Viewing God and the World He Created

creation, creator, creature, genesis, being

In the beginning there was nothing except God, no physical universe, no angels, no laws governing anything, nothing except God. He is not only immortal: He is eternal. He is not lonely because God is three Persons in one God, and those Persons love each other infinitely.

Why did He create the universe? He does not need it. It did not fulfill Him in any way imaginable. His revelation tells us He wanted to create others out of nothing and let them share in the something He is because He is love itself, and He wanted to share His love with others.

Beginning of Creation

He thought things over to begin with, and decided on the best way of many possible ways to accomplish what He wanted. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). He started off creating the earth as formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Gen 1:2).

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen 1:3). But there also came into existence darkness. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night”: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day” (Gen 1:5).

According to St. Augustine, God created the angels on the first day. He wanted them to resemble Himself, being sovereign creatures gifted with free will, just like He is. This makes them capable of choosing their own way. One cannot resemble God more than to have a purely spiritual being and to display freedom of choice, and that is the good that He wanted for the angels. But it also makes them capable of choosing against God.

The angels can sit in council with God and be privileged to be informed of what God wants for His creation. This makes the angels almost like God, except that they know that they are mere creatures and must obey Him in all things. Other than that, they are free to choose.

Separation of Devils from Angels

God wanted angels to be free, resembling Himself because they can better interact with Him if they are free. But there is a down side to freedom: they are capable of choosing against God and of living contrary to what He wants.

The angels who did not want to obey compromised God’s creation causing disruption of His well-functioning universe. Evil began when creation first started and is still operating today. It will continue to operate until the end of the world when God will separate those who do evil from those who do good.

Evil is sometimes defined as the absence of good, but in God’s creation, evil is much more than that. Evil takes on the personality of the one who wants to do evil: Lucifer. He is the source of all moral evil in God’s creation. Evil will continue in God’s creation until God punishes Lucifer with everlasting hell.

Creation of Humans

Then God created the entire universe as described in Genesis. Humans are the masterpiece of God’s creation because, even though they are vastly less gifted than angels, they also have free will and are made in His image and likeness.

The angels were created perfect to begin with, and some rebelled against God. Humans were created defective to begin with due to Original Sin. They all are predisposed to rebel against God because of concupiscence and temptation by devils and bad example of other humans.

From the first moments of their conscious lives, humans, because of the evil thoughts that harass them within their souls, are all worthy of being condemned to hell. But humans have the ability to contemplate what God wants and reject temptations. They can choose to guide their own lives in conformity with what God wants or to remain in rebellion against Him.

Surprisingly, a great many humans freely choose right when they could choose wrong. At the end of their lives, these righteous humans will sit in council with God and the righteous angels in heaven. They interact with God in a way that is impossible for creatures that are not blessed with free will.

Repentance and Hell

The only way for evil to be abolished voluntarily is for the devils to repent, but we already know not a single one will. Each human being, however, can repent. All that is needed is the human’s desire to repent and, if the human is not strong enough, God will intervene to help him. If any human does not believe but rather chooses to reject God like the fallen angels, that human will be consigned to hell also.

Hell seems to be very severe. We all know if we were cast into a blazing inferno in this life, we would be dead within seconds. But, in the next life, our resurrected bodies will endure, without being destroyed, an infinitely long time in hell. Hell is appropriate because nobody can resist being consigned into hell if God decrees so. No police have to be sent to arrest the evildoer; no army is needed in case of revolt. If somebody is judged worthy of hell, he and all of us will then see clearly why God has demanded that we obey His will.

This is what God wanted when He chose to create the universe as it is. The loss of some angels and some humans due to wickedness is offset by the blessing of having so many free creatures that freely choose to love God and obey Him. Heaven is the most awesome place where those who love God can congregate together in worship of the loving God who created them. There will be no display of evil in God’s heavenly kingdom.

Whether one winds up in heaven or hell depends entirely on human free will. One can chose to love God and obey Him as He commands or refuse to obey Him. The difference between heavenly bliss and joy and unending punishment rests entirely on that choice. One does not need to be a genius to understand the motivation of the inscrutable God. All one needs is to believe God was serious when He issued His commands.

The Theories of Science

There have been many theories of science offered to try to explain how the universe developed without need for divine revelation. This is very shaky ground because there are many natural laws of science already discovered by humans that argue against an eternal universe. The most difficult scenarios concern the thermodynamic laws of enthalpy and entropy.

