yahweh,
which gives expression to his enduring will. The very word of
God has impressed on human sexuality its natural outlet and

the ideal towards which it ought to tend. If marriage does

not have a divine archetype, it does however possess a
human prototype, created by God at the beginning, and it
continues to act as the model which ought to be copied.'

the yahwist account

The second account which we need to study is contained in
Genesis 2:4b-25. It reads as follows:
4b In the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the
heavens,
when no plant of the field had yet sprung upfor
Yahweh had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and
there was no man to till the ground;
5

but a mist went up from the earth and watered the

whole face of the ground
6

then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground,

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living being.
8 And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, in the east;
and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground Yahweh God made to grow every
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the
tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and
there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which
flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is
gold;
7

and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx

stone are there.

12

The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one

which flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows
east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 Yahweh God took the man and put him in the garden
of Eden to till it and keep it.
16 And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, 'You
may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
17 but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.'
18 Then Yahweh God said, 'It is not good that the man
should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'
19 So out of the ground Yahweh God formed every beast
of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to
the man to see what he would call them; and whatever
the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of
the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man
there was not found a helper fit for him.
21 So Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the
man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up
its place with flesh;
22 and the rib which Yahweh God had taken from the
man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23 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.'
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and
cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.
13

25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not
ashamed.
The text quoted forms a unity with chapter three, which
describes the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve and the

harmful consequences of that event. Genesis 2-3 is a

carefully constructed narrative, which begins with the
commandment God gives the first man and first woman, and
then reaches a climax with the transgression of that
commandment, and finally descends to the consequences of
that transgression. It concludes with the expulsion of the
man and the woman from the garden in which God had put
them.
There is however a marked difference between Genesis 2
and Genesis 3. God is the dominant personality in Genesis 2
from beginning to end, whereas Genesis 3 describes what
goes on between God and his human creatures. Dialogue,
which is completely absent from Genesis 2, takes up most of
Genesis 3, in which the man and the woman are individually
present with God.
The Yahwist writer in these passages concerns himself
exclusively with the creation of mankind, which can only be
considered concluded when the woman is created. The
linking of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 is designed to show that
the primal events of sin and punishment were something
that happened to a mankind that lives as a community of
man and woman. The sacred writer transmits to us a
convincing explanation of human existence as something
which has its origin in God and is then immediately thrown
into confusion by sin. The Yahwist source at all points
reveals a pronounced interest in the human being and his/
her capacities and limitations. This interest will be evidenced
again in the history of the patriarchs and of the chosen
people
Vv. 4b-6: This is a prologue or a series of observations
which precede the main statement contained in v. 7
V. 4b: This refers to Genesis 1 and is similar to the
introduction given in Genesis 1:1. It acts as the bridge
between the Priestly account and the Yahwist.
V. 5: God's action in creating nourishment is now indirectly
connected with the creation of the human being, which will

come about a little later. There is a profound connexion

between man and the earth.
V. 7: This is the main statement in the chapter. The creation
of man is narrated with the utmost brevity. The idea of
forming or modelling from a particular piece of matter is
used in the Bible to describe the work of the potter. It is to
be found, for example, in 1 Samuel 7:28, Isaiah 29:16 and
Jeremiah 18:2-4. The forming of human beings from a piece
of mud or clay is a motif found in many ancient cultures and
in various places in the Bible.
'Yahweh is depicted as the potter who models manyasar
ha 'adamusing the dust of the earth'afar ha 'adamah
and then imbuing it with the breath of lifenesama. What
we have here is some human imagery very widespread in
the ancient East and elsewhere, but from which Yahwist
removes any polytheistic elementsand presented with
boldness and clarity as the result of his faith in the God of
Sinai. . . 'Adam in this context does not mean the first man
as an individual, but man in general: the human, being prior
to and devoid of any distinguishing factor, even that of sex.
The only distinction which, throughout the Bible, the term
'adam implies .is the status of creaturehood with its divine
origin and dependance, a superiority over the rest of the
created universe, and also some limitations.'
The creation of the human being from the dust of the earth
is depicted here as a mysterious process, a primal event
which eludes our understanding. The sacred writer's
intention is not to transmit doctrine about the creative act in
itself or to describe it. He wants to convey a sense of the
fragility of human nature and the human condition. The
term afar refers undoubtedly to the limitations that are part
of the life of man on earth.
The text seems to reflect the common experience that a
human being is a tangible living, undivided unit: man is 'a
living being'. There is no justification for interpreting the
verse as meaning that something divine was communicated

to human beings once they had been created, or to explain

the 'breath of life' in terms of the Greek notion of spirit. The
'breath of life' simply means that man is a living being. The
human person, therefore, is created as a living reality. It is
not a soul that is placed in a body.
The anthropology developed by the Patristic writers of the
second and third centuries chose to base itself on Genesis
2:7, though not ignoring what is said in Genesis 1:26-27
about man being the image of God. 'Between the
Platonizing tendency which exalts the psyche of man and
despises his body, and the scriptural tendency to
sublimate the mud in contact with the hands of God as if
anticipating the final resurrection, the latter tendency
prevails. The classic definition of man as a mortal, rational
animal, endowed with intellect and capable of knowledge,
was immaterial to the Christian authors of the second
century. The ecclesiastical writers preferred to epitomize
him as a bodily and rational animal capable of seeing God;
or as 'malleable material made in the image and likeness
of God'; with the emphasis on his lowly origin but divine
destiny.'
V. 8: This deals not with the creation of plant life but with a
divine action aimed at providing man with the resources
necessary for survival. This verse is thematically united to
the preceding verse. The garden in Eden is not strictly
speaking a paradise, but a cultivated space which supplies
the human beings created by God with a vegetarian diet.
V. 9: The reference to the appetizing nature of the trees and
their fruit anticipates the climax of the account of the fall in
Genesis 3:6: 'When the woman saw that the tree was good
for food . . ., she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave
some to her husband. . .'.
Two trees are mentioned. In the narrative of Genesis 3 only
the second one appears: 'the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil'.

Vv. 10-14: These verses contain geographical information

but do not pretend to say where the garden of Eden was.
V. 15: This connects up with v. 8 and says things which are
fundamental for the interpretation of Genesis 2-3. The text
is continuing its exposition of the essential components of
human life. Genesis 2:7 told us about the deep connexion
there is between man and his Creator. Now we are told that
work is an essential aspect of the human condition: 'With
the verbs "to till" and "to care for" the sacred writer is
describing a basic definition of man's power to act.'
Here work is purified of any mythical connexion with the
world of the gods. Work is a divine commandment and
becomes fundamental in defining the person. 'The dignity
attributed to civilization is abased on this command of God
to his creatures.'
The commandment imposed by God indicates that man's
direct relationship with him is indicative of what it means to
be human. What we have here is a direct commandment,
similar to those in the Decalogue, and a much more radical
and absolute one than that to 'till the earth'. God now gives
man an area of free action that the animals do not have: it
is a limitation but also an enlargement of his powers.
The last words of v. 17 should not be interpreted as a simple
threat of death. They refer to the existence of that limit
which must always accompany the exercise of human
freedom. 'Saying "no" to God, which is made possible by our
freedom, is equivalent to saying "no" to life itself, as all life
comes from God.'
the creation of woman
Vv. 1824: The creation of woman is described in an
elegant, well-constructed passage, which continues and
completes the narrative of the creation of 'Adam (Gen 2:4b8) and his wife.
V. 18: The idea of its not being good to be alone occurs in

other biblical passages as well. Here it has particularly

interesting implications. 'The phrase "it is not good" (lo 'tob)
is to reflect the fact that the potter has not ceased working.
A more sophisticated product is to come. The Priestly writer,
using the same terms, though in positive mode, describes
the perfection and goodness of creation: God saw kitob, that
it was good (Gen 1:10,12,18, 25,31). However, for the
Yahwist it is a way of linking it to the creation of 'Adam. In
v. 18 'Adam is still in a generic mode, namely the state of
the human being before any differences arc- made; it is the
human being simply as a person in relation to God and the
world.' The help mentioned here is not help in work or
something designed only for propagation of the human
species. It means primarily mutual support and assistance.
Vv. 19-20: Animals are not companions or co-workers of
man, but they do have a positive meaning for him, partly to
be seen from the fact that 'Adam gives them names. By
naming the animals, man gives them their own place in the
world and is seen to exercise, under God, a degree of
autonomy. The final words in the verse emphasize what is
said in v. 18 and introduce what follows.
Vv. 21-22: With the creation of woman the creation of
mankind will now be completed and God's plan will have
been put fully into effect. The manner in which the creation
of woman is brought about is described in symbolic language
which makes it very clear that man and woman share the
same human nature and belong to one another.
God causes man to fall into a deep sleep. 'This is not a kind
of anaesthesia performed with a view to the operation which
will now take place. In biblical tradition, sleep is the space
where revelation happens; it is also a device which helps to
stress the gratuitousness of God's action and its mysterious
character. That is why this action is done by God without
any assistance and without human spectators. Man does not
take part actively in the creation of woman; he cannot give
himself something he lacks; he must receive it, just as he

received his own life, as entirely a gift from God'.

V. 23: Man has found the help he needed. The words he
uses when he recognizes woman are said in a joyful, poetic
exclamation, with no prompting from God.
The expression 'bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' are
used in the Bible to indicate a permanent relationship. The
sacred text is noteworthy for the unique importance it
attributes to woman.
V. 24: This is a brief epilogue in which the narrator speaks
again. It refers not only to marriage but to the natural
community between man and woman which lies at the basis
of marriage.
V. 25: These words prepare the way for what we are told
later in Genesis 3:7: 'they knew that they were naked'.
mankind is something special
Within the hierarchy of living beings, the human being is
something radically 'new', something special. God's action,
as narrated in Genesis 2:7, shows this clearly; and it also
shows how man, made in the image of God, is radically
distinct from the rest of observable creation.
God has chosen to make man a being that is essentially
different from the other beings which make up the animal
kingdom. 'Right from the first statements in the Bible man
cannot be understood nor fully explained in terms of the
physical world, that is, of corporeal beings.'
The idea that man arose as a result of some spontaneous
change in a lower being is contrary to Holy Scripture and
Christian belief.
So-called absolute evolutionism is incompatible with
Christian teaching on the origin of the world and of man.
However, in theory a more moderate process which tries to
explain the origin of the human body as coming from lower
animals can throw some light on aspects of a natural
biological process which led to the human species. In his

encyclical Humani generis (1950) Pius XII said: 'The

teaching of the Church leaves the doctrine of evolution an
open question in the discussion between scientists and
theologians in particular regarding the body's origin from preexisting living matter. . ., in line with the present state of
science and theology, such that the reasons for and against
should be assessed and weighed with due seriousness and
moderation.'
The Church has left the way open for future doctrinal
development and has established at least two basic
principles: 1) One may posit that there is a physical line of
descent linking the first human being to a lower animal,
even though that link cannot be described as generation in
the true sense; 2) one would have to think in terms of
changes needing to be made in the new organism which
would not make it in the proper sense a child or human
progeny of the former living being, 'for only from man could
another man come who can call him a father or progenitor'.
A theory which locates man's body in a continuous chain of
humanoids, while attributing to the Creator the origin of
man's soul, would not hold up, because it would imply an
artificial division between the elements which go to make up
a human being, and it does not account properly for the
unitary corporeal-spiritual being of man.
The theory of evolution is a fairly general hypothesis
supported by such a high degree of probability that it can
be taken as basically true unless it is applied unreservedly
to man himself as an adequate explanation of his origin.
It is essential to establish at the outset that there is a
difference not only of degree but also of quality and in
origin between man and other animals.
In recent times reliable biologists have established from a
study of man's behaviour that he is not just one more link
in evolutionary change in the animal world but something
quite unique.

The differences between man and the anthropoids are

physical (skin, manner of walking, brain-size etc.),
biological (the heavier weight of the newly born human),
and psychic (intellectual ability, symbolic language,
memory, moral sense).
man and woman: equality and differences
In the opening chapter of Genesis we learn that sexual
difference existed from the very beginning of mankind; it is
inherent in the notion of man and in real life too. The
creation of mankind as male and female is an integral part
of God's decision to bring human beings into existence. This
means that the notion of man is never fully expressed solely
in the male, but rather in man and woman. Only after
woman was created was the creation of 'Adam completed.
This also means that human personhood can be expressed
in the form of man or in the form of woman. The human
being, Adam, is now to be found in a sexual bipolarity, in
keeping with God's plan for 'Adam not to be alone; that is,
each human being becomes such by a communion which is
rooted in human nature.'
Different in respect of their maleness or femaleness, man
and woman are, however, equal in terms of the human
nature they share. 'The human race, which takes its origin
from the calling into existence of man and woman, crowns
the whole work of creation; both man and woman are
human beings to an equal degree.'
Genesis 1 contains nothing to justify saying that one sex is
subordinate to another. In the history of the exegesis of
Genesis 2 some scholars have adduced four grounds for
arguing that woman is subordinate to man: a) woman was
created after man, and therefore inferior; b) woman was
'taken from man' and therefore is dependent on him; c)
woman is given her name by man; d) woman is created to
'help' man and therefore is at his disposal.
In reply to this we would say that if (a) had any validity,

then the other animals would be higher than man because

Genesis 1 tells us they were created prior to man. As
regards (b), it is true that woman was created from one of
man's ribs, but what gave rise to the woman's being was
not the rib but the creative action of God. Argument (c) is
based on the fact that, for the Bible, the idea of naming
something (or someone else) implies having authority over
them. But that idea is always expressed by the words 'to call
by its name', which appears in Genesis 2:9 when Adam
names the animals. They are not used however, in Genesis
2:23. The word 'woman' is not used there as a proper
name; that verse cannot therefore be considered a formal
act of giving a name to another being.
The last argument (d) does not take sufficient account of
the fact that the word 'help' ('ezer) is used 19 other times in
the Old Testament: once in a question, three times applied
to man as male" and fifteen times applied directly to God as
protector of his people. To be a helper to another can even
mean that one is superior to, stronger than, that person. So
argument (d) does not mean that woman is inferior to man.
Man and woman, therefore, have to be seen as in parallel to
one another, and the fact that man appears in Genesis
before woman does not mean that either is secondary or
superior to the other.
The importance of woman is very obvious in the New
Testament, not only on account of the unique place that
Mary has, but also because of value given to women as
recipients and guardians of the Gospel message. 'It is
universally admittedeven by people with a critical
attitude towards the Christian message that in the eyes
of his contemporaries Christ became a promotor of
women's true dignity. At times this caused wonder,
surprise, often to the point of scandal: "They marvelled
that he was talking with a woman" (Jn 4:27), because this
behaviour differed from that of his contemporaries".'

One cannot fail to notice the considerable presence of

women in St Luke's Gospel. Alongside every scene where
the main character is a man, the author deliberately
includes an account of an episode in which the protagonist
is a woman. So, we have two annunciations (to Zechariah
and to Mary: 1:5-23; 1:26- 38); two canticles of praise
(Mary's and Zeckariah's: 1:46-56; 1:67-69); two
prophets (Simeon and Anna: 2:25-35, 36-38); two
miracles (the Gentile woman and the leper: 4:25-27);
another two (a possessed man and Peter's mother-inlaw: 4:31-39); two lists (of men disciples and of women
who minister to Jesus: 6:12-19 and 8:1-3); two raisings
from the dead (the centurion's servant and the son of the
widow of Naim: 7:1-10, 11-17); two penitents (the
paralytic and the sinful woman: 5:19-26; 7:35-50); three
further miracles (the possessed man at Gerasa, the
daughter of Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood:
8:26-56); two questions about discipleship (the scribe and
Martha: 10:25-37; 38-42); two types of Gentiles who
indict Israel (the Ninevites and the queen of the South:
11:29-36); two parables (the man looking for the sheep,
and the woman looking for the lost drachma: 15:1-7, 810); two models of prayer (the widow, and the publican:
8:9-17); two groups of witnesses to the Resurrection (the
women and the Apostles: 24); etc.
In contrast to the pagan cultural and religious world, the
Bible has contributed decisively to upholding woman's
rightful role in society and in the Church. And in this
respect the New Testament is a marked advance on
Judaism and on the influential opinions of Philo of
Alexandria, who regarded woman as the origin of the Fall,
born to be a wife and mother and needing to be ruled by
man. However, many Christian authors, under the
influence of their surroundings, did come to accept views
damaging to the nature and condition of woman. Calvin
speaks of woman as being 'creata ad imaginem Dei, licet

secundo grado'.
Second Vatican's Gaudium et spes says that 'God did not
create man a solitary being. From the beginning "male and
female he created them" (Gen 1:27). This partnership of
man and woman constituted the first form of communion
between persons'. It judges it to be a positive historical
development that women should claim 'equality with man in
law and in fact' and states that women 'ought to be
permitted to play their part fully according to their own
particular nature'.
Thus, Christian teaching tells us that man and woman are
complementary to one another, not only because of their
sexual difference (designed for procreation) but also as
human beings who are at the same time equal and different.
the human being as god's image
'For sacred Scripture teaches that man was created "to the
image of God", as able to know and love his creator, and as
set by him over all earthly creatures (Gen 1:26; Wis 2:23)
that he might rule them and make use of them, while
glorifying God (Sir 17:3-10).'
The complete idea of man as an image of God cannot be
obtained from the Old Testament alone; we need to go to
the New. In order for man to be restored (given that the
image of God was deformed by sin) one needs to go right
back to the original and incorrupt man. Only Jesus Christ is
the perfect image of the Father. God's own image has
become an externalized image in Jesus Christ. It is precisely
because these two images can be exactly superimposed that
the eternal image has taken the form of a temporal image.
Although the new man is reshaped according to his Creator's
image, union with Christ, as a basis for the divine likeness
mediated through him, is a key element in St Paul's theology
of image. Old Testament theology of man in the image of
God seems to be couched in somewhat static terms (man is

the image and representative of God in the world), whereas

in the New Testament dynamic aspects are to the fore; in
other words, it talks of man's having to strive to see that
Christ's image fully dwells in us. Gaudum et spes teaches:
'He who is the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15) is
himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of
Adam that likeness to God which has been disfigured ever
since the first sin.'
Trinitarian, eschatological and other related aspects of the
theology of man as the image of God are to be found in
the following conciliar texts:
'Conformed to the image of the Son who is the firstborn of
many brothers, the Christian man receives the "first fruits
of the Spirit" (Rom 8:23) by which he is able to fulfil the
new law of love.'
'(Through missionary activity), the intention of the Creator
in creating man in his own image and likeness will be truly
realized, when all who possess human nature . . . will be
able to say "our Father".'
'We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat
any people in other than brotherly fashion, for all men are
created in God's image.'
'That which is truly freedom is an exceptional sign of the
image of God in man.'
Finally, we should add that man and woman are made in the
image and likeness of God not only through their personal
individual humanity but also through the community of
persons which man and woman form from the very
beginning of the species. A human being becomes the image
of God not only in his own intimate self but also in
interpersonal communion. Man is not only an image which
reflects the individuality of a Being who rules the universe;
he is also the image of an unfathomable divine communion
of Persons.
The creation of man is a kind of vocation where man and

woman are called to converse with God and abandon

themselves in the hands of their Creator. Clement of
Alexandria writes: 'You as man are most universal: therefore
seek your Creator. But you are a son which is what is most
personal: Recognize, therefore, your Father.'
In the dialogue with God to which he is invited by the simple
fact of his creation, man should joyfully and freely accept
that he is a creature and that he should therefore show
obedience and love to the one who has given him existence.
So, it is fair to say that the wonderful covenant between
God and all man- kind, and then with the chosen people,
'goes right back to the very mystery of the creation'.
In a word man can be considered the purpose and the voice
of creation. 'Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity.
Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the
elements of the material world. Through him they are thus
brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice
in praise freely given to the Creator.'
The human being is a microcosm, that is, a kind of universe
on a reduced scale, given that all creatures in the universe
are to be found in some way in him. He is a sort of
recapitulation of the universe, and the place where nature
becomes, so to speak, aware of its aspects of rationality.
Man is therefore that wonderful creature who has a duty to
speak on behalf of all other created material things (who are
mute) in order to enable them to praise God. 'It is in man
the creation in a certain way opens its eyes to an awareness
of itself. Man alone of creatures is aware of his creaturehood
and so des- tined to thank God for the goodness of His
creation on behalf of all other beings'.
chapter 13
The Origin and Nature of Man. His Openness to Grace

theological anthropology
The theological study of man is different from philosophical
anthropology, although there is a connexion. Theology looks
at man in his relationship to God as his beginning and end,
and bases its findings on revelation. Philosophy relies on
rational thought working on data supplied by experimental
and phenomenological analysis.
Theology is in a position to look first and foremost at the
question of the origin of man, going on from that to study
his nature and make-up. Philosophy and anthropological
sciences in general take the reverse route; they look first at
human behaviour, then they try to work out what man is,
and finally they enquire into his origin.
The fact that theology and philosophy use different sources
of information does not mean that in this, as in other
subjects, they cannot operate within a common horizon.
Their interests, but not their methods, are similar, since they
are both dealing with the same subject matter; this means
that their views on man can be complementary.
Without being naive enough to see agreement where it does
not exist, theology does try to keep abreast of
anthropological studies and use reliable data from them in
order to present a religious and spiritual image of man as
consistent as possible with sound cultural findings.
Philosophical anthropology, for its part, can be enriched by
many ideas and conclusions to be found in the theological
study of man, given that the key to unlocking fully the
puzzle of man cannot be supplied by profane science. The
mystery of man is in the last analysis a theological matter.
modern anthropological ideas
The Christian vision of man shares many anthropological
notions derived from philosophy or other profane sciences.
But there are also present, in modern culture and thought,
various approaches to man whose principles and conclusions

are not compatible with the notion of man we find reflected

in Holy Scripture and in the tradition of the Church.
The 20th century saw the birth and death of a whole gamut
of ideas about man and his ways. This multiplicity of
explanations and theories shows the enormous interest
people have in anthropological matters, and at the same
time it is a dramatic sign of the fragmentation and lack of
direction in contemporary thought regarding matters of
fundamental importance.
The following are the best-known of the many
anthropological approaches that have surfaced over the past
hundred years:
Existential anthropology Typified by a glorification of
human subjectivity and the rejection of the notion of the
person as a stable or substantial being. Here the essence of
man is sacrificed on the altar of his existence. What we have
is a philosophical vision which takes on a kind of tragic tone
and regards death as the only 'objective' truth about man.
M. Heidegger and J.P. Sartre were the leading proponents of
this approach Although there are important differences
between the two, they share a pessimistic view of man, one
which falsely overvalues him, and they finally lose him
among the world of objects.'
a)

Structural anthropology The main exponents were M.

