Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 43 – Part IV.

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part IV. Is the world a product of chance?

(Youcat answer - repeated) No. God, not chance, is the cause of the world. Neither in its origin nor with respect to its intrinsic order and purposefulness is it the product of factors working “aimlessly”.     

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 301) With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence: For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured, if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living (Wis 11:24-26). (CCC 320) God created the universe and keeps it in existence by his Word, the Son "upholding the universe by his word of power" (Heb 1:3), and by his Creator Spirit, the giver of life.   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians believe that they can read God’s handwriting in his creation. To scientists who talk about the whole world as a random, meaningless, and aimless process, Pope John Paul II pointed out in reply in 1985, “Given a universe in which there is such a complex organization of its elements and such a wonderful purposefulness in its life, talking about chance would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact it would be tantamount to accepting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human reason, which in this way would be refusing to think and to search for a solution to problems.”

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 300) God is infinitely greater than all his works: "You have set your glory above the heavens" (Ps 8:1; cf. Sir 43:28). Indeed, God's "greatness is unsearchable" (Ps 145:3). But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures' inmost being: "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). In the words of St. Augustine, God is "higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self" (St. Augustine, Conf. 3, 6, 11: PL 32, 688).      

(The next question is: Who created the world?)

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 43 – Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part III. Is the world a product of chance?

(Youcat answer - repeated) No. God, not chance, is the cause of the world. Neither in its origin nor with respect to its intrinsic order and purposefulness is it the product of factors working “aimlessly”.         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 299) Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: "You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight" (Wis 11:20). The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the "image of the invisible God", is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the "image of God" and called to a personal relationship with God (Col 1:15, Gen 1:26). Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work (Cf. Ps 19:2-5; Job 42:3). Because creation comes forth from God's goodness, it shares in that goodness - "and God saw that it was good… very good" (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31) - for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world (Cf. DS 286; 455-463; 800; 1333; 3002). 299 

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians believe that they can read God’s handwriting in his creation. To scientists who talk about the whole world as a random, meaningless, and aimless process, Pope John Paul II pointed out in reply in 1985, “Given a universe in which there is such a complex organization of its elements and such a wonderful purposefulness in its life, talking about chance would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact it would be tantamount to accepting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human reason, which in this way would be refusing to think and to search for a solution to problems.”

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 49) Without the Creator, the creature vanishes (GS 36). This is the reason why believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring the light of the living God to those who do not know him or who reject him.   

(This question: Is the world a product of chance? is continued)

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part II. Is the world a product of chance?

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part II. Is the world a product of chance?

(Youcat answer - repeated) No. God, not chance, is the cause of the world. Neither in its origin nor with respect to its intrinsic order and purposefulness is it the product of factors working “aimlessly”.     

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 297) Scripture bears witness to faith in creation "out of nothing" as a truth full of promise and hope. Thus the mother of seven sons encourages them for martyrdom: I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws… 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 (2 Macc 7:22-23, 28). (CCC 319) God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory. That his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty - this is the glory for which God created them.    

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians believe that they can read God’s handwriting in his creation. To scientists who talk about the whole world as a random, meaningless, and aimless process, Pope John Paul II pointed out in reply in 1985, “Given a universe in which there is such a complex organization of its elements and such a wonderful purposefulness in its life, talking about chance would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact it would be tantamount to accepting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human reason, which in this way would be refusing to think and to search for a solution to problems.”   

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 298) Since God could create everything out of nothing, he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to sinners by creating a pure heart in them (Cf. Ps 51:12), and bodily life to the dead through the Resurrection. God "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Rom 4:17). And since God was able to make light shine in darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of faith to those who do not yet know him (Cf. Gen 1:3; 2 Cor 4:6).      

(This question: Is the world a product of chance? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 43 – Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part I. Is the world a product of chance?

(Youcat answer) No. God, not chance, is the cause of the world. Neither in its origin nor with respect to its intrinsic order and purposefulness is it the product of factors working “aimlessly”.     

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 295) We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom (Cf. Wis 9:9). It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God's free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: "For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created" (Rev 4:11). Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: "O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all"; and "The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made" (Pss 104:24; 145:9). (CCC 296) We believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance (Cf. Dei Filius, can. 2-4: DS 3022-3024). God creates freely "out of nothing" (Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 800; cf. DS 3025): If God had drawn the world from pre-existent matter, what would be so extraordinary in that? A human artisan makes from a given material whatever he wants, while God shows his power by starting from nothing to make all he wants (St. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum II, 4: PG 6, 1052).   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians believe that they can read God’s handwriting in his creation. To scientists who talk about the whole world as a random, meaningless, and aimless process, Pope John Paul II pointed out in reply in 1985, “Given a universe in which there is such a complex organization of its elements and such a wonderful purposefulness in its life, talking about chance would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact it would be tantamount to accepting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human reason, which in this way would be refusing to think and to search for a solution to problems.”

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 317) God alone created the universe, freely, directly and without any help. (CCC 318) No creature has the infinite power necessary to "create" in the proper sense of the word, that is, to produce and give being to that which had in no way possessed it (to call into existence "out of nothing") (cf.  DS 3624).

(This question: Is the world a product of chance? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 42 – Part IV.

YOUCAT Question n. 42 - Part IV. Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Yes. Although it is a different kind of knowledge, faith is open to the findings and hypotheses of the sciences.        

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 289) Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Theology has no scientific competence, and natural science has no theological competence. Natural science cannot dogmatically rule out the possibility that there are purposeful processes in creation; conversely, faith cannot define specifically how these processes take place in the course of nature’s development. A Christian can accept the theory of evolution as a helpful explanatory model, provided he does not fall into the heresy of evolutionism, which views man as the random product of biological processes. Evolution presupposes the existence of something that can develop. The theory says nothing about where this “something” came from. Furthermore, questions about the being, essence, dignity, mission, meaning, and wherefore of the world and man cannot be answered in biological terms. Just as “evolutionism” oversteps a boundary on the one side, so does “creationism” on the other. Creationists naïvely take biblical data literally (for example, to calculate the earth’s age, they cite the six days of work in Genesis 1).

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 288) Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful love (Cf. Gen 15:5; Jer 33:19-26). And so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigour in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People (Cf. Isa 44:24; Ps 104; Prov 8:22-31).     

(The next question is: Is the world a product of chance?)