The first law of thermodynamics is that energy is conserved (enthalpy); it can be neither be created nor destroyed. The second law is that natural processes are spontaneous when they lead to an increase in disorder (entropy). In other words. The system is going to lose energy as time progresses. The universe, for example, is gradually going to lose energy until the whole universe cools down into an inert agglomeration of solid bodies.

The best theory for the start of the physical universe, I think, is the Big Bang theory, which states that the universe originated as an infinitely dense compacted ball of matter that suddenly exploded and expanded into the universe we know today. Scientists consider the universe as having begun about 13.8 billion years ago and will endure for maybe another 13 billion years, but there is still a lot of conjecture on the part of scientists about what will happen in the future with the universe.

Evolution

Another theory of science is evolution, which holds that all forms of life slowly evolved from pre-existing living forms. It certainly looks that way when one views the many similar lifeforms that co-exist, but it may not be true in all cases. It certainly is not true in the case of humans.

Scripture holds that God created humans by forming the body of Adam from pre-existing material (which could have been an anthropoid ape), but God breathed His spirit into the nostrils of Adam, and that breath of God is what makes humans human (Gen. 2:7).

The Church teaches this infallibly. God took a special step in His creation of humans. All have received a sovereign soul at the moment of conception. There are no hybrid races of man and half-ape, half-human specimens. All humans have the same genome that originated with the first two humans: Adam and Eve.

 The World’s Rejection of God

The world does not want to believe in God and conjures up rival theories of the origin of the universe without the guidance and design of God. There are many theories that postulate an eternal universe or parallel universes, even universes contained within the observable universe. Stephen Hawking, the famous cosmologist, was recognized as the most intelligent scientist in the world. He accepted the Big Bang theory as the plausible explanation of how the universe began and did much to describe the details of the Big Bang theory. Unfortunately, this most intelligent scientist in the world left this life without believing God created the universe.

God gave the world a revelation explaining who He is what He expects from us, but the world refuses to believe it. This refusal has introduced moral disorder into God’s creation, and the physical universe exhibits this disorder: animals kill and devour other animals; diseases abound, and nature is sometimes violent. I think this is God’s way of illustrating what moral disorder among angels and humans does to His creation.

The strong take what they want from the weak and oppress others with strife and warfare until there is little chance for anybody to live the blissful happy peaceable lives God had in mind to begin with. I think that’s why He created predatory animals that hunt down and devour other animals. I do not expect that there are any predatory animals in the Kingdom of Heaven

 Conclusions

Even though scientists are much better educated than ordinary persons and are probably gifted with superior intelligence as well, many of them do not believe in the existence of God. Hawking was a confirmed atheist who could not believe in God or an afterlife. The same was true of the famous American scientist Carl Sagan. They both are on record comparing the afterlife to a beautiful fairy tale. But since they have both passed from this life, they now know the truth!

My advice to my readers is that we should not fall into this mindset. God is infinitely more intelligent than His creatures that it is impossible to get humans to think the way God thinks. A human cannot arrive at intellectual certitude in evaluating what God has revealed. Humans must take Him at His word. After all, being God: His word is good.

Human intellect is inadequate to fully understand the mind of God. But all humans, even the least gifted intellectually, can believe in God. Don’t sell yourself short if you are overwhelmed by the theories of science.

God does not expect any of us to understand the truth of the universe fully, but He commands all of us to believe His testimony. My advice to my readers is to hang on to the Catholic Faith. After you leave this life and have experienced the first judgement, you will realize that your faith in God’s word is by far the greatest blessing God gave you during your earthly life.

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12 thoughts on “Viewing God and the World He Created”

  1. Pingback: Who Will be the Next Pope, The Top 10 Strangest Catholic Relics, and More Great Links - JP2 Catholic Radio

  2. Peter Darcy: and yet you felt the need to respond.
    Do you also ascribe to the literal and factually inerrant reading of the Old Testament? Do you dismiss the unanimous conclusion of biblical scholars that, for instance, their is no evidence the Jewish people, to the extent there even existed such a “people” distinct from other Canaanite tribes at the time, were ever en masse in Egypt; and never enslaved en masse in Egypt; never escaped from Egypt; and certainly never lived en masses in the Sinai desert for 40 years. Unless they did so without leaving a single trace in the historical or archeological record. How do an alleged 4 million people live in a place without leaving so much as a shard of their culture? The Exodus is an origin story but not a historical fact. That is, if you are interested in fact, and believe that faith and reason can and should coexist.