Foucault and C. Levi Strauss, both of them French. This
approach thinks that man does not in fact exist; he is a
being 'fabricated' by modern culture. It therefore
concentrates on 'demolishing' what it considers to be a
naive 'anthropological dream'. Foucault writes: 'Those who
still speak of man, of his power or his freedom, those who
still ask questions regarding man's nature . . . merit our
philosophical smile.'

b)

Physical monism Authors like H. Feigl and D. Armstrong

say that the human mind or soul is simply the brain, and
c)

that the brain is purely a physical structure. This view is

shared by J. Monod and E.D. Wilson, who reduce man to
animal and animal to machine. The human being in this view
of things is the most sophisticated of cybernetic machines, a
perfectly self-regulated and controlled mechanism.
Ideas as unfounded and radical as these are at odds with
the clear results of modern neurology, and they make no
effort to explain memory, the ethical dimension of man and
intellectual creativity.
Interactionist dualism Convinced that the mind is not the
brain, and that the brain alone cannot account for mental
phenomena, scientists such as K. Popper, W. Penfield and J.
C. Eccles say that the spiritual dimension of man cannot be
reduced to the biological or the purely organic levels. These
authors, then, do provide the bases for a view of things in
which man can transcend himself as a phenomenon and a
material being. Their ideas amount to a substantial and
critical correction of many opinions put forward in earlier
anthropologies.
d)

e) Anthropobiologism A. Gehlen and A. Portmann proposed

from the 1940s onwards a view of man which emphasizes
his absolute singularity and his radical difference from
animals. Man is for them (especially for Gehlen) of special
design, a unique project in Nature. His biological originality
makes his bodily dimension very different from animals. As
a being, man is not specialized. He is limited and specified
by a typical way of acting, thinking and speaking.
Gehlen says that specialization has the advantage of
adjusting an organism to the milieu in which it lives, but it
necessarily implies the loss of many possible options in
favour of only a few. He holds that the theory according to
which man must have come directly from certain kinds of
large, already specialized monkeys is false, because it would
mean a regressive process which, by going from

specialization to non-specialization, is contradictory.

Humanoids and anthropoids perhaps come from a common
trunk from which the anthropoids broke away to begin their
process of specialization and thereby lose the possibility of
becoming humans. Gehlen stresses the fact that animals'
anatomy, motor organs, physiology of the senses, nerve
mechanisms etc. are different from those of mannot just
in degree but essentially different.
It needs to be said that only those philosophical data and
points of view which are compatible with a personalist view
of man can be taken account of by theology. The term
personalism is normally used to describe any intellectual
trend or philosophical system which stresses the primacy
and dignity of the free human person, understood as a
corporeal-spiritual being, in contrast with determinist and
materialist approaches. Personalism also adopts a critical
attitude to the absorption of man in the collectivity of nation,
state or social class.
the origin of man
We have already outlined in detail (see chapter 12 the
Christian concept of man and woman as creatures made by
God as seen from a careful reading of Holy Scripture. 'God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them.'
The testimony of the Bible and the faith of the Church tell us
of man as a unique project of God's, a creature
characterized by his radical difference from the rest of
creation.
Man does not have a material origin nor is he the product of
evolution. Theology is equipped to provide accurate answers
to the basic questions about the ultimate origin of the
human being, but it is not competent to advance detailed
explanations about the route taken by the human species to
arrive at the present state of human condition as we know

it. Explanations of that kind remain in the domain of the

profane sciences (paleontology, morphology, molecular
biology etc.), which have put forward theories of varying
value and which are conscious of the limitations of the
means available for exploring prehistory.
Science cannot discover, of course, that man was created by
God, but it can detect features of man which allow it to
speak about the somatic origin of man, about his spiritual
nature, about the oneness of the human species etc.
Unlike the theory held by many palaeontologists to the
effect that the human species developed gradually all over
the world, molecular geneticists believe they have proved
that all living human beings go back by maternal
genealogical lines of descent to just one woman who
lived, probably in Africa, some 200,000 years ago.
These researchers base their study on the DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid) residing in the mitochondrion, tiny
parts of the cell which change nutrients into energy
available for the rest of the cell. They observed that
among brothers and sisters the maternal lines are of
greater similarity, because the DNA of their mitochondria
had but one generation to be affected by mutations, and
that the levels of similarity gradually decrease along the
family tree. As you go back on the tree, the circle of
maternal ancestors grows larger to eventually include all
human beings. They infer, by inescapable logic, that all
the DNA in human mitochondria must come from a
common female ancestor.
the somatic and spiritual nature of man
'The human person, created in the image of God, is a being
at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account
expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms
that "then the Lord God formed man of dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and

man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is

therefore willed by God.'
Man is first and foremost a unity of soul and body. Despite
the essential difference between body and soul, we need to
assert the ontological totality of the human being, rightly
described as an 'animated body' or an 'incarnated soul'.
'A rational soul and flesh (make) one man.' Christianity
parts company with the Greek idea that a man is his soul, a
soul needing to be set free from the flesh into which it has
fallen.
Plato was probably the first philosopher who dismissed
the human body as being unfit for the soul. 'Man is his
soul', we read in the Alcibiades dialogue (131 C).
Diogenes Laertius records here the following episode:
'When they battered his hand with a pestle as if it were
grains of wheat, Anaxarcus said: Batter away, because
you are battering the outer shell of Anaxarcus, but not
Anaxarcus himself.'
Most philosophers, however, do evaluate the body
positively. St Thomas regards it as what is most
appropriate for an intellectual soul. Kant has a similar
view, opposing theories about other possible alternative
bodies. Hegel sees the body as the supreme physical
expression of the spirit, and Wittgenstein regards it as the
best way to paint the human soul.
The Christian view of man is also different from that of
Cartesian anthropology, which sees soul and body as two
complete substances or things, linked in a purely accidental
way. Christianity therefore distances itself from any
anthropological view of things which gives the soul special
treatment at the expense of the body, and also with dualistic
approaches which talk of the spirit as a free and personal
element in man and of the body as something subject to
necessary natural laws.
In Holy Scripture bodily composition is as much a part of the

human being as spirituality is. Man is in the Bible a living

spirit, or he is flesh, that is, he consists in a psychosomatic
totality which each of us is familiar with in his or her
experience. Spirit and body are not two formally distinct
things, like the soma and psyche of Plato.
The most important biblical anthropological terms are
basar (flesh), nefes (breath) and ruah (spirit). Basar
usually means the living being in its totality as something
well defined and distinct from other beings. 'In God I trust
without a fear. What can flesh do to me? What can man
do to me?' 'Cursed be the man who trusts in man and
makes flesh his arm?
Basar refers generally to the fragile and impermanent
aspects of the human condition. The word reflects the
contrast between Creator and creature, not the difference
between spirit and matter.
Nefes means any living being and, especially, man. 'Bless
Yahweh, O my soul' is the same as saying 'My soul (all my
being) blesses Yahweh.' 'The soul [nefes] of Jonathan was
knit to the soul [nefes] of David.'
Nefes in the Bible is to all intents and purposes what we
today understand by 'personality'. The basar-nefes (fleshsoul) duality does not then refer to different parts of the
human being which combine to make up the complete
man. Man is basar, and man is nefes. It is not that he has
basar or has nefes.
From Genesis 2:7 one can see that man is created as a
living entity and as a synthesis of a somatic and a spiritual
element. He is not a soul that is placed in a body. 'Man,
though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very
bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the
material world. Through him they are brought to their
highest perfection.'
The body is not just an organ of the spirit, or something it

uses. The body expresses the person. When we see the

body, we see the human being, because the somatic
element is not just something wrapped around a personal
core.
By right man is a subject through his own body and not just
on account of his awareness, because it is in fact his bodily
structure that enables him to perform truly human activity.
It allows him to work, which is something intrinsic to the
fulfilment of his being. The body is essential to man's selfexpression and self-fulfilment.
Christian tradition is full of testimonies to the psychosomatic
unity of the human being. The opposition between flesh and
spirit that St Paul speaks about has nothing to do with the
Greek dualism of soul and body; it is an ascetical rather
than an anthropological notion. St Athanasius of Alexandria
refers to the harmony and intimate fusion of body and spirit
when, apropos of St Anthony of Egypt, he writes: 'His soul
was always unperturbed and so his external appearance was
always calm as if his happiness of mind calmed his face,
such that from his bodily movements you could note and
understand the order in his soul, as it has been written: the
heart's joy brightens the face while sorrow darkens it.'
John Paul II said in 1984: 'Respect your body. It is part of
your being human it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It
belongs to you as given by God himself. It was not given as
an object for use or abuse. It is part of your personality by
which you communicate with others in a dialogue based on
truth, respect and love. Your body can express the most
intimate part of your soul, the most personal sense of your
life, namely, your freedom and your vocation.'
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 'The human
body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a
human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual
soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to
become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit.'

the human soul

The soul is the spiritual principle of man and the seed of his
eternity. In discussing the soul separately we are not
unaware of the unity of the human being, but we are
focusing on the mysterious make-up of that unique being
who crosses the divide between the material and the
spiritual world.
a) In man the spiritual is not identical with the somatic, and
therefore the soul is not reducible to the body. Christian
faith rejects any sort of materialist approach, on the
grounds that it fails to account for the spiritual principle of
the human being. The soul is not intrinsically dependent on
the body in order to be or to act, as if the body were the
soul's inherent subject (otherwise the soul would be an
accident within the body) or its support (as is the case in
animals and plants). Soul (or mind) and brain are really
different things.
The spiritual, non-corporeal nature of the human soul is
usually justified in terms of its immortality, its capacity to be
raised to the supernatural level, its freedom (which needs
no organic faculty) and its ability to know non-material
things.
Each individual has a rational soul. This truth was denied
by the Averroeists, who spoke of there being one intellect
common to all human beings, by Neo-Aristotelian
philosophers in the 16th century, such as Pomponazzi, and
by 19th- century idealist philosophers, principally Fichte.
The Fifth Lateran Council (1513) says that 'corresponding to
the number of bodies into which it is infused, the intellectual
soul is capable of being multiplied individually, is actually
multiplied, and must be multiplied.'

b)

The human soul is the stable principle and foundation for

the unity of man's life and being, and the operative source
c)

of human acts. It is not a mere bundle of perceptions. This

is the thrust of the teachings of the Council of Vienne
(1311), which can be summed up in the following
statement: 'The substance of the rational or intellectual soul
is truly and by its own nature the form of the human body.'
There is no plurality of forms or vital principles in man.
In a letter (April 1860) to the bishop of Breslau Pius IX
says: 'The teaching that in man there is a single principle
of life, that is, the rational soul, from which the body
receives movement and all its life and meaning, is most
widely held in the Church, and by the majority of
theologians such that they regard it as essentially linked
to true dogmatic expression such that it therefore cannot
be denied without falling into an error of faith.'
Man has, in fact, a very definite experience of being just one
single subject who feels and understands. This unity allows
us to talk in terms of a personal being who remains
identically the same throughout his life.
Man's inner experience of permanence and continuity shows
him that, even though his physical body is constantly
renewed, he continues to be the same person. All the
indications point to there being something in his make-up
which integrates and gives structure to his many material
parts and which stays ontologically the same over the
course of his personal life. When the soul is referred to as
the form of the body, this means that all the soul is to be
found in each and every part of the body, because it is the
perfection of the whole body and of every part of it.
Body and soul are not therefore autonomous though
incomplete aspects of man. The soul is naturally made to
have a body, and man can have a body only because of his
soul. Without a soul, there is no body: there is only a corpse.
The human soul does not die. Pagans and Christians
speak about the immortality of the soul, but mean very
d)

different things when they do so According to Platonists, the

soul is essentially supra-individual, and for that reason it is
immortal. After death it subsists in the universal soul.
Christianity, on the other hand, regards the soul as being
individual; it does not hold with there being a universal soul.
In beatitude and damnation, souls keep their individuality,
and each identifies the person who previously lived.
The Stoics speak of the soul being perishable, but
surviving for a while after death. The same soul can then
be used for different personal lives and ends up
disappearing like a cast-off piece of clothing.
Some modern Protestant authors say that death affects
the whole man, and that the Resurrection amounts to a
new creation of the entire person.
The life of the dead is something Holy Scripture bears ample
witness to. In the Old Testament the refraim are human
beings who have gone down into sheol where they have a
shadowy sort of existence. The biblical expression 'to go to
his forefathers' implies an on-going personal life in the
hereafter.
The so-called mystical Psalms speak of sheol as being a
multi-faceted place, in which the righteous are temporarily
placed by God and from which they will eventually be taken
by him. Luke 16:19-31 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 clearly
allude to there being a place of transit both for the righteous
and the unrighteous
Escathology deals with the difficult question of how the
soul survives without the body. All we need say here is that
the arguments traditionally advanced are based on the noncorruptibility of simple things, the transcendence of the
human act of cognition, and man's natural desire to live
forever.
Christian theology also holds that, given the profound way in
which body and soul are made for one another, the
e)

separated soul should not be called a person. This means

that the soul is not identical with the human I. Only the
incarnated soul can be called 'man'. A document of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith puts it this way:
'The Church affirms that a spiritual element survives and
subsists after death, an element endowed with
consciousness and will, so that the "human self" subsists.'
the origin of the soul
Unlike the Greek thinkers, Christians do not treat the origin
of the soul in an abstract way. Neo-Platonist Greek
philosophy enquired after the origin of the soul as such and
normally it was considered a third hypostasis having a
dependent relationship with the intellect (the second
hypostasis). Here, individual souls are aspects or parts of
the universal soul which have 'fallen', partially, into bodies,
but which continue, with their higher part, to contemplate
the Mind.
For Christianity, the soul is not divine, but it comes from
God (cf. Gen 2:7). It is a question of coming to know how
the individual soul originates in relation to the body, that is,
how it enters the world.
Philosophical-theological thought in the early centuries came
up basically with five theories: a) the soul is thrust down
from heaven; b) it emanates from the divine substance; c) it
was created in the beginning of time; d) it is created by God
for each human being; e) it is passed on by parents in the
act of generation.
Of these, Christians gave serious consideration to the last
two, the only ones which at first they thought compatible
with the basic premises of the faith. Given that Holy
Scripture does not have anything very clear to say about the
way the soul is created or infused by God, some authors
opted for traducianism or generationism, whereby the soul
arises in the parents' generation of the new human being.

They thought that this was the best way to explain how
original sin is transmitted.
St Augustine favoured this view, but the rest of Christian
authors of his time were either for generationism or
creationism. Creationists think that the soul is created
directly by God and infused into the material body generated
by the parents. This position came to predominate from the
ninth century onwards, gaining credit especially when
Thomas Aquinas espoused it, rejecting generationism
outright. Aquinas says: 'It is wrong to say that the spiritual
soul is passed on through parental semen by generation.'
However, a sort of generationism continued to be held in
some Catholic circles up to the 19th century. H. Klee (Bonn)
and G. Hermes (Bonn) supported the idea that, when the
body is generated, the child's soul is sparked by the soul of
its parents, like one fire being created by another. L.
Frohschammer (Munich) taught that the parents are the
instrumental cause of their child's soul. A. Rosmini was of
the view that parents beget the sensitive soul of the child,
which after a few weeks develops and changes into a
spiritual soul.
The German Jesuit L. Kleutgen was really responsible for
bringing theologians generally round to adopt the creationist
view of St Thomas, as being the best way to argue the
direct, divine origin of the soul.
Creationism has been taught in recent decades by the papal
Magisterium. Pius XII says in his encyclical, Humani generis
(1950) that 'the Catholic faith requires us to hold that souls
are immediately created by God'.
Paul VI, in his Profession of Faith (1968) says that 'He is the
Creator of each person's spiritual and immortal soul,' that is,
the human soul is immortal and it comes from God and not
from matter, because a spiritual and non-material soul
cannot be the mere product of the generative action of
parents.
That the soul comes directly from God does not mean,

however, that one can talk in terms of a kind of division of

labour between God and the parents in the making of a new
human being. It would be naive to think that God simply
contributes the soul of the new being, and the parents its
body.
Any such idea would ignore that divine causality is situated
on a completely different plane from human causality. God is
a transcendental cause, and the parents are a secondary
cause. God and the parents cannot, therefore, collaborate or
be co-causes of an effect, for they act on very different
planes.
And yet we never say that the parents are the parents of the
body of their child. Parents are the progenitors of the new
being in its entirety. Schmaus says: 'Although the soul is
directly created by God, the parents are still the true
begetters of the child. In each case God creates the soul
during the performance of the generative act. However, just
as God creates in each instance the soul of this or that
human being, paternal generation determines not only the
somatic characteristics of the child but also, indirectly, the
psychic ones.'
We can conclude by saying that souls come directly from
God; that we do not know how this comes about; and that
the parents should be considered the progenitors of the
entire human being, although the soul does not derive front
them as the body does, because the latter derives directly,
whereas the soul does not. Theology has to search for a
consistent way to express that 'God creates the spiritual soul
in each human being' and that 'the parents are the cause of
the whole human being'.
essential features of the human being
Among the things that characterize and help to define
human personality are rationality, the inborn tendency which
leads a human being to transform the environment, the

powers of emotion sexuality, the connexion the person has

with the whole universe, a religious nature, language and
sociability. We will now look at the three last-mentioned
features of the person, as being more relevant to the subject
of this book.
Man, a religious being The human being tends by nature
to recognize and worship God. In his mind and feelings he
has a kind of awareness of his origins and his last end. 'He
[God] made from one every nation of men to live on all the
face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the
boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in
the hope that they might feel after him, and find him. Yet he
is not far from each one of us, for "in him we live and move
and have our being".'
The height of human dignity is to be found in fact in man's
ability to relate to God. This is not just an inner force but his
response to a call God addresses to him. 'The invitation to
converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes
into being. For if man exists it is because God has created
him through love, and through love continues to keep him in
existence.'
One direct consequence of this fact is a desire for God
deeply inscribed on the human heart, a desire that God is
forever stimulating. 'God never ceases to draw man to
himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he
never stops searching for.'
Man has always expressed his religious being through beliefs
and certain ways of acting towards an invisible world and
the Beyond, which indicate his dependence on a Supreme
Being. These actions include prayer, the offering of sacrifice,
the establishing of sacred places, and days and periods of
special religious significance, etc.
These forms of religious behaviour originate in the nature of
man and are not, therefore, directly connected with the
economy of salvation coming from supernatural revelation
a)

and the grace of Jesus Christ. But they are not completely
foreign to divine grace, and they can sometimes be a
providential preparation for revealed religion, and contain
fragments of Christian truth.
At times man can adopt an attitude of forgetfulness,
indifference or even formal repudiation towards religion. He
can even have the idea that religion and the worship of God
go against his self-development. Ideas of that sort and the
confrontation they can lead to simply indicate that man's
mind is darkened and his will is perverse; they have nothing
to do with normal human behaviour but belong to the
pathology of the human spirit.
Man, a social being Man can become truly human only
among other human beings and with their help. Society is an
absolutely necessary factor in the humanization and
personalization of the individual. It is not simply that man
needs society in order to satisfy basic needs of survival,
belonging, culture and emotional stability. His social nature
affects the most intimate and elementary level of his being
and development. For there can be no I unless there is a
thou to whom he relates.
Man is, therefore, a being who is essentially relational, who
is open to dialogue and communication with other human
beings: this is something his very being demands. A person
who would be absolutely closed in on himself throughout his
life is unthinkable, and not viable as a human being.
Human beings are born with an inherited genetic and
cultural endowment, which means that there are two factors
in the make-up of his person, one biological, the other
historical. Our social or cultural inheritance exerts an even
stronger influence on our personality than does our genetic
inheritance; hence the exceptional importance of education
and environment in the shaping of an individual. No one
begins his personal history from scratch; his history is
rooted in that of those who have gone before; his freedom is

