44. God is beyond time and space.

God is beyond time and space.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 44

Ave Maria series

44. Who created the world?

God alone, who is beyond time and space, created the world out of nothing and called all things into being.  Everything that exists depends on God and continues in being only because God wills it to be.  [290-292, 316]

My granddaughter Beth and her friend David along the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan on a family camping trip. .....44

The creation of the world is, so to speak, a “community project” of the Trinitarian God.  The Father is the Creator, the Almighty.  The Son is the meaning and heart of the world: “All things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16).  We find out what the world is good for only when we come to know Christ and understand that the world is heading for a destination: the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Lord.  The Holy Spirit holds everything together; he is the one “that gives life” (John 6:63).

“And that (the unheard-of precision of the processes associated with the “Big Bang”) is supposed to have happened by chance?!  What an absurd idea!”  Walter Thirring (b. 1927, Austrian physicist)

“Trees and stars will teach you what you can never learn from teachers.”  St. Bernhard of Clairvaux (1090-1153, second founder of the Cistercian Order)

290-292, 316

CREATION - WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY

290 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"(Genesis 1:1.)¹²⁸ three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew bara - always has God for its subject). The totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the heavens and the earth") depends on the One who gives it being. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

291 "In the beginning was the Word. . . and the Word was God. . . all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."( John 1:1-3.)¹²⁹ The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth.. . all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."( Colossians 1:16-17.)¹³⁰ The Church's faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the "giver of life", "the Creator Spirit" (Veni, Creator Spiritus), the "source of every good".(Compare Nicene Creed: Denzinger=Schonmetzer 150; Hymn "Veni, Creator Spiritus"; Byzantine Troparion of Pentecost Vespers, "O heavenly King, Consoler".)¹³¹ –CCC

292 The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit,( Compare Psalm 33:6; Ps 104:30; Genesis 1:2-3.)¹³² inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of faith: "There exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom", "by the Son and the Spirit" who, so to speak, are "his hands".(St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 2,30,9; 4,20,I: Patrologia Graeca 7/1,822,1032.)¹³³ Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

IN BRIEF

316 Though the work of creation is attributed to the Father in particular, it is equally a truth of faith that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are the one, indivisible principle of creation. --CCC