67. For what purpose did God create man and woman?

67. For what purpose did God create man and woman?

(Comp 67) God has created everything for them; but he has created them to know, serve and love God, to offer all of creation in this world in thanksgiving back to him and to be raised up to life with him in heaven. Only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of the human person come into true light. Man and woman are predestined to reproduce the image of the Son of God made Man, who is the perfect “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

“In Brief”

(CCC 381) Man is predestined to reproduce the image of God's Son made man, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), so that Christ shall be the first-born of a multitude of brothers and sisters (cf. Eph 1:3-6; Rom 8:29).

To deepen and explain

(CCC 358) God created everything for man (Cf. GS 12 § 1; 24 § 3; 39 § 1), but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him: What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honour? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his salvation that he did not spare his own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to himself and made him sit at his right hand (St. John Chrysostom, In Gen. sermo II, 1: PG 54, 587D-588A).

On reflection

(CCC 359) "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear" (GS 22 § 1). St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ…. The first man, adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life... The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last" (St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 117: PL 52, 520-521).

(Next question: Why does the human race form a unity?)