From the Pastor's Desk

The Alpha and the Omega – Part 1: God
I thought for 2020 I would do a multiple part series on the major points of the Catholic Faith: Creation, The Fall, The Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, The Church, the Sacraments, The Four Last Things, and the Covenant.

Before we can begin the topic of Creation, we must first say something about God Himself. Where does one even begin? We could literally fill volumes on the topic of God and still not come close to exhausting everything there is to say about God.

I suppose the first thing we must realize in talking about God is that there are things we can say about God, and some we may even understand. Very likely, however, there is much about God that we cannot make a mental image of, and there are likely many other things we can say about God without truly understanding what those things actually mean.

For instance, we can rightly say that God is eternal. We understand that by “eternal” we mean that God has no beginning and no end. We can say those words, and understand them at least in terms of knowing the concept, but can we really visualize what eternity means?

I remember as a very young child being terrified at the concept of eternity, or infinity. I think the ancient Greeks were too, because they could not accept what philosophers call an “infinite regress” of causes. Aristotle asserted that for anything that happens, there is a cause. And then there was some cause that caused that cause, and so on. If we trace the series of causes as far back as we can go, to what do we arrive that got the whole series of causes started in the first place? The ancient Greeks could not admit that the series of causes goes back infinitely, so thinkers such as Aristotle posited the existence of a First Cause, which is itself uncaused, and is the terminus in tracing back to the origin of all causes. The First Cause must be itself uncaused, or else we would have to grapple (unsuccessfully) with the logical absurdity of an infinite series of causes, which cannot bear the idea of an origin to get it started. We could ask, “and what caused that?” ad infinitum. St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle’s line of thought, claimed that the First Cause is God, and that “all men” know this to be so. Yet, we cannot imagine or picture any uncaused thing, whether it’s God or anything else. We take it on faith that God is eternal.

​​​​​​​We can also use descriptor words for God: omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. We can also say that God is all good and the source of all goodness. We take these adjectives on faith, because we cannot actually fathom what such things mean. Do we really understand what “omnipotent” means? Some people might try to trick you about God’s omnipotence. They might ask you, “Can God create a stone so heavy that not even He cannot lift it?” Don’t be fooled—this is a nonsense question because it really isn’t asking anything. The question boils down to “asking” if God can do something He can’t do, because it has both Can God and He can’t. Even if you answer by saying no, your questioner still does not have you at a disadvantage so that you would have to deny God’s omnipotence. You could reply, “No, God cannot create a stone so heavy that even He could not lift it. But neither can anyone else, because nobody can do something that can’t be done. You’re asking if God can do something that cannot be done, which is absurd, so God’s omnipotence stands.” To be continued . . .

In Jesus,
Fr. David