Four Principles of Providence

Four Principles of Providence
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Taken from
Holy Abandonment
By: Dom Vitalis Lehodey
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The Lord tells us by the Prophet Isaias that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and that as the heavens are exalted above the earth so are His ways above our ways and His thoughts above our thoughts (Is. 55, 8-9). Hence it comes about that Providence is very often misunderstood by the man of weak faith and imperfect mortification. We now proceed to specify four immediate causes of such misunderstandings.

1. Providence remains in the shadow so as to give us the opportunity and the merit of exercising our faith, whereas we want to see. God hides Himself behind secondary causes; the more these become manifest, the less does He appear. Without Him they can do nothing, they could not even exist. We know this well enough. And nevertheless, instead of ascending to Him, we make the mistake of confining our attention to the external phenomenon, agreeable or otherwise, and more or less enveloped in mystery. He does not enlighten us as to the particular end He pursues, the paths whereby He is conducting us thither, or the way already traversed. And we, far from putting blind confidence in Him, are anxious for this knowledge, and almost venture to ask Him for explanations. Would a little child be impatient to know where its mother is taking it, or why she chooses one road rather than another? Does not the patient go so far as to entrust his health, his life, the integrity of his members, to his physician or surgeon? This latter is only a man, but we have confidence in him on account of his devotion to his science and his professional skill. Should we not, then, impose infinitely more confidence in God, the almighty Physician, the incomparable Saviour? But at least when all is dark around us and we know not where we are, how we should welcome a ray of light! Ah, if we had even the assurance that this is in truth the operation of grace, and that so far all goes well! As a rule, however, it is only when the Divine Artist has completed His work that we are in a position to appreciate it. God wills us to be content with pure faith and, putting our trust in Him, to preserve our hearts in peace, despite the enveloping darkness. And this is the first cause of our misunderstandings.

2. Providence has views very different from ours regarding both the end to be pursued and the means of attaining it. So long as we have not entirely renounced the spirit of the world, we desire to discover a heaven here below, or at least a path of roses conducting us to paradise. Therefore we become unduly attached to the esteem of good people, to the love of our relatives and friends, to the consolations of piety, to tranquility of soul, etc. Therefore also we feel such a repugnance for humiliations, contradictions, sicknesses, and trials of every description. Consolation and success seem to us, at least in some degree, the reward of virtue; aridity and adversity the chastisement of vice. We are astonished when we behold the sinner often prospering in this life, and the just man undone. God, on the other hand, has no intention of giving us a heaven on earth; He desires that we should merit our heaven, and as beautiful a one as possible. If the sinner is obstinately determined to ruin himself for eternity, it is necessary that he should receive in time the recompense of whatever little good he may do. With regard to the elect, their reward is reserved for them in paradise. Meanwhile, the essential thing is that they be purified and sanctified ever more and more, and made richer and richer in merits. Tribulation serves admirably as a means to these ends. God, therefore, deaf to everything but the voice of His austere and wise affection, labours to reproduce in us Jesus crucified, so that hereafter we may reign with Jesus glorified. Who does not know the Beatitudes enumerated by the Divine Master? The cross, accordingly, is the present He most willingly offers to His friends. "Look at My whole life, full of suffering," He said to St. Theresa the Elder, "and be persuaded that they whom My Father loves most dearly shall receive from Him the heaviest crosses. The measure of His love is also the measure of the suffering He sends. How could I better prove My affection for you than by desiring for you that which I desired for Myself?" Language supremely wise, yet how little understood! Here we have the second cause of our misunderstandings.

3. Providence smites us severely, and poor nature complains. Our passions boil over, our pride seduces us, our wills allow themselves to be carried away. Grievously wounded by sin, we resemble one afflicted by a gangrened member. We realise clearly enough that nothing but an amputation can save us. Yet we have not the courage to carry out the operation ourselves. Therefore God, Whose love has no weakness in it, determines to render us this painful service. As a consequence, He sends us these unforeseen difficulties, this destitution, this contempt, these humiliations, this loss of external goods, this illness which is wasting our strength. All are the instruments wherewith He binds and squeezes the diseased member, strikes on the sound part, wounds and cuts to the quick. Nature cries out in pain. But God pays no heed, because this severe treatment is necessary for our cure and the preservation of our lives. Those tribulations which come to us from outside are sent as a remedy for the evil within us: to restrain our liberty that is so apt to wander, and to bridle the passions that carry us away. We have here the reason why God permits obstacles to our designs to appear from every quarter, why He ordains that our employments should be so full of troubles, that we can never enjoy the peace we so long for, that our superiors are so often opposed to our desires. This also explains why our nature is subject to so many infirmities, why our occupations are so tiresome, why men seem so unjust and so annoyingly variable in temper. We have to endure assaults on every side from a thousand different opponents, so that our wills, only too free, being thus exercised, harassed, and exhausted, may at last detach themselves from themselves, and for the future have no other desire except to be conformed to the will of God. But our wills refuse so to die to themselves, and this is the third cause of our misunderstandings.