    And Maurice, something is not true merely because it is useful. Because faith has social and psychological utility does not make the object of belief an objective reality. Hindus have deep faith and it helps them enjoy life and endow it with meaning, which is a primary reason it has persisted for much longer than Christianity. But I assume you don’t believe Hinduism is true merely because it is useful in that way. Similarly, your binary division of the world – Christian faith or abject despair – is a false model. Millions of non-Christians lead very happy, moral and fulfilling lives. And lots of the orthodox Christians I’ve known for decades are miserable, narcissistic, and entirely subjective when their personal predilections are on the line. So, I suggest we all examine our assumptions. Faith will be better and more mature for the effort.

    1. Hello Mary,

      Thanks for the new comment. You are going to give me an exciting discussion of ancient history. I have been interested I middle East history ever since I read “Worlds in collision” by Immanuel Velikovsky in 1951 when I was in the Air Force.

      In 1951 the consensus of historians was that none of the biblical dates agreed with dates discovered by secular historians, Velikovsky caught my attention because he argued that secular historian had the dates wrong, not only for the Exodus bur for almost all events discussed in the Bible.. I’m in a hurry now because I have a doctor’s appointment soon, but I will eventually give you an answer to all of the objections you brought up.

      I spent my whole life studying Velikovsky and biblical history and have written many book reviews of books of books that discuss biblical events. Velikovsky got into a horrendous controversy with his opponents. and they eventually ruined him because some of his some of his arguments on astronomy were incorrect, but he was not an astronomer: he was a psychiatrist.

      The thing that convinced me about Velikovsky’s work was his identification of the loot taken from the Jewish Temple. Velikovsky identified all the sacred items described in the Bible as being shown in a carving on the wall of an Egyptian Temple. The Temple of Tutmose III . https://www.parkoffletter.com/872-2/. I compared the biblical list to the carving and the carving does agree with the list.

      I later bought a book by David Rohl an established English Egyptologist who studies and sig in Egypt convinced him that the four pillars of date that characterized the occurrence of Middle East history are off by a couple hundred years. Rohl is convinced he found the ruins of Joseph’s tomb in Egypt and he discusses all of his findings in his bool “Pharaohs and Kings.” His work is described in a Wikipedia article:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Rohl)

      I have to rush now for my appointment.

      Sincerely,

      Maurice A. Williams

    2. Hello Mary.

      I have been pondering this subject of faith for a long time. One of the early things I leaned is not everything on The Internet is true. There are opinions proffered by many individuals. Some are valid and true, some are guesses and opinions that may not be true, too many are outright lies offed by people with a bias.

      Take for example The Exodus, a key story from The Bible. Is it true? I have read the opinions of many authors, including a Greek seismologist who argued that the plagues were caused by the eruption of a huge volcano that occurred on Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea and the resulting tsunami caused the Nile River to lower its level and later to flood, killing the Egyptian army. Velikovsky argued that Venus was once a comet that almost struck the Earth. I forget what Rohl proposed but he did find the land of Goshen in his digs and the tomb of Joseph. All of them argued that the historical dates fixed by historians do not match evidence for different dates discovered by the authors. The mismatch of dates varies from 200 years, according to Rohl, to 600 years, according to Velikovsky.

      You ask “how do an alleged 4 million people live in a place without leaving a shard of their culture?” The answer is that researchers are digging at the wrong place at the wrong level. Science is a very difficult process involving incredible work to examine every possibility. The reason so many people, especially Christians, including myself, place their faith in the Bible is that The Bible is claimed to be a revelation from somebody who knows, God Himself. And then the dilemma becomes is this revelation accurate or is it another lie.
      For myself, I have not seen historical evidence that the Exodus happened., but I believe it because I think that, among all those who lie to us, I don’t think God is included. His word is good in my book. If God really does exist, and He really did inspire the Bible and started the Catholic Church, you are going to feel embarrassed standing before His throne when you leave this life.

      Another philosophic question is what do you believe? Does God really exist or is that anther lie? If you think God does not exist and, of course, heaven and hell would not exist also, that would mean that the endeavors in your life, in my life, and in the lives of every human being that ever lived sum up to nothing. Why are we discussing anything? After death, if there is no God, you and I and everyone else simply disappear.

      Hope this helps to clarify my thinking on some of these issues. I’m going to answer the rest of your questions in another message.

      Sincerely,
      Maurice A. Williams

    3. Hello Mary McCormack,

      You mention “something is not true merely because it is useful” implying that if something is useful, it might be true. But the real reason something is true is because it really is true, like what I like to call absolute truth. There are a lot of true statements that not useful.