b)

affected by history.
When the human being is adult, he also needs community,
because he has to be involved in a specialized society and
feel part of it in order to meet his needs and develop his
qualities. This insertion in community also implies being part
of a tradition; otherwise he would be a being without roots
and without historical memory.
Man receives from society and he also contributes to it
insofar as he can. For society is a living organism which
grows thanks to the contributions of the individuals who
make it up.
c) Man, a being capable of speech The capacity for language
is the highest way to define man. The use of language is
rational activity par excellence, not only in the sense that
human language derives from reason, but also in the sense
that linguistic symbols and signs are, as it were, the ground
on which reason is supported. Reason lies at the very root of
language, and in its turn language shapes reason.
Language has been defined as 'primarily a system of
phonetic symbols for the expression of communicative
thought and feeling'. Unlike what happens in animals,
human language is not instinctual nor does it have an
exclusively biological or morphological basis.
Man does not have any organs responsible for language as
such or areas of his brain out of which speech is produced in
a more or less spontaneous way. Language cannot be
explained in purely physiological terms. Man always speaks
in a particular language, which is the product of a society or
culture, and which is passed on in a living way in the context
of a society.
Another feature of human as distinct from animal language
is that an unlimited number of messages can be sent and
received, many of which have not previously been heard by
the particular individual.
Language externalizes one's intimacy in a voluntary,

deliberate and controlled way. The connexion between

thought and language is not, therefore, accidental or
contingent. The logical structure that is part of language is
not just a stamp or feature of thought: it is thought itself.
Language is not the very same thing as thought. It is
thought expressed in a way perceivable to the senses, but it
is not just this external dimension. Language is also in some
way thought because it is intrinsically intelligible. Its
function is not merely a means of communication.
'Language does not only express thought nor specify it in an
external way: it contains thought. Therefore one can say
that language is the vehicle of thought.' The relationship
between language and thought is an intrinsic one. Without
language there would be no thought.
the oneness of the human race
The Second Vatican Council teaches that 'God desired that
all men should form one family and deal with each other in a
spirit of brotherhood. All, in fact, are destined to the very
same end, namely God himself, since they have been
created in the likeness of God who "made from one every
nation of men to live on all the face of the earth" (Acts
17:26).'
The biological unity of mankind where all share the same
nature is the basis of the much more important, the
decisive, moral unity and the solidarity which binds all
humans together. Christian teaching makes wonderfully
compatible the assertion of the irreducible nature of the
individual and the fact that mankind is a collectivity with a
common destiny.
The calling and common destiny of the people of Israel help
us appreciate the meaning of the mysterious unity
surrounding humanity and which covers all periods of
history, despite any geographical, cultural and racial
conditioning. The unity of all mankind clarifies the Church's

mission and reason-for-being as a leaven men need in order

to be able to attain their last end, the common end of all,
which is a spiritual one. And the mystery and activity of the
Church, as a universal remedy of a universal need, in turn
help us to see the depth of the unity which exists among all
men. Human brotherhood is not just an intellectual
conclusion. Its roots lie in religion and it has a scope and
consequences which reason cannot possibly open up.
man's elevation to the order of grace
Prior to original sin, Adam and Eve were endowed with
grace, adorned with singular gifts and placed in a setting in
which the profound harmony of their relationship with God
was evident.
The Council of Trent teaches that the first man, Adam, 'was
constituted in a state of justice and holiness', which the
same council also calls a state of 'innocence'. The Second
Vatican Council echoes this teaching when it says that the
eternal Father 'chose to raise up men to share in his own
divine life'.
The fact that the elevation of man was a gratuitous gift of
God and that Adam could have been created without
supernatural gifts is a teaching established in St Pius V's
censures on the errors of Michael Baius (1567). One of
the censured propositions reads: 'The integrity found in
the first creation was not a gratuitous elevation of human
nature, but its natural condition.'
The Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses these ideas
as follows: 'The first man was not only created good but was
established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony
with himself and with the creation around him, in a state
that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new
creation in Christ.' Holy Scripture connects the integrity and
harmony of the first man with his being put by God in a

garden he had previously prepared: 'Yahweh planted a

garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man
whom he had formed.' Eden or paradise is the symbolic
setting of man's original state of integrity.
The word Eden appears 14 times on the Old Testament
Gen 2:8,10,15; 3:23,24; 4:16; Ezek 28:13; 31:9,16,18
(twice); 36:35; Joel 2:3; Is 51:3. It is a placename which
is supposedly known but which cannot be located
geographically because only in the Bible is it mentioned.
The passages to do with the creation of the first man
speak of a garden in Eden (Gen 2:8,10), whereas the
later passages tell about the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from Eden. In Genesis 2:8 it is a garden planted specially
by God to accommodate human beings. Elsewhere it is
God's own garden (Is 51:3; Ezek 13; 31:9).
According to the Old Testament, the life of the first man and
the first woman in Paradise reflects a particularly friendly
relationship with their Creator (cf. Gen 1:26-31; 2:5-25),
their exaltation by God (cf. Ps 8:6), and a state of justice
which is quite different from the position that human beings
find themselves in after sinning.
The state of justice and holiness is described in the Bible
directly and indirectly when it speaks of some of its
manifestations, or when it spells out the negative
consequence of its loss. Genesis 2:25 alludes to the
perfection and innocence of Adam and Eve in the following
words: 'The man and the woman were both naked, and were
not ashamed.'
Yahweh's conversation with the woman and the man
indirectly reflects the gifts they have lost. 'To the woman he
said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain
you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for
your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he
said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You

shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in

toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and
thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the
plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were
taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return".'
The medieval theology of paradise focused particularly on
the nature and range of the various gifts that adorned man
in his original state. Authors like Peter Lombard, St Albert
and St Bonaventure thought that man received grace from
the very first moment of his creation, but it was a grace
which did not automatically allow him to do supernaturally
meritorious acts. He would also have received at the very
start the gift of integrity and the possibility of not dying.
St Thomas Aquinas adopts the position that man was
created endowed with all natural and gratuitous qualities. It
was not that he was given one thing and then another and
then another. The fact that he was given supernatural grace
at the very start of his existence explains the profound unity
in Adam's being.
So, it is consistent to think that man was fully elevated at
the very moment he was created, even though the Council
of Trent does not say 'created' but 'constituted' (in order to
avoid involvement in contemporary theological debate).
Man never existed, therefore, without being called to unity
with God. So, the creation of Adam is a veritable vocation,
because it establishes him as a direct communicator with
God.
Adam received natural gifts as befitted his normal creaturely
condition and which made up his creaturely being. He also
received supernatural gifts, that is, supernatural grace, the
divinization which that grace involves, and a calling
eventually to the vision of God in the eschaton.
He also received what are called 'praeternatural' gifts which
are not required by his nature but which are very
appropriate to it, which naturally perfect it, and which,

basically, are a manifestation of grace.

These gifts meant immortality, exemption from pain, and
control over his passions. 'By the radiance of this grace all
dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he
remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to
suffer (cf. Gen 3:16) or die (Gen 2:17; 3:19).'
There is an on-going theological debate on the scope of
these praeternatural gifts the first man had. Clearly Adam
could not have had them in full measure, which could not
happen in the beginning and independent of the resurrection
of Jesus.
It is permissible to interpret Adam's immortality as a
situation in which the transition to a final state of perfection
would be experienced without the drama, suffering and
violence linked to man's death after original sin.
If concupiscence is a consequence of the power original sin
won over Adam, it is easy to see why man, prior to sin, was
not at the mercy of a strong tendency to give way to
passions and turn away from God.
His immunity from suffering is explicable mainly by the fact
that pain and disease are a sign and foretaste of death. The
gift of immortality implies in some way the absence of
suffering.
chapter 14
Original Sin

the fall of man

'Sin came into the world through one man." We can use
these few words from St Paul as an introduction to the study
of the important mystery of Christian faith which dogma
traditionally calls 'original sin'. It is a truth which puts a
dramatic stamp on revealed anthropological teaching, while
at the same time announcing God's redemptive initiative in

Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate. The doctrine of original sin

has necessary connexions with the redemption (for God
does not abandon fallen man); and the salvific work of
Jesus, in turn, helps us to appreciate the gravity and scope
of man's first sin. 'We must know Christ as the source of
grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin.'
The doctrine of original sin has been questioned and
ambiguously expounded by some theologians in the past
twenty years. The reason for this is connected with recent
problems about the interpretation of biblical sources and
conciliar definitions: the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(which follows, on this point, the line of Paul VI's 1968
Profession of Faith) will certainly help in the clear expression
of this essential teaching of the Faith.
The Profession of Faith states the doctrine in these words:
'We believe that in Adam all have sinned. From this it follows
that, on account of the original offence committed by him,
human nature, which is common to all men, is reduced to
that condition in which it must suffer the consequences of
that fall.' The human race is monolithic and through our first
parents at the beginning it rejected the grace, friendship and
salvation which God offered it; and the state of sin which
this brought about affects every human individuala
universal catastrophe from which no one can be rescued
without outside help.
The fact of original sin is to be seen in life's tragic events
and in the deep inner divisions that are features of the
inherited human condition. Sin really does exist; it means
that moral evil has come into the world through man's
exercise of his freedom and, although it obviously has
connexions with the environment, disease and ignorance, it
is something distinct from these.
the old testament
The first biblical source of information on the first sin

committed by man created as he was by God in a state of

justice and holinessis the third chapter of Genesis, which
is part of the Yahwist tradition and forms a literary unit with
Genesis 2:415-25. The section which interests us here reads
as follows:
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild
creature that Yahweh had made. He said to the woman,
'Did Yahweh say, "You shall not eat of any tree of the
garden"?' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may
eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but Yahweh
said, "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest
you die." But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not
die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will
be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the
tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its
fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband,
and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they
knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves aprons. And they heard
the sound of Yahweh among the trees of the garden. But
Yahweh called to the man and said to him, 'Where are
you?' And he said, 'I heard the sound of thee in the
garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid
myself.' He said, 'Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not
to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom thou gavest to
be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then
Yahweh said to the woman, 'What is this that you have
done?' The woman said, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I
ate.'
This, as we know, is a narrative older than the Priestly
source; the style is definite and detailed, with a lot of

psychological insight. The account belongs to a literary

genre which is genuinely historical and yet it uses language
which can be regarded as mythical. Here we have a special
kind of history told with the help of some graphic and
symbolic elements contributed by the sacred author, and
others taken from the surrounding culture. What it is trying
to do is to explain sin and evil as something caused by an
act of disobedience committed by human beings at the dawn
of history.
The author clearly intends to write history and to refer to
real events, 'because, even though he may have arrived at
them by a process of reflection, he does want to describe
past events which have had a decisive influence on the
history of mankind.' Given that the scene narrated is part of
salvation history it can be regarded as historical, albeit not
the kind of history which we find in the Bible from the time
of Abraham as in Genesis 12.
This account should not be regarded merely as a diffuse
literary picture of human destiny, nor as a symbolic
description of the human heart as it oscillates between good
and evil. Nor is it the kind of account of a fault analogous to
those to be found further on in Genesis: the murder of Abel
by Cain 4:1-5), the corruption of morals that brings down
the divine punishment of the flood (6:5ff), and the tower of
Babel (11:1-9).
In our text, Adam is a collective singular. He stands for
mankind, but his name acquires here a particular meaning.
'Here, given that the recently created being is mankind, no
other name is needed to distinguish him. The name,
therefore, has the weight of a proper name and it
designates him whom Job will call rishn adan, the first of
men.'
The sacred writer's intention is undoubtedly to show that
this sin of Adam's is a particular sin, and that it brought
about a new situation for mankind. The tree of the
knowledge of good and evil is usually interpreted as an

indication of the desire of the progenitors of the human race

to acquire autonomous moral knowledge and thereby
become independent of God. This means that they forgot or
were unaware of the fact that an ultimate understanding of
things is a gift from God, and as such, to be granted. Adam
and Eve disobeyed God, according to Genesis, with the
intention of appropriating a divine privilege.
There are three other Old Testament texts which seem to
refer to the same sin as that of Genesis 3:1-13.
Psalm 51 (Miserere) is the classical penitential psalm. The
author shows himself to have a vivid awareness of his sins
and he begs God's forgiveness: 'I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee alone,
have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight' (vv.
3-4). It goes on: 'Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me' (v.5). This text is
usually interpreted as referring to a congenital sinfulness in
man, though the psalm is not saying it is due to the
transmission of Adam's fault.
a)

The book of Sirach refers to the evil tendencies which

often gain control of man, and the negative consequences
these inclinations have for man's destiny. 'Do not follow
your inclination and strength, walking according to the
desires of your heart,' we read. 'Do not say, "Who will have
power over me?" for the Lord will surely punish you. . . . Do
not say, "Who will have power over me?" for the Lord will
surely punish you. . . . Do not be so confident of atonement
that you add sin to sin.'
The hagiographer does not, however, enquire as to the
origin of that sinful human condition, so it does not add
anything important to Genesis. The text is just a witness to
the existence of sin.

b)

c) The book of Wisdom seems to refer to the sin in Paradise

in these words: 'God created man for incorruption, and

made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the
devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong
in his party experience it.' The passage clearly alludes to
Genesis and refers to Adam's sin rather than Cain's. The
word 'death', whose meaning here extends beyond merely
physical death, very probably implies a permanent cuttingoff from God. St Paul will refer to this passage in Romans
5:12 when he says that through one man sin entered the
world and with sin death.
the new testament
The teaching sketched out in the Old Testament, where
there is no mention of the transmission of Adam's sin and
the fact that all human beings have been made sinners, is
filled out in the teaching given by St Paul. The Apostle
speaks of original sin in the context of the parallel he draws
between Adam and Christ. The meaning and scope of the
first sin becomes clear in the light of the redemption
brought about by the second Adam.
1 Corinthians 15:21-2 The text says: 'For as by a man
came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive.' Christ, the author of life, is counterposed to
Adam, the author of death. This is an antithesis which he
will develop in Romans 5:11-12.
St Paul takes for granted the sin of Adam. 'Death' here
means physical death, which does not exclude the notion of
spiritual death, so the idea of privation of salvation is
included.
a)

Romans 5:12-21 This passage is essential to an

understanding of Paul's mind on this subject. In a context
which speaks monographically about sin and redemption not
by the Law but by faith and the grace of Jesus Christ, St
Paul writes:

b)

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man

and death through sin, and so death spread to all men
because all men sinnedsin indeed was in the world
before the law was given, but sin is not counted where
there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those whose sins were not like the
transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who
was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died
through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of
God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus
Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the
effect of that one man's sin. For the judgment following
one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift
following many trespasses brings justification. If, because
of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one
man, much more will those who receive the abundance of
grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man Jesus Christ.
Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all
men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal
and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience
many will be made righteous. Law came in, to increase
the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all
the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also
might reign through righteousness to eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 5:12-21).
The nub of this text is the idea that just as through Adam sin
entered the world and through sin death, so through Jesus
Christ righteousness has entered the world and with it life.
The Adam-sin-death pattern is set off against Christrighteousness-life. Through the sin of one, all mankind
underwent a change of status, that of sin, death and
judgment. There is therefore a causal connexion between

Adam's sinful action and the position in which the whole race
finds itself.
All exegetes go along with this general interpretation, but
opinions vary when it comes to interpreting exactly what v.
12 means: '. . . kai houtos eis pantas anthropous ho
thanatos dielzen, eph'ho pantes hemarton' ('. . . and so
death spread to all men because all men sinned').
Current exegesis has veered away from that of some Latin
Fathers, who translated the expression eph'ho by in quo. In
that interpretation, hemarton (peccaverunt) could only refer
to original sin in the sense that all mankind shared in the sin
of Adam. Nowadays the expression is given a causal
meaning: 'because all men have sinned' or 'due to the fact
that all men have sinned'.
Some biblical scholars argue that v. 12 is saying that sin
and with it death, in the sense of corporeal-spiritual
death, became part of being human but only after all had
sinned personally. This means that if (spiritual) death in
fact affects all human beings that happens because they
all commit personal sins. Hemarton is in this interpretation
translated as referring to personal sins. This exegesis has
been given very little support by commentators on St
Paul, who for the most part do not see how it is possible
to translate or understand 'in so far as' with the meaning
of a pre-condition.
To sum up, we can say that, according to the text we are
studying, sin and (physical-spiritual) death have come into
the world through Adam's sin, because all men sinned in
Adam, including those who have not sinned in a formal
sense. 'The fact that those who have not committed sins
imputable by the Law have been punished with death is a
proof that all have been affected by the power of sin and
death which entered the world through Adam's
transgression.'
St Paul develops his doctrine in the context of the

redemption brought about by Christ, which has more than

enough power to wipe out original sin. In teaching about the
redemption, the Apostle has to talk about original sin. So,
whereas the Old Testament never explicitly says that every
human being is made a sinner by Adam's sin, St Paul spells
this out but has nothing to say about how original sin is
transmitted.
st augustine and the pelagian controversy
The doctrine on original sin did not come to be expounded in
any systematic way prior to St Augustine. The apologist
Fathers and the great theologians of the fourth century did
of course make contributions in this area, but they were
really just preparing the way for Augustine's work.
The creator of the expression 'original sin', St Augustine sets
his teaching about Adam's fault in the context of a wideranging theological structure which centres on the mystery
of the grace of Jesus Christ and its salvific influence on men.
The bishop of Hippo first dealt with original sin in his book
De libero arbitrio, which he completed in the year 395, but
his more mature thinking on this subject is to be found
mainly in De diversis quaestionibus 83 (394-395), where he
comments on some of St Paul's epistles, and in De diversis
quaestionibus ad Simplicianum (396-397).
In a central place in the first of these works, St Augustine
sums up his ideas as follows: 'Ever since our nature sinned
in Paradise, divine Providence has formed us not according
to the heavenly man, but according to the earthly man, that
is, not according to the spirit but to the flesh, through
mortal generation, and we have all been made as it were a
mass of clay, which means a mass of sin.'
Here, the concupiscence which results from Adam's sin plays
a key part in the transmission of that original fault, but of
course we need to realize that when St Augustine talks of
concupiscence he is not referring to the body or to sensual

pleasure but to man's inner imbalance and the fact that his
appetites arc in rebellion against his reason. 'It is not a
matter of sexuality, but of something more general and
more profound: a radical opposition between love and
selfishness, between caritas a and cupiditas.'
St Augustine is not saying that original sin and
concupiscence are one and the same thing; and he makes a
clear distinction between the physical expression of
concupiscence and its sorry consequences, which are
transmitted by generation and wiped out by Baptism.
Concupiscence as such is not sin, but, he says, it can be so
due to an added culpability in those who are not baptized.
The views put forward by Pelagius, an educated layman with
a strong ascetical bent, gave St Augustine the opportunity to
develop and refine his teaching on original sin. Pelagius had
a radically optimistic view of human nature and human
freedom which led him to argue that man was able to
perform good actions and attain his eternal destiny without
grace having to play a decisive part. His thinking was based
on the idea that the first sin was quite trivial and did not
seriously wound human nature: it left human nature
basically intact so that it retained its capacity for virtue after
Adam committed his sin. A typical text of Pelagius' reads as
follows: 'When I have to exhort (others) to reform their lives
and seek holiness, I begin by showing the strength and
power of human nature and show its capabilities, in order
thereby to stir my hearers to perform every kind of virtuous
action.'
Pelagius' position on original sin follows on, then, from his
notion of human nature: man is certainly able to avoid sin.
His defence of freedom leads him to minimize the serious
consequences of Adam's sin. One of the main consequences
of this theory is that it takes away the importance of grace,
although the Pelagians never go so far as to do that on the
theoretical level. They did accept that original sin harmed
Adam's offspring, not because they contracted a sin at birth:

it was just that the first man set a very bad example.
Clearly these views undermined the meaning of Baptism and
of Christ's salvific work, making out Christ to be just a
teacher.
the councils of carthage (418) and orange (526)
At the core of St Augustine's teaching is the assertion that
original sin is a state of culpability which affected Adam and
which is passed on to all members of his race. We all were in
Adam, and therefore all share in that nature as passed on by
him and his descendants.
The council held in Carthage in 418 teaches that the physical
death of Adam was the result of a sin he committed and not
just something that was a consequence of his nature; and
that Baptism frees children from original sin. What it does in
effect is stress the teaching of St Augustine and draw
consequences from it.
The Council of Orange held in 526 met to deal with the
teaching of the semi-Pelagians, who played down the
necessity of grace for salvation. The first canon says: 'If
anyone says that it was not the whole man, that is, both
body and soul, that was "changed for the worse" through
the offence of Adam's sin, but believes that the freedom of
the soul remained untouched, and that only the body was
made subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of
Pelagius and contradicts the words of Scripture . . .'.
After this brief but incisive reference to the effects of sin, the
second canon says that Adam's sin means not just the
transmission of punishment for sin but the transmission of
the sin itself in the form of the death of the soul. The text
reads: 'If anyone asserts that Adam's sin was injurious only
to Adam and not to his descendants, or if he declares that it
was only the death of the body which is punishment for sin,
and not the sin, the death of the soul, that passed from one
man to all the human race, he attributes an injustice to God

and contradicts the words of the Apostle: "As sin came into
the world through one man and death through sin, and so
death spread to all men because all men sinned [in quo
omnes peccaverunt]" (Rom 5:12).'
luther and the council of trent (1545-1563)
The theology of original sin devised by St Augustine survived
(undergoing only a few minor changes) down to the end of
the Middle Ages. When Martin Luther (1483-1546) appeared
on the scene, his anthropological pessimism caused a crisis
when it wrote a new chapter in the history of the
interpretation of original sin.
Theologically poles apart from Pelagius, Luther came to
think that original sin corrupted human nature totally,
leaving man utterly incapable of seeking and doing good.
Taking his cue from things St Augustine had said about the
gravity of sin and its consequences, but interpreting them in
an unwarranted way, Luther came to deny human freedom,
to equate original sin with concupiscence, and to hold that
sin remains in the human being after Baptism. Luther says:
What then is original sin? The subtleties of Scholasticism
describe it as a privation or absence of grace . . .;
however, the Apostle and every simple Christian . . . hold
it to be a complete and universal privation of
righteousness and the ability to do good with the powers
of body or soul, by man himself as such, within or outside
himself. Besides, it is the inclination itself to evil, nausea
in virtue, repugnance of light and wisdom, love for error
and darkness, a flight from the abomination of good
works. . . .
As the early Fathers themselves said, original sin is the
tendency itself (fomes), the law of the flesh, the law of
the members, the default (languor) of nature, the tyrant,
the original sickness. . .
Man is, therefore, intrinsically sinful, and because all his acts

of concupiscence are already sin, man cannot but sin in

everything.
The Council of Trent dealt with original sin in its fifth
session, held in early 1546. The Fathers gave themselves
the brief of not only combating Luther's errors but also of
showing that the Church's teaching and praxis was not
contaminated by Pelagius, as Protestants claimed.
Basing itself on the anti-Pelagian Councils of Carthage and
Orange, the Tridentine decree made four basic statements:
Adam sinned gravely and on that account 'immediately
lost the justice and holiness in which he was constituted,
and through the offence of this sin he incurred the wrath
and indignation of God and, consequently, death,' with
which God had previously threatened him. Original sin was
the very beginning of sin in history. Sin does not come from
God but from human freedom.
a)