4. Providence sometimes employs means which disconcert us. The judgments of God are incomprehensible. We can neither penetrate their motives nor recognise the ways whereby He chooses to bring them to effect. "God begins by annihilating those whom He entrusts with any enterprise. Death is the ordinary way by which He leads to life. Nobody understands the road on which he is travelling." Neither do we understand how the divine action will turn to the advantage of souls. It seems to us not seldom to tend in the opposite way. But let us adore the sovereign wisdom which has disposed all things most perfectly. Let us be convinced that even what appear to be obstacles shall serve it as means, and that from the evils it permits it will be able to draw the good it has invariably in view, viz., the glory of God through the progress of the Church and the salvation and sanctification of souls.

Consequently, if we look at the question in the light of God we shall be forced to the conclusion that very often in this world what are called evils are not really such, nor is everything good which appears so to us. There are failures wherewith Providence blesses us, and there are successes which it sends us in punishment of our faults.

Of the countless examples on record, let us cite just a few. God promised to make Abraham the father of a great people, and that all nations should be blest in his seed. And then He commanded him to immolate the son through whom this promise would have to be fulfilled! Had He forgotten His word? Certainly not. But He willed to put to the test the faith of His servant, designing at the proper moment to stay his hand. He purposes to make the kingdom of the Pharaos subject to Joseph, and begins by abandoning him to the malice of his brethren. The poor boy was thrown into a well, led into Egypt, sold as a slave, then languished many years in prison. His career seemed to be ruined beyond hope. And yet it was through this series of calamities that God conducted him to his glorious destiny. Gideon was miraculously chosen to deliver his country from the yoke of the Madianites. He assembled a hastily levied army, which scarcely amounted to a fourth of the opposing force. But instead of increasing the numbers, the Lord dismissed nearly all. He retained only three hundred, and arming these with trumpets and lamps in earthen pitchers, He led them forth to what seemed more likely to be a butchery than a battle. And yet with this unpromising host He won for His people an astonishing and decisive victory. But let us leave the Old Testament.

After the triumph on Palm Sunday, Our Lord was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, denied, judged, condemned, buffeted, scourged, crucified, robbed of His reputation. Was it thus God the Father secured to His Son the nations of the earth as His inheritance? Hell was triumphant and all seemed lost. Nevertheless, it was precisely through this apparent defeat that Christ victoriously achieved our salvation. Again, He chose what was weak to confound the strong. With a dozen fishermen, ignorant and unknown, He went forth to conquer the world. They could do nothing of themselves, but He was with them. During three centuries He permitted His Church to be exposed to violent persecution, which indeed, according to the prophetic word, shall never wholly cease; but so far from being destroyed by the rage of her enemies, she was rather invigorated. The blood of martyrs has always been the seed of Christians, and it is so still, even in our own times. In vain the impiety of philosophers and the sophistries of heresiarchs endeavoured to extinguish the lights of heaven: their efforts only served to render the faith more definite and luminous. The kings and nations of the earth raged "against the Lord and against His Christ" (Acts 4:26), Who neverthelesss was their real support; but in His own good time the Son of the Carpenter, the Galilean, always victorious, has brought His persecutors down to the dust and cited their souls to His judgment seat. Whilst a never-ceasing succession of revolutions shake and convulse the world, the cross alone remains standing, luminous and indestructible, above the ruins of thrones and empires.

There are still other means, unlikely means, which God chooses to save a people, or to stir the multitudes, or to establish religious institutes. He once exercised in this way wonderful mercy in favour of the kingdom of France: in order to save it from total and imminent ruin, He raised up, not powerful armies, but an innocent child, a poor shepherdess, and it was by means of this feeble instrument He delivered Orleans, and brought the king in triumph to Rheims, where he was to be crowned. In quite recent times, He aroused whole nations by the voice of the Cure of Ars, a humble country priest, with but little resources apart from his sanctity.



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Reconciling Man's Free Will with God's Sovereignty

Reconciling Man's Free Will with God's Sovereignty
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By Jim J. McCrea


God's sovereignty means that God is omnipotent and has control over every detail of creation and does in fact control every detail of creation.

Now Calvinism generally claims that this rules out man's free will, for if man were free to decide this or that, it would take away from God's controlling power since it would be a human being deciding in a given situation rather than God.

Is there a way to reconcile the free will of man with God's sovereignty so that there is no conflict between the two, in which a human being can decide a given thing yet God is in total control?

I would say yes.

One thing that we have to know is that God is not simply another being along side of us (much greater than us of course) in a kind of competition with us, in the flow of time with us, where one player takes away from the action of the other.

Rather, God is the infinite ground of being itself - the sheer act of being - outside of time - from which all other beings derive their own existence.

God being outside of time is crucial to this. He is present to all times and to all things of all time, all at once. Everything in existence, for all time, is simply "now" for Him.

