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Thursday, January 9, 2014

man's response to God


PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION ONE
"I BELIEVE" - "WE BELIEVE"
CHAPTER THREE
MAN'S RESPONSE TO GOD
142 By his Revelation, "the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends,
and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company."1 The adequate
response to this invitation is faith.
143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives
his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of
revelation, "the obedience of faith".3
ARTICLE 1
I BELIEVE

I. THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH
144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith is to submit freely to the word
that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model
of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.
Abraham - "father of all who believe"
145 The Letter to the Hebrews, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel's ancestors, lays special
emphasis on Abraham's faith: "By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place
which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go."4 By
faith, he lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land.5 By faith, Sarah was given to conceive the
son of the promise. And by faith Abraham offered his only son in sacrifice.6
146 Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen":7 "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as
righteousness."8 Because he was "strong in his faith", Abraham became the "father of all who
believe".9
147 The Old Testament is rich in witnesses to this faith. The Letter to the Hebrews proclaims its eulogy
of the exemplary faith of the ancestors who "received divine approval".10 Yet "God had foreseen
something better for us": the grace of believing in his Son Jesus, "the pioneer and perfecter of our
faith".11
Mary - "Blessed is she who believed"
148 The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the
tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible"
and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to
your word."12 Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of
what was spoken to her from the Lord."13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary
blessed.14
149 Throughout her life and until her last ordeal15 when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith
never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God's word. And so the Church
venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith.

II. "I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED"16
To believe in God alone
150 Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a
free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his
truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself
wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in
a creature.17
To believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God
151 For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his
"beloved Son", in whom the Father is "well pleased"; God tells us to listen to him.18 The Lord himself
said to his disciples: "Believe in God, believe also in me."19 We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is
himself God, the Word made flesh: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of
the Father, he has made him known."20 Because he "has seen the Father", Jesus Christ is the only one
who knows him and can reveal him.21
To believe in the Holy Spirit
152 One cannot believe in Jesus Christ without sharing in his Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to
men who Jesus is. For "no one can say "Jesus is Lord", except by the Holy Spirit",22 who "searches
everything, even the depths of God. . No one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of
God."23 Only God knows God completely: we believe in the Holy Spirit because he is God.
The Church never ceases to proclaim her faith in one only God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

III. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF FAITH
Faith is a grace
153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him
that this revelation did not come "from flesh and blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven".24
Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man
must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit,
who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all
to accept and believe the truth.'"25
Faith is a human act
154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that
believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is
contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to
our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their
promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one
another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of. . .
intellect and will to God who reveals",26 and to share in an interior communion with him.
155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the
intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace."27
Faith and understanding
156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the
light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who
can neither deceive nor be deceived".28 So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in
accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the
internal helps of the Holy Spirit."29 Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's
growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation,
adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show
that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".30
157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very
word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and
experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural
reason gives."31 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."32
158 "Faith seeks understanding":33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One
in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating
knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens
"the eyes of your hearts"34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the
totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ,
the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that
Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."35 In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe,
in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."36
159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between
faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of
reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37
"Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly
scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the
things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering
investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it
is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."38
The freedom of faith
160 To be human, "man's response to God by faith must be free, and. . . therefore nobody is to be
forced to embrace the faith against his will. The act of faith is of its very nature a free act."39 "God calls
men to serve him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience, but not
coerced. . . This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ Jesus."40 Indeed, Christ invited people to
faith and conversion, but never coerced them. "For he bore witness to the truth but refused to use
force to impose it on those who spoke against it. His kingdom. . . grows by the love with which Christ,
lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself."41
The necessity of faith
161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining
that salvation.42 "Since "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" and to attain to the fellowship of
his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal
life 'But he who endures to the end.'"43
Perseverance in faith
162 Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul
indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting
conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith."44 To live, grow and persevere in the
faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our
faith;45 it must be "working through charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the
Church.46
Faith - the beginning of eternal life
163 Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below.
Then we shall see God "face to face", "as he is".47 So faith is already the beginning of eternal life:
When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at a reflection in a mirror, it
is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day
enjoy.48
164 Now, however, "we walk by faith, not by sight";49 we perceive God as "in a mirror, dimly" and only
"in part".50 Even though enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can
be put to the test. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our
experiences of evil and suffering, injustice and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can
shake our faith and become a temptation against it.
165 It is then we must turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham, who "in hope. . . believed against
hope";51 to the Virgin Mary, who, in "her pilgrimage of faith", walked into the "night of faith"52 in
sharing the darkness of her son's suffering and death; and to so many others: "Therefore, since we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so
closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith."53
1 DV 2; cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17; Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15; Bar 3:38 (Vulg.).
2 Cf. DV 5.
3 Cf. Rom 1:5; 16:26.
4 Heb 11:8; cf. Gen 12:1-4.
5 Cf. Gen 23:4.
6 Cf. Heb 11:17.
7 Heb 11:1.
8 Rom 4:3; cf. Gen 15:6.
9 Rom 4:11,18; 4:20; cf. Gen 15:5.
10 Heb 11:2, 39.
11 Heb 11:40; 12:2.
12 Lk 1:37-38; cf. Gen 18:14.
13 Lk 1:45.
14 Cf. Lk 1:48.
15 Cf. Lk 2:35.
16 2 Tim 1:12.
17 Cf. Jer 17:5-6; Ps 40:5; 146:3-4.
18 Mk 1:11; cf. 9:7.
19 Jn 14:1.
20 Jn 1:18.
21 Jn 6:46; cf. Mt 11:27.
22 1 Cor 12:3.
23 1 Cor 2:10-11.
24 Mt 16:17; cf. Gal 1:15; Mt 11:25.
25 DV 5; cf. DS 377; 3010.
26 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008.
27 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,2,9; cf. Dei Filius 3:DS 3010.
28 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008.
29 Dei Filius 3:DS 3009.
30 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008-3010; Cf. Mk 16 20; Heb 2:4.
31 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,171,5,obj.3.
32 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro vita sua (London: Longman, 1878) 239.
33 St. Anselm, Prosl. prooem.:PL 153,225A.
34 Eph 1:18.
35 DV 5.
36 St. Augustine, Sermo 43,7,9:PL 38,257-258.
37 Dei Filius 4:DS 3017.
38 GS 36 § 1.
39 DH 10; cf. CIC, can. 748 § 2.
40 DH 11.
41 DH 11; cf. Jn 18:37; 12:32.
42 Cf. 16:16; Jn 3:36; 6:40 et al.
43 Dei Filius 3:DS 3012; cf. Mt 10:22; 24:13 and Heb 11:6; Council of Trent:DS 1532.
44 1 Tim 1:18-19.
45 Cf. Mk 9:24; Lk 17:5; 22:32.
46 Gal 5:6; Rom 15:13; cf. Jas 2:14-26.
47 1 Cor 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2.
48 St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 15,36:PG 32,132; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,4,1.
49 2 Cor 5:7.
50 l Cor 13:12.
51 Rom 4:18.
52 LG 58; John Paul II, RMat 18.
53 Heb 12:1-2.

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