Part One: The Apostles Creed

1. I Believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of

Heaven and Earth

Table of Contents

The opening article of the Apostles Creed is also the

most fundamental: It lays the foundation for
everything else we believe as Christians.

It is remarkable how many truths of faith are implied

in the simple sentence, I believe in God, the Father
Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. Each of
these truths has been questioned in the course of the
Churchs history, and each is being challenged today.
That is why as Catholics we have no choice in the
modern world: We must know exactly what we
profess in the first article of our Creed.

The method we plan to follow will be carried

through the Pocket Catholic Catechism. After a short
introduction, like the present one, we will look at a
series of truths that underlie each principal area of
our reflections, always attempting both to understand
what we mean by what we believe, and how this
faith should be lived out in actual practice.

Faith

To believe means to accept with our minds what

someone tells us is true. We believe because we trust
a persons knowledge, that he knows what he is
saying, and his honesty in telling us what he knows.
When the person we believe in is a human being, we call it human faith. When the one we
believe in is God, we call it divine faith.
The expression, I believe in God, therefore, has two meanings. We first of all believe God
because we know from reason that God exists and that He, more than anyone else, should be
believed. He can neither deceive, because He is all-good, nor be deceived, because He is all-
knowing. But we also believe in God because we accept on His word all that He has revealed
to us about Himself and about His will for the human race.

It is important to emphasize that our knowledge about God comes not only from faith in His
own self-revelation. We can also know God from reason, by reflecting on the wonders of His
creation. St. Paul could not have been clearer about the duty everyone has to know God from
observing the world that He has made. Speaking of the pagans of his day, Paul insists that
what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God Himself has made it plain.
Ever since God has created the world, His everlasting power and deity - however invisible -
have been there for the mind to see in the things that He has made. That is why such people are
without excuse (Romans 1:19-21).

Faith is, indeed, a form of knowledge. It is reasonable knowledge because we know from
reason that God exists. We can also prove by reason that He has revealed Himself to us
because of the miracles He performed to make His revelations credible to our minds. But faith
provides us with superior knowledge, far above what we could ever know by our naked reason
alone.

That is why a believing child of six is wiser than an unbelieving genius of sixty. Or, as St. Paul
described the unbelievers of every generation, the more they called themselves philosophers,
the more stupid they grew (Romans 1:22). Certainly it takes humility of mind to accept divine
revelation, but the reward of faith is lucidity of mind for which there is no counterpart in
human erudition.

Attributes of God

When we speak of Gods perfections, we call them attributes because we attribute to Him
such qualities as belong to the divine nature. Yet all the while we realize that these perfections
in God only dimly correspond, in human language, to various properties in creatures.

In reality, the divine attributes are identical among themselves and with the divine nature. But
in our human way of thinking there are different attributes because they are like the differences
we see in creation, which itself is a manifestation of the indescribable greatness of God.

The Apostles Creed gives only one attribute of God: that He is almighty. Since apostolic times,
however, the Church has identified no less than fifteen divine attributes and, by now, a library
of literature has been written to explain what they mean.

God is absolutely one because He is the only Being who must exist, and because there are not
many gods (polytheism). He is not just one chief god (henotheism), nor merely the good god
along with an evil god (Manichaeism).

He is the true God because He really exists and is not a figment of the imagination projecting
our own fears or desires.

He is the living God whose life is His very essence. He is the being whose inward activity is
identical with His nature.

He is eternal because in God there is nothing past, as if it were no longer; nothing future, as if
it were not yet. In Him there is only is, namely, the present. That is why when Yahweh first
appeared to Moses in the burning bush and Moses asked Him for His name, God told him, I
Am Who Am (Exodus 3:14).

God is immense because He is beyond all measurement. He encompasses everything, while He

alone cannot be encompassed by anything.

He is incomprehensible because He is not limited in any way. God is not confined either in the
manner of a body or of a created spirit.

God is infinite not only because He has no limitations, but because He has within Himself the
plenitude of all perfection. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and has absolute fullness of being.

God is unique because there neither is nor can there be another God. He must have no equal.

God is pure spirit. He has no body or spatial dimension. In our own language, He is a spiritual
being who thinks and who wills. He knows and He loves. He is in the deepest sense a personal
God, and not some impersonal force or cosmic energy.

God is totally simple because there are no components or parts in Him, like body and soul or
substance and accidental properties. Thus Christ said of Himself, I am the way, the truth and
the life (John 14:6).

God is unchangeable because He eternally possesses the fullness of being. There is nothing He
can acquire that He does not already have, nor lose what He already has.

God is transcendent not only because He surpasses all other beings, but because He is
completely distinct from the world. He is the Totally Other.