Another thing that is necessary to this thesis of reconciling man's free will with God's sovereignty is a given idea of His omniscience. This goes beyond God knowing all things that are actual. It is God knowing all that is possible - that is, knowing all that could possibly happen or exist, and all that would happen under all possible circumstances.

Of course God knows the free-will choices of all creatures for all time, but one of the deepest mysteries of God's omniscience, that theologians discuss, is that God knows how a given rational creature (created personal being) would choose even if a situation that would elicit a choice were not presented to that creature, and even how any creature that could possibly exist but was not created would choose in any given situation. For example, God would have known that Satan would have rebelled even if Satan were not created. For Satan's fall is part of the *concept* of Satan that exists even if he never had real existence. And God knows the concepts of all possible beings.

Now with God knowing all possible choices of all creatures, for all time, in all possible situations, this allows Him to bring into existence a history of creation down to the finest detail, without Him first having to create anything to find out what would happen.

His will to make things happen precedes anything happening at all (not in the order of time, but logically).

Out of all the infinite possibilities with its infinite branchings, God selects one logically consistent possibility and gives it real existence (logically consistent mean that a given created possibility does not have an event and its contradictory, such as an angel falling and not falling at the same time).

The free will choices of all possible creatures under all possible circumstances forms the "possibility" space that God has to work with. He selects one self consistent possibility, out of all, and brings it into reality, so that a particular universe and history are created. Another constraint is that that universe must be consistent with God's goodness. He would not have allowed a possible history to come into existence that has gratuitous evil to inflict His creatures. All evil that any creature experiences, in the reality He has brought into being, has a place in God's plan and is consistent with His love, justice, and mercy.

With this, it is not true that a creature makes a choice and then God responds with an afterthought. The creature only makes the choice because God selected that possible history with that choice in it with a view to what would be the consequence of that choice (because the consequence is part of that possible history) - not that God wills or causes the sin directly, for sin comes from the creature alone, but God *permits* the sin because that possibility (out of all) that He brought into existence includes the sin within it. Although God sees all possible sins of all creatures for all possible times, He is not the creator of the sins themselves and strictly forbids them as they are offences against Him.

We have to digress here for a moment and discuss whether God causes evil or brings evil into people's lives.

The book: Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence (by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure and St. Claude de la Colombiere) holds that although God does not will sin, He does will the evils (apart from the act of sin itself) that flow from that sin, and is responsible for bringing them into people's lives with a view to the good that God wishes to bring about.

From this perspective, although God does not will the sin itself (which is defined as a pure choice in the will), He does will the troubles and the tragedies that flow from that sin. This is because God takes an infinitely long view of that possible history that He has brought into actuality (seeing it before-hand). That possible history which contains the sin and the trouble or tragedy also contains the good that will come about in the long run as a result of that trouble or tragedy. Everything that God does is a function of His infinite knowledge and His infinite goodness, and any possible history that He could have brought into existence is compatible with His infinite knowledge and goodness.

It can be argued that if a thing occurs and God only responds as an afterthought, that God's plan could be destroyed or at least severely degraded. That would defeat His omnipotence and sovereignty. We can see that many things that depended upon a certain exercise of free will of creatures were necessary to God's plan. We know that in the time of test of the angels that Michael the Archangel was necessary to lead the good angels to God and salvation as Satan lead other angels to rebellion against God and to hell. And we also know how essential St. Michael is in defending us on earth against Satan and his infernal hoards. The system of St. Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) is a necessary undergirding of all sound philosophy and theology in the Catholic Church today. On the other hand, it was necessary that others choose wrongly for God's plan to be fulfilled. For example, the betrayal of Judas and the cowardice of Pilate were necessary to bring Jesus to the Cross so that He could redeem the world. But what if Michael fell along with Lucifer and what if St. Thomas succumbed to that woman that his brothers sent to tempt him? What if Judas choose to be faithful to the Lord or Pilate choose to exercise courage in refusing to condemn a man whom he knew was innocent? God choose the history out of all possibilities with those particular players (St. Michael, St. Thomas, Judas, and Pilate) and which included the free will actions that they executed which included the good that would flow from them afterwards.

Calvinists claim that God predestines people to heaven or hell. They are right, but not in the way they think. The Church rejects *positive* predestination to hell - it rejects that a person is determined to hell by God and that he could not have chosen otherwise. I would hold that a proper understanding of predestination means that God sees all the journeys of all possible creatures in all possible worlds to their final end, and that God then selects the particular history out of the infinite possibilities which includes all the paths of all the rational creatures contained in that particular history.  This would not be predestination to hell in the sense condemned by the Church, because if a given human's path is to hell, it is necessary that that path include his freely chosen mortal sin and his refusal of repentance before death.