The sin of Adam injured him and all his descendants in

such a way that he lost his justice and holiness not only for
himself but also for us. Therefore, he passed on to all
mankind the consequences of his own sin, and also that sin
itself which is the death of the soul.
There therefore exists in every human being an 'originated'
original sin, which comes from the sin of Adam (the
'originating' original sin) and which is related to it as effect
to cause. This is a real sin which inheres in all human beings
as their own. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 'By
yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal
sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would
then transmit in a fallen state. . . . And that is why original
sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin
"contracted" but not "committed"a state and not an act.
One can say it is a "sin of human nature".'

b)

c)

Original sin is transmitted through propagation within the

human race, that is to say, it is not a sin which people

contract through personal acts in imitation of Adam's sin.
Human beings have this sin through being members of the
human race.
This sin is not the same thing as concupiscence, because it
disappears when a person is baptized, whereas
concupiscence remains. 'In those who are regenerated [by
Baptism] there is nothing that God hates. ... By putting off
the old man . . . (they) are made innocent, without stain,
pure, no longer hateful, but beloved children of God. ... It is
the mind of this council and it professes that concupiscence
[fomes peccati] remains in the baptized; it is left there to
provide a trial; it has no power to injure those who do not
consent and who, by the grace of Christ Jesus, manfully
resist.'
The council does not positively define original sin, but it
does define it negatively by saying that it is not the same as
concupiscence. Nor does it specify how original sin is
propagatedand it does not refer to generation as such.
Some authors think that 'propagation' and 'generation' as
used in the decree mean the same thing. Others, though,
interpret generation not as the cause of the spread of
original sin but as a condition for that spread: that is,
natural generation would be the means which allows
propagation of the sin to take place but it would not directly
or actively affect the very nature of original sin.
We can say that the sin of Adam is spread to mankind due
to the radical solidarity that exists among all human beings.

d)

the second vatican council and the profession of

faith of paul vi (1968)
The documents of the last council do not study original sin
as such but they do refer to it a number of times. The
Fathers regard it as an indisputable truth, an integral part of
the Christian faith. The sin of Adam and Eve is mentioned

briefly and in passing, but one can always see that its
existence and effects are necessary to make sense of the
divine economy of salvation, and for compatibility among
the Christian mysteries.
The constitution Lumen gentium reminds us that God did
not abandon men, who 'had fallen in Adam'. Dei Verbum
mentions the 'fall' (lapsus) of our first parents. And Gaudium
et spes says the following when it begins to speak about sin:
'Although created by God in a state of justice, man, enticed
by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of
history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to
attain his goal apart from him.'
Paul VPs Profession of Faith teaches that 'in Adam all have
sinned' and that 'consequently, fallen human nature is
deprived of the economy of grace which it formerly enjoyed.
It is wounded in its natural powers and subjected to the
dominion of death which is transmitted to all men. It is in
this sense that every man is born in sin.'
The Profession substantially re-states Trent, which amounts
to two linked statements: a) every man comes into the
world already marked by original sin; b) it is not a sin that
he personally committed but one committed by Adam at the
beginning. 'Although it is proper to each individual, original
sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of
Adam's descendants.'
The description of original sin contained in the documents of
Trent and more recent pronouncements obliges us to say
that this sin is not just the ongoing, general, anonymous
waywardness of mankind or the inescapable and remarkable
fact that we human beings sin time and time again. Nor is it
just the 'general atmosphere of sin' which affects us and is
always encouraging us to sin. The New Dutch Catechism
said: 'The contagion of sin is not explained by Adam's sin at
the beginning of humanity, but by Adam the man we are. It
is the sin of the world of which mine form part.'
Nor is it acceptable to hold that original sin is the same

thing as man's self-awareness of being a sinner or being

culpable in God's eyes, or that it is a potential sin which only
takes active, concrete form in the personal sins that we
commit.
Alongside original sin, there is certainly a 'sin of the world',
referred to in John 1:29. This is not the same thing as
original sin, though the two are closely connected. The 'sin
of the world' is the general atmosphere of sin which is
contagious and which infiltrates the moral space of fallen
humanity. It is the temptation to sin caused by the sins that
people commit, and all those sins taken together.
The 'sin of the world' becomes more virulent due to the
spiritual weakness and evil inclinations man suffers on
account of original sin. It has a lot to do with the collective
dimension of sin and the seductive pressure exerted by evil.
'This expression can also refer to the negative influence
exerted on people by communal situations and social
structures that are the fruit of men's sins.'
the effects of original sin
Holy Scripture describes the consequences of the first sin in
quite dramatic terms. Adam and Eve immediately lost
original grace and hid away from God. The harmony that
was a feature of their life, which had its roots in the justice
and holiness of their original endowment, was broken.
Whereas previously their spiritual faculties were in control of
their bodily ones, now there was a breakdown with
centrifugal forces breaking their unity and inner balance.
Their mutual relationship, and later human relationships in
general, became marked by tension, even ill-feeling. Man's
harmony with material creation was destroyed; that world
became estranged from man, even hostile to him, and it
itself experienced 'bondage to decay'.
Sin swept the world. Cain's murder of his brother and the
rampant corruption of morals which brought on the Flood

are outstanding instances of a whole chain of faults and

offences to God committed by a disobedient and prideful
human race. 'Sin frequently manifests itself in the history of
Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant
and as transgression of the Law of Moses. And even after
Christ's atonement, sin raises its head among Christians in
countless ways.' 'What Revelation makes known to us is
confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into
his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is
wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his
good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his
source, man has also upset the relationship which should
link him to his last end; and at the same time he has broken
the right order that should reign within himself as well as
between himself and other men and all creatures.'
The misfortunes which befall men, and his inclination to evil
would be very difficult to understand were it not for the
drama of original sin's inner effect.
The effects of original sin in human beings are usually
referred to formally as amissio in gratuitis, vulneratio in
naturalibus. In other words, Adam lost his supernatural gifts
(grace and the virtues it brings with it) both for himself and
his descendants. Moreover, his natural powers (his ability to
know and love the truth, to love the good and to perform
good actions) were affected for the worse.
Through Adam's losing the grace granted him at his
creation, all human beings became 'children of wrath' who
find themselves enemies of God prior to their Baptism. Man
was enslaved to the life of the flesh, his passions ruling his
soul and his emotions. It is a situation of his own making,
and yet one he cannot undo or correct on his own. He
stands in need of God's forgiveness and redeeming grace.
However, despite all this, sin has not entirely erased the
divine image from the human being. This image, which was
altered by original sin, will become restored by its
a)

conformity with God's perfect image who is the Incarnate

Word. Altered though it is by original sin, it can be restored
by man's being conformed to the perfect image of God, the
Word Incarnate.
The damage done to human nature in its ability to know,
desire and act has been specified by theology over a long
period of study and reflection as well as in reaction to
certain crises which necessitated a greater precision in
stating doctrine. The Magisterium has not directly defined
anything in this matter but there is an overall and consistent
teaching to be culled from Church statements relating
generally to original sin.
Christian teaching on the wounding effect of Adam's sin on
mankind avoids two extremes. It rejects a Pelagian selfoptimism, whether of the ancient or modern variety, which
regards original sin as just a bad example given by Adam to
his descendants, and which holds that man's spiritual
powers are unaffected: he still has the ability to know, love
and practise virtue. This view thinks that human ills can be
remedied by means of external divine help and also by dint
of education. There are really no sins which require the
blood of Christ to wash them away; good conduct comes
from knowledge of the truth and strong and determined will
power; holiness and salvation are much more the
competence of man and freedom than of God and
supernatural grace.
Luther and Protestantism in general hold a directly opposite
view. Luther repeatedly says that original sin has not only
weakened human nature in its ability to know and love but
has totally corrupted it. Man's intellect is incapable of
knowing the truth; and his will is unable to desire it in any
practical or meaningful sense. In fact man's tendency to evil
erases, even before he is born, any possibility of acting
virtuously.
It is part of the Christian faith that fallen man still has a
b)

certain natural capacity to know and accept a number of

truths basic to salvation. However, to know them with full
certitude he would need the help of grace. That is why we
say supernatural revelation is gratuitous though morally
necessary. The First Vatican Council says: 'It is thanks to
this divine revelation, assuredly, that even in the present
condition of the human race, those religious truths which
are by their nature accessible to human reason can easily be
known by all men with solid certitude and with no trace of
error.'
In particular fallen man has a natural capacity to know God
by his power of reason and from created things. Besides, his
conscience can make the basic distinction between good and
evil.
Likewise man has a certain capacity of preparing himself to
receive grace, and to cooperate with it in order to act
virtuously. He can also practise some good works; without
the help of supernatural grace he cannot do good and avoid
sin.
In short, theology offers us a realistic picture of man's
capacity to make a contribution towards his own holiness
and salvation. It is a perspective in which God's grace is the
determining factor and which includes man's co-operation
(limited yet real) to recognize the good thing and to try to
do it with some degree of success.
c) Original sin also involves grave social consequences. The
harmony of the human community has been broken and
division now marks interpersonal relations.
Anthropologically, the fallen world is like a broken mirror
which fails to properly reflect the glory of God. The effect of
human culture and activity in general can fail to draw people
to their Creator. They are not merely neutral. Science,
technology, art, politics, economics are easily vitiated and
open to the influence of the 'prince of this world' more
readily than to that of sanctifying grace. War, hunger, and

diseaseso much with usare further tangible signs of the

suffering of sinful human beings, and yet God never ceases
to seek and console them until the day of definitive salvation
in Jesus Christ.
chapter 15
The Problem of Evil
introduction
There is no denying the existence of evil in the world and in
human life. It is something very easy to see, and it takes all
kinds of forms, yet we can see there is a sinister unity about
it. It is not just a problem: it is a mystery. To unbelievers
and believers alike it is enigmatic, and for the latter it is a
paradox.
For, how is it possible for evil and a down side do exist in a
world created by God, a world whose laws and structures
have been designed by God's wisdom and goodness? Evil is
the very thing not created by God; one could say it is
something that exists despite countless reasons, strong
reasons, why it should not exist. As St Gregory of Nyssa put
it, it is 'a weed unsown, with no seed, no roots'.
The problem of evil, in fact, raises challenging questions at
both a theoretical and a practical level. How it comes about
is indeed highly problematic. Its strange origin lies outside
the universal chain of causality set in motion and managed
by God. To say the least, it seems to break that chain and
even to be a serious rival to it. Many people have asked
themselves whether the existence of evil, a violent force
which wreaks such moral and physical havoc among
mankind, is compatible with the existence of God. One
cannot but enquire into where evil comes from.
And there are also very practical questions we naturally ask
and have to address. For evil is not something abstract: it is

very concrete; it has to do with very real, day-to-day

situations; it is something connected with our everyday
experience, something we experience ourselves, something
other people have experienced before us. We humans have
had to ask ourselves how we can cope with it better, what
steps we can take to limit it and its effects.
'If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and
good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist?
To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as
painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only
Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this
question.' It is not enough to study the problem of evil as an
academic exercise. Only by making a personal, spiritual
effort can man have any chance of coming to grips with the
paradox of evil and learn how to understand it to make
sense of his life and shape his own destiny.
physical evil and moral evil
The complex whole to which we give the general name of
'evil' is usually broken down into physical and moral evil.
Physical evil affects the world of nature, the visible world
around us. Moral evil happens in the sphere of human
freedom. And both types of evil interlink in the area of
human suffering.
Physical evil is the lack of some property which a given
being would normally have by nature while not totally
affecting it negatively. Blindness, for example, is a physical
evil for a human being, who by nature is endowed with the
sense of sight.
In the case of human beings, physical evil can take the form
of certain biological processes like aging, illness and death,
as well as suffering occasioned at times by catastrophes or
natural phenomena (hunger, earthquake, floods, drought,
volcanic eruptions, etc.).
Ethical-moral evil is a free act of the human will in

transgression of a commandment or prohibition which the

mind knows clearly enough to be quite legitimate. It is
something blameworthy, because it is a free, 'imputable'
bad action.
Both physical evil and moral evil cause human suffering;
that suffering is itself a form of evil, though linked to the
two kinds of evil we have distinguished.
Some philosophers refer also to 'metaphysical' evil,
meaning an imperfection caused by the ontological
limitations of a particular created being. For example,
they would say that a stone belongs to a level of being for
which sight is not possible. But that sort of deprivation or
lack is not really an evil in the proper sense of the word.
The fact that a man does not have wings is simply a
limitation, connected with the various degrees of
perfection of being. It is an objective limitation, but it
does not disfigure any given being nor is it something that
man finds in any way painful.
the origin of evil
The Bible deals with the question of evil even in its opening
pages, and it has a great deal to say about suffering, which
is man's experience of evil. The sacred writer is primarily
interested in pinpointing the origin of evil and negative
experience in the universe, and why it is that man suffers.
The Bible's reply to these key questions is, as one might
expect, in clear contrast to dualistic solutions which argue
that there exists an ontologically evil substantive principle
as the cause and root of all the evil and suffering in the
universe. In that view of things, evil is not a parasite on
what is good but a real, serious competitor vying with God
on equal terms. There is a symmetry between good and
evil, between two real, objective principles at loggerheads
with one another.

Dualistic explanations of this kind go way back to ancient

times, for the very simple reason they offer an answer to
basic questions about human existence. They certainly go
back to the religion preached in Persia, some centuries
before Christ, by a legendary personage called Zoroaster or
Zarathustra. When Zoroaster spoke of there being two
principles in the real world, he meant two hypostases one
good, one evileach having an ontological status. Similar
notions, evidence of a perennial temptation of the human
spirit to come up with some explanation for the dark side of
life, were also to be found in the religions of Egypt, Greece
and Mesopotamia.
Radical dualism developed during the Christian era in the
ideas of Marcion and the Manicheans, who spoke of there
being two perfectly well defined and mutually exclusive
principles of being.
We also find a mitigated dualism, defended by Valentinian (a
Gnostic) and later by the Cathars in the 13th century, which
holds there to be a lower creator, or demiurge, like an angel
emerging from the chaos or created by God, and who
controls the lower types of man's mental activity, all
corporeal entities and the outer design of the world.
Different from radical dualism and mitigated dualism are
doctrines which do not talk in terms of a demiurge rivalling
God, but which divide creative activity between the Supreme
Being and cooperators who derive from him and act under
his orders. Defects in the subordinate, creative activity of
these cooperators are proposed as the explanation for the
workings of evil.
The religious philosophy of Buddhism, which grew up in a
very different cultural and geographic setting from the
systems previously mentioned, proclaims that evil (which is
unavoidable) originates in one's desire for a personal
existence. Evil is an ontological event which is the direct
outcome of individuation. The distinction between moral evil
and physical evil becomes quite secondary here. The

Buddhist contemplative tries to suppress his own being as

alienating, until the point is reached when he can say 'I do
not exist'.
evil and suffering in holy scripture
At all points the Bible teaches us to believe and trust in the
one and only God who calls all things in existence and
preserves them in their being and goodness. 'God saw
everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.'
The account of the fall of Adam and Eve4 is designed to
show, with the help of symbolic language, that human evil
and suffering have not come about through the creative
action of God: their cause is to be found in creaturely
freedom. 'Evil/suffering is not simply an imperfection or the
expression of finitude in creation; it is a consequence of
man's free choice.'
The polarity between good and evil, life and death, health
and sickness, sin or friendship with God, has nothing to do
with any kind of cosmic balance or necessity of fate, or with
the creative action of God; it has to do with history and lies
within the ambit of human freedom.
The book of Sirach says: 'The works of the Lord are all good,
and he will supply every need in its hour. And no one can
say, "This is worse than that," for all things will prove good
in their season. . . . Good is the opposite of evil, and life the
opposite of death; so the sinner is the opposite of the godly.
Look upon all the works of the Most High; they likewise are
in pairs, one the opposite of the other.'
The positive things mentioned here do not have the same
weight as the negative ones, because it is human beings
who divert towards evil the good things created by God.
Holy Scripture quite often enquires as to why the just man
should suffer, and the sacred writers seem surprised at the
prosperity some irreligious people enjoy. In Psalm 73 we
read: 'As for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps

had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant,

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no
pangs; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in
trouble as other men are; they are not stricken like other
men. . . . Behold, these are the wicked: always at ease, they
increase in riches.'
These ideas are developed at length and dramatically in the
book of Job, the longest biblical text devoted to the subject
of the pain and suffering of the innocent. Job is a just man
whom God allows to be afflicted in every possible way:
physical pain, mental stress, frustration at the
impermanence of life, fear of death, scorn and
misunderstanding from family and friends; even his
relationship with God seems to be collapsing.
The lamentations of Job sometimes even go so far as to
point the finger at God, who in the early stages of the book
seems to be a capricious enemy who acts irrationally. Job's
friends, arrogant and worldly-wise, try to console Job by
telling him that suffering is punishment for sin, and that Job
should admit that he is a sinner and repent of his faults.
'Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to
you.' Job tries to find in God the meaning of suffering, but to
no avail.
When replying to Job, God leaves to one side the general
questions Job has posed about why a good God does not
come to the aid of a just man who is suffering. God does not
give him theories or principles; what he does is show his
suffering servant the wonders of the universe, where God's
power and wisdom are to be seen in harmony. In the
ordinary mysteries of creation, Job finds the way to see
where he himself fits into the cosmos, as also his human
limitations, his ignorance and the panorama for a happy life.
'Job comes to see that the meaning of suffering is the very
mystery of God; it is not, therefore, something one can find
in abstract teaching or through an emotional or consoling
response. Evil/suffering is not of unknown origin: it is the

mystery of sinful man's relationship with God. Therefore,

evil/suffering cannot in the strict sense of the word be
"understood" as such, nor is there much point in
understanding it. What really matters is to find in the
mystery of the God who wants to save man the reason for
coping with suffering without losing hope or refusing to face
the "way" of man.'
The book does not provide us with a definition of evil or
suffering; it even seems to say that we have no right to ask
for anything of that kind. The problem of evil is solved by
means of an argumentum ad hominemone so radical that
it might be called an 'argumentum contra hominem'. The
implied accusation levelled against God for allowing evil to
happen is turned right round and becomes an explicit
accusation levelled against man. This counter form of
argument relieves God of having to justify himself and puts
the onus on man.
Eventually Job has the unsought-for experience of a
personal encounter with God, which gives him a unique
insight into his own situation: 'I had heard of thee by the
hearing of my ear, but now my eyes see thee.' Instead of
having to accept that everything is absurd or can make
sense only in the mystery of God, Job comes to realize that
the world is so weighed down by evil, that a good God must
necessarily exist.
The book of Lamentations, apparently composed by an
anonymous writer during the period of the exile in Babylon,
contains important statements relevant to our subject. The
work is a kind of poetic reflection on the meaning of the
catastrophe which has befallen the chosen people. The
prophet at the outset asserts that God is just and that his
goodness and mercy last forever." A true believer,
therefore, should never think that God is capricious or
forgetful of men. Evil and suffering do not mean that he has
withdrawn his promises or his love. God inflicts punishment
on the people on account of their sins. But there is no

necessary connexion between evil and sin which would

exclude God's coming to the aid of Israel if it repents.
The sayings of the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 42:1-9;
49:1-6; 50:4-11; and 52:1353:12 are particularly
interesting. The suffering servant is a mysterious personality
who undergoes suffering vicariously on account of the sins
of a whole group of people. The servant stands for Israel,
and he is at the same time a type of Christ. 'By his
knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many
to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their
iniquities.' 'He bore the sins of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors.' It will not be through violence or
human triumph but by atonement that the Servant will
perform his saving mediation on behalf of Israel and all
mankind. The sufferings of this man of sorrows will not be in
vain but will, on the contrary, be a source of salvation for
others, for all sinners and for all pagans.
The idea of vicarious suffering reappears in the time of the
Maccabees (second century BC). The theology of martyrdom
developed during that period speaks of tribulation being
borne out of loyalty to God, as a sacrifice of expiation and as
a supplication for an end to divine wrath provoked by sin.
The Old Testament does not see pain in purely ascetical
terms, that is, as suffering sought so as to attain moral
perfection and show one's devotion to God. But there is no
meaningless suffering; any sort of suffering borne with faith
is accepted by God, made part of his saving plan, and is put
down in some mysterious way to man's credit.
The Bible 'does not provide a unified, systematic theology of
pain/suffering, but rather a series of attempts to find
meaning in life even in the midst of pain and moral
struggles', with help from God. The fact that all the great
biblical figures (Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Naomi, Elijah,
Jeremiah, Esther, David etc.) experienced suffering,
disappointment and failure throws a very realistic light on
the place and meaning of suffering in the plans of God.

jesus and suffering

In the Gospel, Jesus directly confronts the problem of evil
and the patent fact of human suffering, which he knows by
personal experience and which he sees all round him. His
preaching and his actions give us the key to interpret
suffering and give it a creative, positive place in our life. 'It
is through Christ and in Christ that light is thrown on the
riddle of suffering and death, which, apart from his Gospel,
overwhelms us.'
The Gospels often show us Jesus of Nazareth in close touch
with human suffering. Our Lord allows the poor to approach
him, the sick, the possessed, sinners, and all kinds of people
who are victims of some type of misfortune. Every kind of
sufferingphysical, mental and moralwins his compassion.
'They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various
diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics,
and he healed them.'
Jesus is the first to practise the divine commandment of
mercy: 'I have compassion on the crowd, because they have
been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat.'
'And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and
said to her, "Do not weep."' 'Jesus in pity touched their
eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed
him.' 'Moved by pity, he stretched out his hand and touched
him, and said to him, "I will, be clean."'
Jesus exercises on behalf of suffering man the powers of the
Kingdom he bears in his person. His actions are a sign of
divine victory over evil, a sign that Satan has been bound in
chains, Satan who is not a god of evil but a mere creature
who has come face to face with one who is stronger than he.
The only possible explanation for the fact that devils are cast
down is that the Kingdom of Satan is giving way to the
Kingdom of God and to the signs of mercy which mark its
coming.