      This is a tricky business: proclaiming statements that you think are true. For example, your statement “Hindus have a deep faith and it helps them enjoy life and endow it with meaning, which is the primary reason it has persisted for much longer than Christianity.” This statement of yours is not true. Hinduism has persisted much longer than Christianity because it started much earlier than Christianity. One has to be careful in an argument not to phrase statements you want to present as true but mistakenly present them as false. You will lose most of your arguments if you do that.

      Hinduism has been around a long time. It is the honest result of the people in India trying to make sense out of life. They do not claim that God revealed this religion.

      God did reveal a religion to the Israelite people through Abraham. Both Judaism and Hinduism and many other religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have undergone change as people broke off in splinter groups. Why is this? Who inspired these people to mess with the religion their ancestors passed down to them? The answer is Satan did. Satan tries to disrupt everything God does to guide mankind, especially His people who should form an authentic and solid group of followers of the Lord. Satan does this also in political nations causing strife and wars.

      I can see that you pick up a lot of your information from the world, from news coverage of events. All news coverage is biased picking up the prejudices of the newscaster or the broadcast station. This is especially true when events in the Catholic Church are broadcast. They even show bias in reporting political news. You would do well to read authentic Catholic books and article that do not distort the truth.

      I am willing to go into some in-depth conversations with you, if you are interested. I can also recommend books to read that will help you get to understand the Catholic faith. If you are interested let me know in your next comment.

      The world, influence by Satan, is full of venom and criticism, generating hate and distrust. Jesus is not at all like that. His character shines forth in His command to “Love your enemies as you love yourself.” “If someone takes your cloak, let him take your jacket also.” You don’t have to punish anybody for their wrong doing. God is perfectly capable to punish the unrepentant. Your task is to help everybody develop repentance for the evil they do so that God can forgive and rehabilitate fallen souls.

      Hope this helps,

      Maurice A. Williams

    4. Maurice – you point out that Hinduism is older chronologically than Christianity (no disagreement there), and ignored my point that it persists BECAUSE adherents LIKE it because it helps them be happy in life regardless of its truth (probably because your ideological belief has convinced you that no one can possibly be happy unless they think like you – oh please stop the thoughtless chauvinism, and look a little more broadly). That triggers a lot of thoughts, like, btw, why did a loving God wait 100-200 thousand years after humans appeared on earth to begin His revelation and the beginning of Salvation History? But then I recalled that you believe the earth and human life and all creation began 6000 years ago. And I realized that , while I respect your faith and earnestness (although, truth be told, I am so weary of such compliant earnestness, unwilling to think outside the little box of safety and control), we actually don’t have much to talk about (lecturing me about your personal truths really doesn’t count as “talking”). But I’m sure you’re a decent guy and I wish you very well.

    5. Hello Mary McCormack.

      Thank you for another comment on my article. You pointed out in your earlier comments that there is no evidence that the Jews ever lived in Palestine nor had any contract between Jewish and Egyptian civilizations. I pointed out that David Rohl, through archaeological digs in Egypt, discovered a subterranean layer in Egypt, located under the surface, containing abundant evidence that Sematic people lived there for many years. Rohl even found the tomb of Joseph, the Jewish patriarch at that site. I also pointed out that there exists in Egypt a temple wall with a carving showing the booty the Bible mentions as being seized by Egyptians.

      You also claimed that Hinduism has survived longer than Christianity because it offers more happiness to its adherents than Christianity does to its adherents. I pointed out that it lasted longer than Christianity because it was begun long before the advent of Christianity.

      You countered in your last comment that my ideological belief has convinced me that no one can possibly be happy unless they think like me. Where did that come from? I didn’t make any comment about my happiness. Catholicism teaches that life is full of sorrows because of the opposition of Satan and his brood of devils. We humans are caught in the middle of this war between Satan and God and we will never find true happiness until the war is over and we can live in blissful freedom from any kind of grief because Satan has been defeated and subdued.

      One of the ways God wants us to live is to be free of unjust accusations of things we did not do and not to punished for things that others have done. Our present world is full of that. God wants each one of us to be able to trust everyone else because of their flawless character and compassion and respect for us. We don’t see much of that in this life. The challenge for you and for me is to live up to those expectations. The world be incredibly happier for everybody if each one of us lived up to those requirements.

      Then you brought up a new topic. You accused me of believing that the Earth and human life and all creation began 6000 years ago. I never said that. You presumed so because I believe in God and in the Bible., but you jumped to conclusions. I am on record on Catholic Stand criticizing evolution and gradualism (the theory that the Earth changed very lowly though millions of years the get where it is.) The theory of gradualism is a new theory. It replaced the theory of catastrophism about 250 years ago. Prior to gradualism, scientists attributed changes in the crust of the Earth causing mountain to rise and lake beds to be scraped out of land surface in very short catastrophic events on the Earth. I think the surface of the Earth has been altered by both methods.