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The End of the World

The End of the World
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This is a quote from Michael D. Obrien's book: Remembrance of the Future. He affirms the traditional Catholic Christian view that rejects the perfectibility of man - rejecting that man is becoming better and better through a human evolution until perfection is reached in the "Omega Point." - Jim McCrea


<snip>

Orthodoxy [right believing Christianity] maintains that the eschaton, the culmination of history as a climax of sin and error, will be resolved only by the interjection of the transcendent God intervening in history in an extraordinary manner. By contrast, the new theologians attempt to "immanentise the eschaton," as a purely historical process. In brushing aside consideration of the real meaning of the Book of Revelation, they deny that the New Jerusalem will be given by God after the devastation of the world by human folly. The New Jerusalem of neo-pagan theologians is to be created by man, here and now. This reveals an extremely optimistic view of human nature.

Chesterton, reading the despair in much of modern optimism, frequently argued against pessimism and optimism. They bore no relationship to authentic Christian hope, which must always have the courage to see things as they really are. Christian realism is apocalyptic, for it stands ever waiting and watchful for the hour when the Bridegroom [Jesus] will arrive.



From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

<snip>

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.⁵⁷³ The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth⁵⁷⁴ will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.⁵⁷⁵

 

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,⁵⁷⁶ especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.⁵⁷⁷

 

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.⁵⁷⁸ The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.⁵⁷⁹ God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.⁵⁸⁰  

 

 

 

Note ** There is a conceit in Western society that holds that man is evolving and that this generation is wiser than generations past, in throwing off traditional religious and moral principles, and as a result man is fulfilling his true potential. But the reality is that he has fallen into a great darkness, with the chastisements of God which are coming which necessarily follow such apostasy.

 

Note ** The rise of satanic evil, such as ISIS, in this present day, belies the idea of the perfectibility of man.

 

 

 

Also see The One Purpose of Creation

 

 

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The Meaning of Art

The Meaning of Art
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By Jim J. McCrea


Being (or that which exists) has transcendental properties. The transcendental properties of being are so much identified with being, they are literally other names for being.

Some of these are *unity,* *truth,* *goodness,* and *beauty.*

Unity means that a thing, insofar as it has being, is one thing. It is not a disjointed multiplicity. Truth means that it is intelligible. Goodness means that it supplies for the good of other beings. And being as being is beautiful.

Any uncoordinated multiplicity, unintelligibility, evil, or ugliness means that something is lacking what it should have. Those things are not other forms of being.


Now this idea is connected with proper art.

With proper art we have purposeful "distortions" in form, texture, colour, and so forth, so it does not look like a "realistic" photograph.

Why is this done?

This does not to reduce the perception of the reality of the object, person, or situation, but to enhance it.

This purposeful "distortion" in legitimate art enhances one or more of the transcendental properties of being, so these transcendentals shine forth with a brilliance that they would not in a photograph or by looking at it with the plain eyes.

With this, the legitimate purpose of art is to, directly or indirectly, glorify God who has the transcendental properties of being to an infinite degree.

God is infinite unity, truth, goodness, and beauty.



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The Doctrine of the Antichrist

The Doctrine of the Antichrist
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By Jim J. McCrea


The doctrine of Antichrist is not so much a set of dogmas that we would find in a religion, but is more a philosophical world-view.

The spirit of Antichrist is now alive and well, as this philosophy has taken hold of much of Western society, to the extent that it constitutes a kind of tyranny.

Several decades past, when traditional Judeo-Christian morality was dominant in Western society concepts had clear meanings. Now, this is no longer the case. It is considered now that one concept bleeds into another - that nothing is stable and certain, and that traditional distinctions no longer hold.


For example, it is considered that there is no solid distinction between polarities such as God and creation, spirit and matter, human and animal, intelligible and sensible, subjective and objective, male and female, marriage and cohabitation, etc.. In the religious sphere it is considered that there is no proper distinction between sacred and secular, supernatural and natural, and priest and laity

As far as blurring the distinction between God and creation, it is considered that there is no transcendent God who is radically distinct from creation and almighty over it. That is considered childish, and the "enlightened" stance is to hold that God is nothing but the positive energies exhibited by nature and our own inner power. God is thus to be found within by tapping our interior potentials.

There is no distinction held between body and soul and matter and spirit. Thus, training the body and the neurons is the key to spiritual enlightenment, as spirit is considered nothing but the more subtle workings of matter.

The lack of recognized distinction between human and animal allows animals an exaggerated importance to the detriment of human interests. This is connected with the perceived lack of distinction between the sensible and intelligible, as the cleverness of animals to make associations between various sense objects is considered intelligence, and it is not recognized that humans have a cognitive ability different in kind from animals in their capacity to understand abstract concepts.

The lack of recognition between male and female gives rise to the emasculation of males in society and radical feminism. This feeds the tendency to not rightfully recognized homosexuality as a perversion and a deviation, but as a legitimate alternative, as it is seen that a male being drawn to a female is not essential to proper romantic or sexual attraction, but is merely incidental or accidental and such a male could just as properly be attracted to another male.

In the religious sphere, the lack of recognition between the natural and the supernatural and the secular and the sacred, has dumbed down religious services and Masses in the Catholic Church to simply a party - and human relations, pop psychology, sociology, and political activism are preached instead of sacred doctrine and morals.


