(Editor's Note: This is the second in a seven-part series designed to break open the beauties of the Catechism in hopes that more Catholics will begin exploring its riches for themselves. There is a veritable wealth of information in the Catechism, which is itself but a small reflection of the riches of the Deposit of Faith. So, if you’ve not been properly introduced, meet the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the most beautiful fruit to date of the Second Vatican Council. May the two of you enjoy a long and lasting relationship!)
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Next Friday: “Adam & Eve, You & Me”
Mark Dittman is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the National Catholic Register, Lay Witness, and Catholic Dossier. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Part One: The Profession of Faith
Section Two: The Profession of the Christian Faith
Chapter One, Article 1: I Believe in God the Father, paragraphs 1-5 (198-355)
This statement completes what the Catechism asserted earlier — that while the existence of God can be discerned by reason, he can be known only by faith (cf. 154). However, it was the role of reason in understanding a particular quality of God that led me to what I found most fascinating about this selection of the Catechism.
This catechism quotes the earlier Roman Catechism: “Once our reason has grasped the idea of God’s almighty power, it will easily and without any hesitation admit everything that [the Creed] will afterwards propose for us to believe” (274). Here again, as I referenced in my last commentary, reason is the springboard for faith in God (cf. 35). The Catechism teaches that his power is universal, loving, and mysterious, and that “only faith can discern it when it ‘is made perfect in weakness’” (268). Again we have the idea of reason taking us only so far, with faith being required to fully comprehend something of God, in this case God’s power.
But this faith can at times be weak, which leads to a further testimony of God’s power. When I think of power, I think of strength, mastery and knowledge; the crushing of a can under my boot or an idea under my intellect. God thinks of power in this way when appropriate, perhaps, but his immense love for his creatures (us) (cf. 218-221) moves him to offer mercy to us in our weakness. “God reveals his fatherly omnipotence … by his infinite mercy, for he displays his power at its height by freely forgiving sins” (270; cf. 277). In this way God provides the model of perfection, for isn’t the one who shows mercy greater than the one who seeks vengeance? Yes, God can do anything (cf. 269), but this is no brute of a god. His power is in perfect harmony (after all, he is God) with his “essence, will, intellect, wisdom, and justice” (271).
This faith that understands God’s power “glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ’s power” (273). The Apostle Paul tells us, “he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor 12:9). The logic of this thinking is simple, and, imbued with faith, is fortress-like in its strength. Man is fallible and prone to sin; God is neither. God’s perfect love moves him to pour forth abundant graces to complete what is lacking in us. His power is made perfectly evident in our weaknesses, if we but trust fully in him (cf. 215). Readers of Homer take note: we see in Christ the complete reversal of the Greek heroic figure.
The Catechism is full of such beautiful revelations. I discovered two others in this section: what God wants for man, and how much God respects man. This God who out of intense love created everything out of nothing (cf. 293), who gifts man with grace and power, and who did so for his glory, wants nothing more than for man to be “fully alive.” “The glory of God is man fully alive” (St. Irenaeus, quoted in 294). He wants life for man, and life to the full (cf. John 10:10). It is a very Catholic notion to say that the Church of Christ strives for the full flowering of humanity while it teaches and remains faithful to the Gospel.
God is the omnipotent master of history (cf. 269). Yet, mysteriously, and as a further sign of his great love for his creation, he gifts man with free will and invites him to cooperate in his divine plan (306). He does so even to the point of making the execution of his will contingent upon man’s cooperation. This is tremendous love — respecting the will and dignity of his creation to such an extent. Due to his fallen nature, man will refuse at times to cooperate in God’s plan, thereby rejecting His gifts and falling into sin. This rejection of God, by both Angels and men, is what originally brought evil into the world (311). Most incredibly, God can even bring good out this evil (312). Thus is the case made for a powerful, merciful, loving God, discerned through reason and known through faith, who wants fullness of life for man.
