Joseph Hollcraft MA
Theological Foundations CCP 210
Week 3: September 20, 2007

IV. Creation and the Nature of Man: God needs no being other than himself and within himself; God contains the sufficiency of being. Yet, because God’s identity is love he creates, persons who are designed by their nature to love (note relationality). The greatest achievement of any one person’s existence is to give glory back to God. In the words of John Paul II, “become who you are”…that call to existence demands the recognition of being a child of God and a response of faith (note St. Augustine).

1. Spirit and matter: “Only spiritual beings can truly image the likeness of God. Angels are spiritual beings with no matter to complicate them and animals are material beings with no spirit to complicate them” (Sheed, 53). There is a uniting, or wedding of the two: body and spirit where the body becomes a sacrament only to the degree that the material recognizes the immaterial, the body recognizes the soul—the principle of life in a living body. We must not lose sight of this as we seek out the Christian call to reach our potentiality. The other spirit’s, God’s messengers, who are they?

a. Angels initially arrive on the seen as Old covenant mediators of God’s presence. The new covenant priest fulfills this role as they mediate God’s presence (cf. letter to the Hebrews). They are recognized by their title (major philosophical point to what is in a name—everything) communicated by their service, relationality, as we see in the archangels (also consider the fallen angels in Sheed).

1. Michael: “who is like God”--Rev.12.17...battling Satan.
2. Raphael: “God’s remedy”--book of Tobit…lifting the scales off Tobit’s eyes.
3. Gabriel: “strength of God”--Lk.1.28...Shouldering the annunciation (as well as to Zechariah).

2. The nature of Man: Soul and body. Because soul is Spirit, it has the intellect and will. It can analyze, generalize, reflect and discern the finite universe and infinite universe (Sheed, 59).

a. The superiority of the spiritual soul has the power to discern the “border region” of the body and soul, the imagination and sense memory as well as emotions (Sheed, 60).

3. God’s law and Freedom: God’s will is the reason for existence. Therefore, God’s will is our law for existence (Sheed, 62). Freedom, God’s gift to us to freely respond to his will, is always caught up in the law of God—His loving disciplines. We are only free if we understand divine sonship! New laws understood and internalized are new and more reasons to value Freedom. Once you have embraced your beloved there is no turning back!

a. The Dignity of the Human person: The integrity of the human person is rooted in our likeness in God that is fulfilled in our vocation to divine beatitude that we are called to freely choose to fulfill our human potential. We are called to choose the good over evil using our moral conscience, thus growing in the interior life. We are called to avoid sin, entrusting ourselves constantly to the mercy and care of our heavenly Father. Ultimately, through this divine likeness we grow in charity and attain the heights of holiness (CCC 1700).

1. Image of God: We have been imbued with the very revelation of the mystery of Christ in becoming a new creation in Baptism.

a. Through this regenerative force of grace we are called to live in the fullness of Christian beatitude, firm in divine sonship, we choose to freely love him and accept full responsibility for the life that is a struggle in grace (read Heb.12.5). In union with the Savior, we attain perfection through a life of obedience and charity, which is holiness (CCC 1701, 1709).

b. The Church is an experienced moral teacher and mother. George Weigel in Truths of Catholicism, remarks that our spiritual growth is impeded if we see the Church as a list of “Don’ts” –an institutional authoritarianism, as opposed to a mother who wished to bring us to joyfulness and happiness (rarely explored). The moral life is about achieving goodness, which is equipped with disciplines and boundaries. This growth takes place through our freedom (Weigel, 73).

1. “Rules” our seen by many as an infringement upon our freedom, because they see freedom as “willfulness” as opposed to the gift given to glorify God (Weigel, 75).

2. The moral life is not something added on to real life from the outside. It is life lived by human beings. We live in the gap of the person we are against the person we ought to be…always room for growth in a relationship (Weigel, 75)!

2. Beatitude: The law of the new covenant, a charter for Christian holiness. The Beatitudes are Christ’s deepest yearnings for us to know eternal happiness here on earth. God has placed this law on our heart to fulfill our vocation (CCC 1719).

a. In the Beatitudes--Christ’s paradoxical promises-- we are confronted with decisive choices concerning earthly good.

b. More than just a preamble to Christ’s call to be salt and light for the world; and to call God our father…it is the moral prescription…the “how” to achieving the heights of holiness (Weigel, 76).

3. Freedom: God’s greatest gift to the human race as a child of God (see Word of the Week on freedom from website). With the Beatitudes, we move in our viewing of morality from rules to virtues (Weigel, 77). Consider gravity and the natural law…the more we seek to defy it we only illustrate its force. Freedom makes man a moral subject.

a. Freedom is not “my way” but having the right to do what we ought. Freedom is inextricably bound to Goodness—God’s greatest gift! Analogy of pianist and learning a language (Weigel, 79).

1. To grow in the moral life and virtue we must see the good instinctively…As a married couple would know each other’s language, both spoken and unspoken, instinctively.

2. By obedience to our natural dietary needs our bodies will know health (Sheed, 63). It is easy to obey the laws of nature when it comes to food…spiritual food is no different. By living out of the theological and cardinal virtues in worship, (freedom is designed to worship and our exodus) our souls will be in good health. We will know the revelation of “Father”.

a. Disobedience to our physical needs leads to a short life in the physical realm as well as the spiritual realm. Often a death of anguish! Consider our conscience (Sheed, 63)!

1. See Word of the Week on conscience from the website

Homework Assignment: Reflecting upon Sheed and the Catechism, illustrate how one of the theological virtues directs you to live with the end in mind.