Yet the mystery of suffering remains. It has not disappeared

from the lives of the just nor is it associated only with sin:
'As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his
disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was
not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works
of God might be made manifest in him."'
Although he himself was sinless, Jesus generously embraced
suffering, out of love for the Father and in profound
compassion and solidarity with mankind. Our Lord never
made speeches about suffering, but he himself experienced
suffering even to death on the cross, despite the fact that he
was blameless. 'Jesus began to show his disciples that he
must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on
the third day be raised.'
Jesus' passion is but the last act, the last poignant chapter,
of a life which was marked by suffering. Our Lord accepted
physical weariness, disappointment, neglect, abandonment
by his disciples, and treachery. Above all he experienced, at
close quarters, sin, and the mysterious way that his Father
forsook him on the cross. Physical pain was only a small part
of the suffering he experienced, if we take account of his
moral agony and the indescribable pain that afflicted his
spirit. 'Our Atoning Sacrifice,' Newman wrote, 'in a much
higher sense, began with this passion of woe, and only did
not die, because at His Omnipotent will His heart did not
break, nor soul separate from Body, till He had suffered on
the Cross. . . . And then, when the appointed moment
arrived, and He gave the word, as His Passion had begun
with His soul, with the soul did it end. He did not die of
bodily exhaustion, or of bodily pain; at His will His
tormented Heart broke, and He commended His Spirit to the
Father.'
Jesus of Nazareth is truly the man of sorrows prefigured in
the Servant whom Isaiah describes. It was not so much sin

that necessitated Christ's suffering as God's generous, free

and compassionate love by which he wants to be with
suffering man.
The Gospel provides abundant evidence of how difficult
people find it to accept suffering and come, gradually, to
make sense of it. On numerous occasions we found the
disciples at a loss to understand iteven scandalized by it.
The two disciples who met Jews on the road to Emmaus
were taken to task by him in an affectionate way when he
explained, 'Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer
these things and enter into his glory?'
the metaphysics of evil
Almost from the very start philosophy has enquired into the
nature of evil. This intellectual quest intensified during the
first centuries of Christianity, and Neo- Platonism did
manage to come up with fairly accurate answers. Parallel
with the work of Plotinus, we find Origen as very probably
the first Christian theologian to make speculative enquiry
into the difficult question of the nature of evil.
Rejecting the idea that God is the source of evil, Origen goes
a step further and says that there is no necessary
metaphysical connexion between evil and matter. 'That evil
does not come from God', he says, 'is quite certain, but
neither is it true that matter is to blame for evil. What is true
is that evil resides in man's own will, and that is what evil
means, and evil too are the actions which derive from it.
Strictly speaking, there is no other evil.'
Origen seems to be pointing in the direction of the
theoretical solution that Christian theology will soon adopt,
when it says that absolute evil, evil as hypostasis, does not
exist, and that evil, which is always a relative thing, is a
certain lack of goodness:'Certum namque est malum bono
carere.'
St Gregory of Nyssa makes considerable advances in the

formulation of this teaching. His thought is to some degree

dependent on the ideas of Plotinus, who vigorously holds
what is called the 'principle of exclusion', according to which
nothing exists apart from or outside the three perfect
hypostases (One-Intelligence-Soul). Evil is in no sense a
separate hypostasis, as the Gnostics claimed.
'Since evil exists, it does so as non-being. In a way it is the
form of non- being. It is found in things which are mixed
with non-being and sharing in non- being. ... It is to good as
non-measure is to measure, as a limit is to the unlimited, as
that which is without form to the formal cause, as being
which is eternally deficient is to being which is self-sufficient.
It is always indeterminate, always unstable and completely
passive. . .'.
Gregory insists that evil is sheer absence of good, and that,
because being is identical to the good, evil must be seen as
sheer non-being. The wickedness which is opposed to virtue,
and the blindness that is opposed to sight, are not
something proper to nature but rather a privation of
previously held qualities. This non-existence of evil is,
however, a non-existence in an existing thing. Evil is, then,
for St Gregory a non-being which in some way exists. Even
though it does not have hypostasis or substance, it does
have a shadowy existence, to the extent that absence and
privation are something real.
St Basil writes: 'Do not suppose that God is the cause of
the existence of evil, and do not imagine that evil subsists
on its own in any way. Wickedness does not subsist as if it
were something living, nor could you ever see its
substance as if it truly existed. For evil is privation
[steresis] of good.
'No nature absolutely speaking is evil. What is called "evil" is
simply privation of good.' St Augustine clearly takes the
same line as his Patristic predecessors as regards the nature
of evil: 'evil is not a substance, because if it were a

substance it would be good', 'evil is nothing other than

privation of good'.
St Augustine develops his teaching from the idea of the
mutability and corruptibility of created being, and the
conviction that the primary agent in that corruption is free
will. For him, the problem of evil is profoundly linked to the
great metaphysical theme of human freedom which he
always looks at within the framework of God's freedom and
his saving plan.
His daily experience of evil in its various forms, over the
course of a wayward youth, is the prime matter St
Augustine uses in his speculation on this great problem in
life. Augustine's reaction against the dualism of the
Manicheans, and the Neo-Platonist epistemology he made
his own, lie at the basis of his teaching that evil is a
privation. What he has to say about this subject is set in the
context of a theology of creation in which all beings are
ontologically good, because they reflect divine goodness;
but the human mind and will, created ex nihilo, know and
love truth and goodness somewhat ambiguouslywhich
opens the way to sin.
Using the ideas of the Neo-Platonist Proclus (sixth
century) and an earlier Christian tradition, Denys the
Areopagite sums up the doctrine on evil in the following
theses: a) Given that all beings come from the good and
participate in it, absolute evil does not exist nor can it
produce other beings; b) Relative evil is a partial (not
total) privation of being; c) Evil is not to be found in
material beings or in angels; d) It is found in devils as
absence of good; e) It is not found in nature or in matter
as such.
The definition of evil as privation 'allows evil huge scope,
and shows the full extent of its dominion. But at the same
time it exposes its ontological deficiency. By saying that evil
exists, though not as substance, one gets over the dilemma

to which those succumb who, on the one hand, deny the

reality of evil on account of the goodness and infinite power
of God, or others who deny the goodness and infinite power
of God on account of the reality of evil.'
St Thomas Aquinas accepts and develops the Patristic
notions outlined above, and expounds on them in a
systematic way with his usual coherence and logic. In reply
to the objection raised by those who say that the positive
reality of evil in the form of its harmful effects on human life
is something undeniable, Thomas points out that we need to
differentiate in a thing or action that which makes it to be
and that which alters, deflects and makes it bad. The first
(being) is positive; but the second always implies privation.
Thus, for example, human pain and suffering are not
categorized as evil due to their being simply expressions of
human awareness but because they represent an awareness
and recognition of disorder and privation.
Evil is not the contrary of a good but a privation of that
good. St Thomas says: 'Good and evil are not contraries as
privation and possession are. . . .' 'Evil insofar as it is evil is
not something in things (aliquid in rebus), but the privation
of a particular good: it inheres in something concrete and
specific.' When some people state that moral good and evil
are opposites, they mean that evil is a partial good under
which evil lies disguised; it is, as it were, an apparent good
which corrupts the true good.
Evil is never desired as such; it is always desired insofar as
it seems to be good. 'An intemperate person doesn't mean
to lose control of his reason, but to experience a disordered
pleasure of the senses. Thus what really distinguishes a
moral evil as such is its attempt to attain a good.'
We can conclude that, for St Thomas, the negative absence
of a good (remotio boni negativae accepta) is not an evil,
because then one would have to say that those things that
do not exist are bad, or that everything is bad because it
does not possess the good of another. You have evil only

when there is a privation of a good. 'Evil is nothing other

than the privation of a fitting and due good in a person. This
is what everyone calls evil. However, privation has no
essence, on the contrary, it is negation within a substance.
It is not an essence in things.' These metaphysical
considerations help clarify certain aspects of the problem of
evil, but they clearly are not exhaustive, nor do they give a
satisfactory answer to every question we might ask about
evil and suffering. Evil certainly exists only within a good. It
is negation, privation, mutilation; the only existence it has is
in the particular being it deforms.
But the structure of evil is hostile. Evil is a corrosive attack
on beings and unleashes a great deal of destructive energy.
Evil is chaotic, it is an ongoing process of separation and
decomposition, it causes a total disintegration of the very
structure of a being. Its negative power is deceptively
terrible and gives an impression of something powerfully
directed.
Obviously, therefore, evil is not simply a philosophical or
ethical matter; if studied just at the level of natural morality,
one cannot help at least suspecting that there is a
correlation of activity between good and evil. It is only on
the religious level that we can see the true nature and scale
of evilthe fact that its root and deepest meaning is to be
found in its opposition to God.
If evil is to be seen as something that originates in an
unfortunate choice, we must add that that choice was not
strictly speaking between good and evil, because evil was
still only a theoretical possibility. What man in his freedom
did was in choose between himself and God, between selfaffirmation and obedience. So, strictly speaking, evil has to
do with persons who are free agents and exists only in their
decisions and actions. Cosmic evil and physical evil come
about only as a result of that free, personal activity,
although they also derive partly from the contingent nature
of created beings.

But these evil personal actions inevitably spread out into the
impersonal world. It is as though evil has the effect of
depersonalizing the personality and becomes something
apparently objective that dramatically permeates all creation.
the existence of god and the meaning of evil
'Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by
the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes
seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil.' Ancient
philosophy already raised the following objection: Should a
good and all-powerful God not have created a world exempt
from evil? If he could not do so, then he was not almighty. If
he did not choose to do so, then he was not in fact good. So
there is a contradiction: evil exists alongside an almighty,
good God, and the conclusion is that one has to eliminate
one of the two terms: either evil exists, or God exists.
This line of argument was used in modern times by the
Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, and we find it
also in a literary context in Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov.
Ivan, the intellectual Karamazov brother, vigorously argues
that the suffering of an innocent person radically contradicts
the idea of a God who would be good and almighty.
Ivan says: 'I accept God, I accept his divine wisdom and his
plans. ... I believe the world has an order and life a
meaning. I believe in that divine harmony into which one
day it seems we will enter. . . . However, I refuse to accept
this as God's world. ... I mean, it is not God I'm not
accepting but the world he has created. I do not accept
God's world and I refuse to accept it' (Ivan mentions some
cases of gratuitous cruelty).
'If men have to suffer as the price for attaining this eternal
harmony, how do children fit into this picture? It is
absolutely incomprehensible why their innocent pain should
be the price of this harmony. ... I don't want this type of
harmony whose price is too high. We should not have to pay

such a high price to enter this ordered world. I hasten to

return my admission ticket. ... I accept God but I
respectfully return his ticket.'
It is not only people who allow disbelief to enter their souls
but also sincere believers who ask for 'the reason for the
enormous permission to torture their fellows which God
gives to the worst of men'. From ancient times people have
put forward rational arguments of different sorts to try to
explain the meaning of evil and suffering in the broadest
terms. Almost all these explanations are based on the idea
that the individual should be submitted to some sort of
larger cosmic scheme of things.
The most common explanations are based on the idea that
human suffering is always linked to some sort of earthly or
other-worldly reward. The concept of karma, in the Hindu
religion, talks of there being a kind of ultimate human
balance which will compensate for or cancel out the evils,
sufferings and sins that men commit. Dualist systems
explain evil as being the activity of an objective principle of
evil, which is at war with God and which explains in some
way the tragedy of the human condition. Some thinkers try
to solve the problem by saying that suffering is part of the
nature of God: this is the position of people like C.G. Jung
and process theology practitioners.
A feature common to the first three solutions (earthly
reward, reward in the after-life, the concept of karma) is
that they offer a framework that allows the individual to set
his or her sufferings into a broad, harmonious cosmovision.
No matter how painful these experiences may be, they can
thus be made acceptable on a social and personal level. The
primary aim of such explanations is not to show people how
to be happy but rather to make severe suffering intelligible.
Their starting-point is that, in situations of severe suffering,
the need to make sense of them is as strong as the desire to
be rid of them.
A man or woman who suffers from a deeply painful illness,

or who feels defenceless in the face of human oppression in

one form of another, does of course want to be free of such
suffering; but such people also want to know why it is that
they themselves are victims of such evils. An explanation of
this type, which to some extent does deal with the question
of the meaning of suffering, is very useful and consoling to
someone who is suffering, even if it does not promise any
immediate, positive escape.
The Christian view of suffering and its meaning includes
aspects of those ideas, because it does see the world as a
cosmos designed by the mind and might of God, in which
everything has its purpose.
However, such a view approaches the whole matter in a
broader and deeper way, purified of mere pragmatism or
rationalism. 'But why did God not create a world so perfect
that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could
always create something better (cf. S. Th. I, 25, 6). But with
infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a
world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate
perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves
the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of
others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less
perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature.
With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as
creation has not reached perfection (Contra gentes 3,
7). . . . In time we can discover that God in his almighty
providence can bring a good from the consequences of an
evil.'
The Tradition of the Church stresses the idea that evil, which
derives from human freedom and from the imperfection and
contingency of the material world, is something that God
permits for purposes planned by his Providence. Evils do not
cause good effects, nor can they be explained away by
purely intellectual speculation about why evil 'exists'but
they are opportunities to bring about good. God does not
desire evil, but evil is not something his Providence ignores:

he is fully aware of it and is in control of it. Thus, St

Augustine observes that God prefers to draw good out of
evil rather than not allow evil to exist at all. The Lord
ordains evil towards a greater good, even though we are not
always able to discern that good.
In the book of Genesis Joseph says to his brothers: 'It was
not you who sent me here, but God. ... As for you, you
meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring
it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are
today.' Faced with the death of Lazarus, Jesus tells his
disciples: 'This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of
God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of
it.' 'From the greatest moral evil ever committedthe
rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins
of all menGod, by his grace that "abounded all the
more" (cf. Rom 5:20), brought the greatest of goods: the
glorification of Christ and our redemption.'
This theology of evil does not make injustice and suffering
disappear. It does not automatically wipe out the problem,
and at all times it takes human suffering very seriously If it
did not, it would be an insult to the sufferer. But it does
provide a perspective which focuses on negative experiences
which never tell the full story, because they have to be seen
in the context of a providential, meaningful, cosmic order.
Some people, in the face of suffering, dismiss God and the
order of creation out of hand; but there is something proud
and arrogant in that approach, because it is far too much of
a generalization and it does not take account of the fact that
not all men (believers or unbelievers) are scandalized by
suffering or for that reason give up believing in a good and
powerful God.
In some way Karamazov's sense of scandal seems cynical
and hypocritical, because he seems to be not so much
concerned about the suffering of the innocent as to wallow
in his rationalism and individualism. If one truly feels pained
and puzzled by innocent suffering, that is a rather strange

way of showing it. The more usual approach is silence,

patience and a sincere desire to make sense of it.
Otherwise, it might seem to be an excuse to justify an
option for unbelief which one has already taken.
If there were no God, or if God were the cause of a cruel,
meaningless world, suffering would be much more painful
than it now is. It would be a last and absurd word spoken on
the meaning of human existence, and man would be seen as
indeed wretched, a victim of a tragic, impersonal Destiny. If
there is a God, suffering is, in the last analysis, redeemable.
The 'holocausts' of the 20th century, and previous ones we
know less about, have indeed been terribly tragic; but, if
there were no God, they would have been more tragic still.
an integrated view of the mystery of suffering and love
There is a profound interdependence between knowledge of
God and knowledge of evil, as there is between knowledge
of God and knowledge of sin. If these two mysteries are
poorly understood or accepted, they fall into oblivion: thus,
a superficial approach to physical or moral evil can
sometimes snuff out a hesitant notion of God and lead to
atheism; and an inadequate notion of God normally leads a
person to be scandalized by the existence of physical evil or
to underestimate moral evil.
However, if these two mysteries are adequately understood,
they jointly help to build up the Christian spirit. If one has a
correct understanding and experience of God, one can keep
every evil imaginable at bay; and if one has a vivid sense of
the depth of evil, one's mind normally finds it easier to draw
nearer to the mystery and incomprehensibility of God.
When we say that a good God could not allow suffering to
happen, we are really attributing a trivial meaning to divine
'goodness', and we are making man the measure of all
things. Goodness and love have a depth and implications
that man can never totally grasp. If God, because he is

good, desires our good and our human and Christian

maturity, he can allow us to experience pain and suffering,
and our initial reaction may well be that we do not
understand what is going on and do not like it at all.
'But in the most mysterious way God the Father has
revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and
Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil.' The
mysteries of Jesus' life provide the best light to show us
what suffering means. Jesus shows us, not in a speculative
but in a practical, direct way, that the Christian faith is
compatible with the experience of pain. He answers evil with
love: love towards the person who acts wickedly and causes
pain, and love for the will of the Father, when it is Jesus
himself who is suffering.
Our Lord's attitude and innovative action show us that love
and suffering are designed to walk side by side in human life
and if they do not, then love becomes selfish and suffering
becomes meaningless. This was in fact the great experience
and conviction that was a feature of St Francis of Assisi's
life. He, like countless men and women in ancient and
modern times, desired to feel something of the Love which
inspired the Word to become flesh, and to feel something of
the suffering he endured on behalf of those he redeemed.
When a Christian believes in the midst of personal evil, he or
she also believes in a context of hope of final victory over
evil and suffering. In the meantime, a Christian's own life,
and a long tradition, convince him, as it were distilling the
best of human wisdom, that there is no love without
suffering and that 'sorrow is the touchstone of love'.
chapter 16
Providence
god, a creator who cares for his creation

Christian doctrine teaches us that there is a radical

difference between God and the created worldand it also
tells us that, after his work of creation, God does not
become inactive or mute; he continually speaks to his
creation, with the same love as moved him to create in the
first place.
If the mystery of creation forces us, so to speak, to separate
Creator from created world, the mystery of Providence
allows us very definitely to draw them together. The
Christian idea of Providence is, then, a counterweight and
necessary complement to that of creation. If the world is
secularized by cutting it off from God, the idea of Providence
stresses the deep connexion that exists between the Creator
and his work.
Providence can be described as all those actions and
dispositions of God whereby he maintains an ongoing
relationship with the world and with man, in order to lead
them towards their ultimate perfection.
The First Vatican Council describes Providence to be a
consequence of creation, when it says: 'By his providence
God conserves and governs all the things he made,
reaching from end to end with might and disposing all
things with gentleness (cf. Wis 8:1). For "all are open and
laid bare to his eyes" (Heb 4:13), even those things that
are going to occur by the free action of creatures.'
Thus, divine Providence consists in a government of the
world which covers everything that happens in nature and in
history, everything that affects human communities and the
life of each individual. This government does not mean a
fixed order of things; it is something that is happening all
the time through the uninterrupted action of God. The
Second Vatican Council refers to 'a hidden power, which lies
behind the course of nature and the events of human life'.
The doctrine of Providence shows the mystery of God as the
origin of all things to be coherently linked to the mystery of

the consummation of all created things through the activity

of the Creator himself, who thereby becomes the Lord of the
beginning and the final stages of creation and of man. The
same divine force and the same divine love which gave rise
to things must guide them solicitously to their
consummation.
This deeply Christian perspective shows the created world to
be ever docile to God and open to his Word. Conserved in
existence by God, the world exists as it came from God's
hands, yet it is constantly in an on-going state of
development and perfection under God's direction; it is in a
continuous status nascendi, under the direct effect of God.
It is particularly important to rediscover the implications of
this teaching in a time like our own, marked as it is by
virulent force of evil, nihilistic attitudes to life, loss of faith
and an assertion of human autonomyfactors which undo
believers' convictions about there being a kindly Providence
at work, as Holy Scripture teaches.
the testimony of holy scripture
The Old Testament recognizes a real on-going divine action
over the world, embracing both nature, man and his history.
However, the Bible does not speak about Providence as such
until we come to the book of Wisdom (first century bc), in
which we read: 'It is thy providence [pronoia], O Father,
that steers its course.'7 Here, and further on, we find a
Greek term being pressed into service to convey a biblical
truth.
The reality and scope of Providence, that is, of the care God
takes of the world and mankind, was something the Old
Testament writers first observed in the history of their own
people. God's solicitude in freeing the chosen people from
the Egyptian yoke and his constant help in their long
pilgrimage to the promised land were the cause of the
earliest words of praise believing Jews addressed to God.