This is all done in the name of freedom and progress, as the traditional categories are seen as "static" and "rigid" and as limitations on freedom.

However, true freedom and progress require stable and absolute principles that only the traditional categories can provide - it requires the classical polarities.

The necessity for limits and absolutes is explained in Msgr. Pope's article here


** End Note 1 - it is true that there are subtleties, paradoxes, and ambiguities in things and situations, but these are governed by absolute rules on a higher level.

** End Note 2 - The obliteration of the traditional polarities is done in the name of freedom. But it is not free. In reality, it is the opposite. It is close and oppressive. 


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Is Your Striving For Perfection Authentic?

Is Your Striving For Perfection Authentic?
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Many Christians strive for perfection, following the teaching of Jesus: "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).

But we have to ask ourselves: is our perfection authentic or is it something we merely imagine to be perfection? What is true perfection that is pleasing to God?

We can ask: is our perfection a help and a consolation to others or is it a burden and a sorrow to others?


Jim McCrea
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What is Meant by a "Mystery of the Faith"?

What is Meant by a "Mystery of the Faith"?
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By Jim J. McCrea


In the past, priests and catechists talked about "the mysteries of the Faith," which we do not hear discussed much in those terms any more.

This phraseology was commonly used when there was a greater sense of the supernatural - a greater sense of transcendence in the Church - and when the Mass evoked the feeling that the liturgy transported us to a higher world.

What do we mean by a mystery of the Faith?

There are mysteries such as the Trinity, the union of a human nature with the person of the Son within the Trinity, the Eucharist, the Mass, divine providence, and the coincidence of the justice and the mercy of God.

It is commonly believed that a mystery means that we have no idea how such a thing can be - that, for example, we cannot know how three persons can exist in one God. However, from a logical perspective, we can know how such can be, as in the Church accepted explanation here of how three persons can exist in one God and how Jesus can be God and man at the same time.

To accept mysteries of the Faith is not to accept irrationalities (and many unbelievers charge us with that when a mystery of the Faith is misunderstood). We can (in most cases) show that they logically fit together. I propose here how Jesus can fit into the little host, and I offer my solution here as to how the existence of evil is compatible with the omnibenevolence and the omnipotence of God.


This does not mean that they are not mysteries. There is a very important aspect in which they cannot be grasped by the human mind on this earth. They are knowable in one respect and unknowable in another respect. They are what are termed intelligible mysteries.

They are unknowable in the sense that we cannot know them as they are in themselves. But, at the same time, they are knowable because they can be understood by analogy.

What does this mean?

Let us look at God as God. God as God is a mystery. In this life, we do not know Him as He is in Himself (except perhaps partially by mystical illumination, not by our natural intellect). But we can know Him by analogy. When we say He is intelligent, knowledgeable, good, loving, powerful, beautiful, etc. we are applying what we experience as intellect, knowledge, goodness, love, and power, etc. to Him by analogy.

How does this work?

With analogy, two things are partly the same and partly different at the same time.

Let us look at the attribute of goodness that we apply to God.

We call both a person good and an automobile good. But they are good in entirely different ways. A person is good for love and an automobile is good for transportation. There is a sameness between them in that they have an identical metaphysical attribute of goodness, but a difference in that the modality or type of goodness is different.

It is the same with God. He has an identical metaphysical property of goodness with the person or the automobile, for when we say that God is good we are using a meaningful term. But the modality of God's goodness is infinitely different from the modality of goodness of the person or the car (or anything else we can know on earth). We cannot know that modality in this life. We do not know what God's goodness is in itself.

But because of the identity of metaphysical goodness that runs through all things that are good, when we say that God is good we literally and truly apply that attribute to Him. Similarly, when we say that God is intelligent, knowledgeable, powerful, loving, and beautiful, we say what is literally true, even if we cannot know the modality of those attributes in God. We are applying those terms to Him by analogy.

It is in the analogues that we have literal knowledge of God, but it is in the modalities that He is mystery.


It is the same with other teachings of the Faith such as the Trinity and the union of a human nature with a divine nature in Jesus.

We say that God is one being in three persons because the persons are distinguished from each other by their relations of origin alone. The Son is distinguished from the Father by the mere fact that He is begotten by the Father. In all other respects they are the same. By extension, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit by the mere fact that He proceeds from the Father and the Son. If the persons are considered in themselves, apart from their relations, they are identical, hence they are one God. However, that analysis uses analogy. With that analogy, we can solve the riddle. But the Trinity is a mystery because we do not know to what the analogues apply in themselves. We do not know the modalities. We do not know the nature of God in itself (as explained above), and we do not know what it means for the Father to generate the Son in itself. But to say that the Father generates the Son is to say what is meaningful, because it is based upon the analogue of "generation" which we can know (the Nicene creed talks about the Son being begotten by the Father as "Light from Light")

Similarly, Jesus is God and man at the same time because a human body and soul were united to the person of God the Son, so that this body and soul is literally a part of Him (Jesus' body and soul have the person of God the Son instead of a human personhood as we do). In this life, we do not know that in itself. We cannot know, in itself, the union of a human body and soul to God the Son in that that body and soul is literally a part of Him. That is a mystery. But we do have literal knowledge that that is true because we know what "union" is and what "being part of" is. Those are analogues that literally apply to Jesus.