He is perfectly happy in and of Himself, without dependence on any other being for beatitude.

God is finally the most sublime because He is beautiful in the highest degree. Beauty is that
which pleases when seen. That is why the Scriptures condemn those who are seduced by
creatures: They have taken things for gods. Let them know how much the Lord of these
excels them, since the Author of beauty has created them (Wisdom 13:3).
The Catholic Church speaks of the foregoing attributes of God as internal, because they pertain
to God as He is in Himself. In todays world, in which atheism is so prevalent, we must be
clear in our understanding of who the one true God is.

However, we must also recognize what are called the relative attributes of God. These are the
divine perfections in relation to the world He has made. Among these, the Apostles Creed
mentions only His omnipotence or almightiness. By this, we mean that He cannot do anything
that would deny His nature, like tell a lie; nor can He act in a contradictory manner, like
changing His mind.

We know, of course, that God is also omniscient because He knows all things past, present, and
future. He is all-good because He wants only to benefit the creatures that He makes. And He is
even all-merciful in forgiving human beings, provided they repent for the offenses they have
committed against their loving Lord.

The Holy Trinity

Our Christian faith tells us that God is not a

solitary being. He is the eternal community
of three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Every society outside of God,
whether among the angelic hierarchy or
among human beings, exists only because of
the Holy Trinity.

Revelation tells us that there is in God a true

fatherhood that belongs to the First Person
alone. From all eternity, the First Person has
been generating the Son, who is not a mere
attribute of God, but a distinct Person. This is
clear from the opening words of the Fourth
Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was
God (John 1:1). Proceeding from the Father
and the Son is the Holy Spirit.

In the language of the Credo of the People of

God, The natural bonds which eternally
constitute the Three Persons, who are each one and the same Divine Being, are the blessed
inmost life of God, thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that we can conceive in human measure.
We give thanks, however, to the Divine Goodness that very many believers can testify with us
before men to the unity of God, even though they know not the mystery of the Most Holy
Trinity.

We Christians are specially blessed in believing that there is only one God, but also that He is a
triune plurality. Our destiny is to share in the happiness of this heavenly society.

At this critical period of humanity, the world is more socially conscious than ever before in
history. Christianity offers todays believers both a timeless and timely understanding of the
Trinity as the perfect model for living in a loving community.

Creation and Providence

In the Apostles Creed we affirm that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Saying this, we
profess that He made the world out of nothing. He started with nothing, out of which He
created the world, and He parted with nothing of Himself to bring the world into actual being.

Consequently, the world had a beginning. This is repeatedly stated in the Old Testament.
Aeons ago, the Psalmist tells the Lord, you laid the earths foundations, the heavens are the
work of your hands (Psalm 102:25) And St. Paul praises God the Father because Before the
world was made, He chose us, chose us in Christ (Ephesians 1:4).

God did not have to create the world. The cause of all that He created is His divine and loving
will. No necessity to create arises from Gods goodness. It is true that the desire for self-
communication belongs to the nature of goodness, but this is perfectly fulfilled within the
Trinity by the mutual self-giving by each of the Three Divine Persons. Gods goodness is, of
course, the reason why He communicates of His being to creatures. But He does this of His
own free will and without compulsion even by His own great love.

All Three Persons are equally and uniquely the Creator of the universe. As the work of
creation, however, shows a similarity with the properties of the First Person it is usually
referred to the Father by appropriation. Thus in the Apostles Creed.

Yet in referring creation to God the father, we are also professing belief in the fatherly
providence of the Holy Trinity. Providence is the all-wise plan of God for the universe, and the
carrying out of this plan by His loving rule or governance.

Our response to divine Providence is to see in every person, place, and event in our lives the
providential hand of God. Everyone and everything in every moment is a manifestation of his
providential care. He wants us to enjoy or endure, to remove or sacrifice some creature by
which He intends to lead us to our eternal destiny.
Angels and Human Beings

It is the common teaching of the Church that God created angels and human beings. In the
early thirteenth century, the Church had to formulate the Lateran Creed (1215) to defend the
faith against the Albigenses, who claimed there were two gods. The good god created spiritual
beings, while the evil god created the material world. The Lateran Creed declares:
We firmly believe and profess without qualification that there is only one true God . . . the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . . They are the one and only principle of all things -
Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal. By His almighty power from
the very beginning of time, He created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing,
the spiritual or angelic world and the corporeal or visible universe. And afterwards He formed
the creature man, who in a way belongs to both orders, as he is composed of spirit and body.
For the devil and other demons were created by God good according to their nature, but they
made themselves evil by their own doing. As for man, his sin was at the prompting of the devil
(Fourth Lateran Council, 1215).
It will be useful to number the statements of faith professed in this important creed:

1. Only one God created the entire universe, spiritual and material, angelic and human.

2. This one God the Creator is the Holy Trinity, by whose almighty power all things came
into existence.

3. Time began with the creation of the world. Why? Because time is the measure of
change, and only with the origin of creatures did change come into being.