But the authors of the Bible also describe at length their

appreciation of God's love for his people in their accounts of
the Patriarchs; and they are always going out of their way to
show how even the misfortunes, sins and mistakes of the
main characters turn out for the best. Joseph tells his
brothers: 'God sent me before you to preserve for you a
remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.
So it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has
made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and
ruler over all the land of Egypt' (Gen 45:7-8).
The fact of God's sovereignity over and love for Israel as a
people, which is the basic premise of his actions in salvation
history, initially takes priority over his solicitude towards
individual persons. But they too are also the object of his
loving care: they too can expect Yahweh to defend their
rights (cf. Gen 16:5; 20:3ff; 1 Sam 24:13; 2 Sam 18:31; Ex
20:20; etc.). Here no distinction is made between man and
woman, citizen and foreigner. All are conscious that God's
help is available to them, and that they can bring their
difficulties and troubles to his attention in trusting prayer
(cf. Gen 25:2; Judg 13:8; 1 Sam 1:13f).
The very fact that the image of God as shepherd of his
people is applied to the individual from a relatively early
date, and is expressed in a trusting prayer, clearly shows
that believers were convinced that God guided the fortunes
of individual people; we can even see this in personal names
such as Jonathan and many others.
The revealed notion of Providence is very closely linked to
that of the absolute, universal sovereignty of God. This idea
is incompatible with any independence or hostility from
men's will or any arbitrary opposition from evil spirits, which
plays such a key role in pagan religions.
In Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Jeremiah etc. we find
living examples of the full part that individuals play in God's
plans. The entire life of these men can be seen to be the
enactment of a divine design which decides their destiny

even before they are born. This is not exclusive to the

famous but provides a framework which can be extended to
the life of any man or woman, however humble or unknown
he or she may be.
The intimacy of the individual's relationship with God is
particularly easy to grasp when it is couched in terms of a
parent-child bond. What was previously reserved for the
group or the king, now becomes something that applies to
each and every Israelite. This leads to a new attitude
towards suffering, which is seen as a paternal correction,
designed to lead the person to virtue and ultimately to
happiness.
Although Yahweh's dealings with foreign nations are at first
characterized by the humbling of these nations at the hands
of Israel, we soon hear blessings being pronounced on them
which were promised in the time of the Patriarchs (cf. Gen
12:2) and which imply that the Gentiles are somehow
included in the messianic promises (cf. Gen 49:10) and
therefore in God's provident designs.
Biblical statements about Providence are markedly different
from Greek ideas and theories, which try to devise a
rational, coherent explanation to accommodate the activity
of a benevolent, just God, and the various kinds of evils
which afflict man. The sacred writers never try to put
forward a theory which makes the incomprehensible
comprehensible. At all times they call to mind the mystery of
the living God, whose plans are inscrutable to humans.
Even the conviction of faith that Yahweh is a God who
rewards the good and punishes the wicked is given a broad,
flexible interpretation which keeps the mystery element
intact and does not try to explain everything away in human
terms. Retribution and the purpose of God's actions are
totally revamped in the book of Job. Here we are told that
rational explanations don't explain everything, and one has
rather fallen back on accepting God as being present in the
situation

In this connexion belief in creation has a very important part

to play. When God answers Job from the whirlwind, there is
no reason to be surprised that he should expressly refer to
the uniqueness of many creatures which have come into
being simply because he chose to create them. They prove
that the Creator can make marvellous things, things beyond
our understanding.
What we see here is a world which is not just rational, for
there are always new things happening in it, which take man
by surprise. All this suggests, then, is that the care God
takes of the world, and his love for it, and for man in
particular, cannot always be understood by a finite mind.
There is always room in the workings of Providence for the
misfortunes and sufferings of created beings.
The book of Job, which has close links with Genesis 1, seems
to be warning us about the danger of misinterpreting the
creation account as if it were an attempt to provide a
rational explanation of the universe without giving due
weight to the mystery it contains.
In the New Testament, references to Providence are an
integral part of Jesus' preaching. He himself practises and he
inculcates in his disciples and in all his hearers an unlimited
trust in God and abandonment into his hands: they should
see him as their Father. Our Lord says in the sermon on the
mount: 'I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what
you shall eat or what you shall drink, not about your body,
what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the
body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they
neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than
they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit
to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither
toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass
of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into

the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little
faith?'
What our Lord has to say here covers all aspects and all
levels of human life. It applies to everyday matters and also
to extraordinary events, whether material or spiritual.
The dramatic human events of Jesus' life, and the difficulties
and contra dictions he had to cope with throughout his public
life, show us that the trials of human life have value in the
plans of God. 'Was it not necessary that the Christ should
suffer these things and enter into his glory?' Man acquires
confidence in Providence not so much by a rational reflection
on the harmony of the universe as by being close to Jesus
and meditating on his life.
Providence does not necessarily mean that we enjoy health
and prosperity at all times, nor does it mean that God acts
in the way that men expect. 'My thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither your ways my ways', is how one of
Isaiah's oracles puts it, 'for as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts.'
'Providence does not give man a sure hold on the things of
this world. On the contrary, it leaves him with a certain
sense of insecurity. But in the midst of that insecurity, man
experiences the protection of divine power. And vice versa,
the relative security man builds around himself does not
truly make him safe; it can collapse at any moment, if God
so disposes. Indeed, it can even happen that God has to
take it away, in order to prevent its being an obstacle to a
person's salvation.'
the philosophical notion of god's governance of the
world
Greek philosophers deduce that there is an internal ordering
of the world, or a Providence (pronoia), in the sense of
some immanent divine spirit at work which guides the

cosmos and somehow ensures the well-being of men.

The idea of pronoia had a particularly important place in
Stoic thought (the Stoic school began in the fourth century
bc). Stoicism saw the cosmos as monolithic, limited, finite
and subject to an absolute, total rationalitya universe in
which there was no room for contingency. Nothing happens
by accident; everything happens of necessity. There is a
universal reason which penetrates everything, which rules,
and assigns to each thing its purpose. This Reason is
identical with God, and Providence, and it is distinguished by
its wisdom, justice and prudence.
The cosmos, for the Stoics, is ruled by necessity, but it is a
blind, purely mechanical necessity, because Providence and
Destiny ordain everything towards perfection; everything
that happens is for the best. Destiny reaches right across
the universe, and touches each and every being therein. It
is above the gods; they are aware of it but they cannot
change it, or stall it. And there is even less that men can do
about it: all they can do is humbly submit to what
Providence has decided.
Because man is a part of this harmonious order, his freedom
really has no scope. What Stoicism offers man is
impassibility (ataraxia) which makes even the most
unexpected and senseless experiences perfectly tolerable.
Some Stoic ideas about Providence reappeared in the
monistic philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza (17th
century), for whom freedom is necessity as understood by
the wise man. We also find these ideas in the writings of
Goethe; as, for example in this text: '(Nature) draws her
creatures out of nothingness and does not tell them where
they come from or where they are headed. All they have
to do is keep going; nature knows where they are
headed; for nature everything is present. Nature knows
no past, no future. Her present is eternity. She is good
and I praise her for all her works. She is prudent and

quiet. No explanation can be drawn from her, nor can any

gift be obtained from her unless she freely gives it. Nature
is wise, especially in her good purposes, and she does not
let her sagacity be seen. She has brought me here, and
she too will take me away. I trust in her. She may do with
me as she wishes.'
Quite clearly, the Stoic pronoia is far different from the
Providence of the Old and New Testaments. The kind of
Providence which watches over all created things and guides
them according to the nature and being of each, is proper to
the living God of revelation. God is not an anonymous force
or principle whose action eliminates the freedom of rational
beings.
This was something which Christian writers, ancient and
modern, understood very well. The ancients described the
nature and ways of Providence in great detail, and, familiar
as almost all of them were with pagan thought, they were
quick to emphasize the differences. Theophilus of Antioch
says: 'We confess only one God, the Creator, Maker and
Artificer of this entire world, and we know that everything is
ruled by his Providence, and only by his Providence.' Origen
depicts God as the provident governor of the universe, in
which he rules and dwells. 'We confess that God looks after
all mortal beings, and that nothing is ruled without him
either in heaven or on earth.' Origen makes a distinction
between Providence and the will of God, in order to show
that the divine will never desires evil, although Providence
can sometimes allow evil to happen.
St John Chrysostom observes in his Baptismal Catechesis
that the 'Providence [pronoia] which the God of goodness
gives proof of to mankind is unlimited and unsurpassable;
not only is all Creation his workhe has spread out the
heavens and the sea, he has lit up the sun and made the
stars shinebut he has also given us the earth to dwell in
and offered us its fruits to support and sustain our body.'

For St Augustine, 'providence' does not mean, as it does in

Stoicism and Deism, a religiously consecrated universal
order of things. Nor does it mean that there is some
unknown divine plan that links things together. Providence
is God-at-work-all-the-time, guiding all events.
providence and human life
Moved by love for his creation and in line with an overall
plan, God rules all
beings in different ways in keeping with their diversity. This
divine Providence does not just act in a general way or just
to encompass great events; it also takes care of details and
circumstances which might seem unimportant. 'The
solicitude of divine Providence is concrete and immediate;
God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of
the world and its history.
This conviction implies that things do not happen at random
or by accident, and that the causal order of the universe is
not something that is arranged by an anonymous force or by
agents who can act without reference to God. In particular,
it rules out the idea of fate, the superstition that man is
controlled by hidden energies in the universe, which exercise
a baneful influence on him which he cannot escape.
A fatalistic and non-provident view on life lies at the basis of
magic and witchcraft, which try to provide man with a
fictitious shield against insecurity, suffering and fear. Magic,
which has more sophisticated features than witchcraft,
thinks that the universe is a living being, filled with hidden
patterns and positive signs, populated by spirits, and
accessible to esoteric knowledge possessed by initiates. It
sees the cosmos as a kind of space in which the stars send
us signs, watch each other and watch us, listen to each
other and listen to us.
This universe is a vast sphere of communication, at the
centre of which is man, who is able, if he so wishes, to speak

all its language, respond to all its calls, and invoke all the
spirits who are supposed to inhabit air and matter.
In medieval times magic had close connexions with astrology
and alchemy, both of which held the idea of a world covered
by one single life force giving rise to established patterns of
activities. In evidence also we have a reciprocal
communication among planets, natural elements, metals and
stone types which if studied would reveal the structure of
the world and open up an understanding of the divine will,
the laws that rule life and death, health and illness, the
success and failure of an individual's life. For many, magic
was the shortest and surest way to concoct an infallible
horoscope.
In this magic universe, Averroist and fatalistic, whose
ramifications extend into our own time, hardly any room is
left for a Creator and caring God, even though it is rare for
him to be consciously and explicitly ruled out. As a result,
paradoxically, far from man's sense of security being
increased, life became more uncertain and tragic due to
man's feeling imprisoned by the impersonal cosmic forces
which Christianity had succeeded in banishing. The desire to
divine the future, by superstitious means, gives rise even
today to a psychology of Angst.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes the timely
point: 'God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other
saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting
oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever
concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity
about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of
responsibility.'
Further on we read: 'All forms of divination are to be
rejected. Recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the
dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the
future (cf. Deut 18:10; Jer 29:8), consulting horoscopes,
astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots,
the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums

all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the
last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to
conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour,
respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.'
From as far back as the times of slavery in Egypt, the
provident God of Israel and his prophets confronted the
gods of the pagan nations and their sorcerers. A believer's
conscience has the deep conviction that God can be
petitioned but not put under a spell or forced by any human
power. Nor does he have any rivals: even Satan is a created
being who always acts within a framework of Providence and
divine permission. The wheel of Fortune can never take the
place of the kindly Will of God.
providence at work
Advances in science and technology might have had, among
others things, the effect of lessening man's awareness of
divine action in the world. Yet God is as active in his
creation today as ever he was over the course of history.
But this provident and caring intervention of God in the
world and in the life of every created being does not mean
that we should see him as a kind of 'interventionist' God. In
discussing this matter from a theological point of view, we
should try to avoid using language which might suggest an
unnatural discontinuity in the course of events or some sort
of interference on God's part in the natural order.
God's action in the lives of human beings is real and
decisive, yet he works so silently, so discreetly, that he
often seems to be an absent God, though we can say that
he is also 'conspicuous' by his apparent absences.
The daily events of the world, the normal way things unfold
and men's normal reactions hide the operation of
Providence, all the more so because it uses ordinary causes
to advance its plans.
God's government of the world, which arranges even the

smallest details, counts on the operation of other beings. He

cannot communicate his creative power to creatures, but he
does involve them in the workings of his Providence. 'God is
the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also
makes use of his creatures' co-operation.'
Created beings have been made by God in such a way that,
acting as they do in their natural way, they thereby 'cooperate' in divine Providence towards other beings. It is
easy enough to see, for example, that the Lord can express
his great love for individual persons through the human love
that parents, spouses, friends and children show them.
In this way, created beings not only do all those things their
nature allows them to do: they also have a beneficient effect
on other beings. If God did everything directly, on his own,
it would seem as if he were ignoring the perfections and
abilities that he chose to endow creatures with, and was
depriving creatures of their own causal perfection.
There is also what we might call 'exceptional exercise' of
Providence, that is, miracles, which are a manifestation of
divine glory and a proof of God's solicitude towards human
beings.
There are those who define a miracle as an upset or
alteration of the laws of nature at the express desire of God.
But that is inexact, crude and too simplistic; it suggests that
a miracle is a mechanical interruption of the course of
nature, a kind of intrusion by a supernatural cause.
Miracles are of course a divine initiative, but nature is not
thereby impaired or sidelined: it is transcended. If creation
came about through the Word of God, it must continue to be
open and docile to that Word, and can never be withdrawn
from its influence. A miracle, therefore, respects the unity of
all reality, what it means is that nature is obeying God,
without ceasing to be itself. That miracles are possible is due
to the absolute dominion of God as the first and totally free
cause of the world whose physical laws are subject to the
Creator and in no way limit his freedom or power.

Miraculous actions performed by God 'surpass what is

expected from nature but not the hope of grace which is
founded on a faith by which we believe in our future
resurrection'. That is to say, we must not try to credit
miracles to unknown 'chinks' in the armour of nature, or say
that they are due to the relative indeterminism of the laws
that govern the physical universe. A miracle means that the
powers of the world to come are already at work in the
present world.
So, nature, at the subhuman level, presents no barriers to
God's free initiative in material terms. It is easy to
understand why Christian miracles, both in Jesus' time and
later on, should almost always take the form of curing the
sick, because such miracles demonstrate the power of the
one who works them and the salvific nature of his mission.
Other, more spectacular, miraculous events would be
inappropriate; whereas cures help to show the purpose
behind these divine actions, namely, the salvation of man,
body and soul, through faith.
There is nothing anti-natural about miracles, just as there is
nothing anti- natural about grace. Miracles in this world
anticipate the new creation, and are both a sign and an
indication of resurrection.
chapter 17
Man's Vocation in the Created World
man, a being called by god
Man is a free, moral created being with an eternal destiny.
His last end is the happiness of enjoying God in heaven
forevermore. During his earthly life he has to make choices
continually between good and evil, until he comes to the end
of his journey. Each choice he makes is a positive or
negative response to a divine call. That is, his whole life is

formed by these options. The human person is, therefore,

sought by God, a being drawn by a vocation from on high.
This is the most decisive fact in man's life and destiny.
The calling of Israel is very closely connected with a series of
personal calls which go right back to the creation of the first
human being. In the Bible it is not principally man who
seeks God, but God who seeks to reach man. God creates
things by the omnipotent power of his Word, but in the case
of man he 'calls him'. Adam did not first exist on his own
and then at some later stage begin to have a relationship
with God. The very first moment of his existence already
establishes a relationship between him and his Creator. The
fact that God created and called Adam through his Word
implies that God expects to receive a reply from him. The
Second Vatican Council teaches: 'The dignity of man rests
above all on the fact that he is called to communion with
God. The invitation to converse with God is addressed to
man as soon as he comes into being.'
The call, loving and mysterious, which God addresses to
man is a call to salvation. 'Those who are called receive the
promised eternal inheritance.' This vocation, in effect, has a
direct connexion with man's destiny, which is to reach his
ultimate home after enjoying during his earthly sojourn a
foretaste of God's largesse. His calling also implies an
invitation to holiness, because only saints are able to see
God face to face. Only holy people can look at the Holy One.
But the biblical accounts of vocation do not simply record
how individuals are called to salvation and holiness; they
also show that a mission accompanies each calling. Calling
and mission are things the Bible always sees as linked, and
the words of Scripture are the source for life's meaning.
Blessed Josemaria Escriva writes: 'Our calling discloses to us
the meaning of our existence. It means being convinced,
through faith, of the reason for our life on earth. Our life,
the present, past and future, acquires a new dimension, a
depth we did not perceive before. All happenings and events

now fall within their true perspective: we understand where

God is leading us, and we feel ourselves borne along by this
task entrusted to us'.
God's call shows a person the vocational meaning of his role
and place in society. A person who, prior to receiving and
accepting God's call, saw his activities in natural terms, now
sees and performs them with a sense of evangelical mission.
Vocation sent him to the place where he already was, but it
gave him a new appreciation of himself and of the work God
expects of him.
vocation and man's task in the world
We can say that God created man for eternal life. But this
last end is attained by a human being in the course of his
earthly life, during which he needs to relate to God as a
creature and as his son in Jesus Christ, and as a brother
among brethren. He also needs to see himself as called to
fulfil a role in the world whereby he can help to improve and
build it up from his particular place in society.
The 'world' we are discussing here is both the ordered
universe (material cosmos) as it has come from God's
hands, and the 'anthropological' world (the world viewed
more from the angle of man) in the sense that the Second
Vatican gives itthe setting and circumstances of human
life, viewed through the prism of the entire vocation of man.
World and man are very profoundly bound up with one
another. Their close links are in line with what God planned
from the very beginning. The Creator established man as
lord of the physical universe, to rule it and use it for the
glory of God. 'The world comes in this way to form part of
man's vocation. The living out of that vocation in the course
of time takes place right in the world and through man's
dominion over the world, a dominion which requires the
human being to display all his or her creative abilities. That
is why we talk of bringing about a human-centred world, a

world at the service of humankind; and at the same time,

when the Council documents refer to the world, they
describe it as the world of man in all his manifold activities
and situations.'
Man's relationship with the world is, therefore, very closely
linked to his relationship with God, because when he rules
the world and directs it to its end, man is doing what the
Creator wants him to do; so that the supernatural end of the
redeemed human being also includes a temporal mission
with respect to the creation around him.
the theology of earthly realities
Recent decades have seen the development of a theology
based on the secular goodness of the created world, one
which tries to understand the transforming mission which
man carries out within the world. This theology finds its
sources in Christian tradition, particularly in the teaching on
creation and grace, but it took shape just before and after
the Second Vatican Council (1962-5). The best- known
attempts to work out this theology prior to the council
(some more successful than others) were made by G. Thils,
Y. Congar and J. Danielou, among others.
The writings and work of Blessed Josemaria Escriva (190275), whose first piece of spiritual writing goes back to 1934,
contain teachings on secularity and earthly realities, and can
be taken as anticipating aspects of Second Vatican Council
teaching on the laity and on sanctification of ordinary life.
Christian theology makes no bones about the fact that the
created world is good because it proceeds from the will of
God. But the equally important New Testament teaching
that, due to sin, the world is, as it were, in the power of the
Evil One9 explains why it took so long for theologians to
spell out the implications and consequences of the basic
goodness of the world. That doctrine is in some way in
tension with understandable Christian reserve towards

things profane, so much so that the world and human

activities of a strictly profane nature have sometimes been
seen as substantial obstacles to salvation and holiness. That
attitude can be detected in some forms of monasticism and
religious life, which imply the idea that Christian holiness is
something impossible to achieve in the world and in secular
life.
With rare exceptions this was the dominant attitude in the
Patristic period and in the Middle Ages. Authors like St Peter
Damian (11th century) say that involvement in earthly
affairs is useless and unnecessary; they talk about temporal
things enslaving men, and speak of marriage as a lesser evil
and an institution tolerated by the Gospel and by the Church
to avoid carnal excesses. The thrust of their thought even
seems to prevent them from distinguishing the slavery of sin
from the worldliness which can affect Christians as a result
of their involvement in secular activities and their use of
material goods. They seem to treat both these situations as
if they were the same thing, and to argue that the monastic
life is the only effective way to avoid them. During these
centuries the contemptis mundi or the fuga saeculi held
sway as being the necessary route to take to truly imitate
Jesus Christ and attain salvation.
The 12th and 13th centuries saw social and intellectual
changes which were paralleled by changes in theological
thinking. The Church began to be particularly sensitive to
the following factors:
A revamped theological notion of nature. Whereas for St
Augustine, and the countless theologians whom he
influenced, nature was always something fallen and vitiated
by sin, it now comes to be seen as in some way neutral and
having a certain autonomy, and to be something which can
be evaluated as independent of sin and grace.
Nature comes to be seen as something complete and as
having, under God, a causality of its own. Thus the
a)

groundwork is laid for a doctrine about secondary causes.