The same type of reasoning applies to the Eucharist and the compatibility of the existence of evil with the goodness and power of God.


This combination of knowability and mystery satisfies two deep needs of the human heart.

We want our Faith, on one hand, to be logical, rational, and intelligible; but, on the other hand, if reality were strictly confined to what we can know, it would be the most stifling of prisons. Happiness can only come by having something to look up to.



** End note - in heaven, the blessed there will see the modalities of those mysteries, or what they are in themselves, for their consciousness will have an extra dimension. But they will not be completely comprehended. There is a depth of penetration to them that the blessed cannot achieve. Only God can completely understand all things.


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How Can Jesus Fit Into the Little Host?

How Can Jesus Fit Into the Little Host?
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By Jim J. McCrea


A mystery of the Catholic Faith is not something we can know nothing about. It is something we cannot know everything about.

It is common to believe that the Trinity is a mystery in the sense that it is humanly impossible to understand how there can be three persons in one God.

This, and this type of view on other mysteries of the Faith, give fodder for unbelievers to charge us with holding absurdities that undermine the rational thought processes of the human mind.

However, with many mysteries of the faith, it can be rationally explained how such can be so. I give Church accepted explanations here as to how God can be three persons in one and how Jesus can be fully God and fully man at the same time. This has been understood by theologians in the Church for centuries.

They are still mysteries because there is a depth of penetration into them that the human mind cannot achieve, but we can show that they are fully rational.


Here, I will propose such a type of explanation for the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the entire Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity exist within the appearances of bread and wine, when that bread and wine have been changed into Jesus, by the priest (as an instrument of the Holy Spirit), at Mass.

To do this, we must introduce some concepts in metaphysics (the science of being as such).

Consider a material object, such as an automobile.

First of all, it has *matter.* Matter is what something is made of. Then it has *form.* Form is how the matter is constituted to make the thing what it is. A material thing is not merely its parts or its matter. A heap of automobile parts, with all of them present, is not yet an automobile. They must be assembled the right way, thus adding form.

Form is the arrangement, interconnectivity, and distribution of the parts or matter in three dimensional space.

Here we introduce a third component - that is *essence.* With proper form, essence emerges.

When form is added to the parts or the matter of an automobile, it then has an intelligibility or "automobileness," which is its essence, which comes out of the form.  As a result, our intellects can judge what it is.

Then there is a fourth metaphysical component, which is *existence,* which means that it has a reality outside of nothingness rather than being a mere concept or possibility.

So a material thing has a quadrupole of matter, form, essence, and existence.


It is important for the following argument, regarding Jesus in the Eucharist, that form and essence are distinct - they are not one and the same.

Form is a mere mechanical distribution of matter in three dimensional space, while essence is its intelligibility.

An analogy may help to understand this. Letters on a page are a mere presence or absence of pigment at specific locations on that page. That itself is not meaning, for by itself it is merely spatial arrangement. However, meaning emerges from that in the reading that pattern. There is an intelligibility as to what is being said.


Now with the Eucharist, Jesus is fully present in the form of bread - and is fully present in each and every particle broken off (that is why, at Mass, the priest must be careful that when the Host is broken, the particles are not lost, and that is why in the past, when there was proper reverence for the Eucharist, a paten was used to catch the particles when Holy Communion was given).

How, then, can His Body fit into that tiny appearance of bread?

We propose here that with Jesus' body, matter, essence, and existence are present, but without form. That is, His distribution in three dimensional space, which would give Him His size and shape, are omitted (by the power of God).

We are saying here that with matter, essence, and existence, with form missing, a physical being can still be fully what it is.

Form is constructive of a physical thing (in the ordinary order of things), but is not strictly necessary for its proper constitution. Form is the condition by which essence emerges, but it is essence that makes a thing what it is. God can omit form and sustain essence and a  physical being would be perfectly what it is.

That is what I propose happens in the Eucharist.

The matter, essence, and existence of the Body of Jesus are fully present under the appearances of bread and wine, and thus He is fully and completely present there, and without having form He has the Eucharistic appearances.



** End note 1 - I define form here in a very specific manner, as a merely mechanical distribution in three dimensional space. Traditional scholastic philosophy has used the term "form" to mean essence. It is important to look at the definition of terms used here for this argument.

**End note 2 - The quadrupole matter, form, essence, and existence can be used to understand different things in Catholic theology. For example, angels have essence and existence, but not matter and form (therefore, they are pure spirits). God has essence and existence without matter and form, and essence and existence are identical with Him (therefore, God is the infinite spirit).



Also see The Eucharist and Metaphysical Being


The explanation of another paradox: how the existence of evil is compatible with the infinite goodness and omnipotence of God here.