      One of my critics on Catholic Stand warned all my readers that I am a biblical literalist, one that takes the Bible at its word. He warned my readers not to take me seriously. “Williams is not open to reason. He has a closed mind.” You said “I am so weary of such compliant earnestness, unwilling to think outside the little box of safety and control. You said you think I am a decent guy, but “you and I don’t have much to talk about.”

      It looks like we are running around in circles. In view of the above I don’t think I’ll send more comments unless you want me to. But I will send the titles of some books that will give you an inside and accurate view of The Catholic Church.

      I wish only the best for you.

      Sincerely,

      Maurice A. Williams

  3. Pingback: THVRSDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  4. When you read a summary of it, in plain English, it sure does read like the story of Bronze Age tribesman struggling mightily to understand what they saw around them. And then, the priestly class getting the leader to make the story mandatory for all, to create social and cultural control. And then indoctrinating impressionable children in it generation after generation under threat of eternal damnation if you don’t.

    Who would believe this literal account if you heard it for the first time at age 26, with a fully developed brain and some experience in life? Almost no one. Hence, childhood indoctrination is essential.

    1. Hello Mary McCormack,

      Thank you for reading my article, And thanks for the comments.

      I try to write my articles in plain English so my readers can understand what I am saying, but I see that you have a real problem in accepting what I wrote, I did not invent what I wrote. It is a simple explanation of what God revealed to the human race through direct revelation and through the teaching of the church He founded 2000 years ago. Plus, what earlier humans remembered form earlier inspiration or actual history. It began about 6000 years ago with the first humans’ direct experiences with God.

      The first two humans were able to speak with God. God gave them one commandment: they should not eat the fruit. They ate it, and disaster struck the human race. They didn’t read about this, they actually experienced it in their lives. Two thousand years later, God inspired Moses to inaugurate the synagogue of the Israelite people serving God. At that time, God gave Moses a copy of the Ten Commandments that God himself inscribed on stone tablets. God also had Moses review all the traditions the people had remembered of their earlier contact with God. God inspired Moses to reject what was spurious but retain what was valid and compile that into the Bible as the Book of Genesis.

      Three great religions consider the writings of Moses (the Torah) to be inspired by God: Judaism. Christianity and Islam. Due to the frailty of human beings these three religions have conflicting interpretations of what that revelation was. But my point is that the Torah is recognized as valid by at least one-half of all the humans on Earth. And the leaders didn’t merely mandate these beliefs. God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and lived on Earth thirty-three years establishing His church to bring sanctity and salvation to the human race.

      As far as being 26 years old with a fully developed brain, a great many adults older than you accepted the story when their countries were evangelized,

      The methods God used to teach the human race is similar to the way the Bronze age tribesmen struggled mightily to understand what they saw around them. That is the way God made His revelation. I did not make it up. I believe it because, without a revelation from God, the human race would be lost in the uncertainties and grief of this world. I think you should believe the Bible because it has been researched by believer and unbeliever alike literally for thousands of years. Present Bibles are accurate translations of the original text.

      Moses wrote the first five books 4000 years ago. So, it is not surprising that it sounds like what Bronze age tribesmen wrote 3000 years ago. I’m not going to back down in what I wrote because I am contributing my articles to a Catholic audience who might have difficulty because the world is so hostile to God and His Church.

      As for the leaders making the story mandatory and indoctrinating impressionable children with it generation after generation, what are your thoughts when teen agers enter grade schools and gun down everyone in sight? Don’t you think something very important was neglected in their formation during their youth?

      You sound hostile to Christianity, but with the few words you wrote, I have to guess the extent of your problems with God and the Church. That’s why my response is so long. You deserve a thorough answer. I hope I covered enough to answer your specific difficulty in believing what the Church is teaching. I think I understand it. I know clarification of Church teaching is needed when I listen to the news that too many people today are hostile to the Church and to God.

      God revealed that He operates on Love, and He commands us to love our neighbor as wee love ourselves. If everyone in the world believed this, we would all have happier and more secure lives.

      I hope I was able to clarify my position. I know I am not in variance with Church teaching because an editor reads my articles before they get published. I hope what I wrote here helps you understand where I am coming from.

      Sincerely,

      Maurice A. Williams

    2. @Mary McCormack. Kind of like reading what you just wrote and deciding that it’s not intellectually solid or worthy of belief. Is that what you mean?

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