Augustine's Platonic presuppositions made it difficult to see
clearly the importance, goodness and relative autonomy of
profane values. Now, however, the way is open to lay the
basis for a theology of the world and of what would later
come to be called a 'theology of earthly realities'.
Profane and human values are seen as worthy of respect,
although they need to remain open to the influence of
elevating and healing divine grace. Science and human
learning in general come to be seen as worthy of attention in
their own right.
The idea of vita apostolica as something linked to the
professio fidei christianae. The end of the 12th century and
the start of the 13th saw the emergence of the idea of socalled vita apostolica as part of Christian discipleship.
Following Christ comes to be seen no longer in terms of a
mode of Christian life based on and to be found only in the
monastic or conventual vocation, but as a spiritual reality
rooted in the very soil of the Gospel.
St Thomas Aquinas' intervention in connexion with the
controversy between seculars and mendicants helped to
develop ideas which went way beyond the channel of that
debate and were applicable to any and every Christian
situation. St Thomas held and proved the thesis that all
Christians should seek evangelical perfection, which resides
in charity and not in any type of vow whatsoever.
Some 12th- and 13th-century authors, therefore, vindicated
the Christian value of every state-in-life, every normal
human activity. D. Chenu has argued that this new
awareness 'will be reflected immediately and explicitly in
theology, which will extend the notion of vocation to
absolutely all profane states-in-life'. Chenu's assessment is
over-optimistic because it could only be said to apply for
sure in the 15th and 16th centuries. But he is correct in
saying that that period was a time of consolidation for the

b)

theology of Christian vocation.

The effect of a social and cultural situation which brought
about a growing appreciation of the substantive value of
human activities. The growing importance of urban life,
together with the appearance of specialized professions and
trades led to a new social and pastoral dynamism. Of
course, ecclesiastical writing did not take notice of the
professions as ways of Christian life in the world; but they
were just treated as a factor that moralists took account of
in order to educate the consciences of Christians in
connexion with the sacrament of Penance.
However, without underestimating the specific callings of
Christians who dedicated themselves exclusively to God
away from the world, theology did begin to see that there
were countless Christians who stay in the world and thereby
directly and actively contribute to the presence and
establishment of the Kingdom of Jesus on earth. It was just
a beginning, a tenuous one, but it augured well for Christian
involvement in a world which was beginning to be
emancipated.
The situation on the ground, however, did not change very
much prior to the Renaissance and the Catholic reform of
the 16th and 17th centuries. Humanists and other writers
inspired by the Devotio moderna, authors like St Francis de
Sales, for example, tried to devise (with varying clarity and
success) a spirituality for lay people living in the world. But
this was a development which never quite made it, and soon
we find once again a theological and ascetical division being
made between Christian life in the proper sense, and secular
life: even though reference is being made to the same
subject, namely, the lay person in the world.
Romano Guardini put it this way: 'In the Modern Age a
Christianity is born which imitates in a strange way the
autonomy created by profane life at the time. Just as the
period saw the development of a purely independent
c)

science, economics, or politics, so too it saw the rise of a

purely self-contained religion. This religiosity increasingly
loses its direct connexion with day-to-day life; its profane
content drains steadily away; it restricts itself increasingly to
purely religious doctrine and praxis, and for many people it
comes to mean simply giving a religious blessing to certain
key moments in life, such as birth, marriage and death.'
the autonomy of the temporal order
The positive approach to temporal things as the immediate
scenario of the mission of the Church and of Christians is
one of the most important aspects of the Second Vatican
Council teaching. When the Council affirms the autonomy of
the world and of earthly realities, and proclaims the positive
meaning of profane values, it is referring to all those aspects
which do not or should not come under the tutelage of
ecclesiastics.
However, it is not saying that these things and these
temporal values should be viewed in conflict with the
sacred, but, on the contrary, that it sees them as
intrinsically open to be directed towards God and for
Christians a ground to achieve holiness.
Under the heading of 'the rightful autonomy of earthly
affairs', no. 36 of the Constitution Gaudium et spes says the
following: 'There seems to be some apprehension today that
a close association between human activity and religion will
endanger the autonomy of man, of organizations and of
science. If by the autonomy of earthly affairs is meant the
gradual discovery, exploitation, and ordering of the laws and
values of matter and society, then the demand for autonomy
is perfectly in order: it is at once the claim of modern man
and the desire of the Creator. By the very nature of
creation, material being is endowed with its own stability,
truth and excellence, its own order and laws. These man
must respect as he recognizes the methods proper to every

science and technique.'

The council's teaching takes issue with the idea that there is
antagonism between faith and reason, religion and science,
Church and civil society, and between being a Christian and
being a citizen. It declares, firstly, that the autonomy of
earthly affairs is something right and proper, given that
created things have a nature of their own, something which
derives from their very being. If Christians want to do things
for God, they must also respect those things for themselves;
otherwise they would be changing the order of creation and
the homage they claim to be offering God would be simply a
sham.
That temporal affairs should be seen as autonomous does
not mean that it is right to look on things of the world and
on human activity as having no relationship to the Creator.
If one takes that approach, created things will soon show
how ambiguous they are, due to sin, and what happens is
that 'once God is forgotten, the creature is lost sight of as
well'.
In encyclicals and in his extensive catechesis, and in his
commentaries on Gaudium et spes, John Paul II has
developed the council's teaching. Everything he has to say in
this regard is set in the context of a theology of creation.
The pope speaks of created beings having two dimensions
transcendental and immanent. The first shows the last end
of the human thing, which is the glory of God and human
happiness. The second has to do with the human
development of the person, and it includes knowledge,
culture, technology and art etc. It is in this immanent
dimension, which is inseparable from the transcendental
one, that the question of the autonomy of earthly affairs
arises.
When the pope deals with this matter, he links it closely to
the designs and workings of divine Providence. 'Providence
is evident in the very "autonomy of created things," where
both the power and gentleness of God are shown. This

autonomy confirms that the Creator's Providence, being

transcendent and always mysterious for us, reaches
everywhere and that everything is active with creative
power and ordered purpose, while, at the same time,
leaving creatures' role as secondary causes intact in the
dynamic process of shaping and developing the world, as
noted by the word suavitor in the book of Wisdom.'
But any kind of autonomy which ignores God is as
unacceptable as it is vain: 'Even more than in the past,
contemporary man has a particular awareness of the
greatness and independence involved in his work of
research and control of natural phenomena. However, one
grave obstacle to the world's development and progress
should be stated, namely, sin and its ability to eliminate
certain horizons.'
While striving to imbue earthly activities with a Christian
spirit and to carry them out in keeping with God's will and
the specific nature of each, a believer has to avoid the pitfall
of secularism: 'Christian life is not composed of two parallel
lines, on the one hand a so-called spiritual life with its
particular values and obligations and, on the other hand,
secular life, namely, the areas of family, work, social
relationships, political and cultural matters.'
In creative opposition to the schism that often divides faith
from life, Gospel from culture, economic life from the
Kingdom of God, John Paul II underscores the Second
Vatican Council's call for 'unity of life' (an idea much
promoted by Blessed J. Escriva) when it said, 'The council
exhorts Christians, as citizens of both cities, to perform their
duties faithfully in the spirit of the Gospel. It is a mistake to
think that, because we have here no lasting city, but seek
the city which is to come, we are entitled to shirk our
earthly responsibilities; that is, to forget that by our faith we
are bound all the more to fulfil these responsibilities
according to the vocation of each one. But it is no less
mistaken to think that we may immerse ourselves in earthly

activities as if these latter were utterly foreign to religion,

and religion were nothing more than the fulfilment of acts of
worship and the observance of a few moral obligations. One
of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between
the faith which many profess and the practice of their daily
lives.'
The rightful autonomy of earthly realities is a basic
presupposition of the teaching and pastoral practice of
Blessed Josemaria Escriva. On the basis of a deep Christian
conviction about the goodness of the world, and the deep
harmony between the natural and the supernatural, Blessed
Josemaria stressed that the mystery of the Incarnation of
the Word raises earthly things to the order of grace, while
leaving their created qualities and potentialities intact. From
this he developed a notion of Christian holiness, which is
built around involvement in the things of the world and does
not split religion from life.
In a text of 1956one of many which we could citewe
read: 'I always speak about real daily life, about the
sanctification of work, of family bonds, of friendships.' A
particularly memorable homily preached in October 1967
contained the following passage: 'There is no other way.
Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or
else we shall never find him. This is why I can tell you that
our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial
occurrences and situations their noble and original meaning.
It needs to restore them to the service of the Kingdom of
God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an
occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ.'
work and its meaning in human life as cooperation in
god's plans
We live nowadays more in a civilization of work than at any
other time in the history of mankind. Work has a massive
impact on human life all across the globe. Its attainments

are staggering, evidencing the creativity of the human mind,

and it has done an enormous amount to provide the material
conditions for a better life. At the same time, the human
cost of this development becomes quite unacceptable when
people turn work into an end in itself, and pursue it
frenetically.
'In the face of this immense enterprise now involving the
whole human race, men are troubled by many questionings.
What is the meaning and value of this feverish activity? How
ought all of these things be used? To what goal is all this
individual and collective enterprise heading?'
a) A Christian evaluation of human work. There is no term in
Holy Scripture which expresses what we today mean by
'work'. But in Genesis 1, God is a creating Being who works
and rests. He is not an idle God, and 'work-rest is a vital
divine rhythm'.
When the first man and the first woman receive from God
the commission to be fruitful, to multiply and to subdue the
earth (cf. Gen 1:28), human work appears as activity which
carries God's blessing and a promise of fruitfulness. We are
then told that 'Yahweh God took man and put him in the
garden of Eden to till it and keep it.' When Adam and Eve
are expelled from Paradise, work begins to entail
considerable effort: 'God said to Adam, "...Cursed is the
ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days
of your life".' However, work in all times, before and after
the fall, is presented as a key part of human life.
So, the Bible contains all the necessary data for the
development of a positive attitude to human work, which
gradually deepens as the centuries roll by. Whereas for the
Greeks and other ancient peoples, work is something that
sullies the free man, the biblical idea holds that work helps
achieve the all-round perfection of the human person,
because that was the role the Creator planned for it.

b) By his very nature man is a being who works. Being

human and working are in some way ontologically
correlative. In working, the person, in a way that is both
rational and spontaneous, actively transforms the world
around him. It is not another form of the instinctive energy
which impels, for example, animals to improve their habitat;
it is much more creative and more productive than that. It is
also the human activity that most intensely expresses the
psychosomatic unity of the person involved. It is the most
direct product of the whole man, shaped by his intelligence
and by his physical energies. Man as a totality produces
something which bears the imprint of his personality.
Work also implies fatiguesome degree of exhaustion and
therefore loss of energy. This diminution of personal energy,
and the toll that it takes, is what makes work different from
play.
Man works for a variety of reasons and at the different
levels. Work enables a person to sustain himself and
gradually improve the material conditions which provide the
infrastructure for all other aspects of his life. It enables a
man to develop his sociability and to establish a fruitful
relationship with other human beings as his indispensable
cooperators. And it is also part of his spiritual life, where it
gets its direction and ultimate meaning: it is a way to
imitate Jesus of Nazareth and to share in his mystery.
'Those who engage in human work', the dogmatic
constitution Lumen gentium teaches, '. . . should perfect
themselves through it, help their fellow-citizens and promote
the betterment of the whole of human society and the whole
of creation.'
A text of Blessed J. Escriva, whose writings broke new
ground in this area of doctrine, reads as follows: 'You,
who celebrate with me today this feast of St Joseph, are
men who work in different human professions; you have
your own homes, you belong to so many different

countries and have different languages. You have been

educated in lecture halls or in factories and offices. You
have worked in your profession for years, established
professional and personal friendships with your
colleagues, helped to solve the problems of your
companies and your communities.
'Well then: I remind you once again that all this is not
foreign to God's plan. Your human vocation is a partand
an important partof your divine vocation. That is the
reason why you must strive for holiness, giving a
particular character to your human personality, a style to
your life; contributing at the same time to the
sanctification of others, your fellow men; sanctifying your
work and your environment: the profession or job that fills
your day, your home and family and the country where
you were born and which you love.
'Work is part and parcel of man's life on earth. It involves
effort, weariness, exhaustion: signs of the suffering and
struggle which accompany human existence and which
point to the reality of sin and the need for redemption.
But in itself work is not a penalty or a curse or a
punishment: those who speak of it that way have not
understood sacred Scripture properly.
'It is time for us Christians to shout from the rooftops that
work is a gift from God and that it makes no sense to
classify men differently, according to their occupation, as
if some jobs were nobler than others. Work, all work,
bears witness to the dignity of man, to his dominion over
creation. It is an opportunity to develop one's personality.
It is a bond of union with others, the way to support one's
family, a means of aiding in the improvement of the
society in which we live and in the progress of all
humanity.
'For a Christian these horizons extend and grow wider.
For work is a participation in the creative work of God.
When he created man and blessed him, he said: "Be

fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and conquer it. Be masters

of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living
animals on the earth." And, moreover, since Christ took it
into his hands, work has become for us a redeemed and
redemptive reality. Not only is it the backdrop of man's
life, it is a means and path of holiness. It is something to
be sanctified and something which sanctifies.'
c) Human work can and should be regarded as a creative
activity. That does not mean that it can be put on the same
level as the divine action which made the world, much less
supplant that action at the ideas level, which is what some
modern secularist theories propose, which do not see the
creation of the world as something brought about by God
but rather as the most important and direct product of
human work.
Based on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the
encyclical Laborem exercens (1981) indirectly criticizes
ideas of that sort, while stressing that the Creator positively
desired man's co-operation in the perfecting of creation.
'The knowledge that by means of work man shares in the
work of creation constitutes the most profound motive for
undertaking it in various sectors.' Man's vocation includes a
divine commission to uncover the secrets that the Creator
has hidden in the universe, to work towards the completion
of his historical designs, and thereby contribute to the
ultimate perfection and transformation of the cosmos. The
world exists first and foremost as a fact which pre-exists all
human activity, but it exists also as a task entrusted to man.
We are referring here not only to the great intellectual and
technological achievements which are the product of human
ingenuity and which mark important stages in history.
'Awareness that man's work is a participation in God's
activity ought to permeate, as the Council teaches, even the
most ordinary everyday activities.'
Work, therefore, contains an escatological meaning and has

a mysterious but real connexion with the new heaven and

the new earth.
The expectation of a new and transformed creation should
not diminish but rather encourage man to do everything he
can to perfect this earth, 'for it is here that the body of a
new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the
age which is to come. That is why, although we must be
careful to clearly distinguish earthly progress from the
increase in the Kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital
concern to the Kingdom of God, insofar as it can contribute
to the better ordering of human society.'
Work does not have as its only purpose the moral perfection
of the person who performs it, as if its objective result had
no part to play in the make-up of the eschaton. The fruits of
human work will in some way be reflected in the new
heaven and the new earth, even though these are things
which will be brought about solely by the will and power of
God.
chapter 18
Man's Dominion of Nature
introduction
The biblical command contained in Genesis 1:28, which
authorizes man to subdue the earth and make use of nonhuman creation, clearly shows the hegemony that the
rational creature has over the rest of creation. The text
reads: '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.'
These words legitimatize, so to speak, any human activity
which of itself tends to alter and use the things of nature for
man's benefit, and to make the world a place more suitable

for man to live in. For reasons which are easy to

understand, the biblical theme of the dominion of nature is
closely linked nowadays with the important matters of
ecology, the exploitation of nature, and the quality of the
environment.
Theology also takes an interest in these questions because
in its reflections it tries to take account of man's experience
and the questions he asks at each period of history; it does
this because it sees itself as equipped to provide basic ideas
and viewpoints that help to deal with new questions as they
arise; and because in some way it is invited and even
obliged to take part in the ecological debate, because
ecology has become a centre-stage question which should
involve scientists, philosophers, theologians etc.
Coined in the 19th century by the German biologist E.
Haeckel, the term 'ecology' means the science of the
relationships between a living organism and its
environment. This meaning has been considerably
expanded, and the term has come to be applied to the
natural conditions necessary for the survival of mankind.
The ecological problem, at any rate, is no longer a purely
biological matter; it has become something that impacts on
politics, ethics and religion.
The ecological crisis has shown us that in dominating nature
and adapting it to suit man (and in some necessary way it
liberates him), things have gone so far that the natural
conditions for our future survival are being jeopardized:
insightful thinkers and scientists have pointed out that
technological progress is not ethically neutral, and that its
potentiality for good or ill has reached gigantic proportions.
They also point out that man's conquest of nature could well
result in nature's conquest of man. 'The key element in
culture is order,' Romano Guardini wrote: 'this order, which
is reflected in relationships between means and ends . . . ,
has progressively weakened, and a new chaos has been
born, which unlike the old chaos (nature not dominated by

man) is the product of man's own activity.'