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Why Does God Exist?

Why Does God Exist?
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By Jim J. McCrea


If it is given that God's existence can be demonstrated, what accounts for His existence.

Philosophers and theologians have said that God is self-existent, for the First Cause of all cannot Himself have a cause. This property of self-existence is known as aseity.

But on a more fundamental level, what would account for aseity?

I believe that the answer to this is found in the law of identity.

The law of identity is the most fundamental law of thought and reality, and thought and reality simply cannot operate without it. It states that a thing is what it is - A=A. This is not a triviality, but is a profound law when properly understood.

One consequence of this is that if a thing is what it is, it is not necessarily what you think it to be or want it to be. It has a determinant nature independent of the mind. The mind does not create reality but merely recognizes it. Because this truth is not properly acknowledged today, moral relativism is rampant. Wishing that something is right or doing something merely because it feels good is insufficient. For if certain immoral actions are harmful in themselves because they are contrary to human nature, reality will still assert itself and evil consequences will follow (because of the law of identity it is false to say that something is true for me and a different thing is true for you. A thing is either true or it isn't)

Another consequence is that a given thing is the same thing no matter what perspective you view it from or at what time you experience it. The ancient philosopher Heraclitus denied this principle in saying that everything was flux and change. His famous saying is: "you cannot step into the same river twice." However, with that human reasoning would become impossible.

Human reasoning requires the law of identity. Let us look at a classical syllogism:

P1: All men are mortal
P2: Socrates is a man
C: Socrates is mortal

We can see that the conclusion follows necessarily from the two premises.

That works because "man" in P1 and P2 have an identity between them (they are exactly the same thing), and "Socrates" in P2 and C have an identity.

Let us see what happens when identity breaks down. Consider:

P1: All intelligent beings can do mathematics
P2: My dog is intelligent
C: My dog can do mathematics

The syllogism here is not valid because there is an equivocation between "intelligent" in P1 and P2.

In P1, "intelligent" means the ability to think abstract concepts (such as the abstract concept of number); in P2 intelligent means the ability to cleverly respond to cues. The meaning of the same word is different in the two cases, so the principle of identity does not hold.

It is important that in order to reason correctly, we delve deeper than the words used in order to reach the underlying identity. Often debates cannot be resolved because the parties involved employ different definitions for the same word. For example, in arguing about freedom, one could define "freedom," on one hand, as the ability to do what one pleases, and on the other (what the I deem to be the correct definition of freedom), the non-hindrance in the pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Now how does this relate to God?

What I say is that God is Pure and Absolute Identity - that He is the complete identity of all possible good things and existence itself - that the absolute playing out of A=A=A=A=A ... explains His existence and nature.

Here we have God's existence explained in terms of what we can fundamentally intuit as true - the law of identity.

With the understanding of God's existence as a fundamental expression of identity, God's classical attributes and effects can be deduced.

If He is Pure and Absolute Identity, He is absolutely simple - for everything in Him is absolutely identical. There is no distinction in Him, so that it is not true that one part of Him is not another part of Him (God being a Trinity does not mean that He has parts, as explained here).

Containing all that is good, God is the absolute fulfillment of the inhabitants of heaven. He brings supreme and complete happiness. All good things on this earth are but tiny reflections of God.

Containing all good, He contains all that is true, therefore, He is Pure and Absolute Intelligibility.

He is strictly infinite because He is Unrestricted Identity or Identity Itself.

We see that the law of identity is an ultimate law of thought and reality (if we are thinking correctly). As it is necessary, it is not a creation of God (as is a physical thing), but it does have its origin in God. God is Being Itself (His name is "I Am" - Exodus 3:14) and all other things are beings in finite modes. When God created, those things have a similarity to His nature, for He can only give what He has. Part of this similarity, necessarily conferred upon created beings, is the principle of identity. That is necessarily conferred because of the nature of being, and does not depend upon God's free choice.


If God contains "all," why God does not contain evil is explained here.


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A Wonderful Blurb in Our Parish Bulletin

A Wonderful Blurb in Our Parish Bulletin




Every Rosary increases Mary's power to crush the head of the serpent and to destroy his evil power in the world.

Join us for the recitation of the Rosary before each daily Mass!



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How to Pray Better

How to Pray Better
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To pray better, pray to pray better.

Pray that your prayer improves and becomes what it should be.

God is simplicity itself.


Jim McCrea

The Existence and Nature of God

The Existence and Nature of God

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By Jim J. McCrea

 

Originally published in the Iron Warrior in 1988 which is the engineering paper of the university of Waterloo

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Republished here with minor modifications

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Many people, both Christians and non-Christians, believe that God's existence must be held on faith alone. The existence of God and His main attributes, however, can be known by reason without the aid of revelation. This is established through a branch of metaphysics known as natural theology.

The existence and nature of God can be understood from the essence-existence dichotomy, which flows from the nature of being as such. The basic definition of being is that which is. The subject that refers to essence and the predicate is refers to existence. All beings, therefore, are a compound of essence and existence.