4. First God created the spiritual world of angels, who are persons with an intellect and
will; then the material world, which is perceptible only to the senses.

5. Afterwards, God created man, who is like the angels in being able to think and to love,
and like the tangible world of matter on which he walks and which he breathes. Mans
soul is spiritual and naturally immortal; his body is material and naturally mortal.

6. The devil (Greek = diabolos, slanderer) and demons (Greek = daimon, evil god) were
originally good angels. Proudly refusing to obey God, they were cast into hell. They
became evil by the misuse of their free wills.

Seven centuries after the Lateran Creed, Pope Pius XII returned to the subject of mans origin.
In the meantime, various theories of evolution posed the question of how the human race
began. According to the pope (Humani generis, August 12, 1950), The teaching of the Church
leaves the teaching of evolution an open question, as long as it confines its speculations to the
development, from living matter already in existence, of the human body. The Catholic faith
obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

In the same document, Pius XII took issue with those who espouse the theory of polygenism.
Proponents of this theory claim that since evolution is an established fact, all human beings
now on earth do not descend from one human pair, but from different human ancestors. These
conjectures about polygenismleave the faithful no such freedom of choice. Christians
cannot lend their support to a theory which involves the existence, after Adams time, of some
earthly race of men, truly so-called, who were not descended ultimately from him, or else
supposes that Adam was the name given to some group of primordial ancestors.

In technical language, only monogenism (mono = one) and not polygenism (poly = many +
genus = race) is compatible with the Catholic faith.

Original Sin

There was no major dissent from the biblical teaching about the fall of Adam until the rise of
Pelagianism in the last part of the fourth century. Pelagius denied that Adam was endowed with
the supernatural life of grace, which he lost for himself and his descendants by his sin of
disobedience. To counteract this error, a series of Church councils were held. Not only was
Pelagius condemned, but several popes confirmed the Catholic doctrine on original sin, stating:

1. Adam was the first man. He was created immortal. His bodily death was a punishment
for sin (Pope Zozimus I, 418).

2. Adams sin was injurious not only to Adam, but also to his descendants. Moreover, it
was not only the death of the body, which is punishment for sin, but sin, the death of
the soul, that passed from one man to all the human race (Pope Boniface II, 531)

A thousand years later, the Protestant reformers brought back Pelagiuss ideas. As a result, the
Council of Trent issued its famous Decree on Original Sin. Published in the same year (1546)
that Martin Luther died, the conciliar definitions spell out in the plainest language what the
Catholic Church teaches on this fundamental mystery of our faith:

Loss of Original Justice. The first man Adam immediately lost the justice and holiness in
which he was constituted when he disobeyed the command of God in the Garden of Paradise.

Death and Subjection to the Devil. Through the offense of this sin he incurredthe
death with which God had previously threatened him and, together with death, bondage in the
powerof the devil (Canon 1).

Communication and Remission of Original Sin. This sin of Adam, which is one by
origin, and which is communicated to all men by propagationis taken away through [no
other remedy] than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to
God in His blood (Canon 3).

Baptism Confers Merits of Christ. Through the sacrament of baptism rightly conferred
in the form of the Church, this merit of Christ isapplied to adults and infants alike (Canon
3).

Concupiscence Remains After Baptism. Concupiscence or the tendency to sin remains

in the baptized; but since it is left to provide a trial, it has no power to injure those who do not
consent and who, by the grace of Christ Jesus, manfully resist (Canon 5).

In the light of the foregoing, we see that our first parents were originally gifted three times
over:

They had the natural gifts of human beings, especially the power to think and to choose
freely.

They had the preternatural gifts of bodily immortality and of integrity, or the internal
power to control their desires.

They had the supernatural gifts of sanctifying grace, the virtues of faith, hope, and
charity, and the corresponding title to enter heaven.

By their willful disobedience, they lost the supernatural and preternatural gifts entirely, and
were weakened (without losing) their natural capacity to reason and to choose freely.

As we shall see at greater length later on, baptism restores the supernatural life lost by Adams
sin. It does not restore the preternatural gifts but gives us a title to a glorified restoration of our
bodies on the last day, and a corresponding title to the graces we need to cope with our
disorderly desires. Our natural powers of reason and free will remain weakened. But with
Gods grace, they are strengthened to enable us actually to become more holy through our
struggle with concupiscence.

Part One: The Apostles Creed

2. And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

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