Thus, as many see it, man has been transformed,
technologically, into a kind of superman, but he has not
attained the level of rationality and moral resourcefulness
that should go hand in hand with such super powers. 'The
development of technology and the development of
contemporary civilization, which is marked by the
ascendency of technology, demands a proportional
development of morals and ethics.'
factors causing an ecological crisis
Indiscriminate, and sometimes immoral, application of
scientific and technological advances has created a worldwide situation that constitutes a grave threat to mankind.
Some people forecast a future catastrophe in which mankind
will find itself trapped in a dead end and unable to maintain
a viable environment. Prognostications of that sort, an
apocalyptic and radically pessimistic extrapolation of the
situation today, are certainly exaggerated. But there is no
doubt that the deterioration in the environment has serious
implications for the future of mankind. It has been shown
that those who interfere in any way with the ecosystem
need to take account of the possible impact of their actions
within a wide orbit as they will affect the quality of life of
future generations.
The gradual thinning of the ozone layer and the resultant
'greenhouse effect' have already reached critical levels due
to the growth of industry, the spread of huge conurbations
and the relentless consumption of energy. Industrial waste,
air pollution from fossil fuels, anarchic deforestation and the
use of certain herbicides, have had a disastrous effect on the
atmosphere, causing changes in weather patterns which
seriously damage health.
Many writers link the ecological crisis to 'over-population'
and the arms race, though these two factors really require

to be treated in distinct ways. Population growth is a normal

human fact of life of which an account has to be taken,
whereas the production and sale of armaments is a
deplorable trade which causes unjust situations, exploits
poorer countries and diverts resources from worthier uses.
'In ecological terms, disrespect for life is the deepest and
most serious sign of the moral implications involved, as can
be seen in many actions leading to pollution.' Often the
health needs of workers are subordinated to utilitarian
values of profit and production such that economic interest
overrides the good of the human person and even of entire
populations. The mass and mindless destruction of animal
and plant species is a huge attack on the ecological balance
and, as such, is indicative of this selfishness and short-term
vision of many methods of natural exploitation.
'It is profoundly disturbing', the above papal message
continues, 'to look at the countless possibilities for biological
research. It has not perhaps yet been assessed the changes
that could be produced in nature by indiscriminate genetic
manipulation and thoughtless production of new animal and
plant species, to say nothing of the unacceptable intrusions
into the very sources of human life.' The thoughtlessness
that lies behind many actions and the fact that basic ethical
principles in a delicate area like this are thrown out the
window could bring mankind to the brink of self-destruction,
giving grounds for suspicion that man's conquest of the
world could cause the abolition of man himself.
So many complex factors combine to produce the ecological
problem that there is no quick or easy solution to it. But the
time certainly has come to make a serious diagnosis of the
problem and the remedies that need to be applied; and it is
also clear that these remedies must take account of the
wholeness of creation, and respect human life and dignity.
ecological awareness in the context of the theology of
creation

The current awakening of an acute ecological awareness,

which takes account not only of the physical environment
but especially of a new spiritual outlook, is indeed a positive
feature of contemporary culture. It has led to all kinds of
concrete initiatives and projects and deserves every
encouragement; there is no question but that all aspects of
man and his environment need to be harmoniously
integrated.
It is very important that these attitudes and the various
efforts made to protect the physical environment are based
on a sound understanding of the cosmos; otherwise they will
not work in the long run. For the environmental question
cannot properly be dealt with unless key religious and
ethical values are brought into play.
This is one of the reasons why ecological themes are
receiving steadily more attention in the Magisterium of the
Church, at both papal and episcopal levels. The first explicit
statement on this subject is to be found in Paul VI's
message to the Stockholm conference on the environment
held in 1972. Similar ideas are summarized in no. 15 of John
Paul II's Redemptor hominis (1979), where he discusses the
right use of nature by man.
On the occasion (1980) of the commemoration of St
Benedict, in the context of discussing that saint's place in
Christian tradition about the value of created nature, the
pope said: 'Lover as he was of the Word of God, Benedict
read it not only in the sacred Scriptures but also in the great
book of nature. Gazing on the beauty of Creation man is
moved to the depths of his soul and his mind is raised
toward the One who is the source and origin of all creation.
At the same time, humans are led to veneration of nature,
to extol its beauty and respect its truth.' Another important
contribution of John Paul II on this matter was his 1985
address in Nairobi at the UN Centre for the Environment. His
encyclical Laborem exercens (1981), no. 4, deals with the

same subject; and in Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987) we read:

Thus man comes to have a certain affinity with other
creatures: he is called to use them, and to be involved
with them. As the Genesis account says (cf. Gen 2:15), he
is placed in the garden with the duty of cultivating and
watching over it, being superior to the other creatures
placed by God under his dominion (cf. Gen 1:25-26). Yet
man must submit to the will of God, which places limits on
the use and control of things (cf. Gen 2:16ff).
[Further on, the encyclical says:] Once again it is evident
that development, the planning which governs it, and the
way in which resources are used must include respect for
moral demands. One of the latter undoubtedly imposes
limits on the use of the natural world. The dominion
granted to man by the Creator is not an absolute power,
nor can one speak of a freedom to 'use and misuse', or to
dispose of things as one pleases. The limitation imposed
from the beginning by the Creator himself and expressed
symbolically by the prohibition not to 'eat of the fruit of
the tree' (cf. Gen 2:16-17) shows clearly enough that,
when it comes to the natural world, we are subject not
only to biological laws but also moral ones, which cannot
be violated with impunity.
A true concept of development cannot ignore the use of
elements of nature, the renewability of resources and the
consequences of haphazard industrializationthree
considerations which alert our consciences to the moral
dimension of development.
Among the main bishops' statements on this subject is the
declaration of the German bishops in 1980 on 'The Future of
Creation: the Future of Mankind' and the Philippine bishops'
'Pastoral Letter on Ecology'.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) describes
respect for creation as a duty imposed by the seventh
commandment, and it says: 'Use of the mineral, vegetable,

and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced

from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over
inanimate and other living things granted by the Creator is
not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of
his neighbour, including generations to come; it requires a
religious respect for the integrity of creation.'
presumed and true causes of the crisis
a) The command in Genesis 1:28 on man to be lord of
creation. Some people have claimed that this command to
subdue the earth led to the development of a civilization
influenced directly or indirectly by biblical ideas which
encouraged and authorized the wholesale exploitation of the
earth and its material resources.
The main source of these ill-considered accusations is to be
found in an essay published by an American, Lynn White, in
1967, on the historical roots of our ecological crisis. The
argument starts from the idea that Christianity is a
thoroughly man-centred religion dominated by a deep man/
nature dualism, and a religion which gives man a divine
command to use nature for his own ends; the author goes
on to claim that, by profaning the natural world and
suppressing animism, the Christian religion opened the way
to a remorseless abuse of Creation by mankind.
The notion that man is made in the image of God, so the
argument goes, cast man in an absolutist, almost
transcendental mould, equipping him thereby with every
right to exploit nature at his whim. By exalting man in this
way, White says, and by destroying pagan animism,
'Christianity opened the exploitation of the world with no
heed to the feelings of natural beings.'
We must say that, couched in these or similar terms, White's
theory is very difficult to prove. Everyone now knows that
abuse of the environment much pre-dated biblical times,
and that all known civilizations (Chinese, Greek, Roman,

Aztec, and even Hindu) were guilty of abuse of nature and

had no scruples about doing just that. The sack and
destruction of the earth has been on a greater scale in parts
of the world where the native population was not Christian
(Japan, for example), or where Christianity was for decades
proscribed by totalitarian regimes (such as those of eastern
Europe).
Moreover, it is easily overlooked that the command
contained in Genesis 1:28 was sometimes interpreted in
ways which were quite at odds with what the Bible means.
When, in the 16th and 17th centuries, modern science, in
the proper sense, came into being many thinkers called on
man to assert himself by using the new knowledge. We now
know that the 'bridge' of a tradition which is tenuously based
on Genesis 1:28 and passes through Francis Bacon and
Rene Descartes, ending up with the industrial exploitation of
the earth, has its main defenders in modern times.
Contemporary ecological problems cannot be laid at the door
of the Bible.
As we shall see later, biblical ideas about creation and man's
dominion of the world never authorized indiscriminate
exploitation of natural resources and the animal world. On
the contrary, it is safe to assume that the ecological crisis is
due largely to mankind's inability to recognize the limitations
imposed on it by the fact that man is not the owner of
creation but only its manager.
It is undeniable, on the other hand, that the drive to
dominate and use the visible world for good or evil is part of
man's make-up: his very nature leads him to change the
physical environment in which he lives.
A claimed biblical origin to the scientific method. It has
been argued that science rests on bases provided by the
Biblesuch as the idea that there is a sharp separation
between God and the world; the rational accessibility of the
world (which means that it is open to research by the
b)

human mind); and the contingency of all created things

(though lacking necessity, their nature and activity are
discovered experimentally).
If it is true that science does have biblical roots, then it is
fair to say that the technological transformation of the earth,
which was directly responsible for the ecological crises, is in
some way the result of Judeo-Christian notions.
We have to say that, unlike other documents of their time,
the biblical accounts show very little interest in the origin
and development of technology. It is only in the sapiential
books that there are any traces of scientific and technical
matters, and there is no evidence that they derive from an
explicit revelation from God to Israel. The material and
technical culture of the Jewish people was absolutely
homogeneous with that of its neighbours. It is impossible to
accept that ideas and approaches which were to be essential
to scientific and industrial progress two thousand years later
could have lain completely dormant in the culture of Israel.
These remarks, however, do not imply that modern science
is in contradiction with the ideas referred to above or is
incompatible with a religious outlook.
Nature as open to objectivization. The almost absolute
cultural primacy of the thinking human subject, and the
systematic objectivization of thought in modern science,
have drastically separated subject and object. Material
nature has thereby become a mere thing, something there,
outside man, and in whose structure everything important
can be reduced to number and measurement. This is already
radically inimical to nature and puts it at the mercy of man's
pragmatism and utilitarianism.
The world ceases to have an intrinsic meaning for us; it
becomes simply something that we see as resisting our own
will. And if we fail to recognize that nature has its own
proper ends, the way is opened for us to be quite arbitrary
in the way we treat it. 'The claim to unlimited scope to use
c)

the world around us is proper to political ideologies of

modern times (bourgeois, Marxist. . .).'
A dualistic view of man as someone trapped in a hostile
world. There has always been a type of human attitude that
stems from a more or less profound mistrust of or hostility
towards the material world. This attitude has given rise to
dualistic or Manichean systems of thought which feed on the
feeling that there is a definite discontinuity between
mankind and the rest of naturea sense that the world is
not man's home and that he has to keep material nature at
bay.
There is a Gnostic basis to these ideas, which lead to the
conviction that the world is something negative which
challenges man and needs to be brought under his control.
In the West this sort of outlook may have been reinforced
by the influence of Protestantism which, by making 'faith
alone' the basis of Christianity, 'has broken every link with
the world, in such a way that the world has become
defenceless towards man who is bent on its dominion.'
Modern theologians like K. Barth and R. Bultmann have
insisted that the human being does not fall within the causal
mechanism of nature as if he were a natural being
(Naturwegen) and that human life is mere history.
It is true that Christianity, by teaching original sin, in some
way sees the world as a place where man is exiled. But in
the context of a balanced view of reality, it has always
asserted our continuity with the rest of nature. For example,
it has been said that because man was shaped from the clay
of the earth and not intruded into the world from outside as
if he were a stranger, he knew his place in the world, and
that it was a crucial one. These ideas reach a high-point of
expression in the medieval concept of 'the great chain of
being' running through all creation from the highest angelic
form to the banality of formless matter.
Once that sort of thinking is ditched, and man no longer has

d)

any duties towards nature, the way is opened for a new

relationship between man and the world, where he can do
what he likes with it and thinks he is the absolute owner of
nature.
A quest for technological control by a mankind deficient in
ethical-religious values. Technological progress is an
undeniable fact, bringing many benefits to mankind. It has
done much to improve the quality of life of entire societies,
and has created the conditions for spiritual and cultural
advancement of the person. 'Many recent discoveries have
brought undeniable benefits to mankind; even more, they
highlight the dignity of man's vocation to co-operate
responsibly in God's creative action on the world.'
In modern times man has become increasingly conscious of
the power science and technology can give him. He has
personal experience of the fact that he can shape the world
in all sorts of ways. He has set his heart on using his
technological power and the natural world to enrich his life
quantitatively and qualitatively.
Unfortunately, technological progress does not always
produce good results. Like everything that originates and
develops in the world, it is not neutral; it is double-edged
and can impact negatively on the very people who are
supposed to benefit from it. In other words, if progress is
not to prove harmful to man, it needs to have an ethical
content and direction.
The more scientific and technological power man obtains,
the greater need there is for those in control to have moral
values. In great part the ecological crisis derives from the
fact that modern man is not always as ethically and
spiritually advanced as his physical mastery requires. When
Albert Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, he
said: 'Let us be brave enough to see things as they are.
What has happened is that man has become a
superman. . . . But he does not have the superhuman
e)

rationality conversant with the possession of superhuman

power.'
It is very widely accepted that scientific progress can be a
danger for man himself and can in fact have a devastating
effect on nature. So it is obvious that 'development cannot
consist only in the use, dominion over and indiscriminate
possession of created things and the products of human
industry'. It is quite essential that the possession, control
and use of material things should be subservient to the
moral order, to justice and to man's vocation.
proposed solutions and remedies
Any solution or combination of solutions which tries to
alleviate the ecological crisis can never hope to completely
avoid deterioration of the environment and damage to the
world. Respect for the environment does not mean
preventing changes in the environment, because, quite
apart from anything man may do to contaminate it, the
balance of nature is always changing as a result of forces
over which man has no control.
'In every age, our planet continues to be subject to forces
incomparably more powerful than those mankind itself
unleashes on it. And yet this has not led to the
disappearance of life, but rather to its transformation. . . .
Moreover, as modern thermodynamics has clearly proved,
the mere presence of living beings necessarily produces a
decline in energy and order in the immediate environment.
Uncontaminated, virgin nature cannot exist where there are
living beings. Where there is life, deterioration of the
environment necessarily occurs.'
The fulfilment of the eschatological promises held out by
Christianity obliges us, on the other hand, to take account of
the fact that any ecological aim or enterprise can have only
limited success. Believers know that creation as a whole is
moving towards the eschaton, which is brought about by

God. This fact tells us that, no matter what corrective

technological skills we use, there is no eternal meaning to
our ecosphere, because it is essentially subject to
impermanence. This impermanence should help us to see
the ultimate horizon of human ecological endeavour, but it
should not lead believers to adopt a kind of fatalistic attitude
which would empty human work of meaning and discount
the mysterious but real role man has to play in the ultimate
perfecting of the universe.
The eschaton does not come about as a result of human
effort; but there is a connexion (we do not know what it is
exactly) between the two. The idea that all will end in
catastrophe may fit theories which take a tragic view of
existence, it may suit a dualistic anthropology, but it has no
place in Christian faith.
Solutions put forward for dealing with the ecology crisis vary
in quality. Sometimes the diagnosis is poor or inadequate.
We shall now look at some suggestions made in recent years.
a) A return to the sacred view of nature. This 'solution' is put
forward by those who think that the main cause of the
ecological crisis is the separation Christianity makes
between God and the world. What they call for is a
remythification of nature: it needs to be seen as animated
by invisible divine forces; this will bring back the veneration
and respect for the environment that mankind has lost.
Extreme ecological theories of this kind involve a vague
pantheistic mystique: some proponents even speak of a
divinization of Mother Earth and a return to an astrological
type of religion.
E. Goldsmith, the well-known editor of a U.S. journal, The
Ecologist, has called for a new view of the world, based on
animism, designed to give mankind a religious respect for
nature. By regarding the natural world as a vast sentient
being, Goldsmith is saying that it is a living being, full of
spirit or soul.

Any view of nature as a Supersubject or almost like a

Superperson is quite eccentric in our present cultural
situation. It is a theory which simply has no basis in reality.
It is acceptable to adopt a contemplative attitude towards
nature (something we are very bad at doing) not because
we think it divine in itself but because it is the work of God
and reflects his perfections. Christian faith has
dymythologized the world, and there is no going back.
b) Complete integration of man in to the biosphere The
rejection of the notion that there is a hierarchy of being in
nature, and dismissal therefore of the idea that there is any
distance between man (subject) and the natural world
(object), rules out the superiority of the human being and
any distinction between man and animal. Man is simply
subsumed within biology, part of a homogeneous
ecosystem. People who think this way regard mankind as
just 'an ephemeral link in the chain of living beings' or say
that 'human thought is no more important in the inert
cosmos than the croaking of frogs or the noise of the wind.'
Although those who hold such ideas do so to undermine
mankind's attempts to exploit nature, they shouldn't
complain about any environmental damage, for in their logic
what would it matter if mankind disappeared?
Any ecological solution is invalid if it denies man's
superiority over the rest of creation. No problem can be
solved simply by ruling out its terms: they will not just go
away. 'The same evidence which shows that man is rooted
in the cosmos also shows him to be superior to it and
independent of its powers. Man is able to rise above any
determining factors of a psychic and biological nature; he is
able to free himself from the influences of his social setting.
He exercises a powerful control over the environment and is
a self-regulating creature. Ortega y Gasset points to this
originality, seeing man as a being that has escaped from
nature because he has risen to higher challenges.'
In point of fact, the cause of the ecological problem, and the

key to its diagnosis and solution lies in the hegemony man

exercises over the rest of creation; God wants him to be in
charge, and he has equipped him for this role.
Saying No to development. Some people want mankind to
turn its back on every form of progress aimed at improving
the standard of living, and thereby leave untouched the
material resources of the natural environment. That is not
just a Utopian idea; it boggles the imagination. For, in the
first place, life instinctively seeks not only self-preservation
but also and above all a bettering of its quality.
The dynamic of society tends by its very nature to create
and attain new objectives which the human mind and the
common good identify. Moreover, man is by his very nature
someone who is made to change the world around him; he
has an inborn need to develop technology and plan the
future. Gabriel Marcel argued that it would be naive to seek
'a Gandhian type of revolution, a return to a pretechnological age. Man has taken on the burden of
technology and he cannot detach himself from it just
because he finds it too heavy a burden.'
The fact that technology is necessary for the development of
mankind does not mean that the problems created by
contamination of the environment can be solved just by
technological improvement or an increase in technology. Not
only would a technological solution be inadequate for a
problem of this sort, which has important ethical
implications; it would only make the problem worse, and
send mankind into a dead end from which there is no going
back.
c)

d) A multi-faceted moral solution. If 'God destined the earth

and all it contains for all men and all peoples,' it is not right
that a privileged few should build up surpluses and waste
available resources 'while great masses of people live in
misery and at a mere level of subsistence'. What is needed,

in the first place, is a system whereby the resources of the

earth are coordinated on a global level, given that
environmental problems very often impact beyond the
frontiers of any one country. One can see that there is an
urgent need for a new solidarity between highly
industrialized and developing countries in order to deal more
effectively with the worst kinds of poverty that are to be
found in the world.
Society also needs to revise its lifestyle and to educate
everyone in that ecological responsibility which the moral
nature of man entails.
towards a theology of the earth
Christian thinking can and should contribute to a solution of
these grave problems by developing a theology which helps
people to view them correctly. There is certainly a crying
need for a theology of the earth which, in the framework of
the theology of creation, will take account of the fact that
this mystery of our faith is inextricably linked to the mystery
of redemption.
a) Biblical bases. The teachings of Genesis gives us a wellbalanced notion of man, his place in creation, and his
relationship to other created beings.
The Genesis 1:28 command to dominate the earth is usually
read and treated as an isolated teaching, without enough
attention being given to the fact that it is part of an overall
scheme of things which extends to chapter 11 of Genesis,
no part of which can be properly interpreted without
reference to everything else.
If we take these eleven chapters together, we can see what
the Bible really has to say about the relationship between
human and non-human creation.
The central idea is that the Priestly narrative (P) is looking
at the earliest period in salvation history, moving from the

creation of the world and man up to the end of the Flood.

This period is brought to an end by the covenant God makes
with Noah, his family and his descendants. What we have
here is a world covenant, because it covers all nations of the
earth (Noah is cast in the role of a new Adam), and it is an
ecological covenant, because it includes the animals (which
have an important part in the account) and a solemn
promise on God's part to protect and regulate nature:
'Yahweh said: "I will never again curse the ground because
of man . . . ; neither will I ever again destroy every living
creature as I have done. . . . While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night, shall not cease".' This covenant makes a new
beginning and opens up a future for human beings, animals,
birds and the entire world.
Nature has certainly been demystified in Judeo-Christian
religious tradition, but its created value has in no way been
abolished. The command of Genesis 1:28 is not, therefore, a
carte blanche given to man to destroy the material world for
his own advantage. The world is not just a given fact: it is
also a task entrusted to man.
Because he is the image of God, the human being is a sort
of representative of God and the steward of nature, so that
the dominion he exercises over it is not absolute; it is a
grant from God. 'Man is the image of God partly through the
mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate,
the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human
being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe.'
Man is not placed over creation to ravage it. On the
contrary, he should respect it for what it is, protect it and
use it in a reasonable, prudent way.
b) The unity of creation. Christian thought is full of
testimonies which regard creation as a whole made up of a
plurality of different beings. When we adopt that approach
and see the universe as a harmonious whole consisting of

beings which, each and every one of them, have come from
God's hands, we learn to recognize the intrinsic value that
each has in itself, and we realize that every one of these
creatures that go to make up the cosmos deserves our
respect.
If God made creation out of love, and his only reason for
doing so was to communicate and express in that creation
his infinite goodness and beauty, it only makes sense that
no one creature on its own can reflect all divine perfections.
He created, therefore, 'many diverse creatures, so that what
each one lacked to adequately reflect the divine goodness,
the rest would supply'.
So, man needs to try to adopt a contemplative attitude
towards creation; this will help him shed attitudes which are
merely utilitarian and exploitative. A believer acquires a
contemplative attitude on the basis of assumptions which
have nothing to do with pantheism, naturalistic mysticism,
or divinization of the world. It is the kind of attitude which
was a profound feature of the spirituality of St Francis of
Assisi and of many other Christians before him and after him.
It is an attitude to creation which is not based on some
intuition about the secrets of the cosmos, but on a deep
conviction that all created things have been redeemed by a
merciful God, who sent his Son made man to be their
brother. Despite the fact that man 'has a particular affinity
with the rest of creation,' he has cut himself off too much
from nature, and he really does need to insert himself into
nature once again. The German bishops said in 1980: 'Man
needs to establish a new relationship with living beings, with
things, with his vital space, so as to be able to become a
man in his world, and so that the world may become a world
for man.'
c) The value of created beings. The beings that make up
creation are subject to a hierarchy; they are not all on the
same ontological and axiological level. There is a particular

discontinuity in levels between man and the rest of creation

such that man can and should make use of them,
legitimately, for his own purposes.
Thus, non-human creatures have an instrumental function
as far as man is concerned, insofar as they are ordered to
his end. But they also have an intrinsic value and, under
God, an absolute value, insofar as they are an inviolable
part of divine creation.
It is up to man to discover and respect, when he uses other
creatures, a proper balance between their instrumental
function and their intrinsic value. This is all a matter of true
belief, wisdom and spiritual insight.