 

The essence-existence dichotomy is one of the most difficult principles of metaphysics to grasp; an example may help. If a watchmaker is to construct a watch, the essence of the watch or the "watchness" exists in his mind prior to its construction, but that essence does not exist in reality (essence is defined as "what a thing is"). When the watchmaker assembles the watch, he gives existence to the essence or "watchness." (existence is defined as "that a thing is"). Since the "what it is" can precede the "that it is" it can be said that essence and existence are principles that are formally distinct.

Since essence and existence differ, the concept of anything does not imply that it is. It can be said that all finite things that exist can possibly not exist. In this, they have what is known as contingency. A further analysis shows that essence has the form of a noun - it denotes "something" - and existence has the form of a verb - it denotes an "act." (we can call it "ising"). Now the act of existence of a contingent being requires a cause, precisely, because it is distinct from its essence. Nothing can be its own cause; therefore, it must have a cause extrinsic to it, and this cause we called God.

How do we avoid the obvious difficulty, which arises from the preceding argument that God Himself would seem to require a cause?

 

This difficulty is solved, first, by stating the nature that God must possess. The immediate statement that can be made about Him is that He is self-existent. While essence and existence are distinct in finite beings, the essence of God is His own existence. Since it is the nature of God to exist He is not contingent, but necessary. He cannot possibly not be. This property of necessary existence is known as aseity. It is His most fundamental attribute and is that from which His other attributes are logically deduced. The question: "why does God exist?" cannot be answered in the conventional manner because it has no meaning in the conventional manner. The identity of God's essence with His existence prevents this. He is the frame of reference against which all hows and whys are known.

What properties can be deduced from aseity?

 

If the essence of God is His own existence, He is Pure Being or Pure Existence, and therefore, must contain everything that being or existence can possibly imply. God, therefore, is necessarily unlimited, perfect, and possesses all positive attributes to an infinite degree. We can also understand, by looking at God's most fundamental attribute of self-existence, that the most fitting name that can be given to Him is He Who Is (or "I Am" in the first person - the name given in Exodus 3:14).

 

Two means of knowing God are by negation and analogy. Negation says what He is not and analogy says what He is. Any concept, which in itself, denotes an imperfection of any kind can be denied Him absolutely in negation. Any concept which denotes a perfection, pure and simple, can be attributed to Him, to an infinite degree, by analogy.

 

First of all, it can be denied that God contains matter because the concept matter necessarily implies passivity and indetermination, which are per se imperfections. It can be denied that He has form because any form is inherently limited by its definition. The simple name of God "He Who Is" rather than "He who is such and such" means that He is a universal principle which transcends all forms.

 

It can be affirmed that God possesses the attributes of infinite intellect and will. These are metaphysical perfections because intellect as intellect is the capability of apprehending truth without qualification, and will as will is the capability of being inclined to the good without qualification. Since intellect and will are the prime attributes of personality, we refer to God as He and not it.

 

It can be said that God is perfectly simple - that is, He has no composition of parts. This follows from the fact that He is an absolutely primary being. With anything that has composition, that thing must be referred to its parts and the principle of its composition for its explanation. That makes its parts and the principle by which it is composed in some manner prior to that thing. There cannot be anything prior to God, therefore, He cannot have any composition. It can be said that the only thing in God is God. A corollary of that is that the attributes of God are identical with Himself. The very intellect and will of God is God.

 

God does not exist in space and time because space and time are divisible and God is in no manner divisible. This rules out an anthropomorphic conception of Him, that some people have, that He possesses a human body and human type emotions. The book of Genesis talks about the reminiscence (Gen 8:1) and the regret (Gen 6:6) of God, but because they are metaphysical imperfections they can only be attributed to Him metaphorically (reminiscence is an imperfection because it is the bringing to mind something not thought at the time and regret is an imperfection because it denotes an error in judgment).

 

One very important point is that God is not the universe itself, as the pantheists hold. Although He is imminent in all things, in that He is infinitely close to them and sustains them in existence from instant to instant with His power, He is also transcendent - that is, He is unique and distinct from the things He sustains. We can understand this from the fact that the objects present to our reason and senses do not have the infinite perfections of God.

 

Although human reason can know the existence of God and many of His attributes, this knowledge has limits. We can only extrapolate from what we experience and understand (analogy is a term for intellectual extrapolation). We do not know, in itself, what it is for God to be intelligent, free, or good. This is why we also assign multiple attributes to a Principle that is necessarily one and infinitely simple. The human intellect is not subtle enough to grasp God through a single concept.

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** End note 1 - It says in the book of Genesis that God made man in His own image (Gen 1:26). This in no manner refers to physical likeness. The proper interpretation is that man has a share in the functions of intellect and will of God, which are the attributes of His personhood.

** End note 2 - If God has everything that existence can possibly imply, that would not mean that He also contains evil. This is because evil is not a type of thing or being, but is the absence in something of what would constitute its proper integrity.

 

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