God, Creator and Father
By scientist and priest Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J.

Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J.

• Why did God create persons, intelligent and free?
• Why did God create matter, after creating the angels?
• Why did God create human beings?
• Why was there no repentance or redemption for the fallen angels?
• Could the Son of God have become an angel?
• Why was Christ born of a virgin?
• Why is there no repentance after death?
• When is the resurrection taking place?
• Why is God addressed as "Father"?

An effort, based on scientific and philosophical considerations, meant to deepen our understanding of the basic tenets of Theology, and to give a clearer picture of our dignity and our destiny.

God, Creator and Father

The philosophical and theological concept of God as essential and infinite perfection, the only source of all reality, without which nothing can have an independent existence, presents us with apparent antinomies or paradoxes which force us to think more deeply about concepts like activity, life, time, which can only be applied to Him in an analogical sense since they are a consequence of our human experience. This unending effort to understand the data of our Faith is the proper endeavor of Theology, and from it we can gain an intellectual enrichment that should also help us to live our dogmatic certainties, especially the dogmas of creation and of our eternal destiny.

CONTINGENCY AND CREATION

When we study the material world at its multiple levels we can reach a basic inference from its mutability to its essential contingency. Anything that is subject to change, whatever this might be, shows in this very possibility of being in different ways that its essence is not necessarily determined to exist in a concrete way out of the unlimited variety of possible modes. But every real existence happens in one mode and not in others, thus logically requiring a sufficient reason for this fact: it is not a valid answer to just state it, or to attribute it to a chance that is nothing more, ultimately, than a "just because" incapable of satisfying even the most elementary questions of a child.

The contingency of the external world and of our own being is unintelligible without the previous activity of a non-contingent agent -otherwise we would fall into an endless process- that must choose the mode in which something will exist that is not determined by its own essence to be in a uniquely determined way. Thus we are forced to admit a non-material Creator, infinitely intelligent and powerful, knowing all the possibilities of each existence and free to choose among them, and of such power that it can make something appear where nothing was before: a new reality totally depending in its essence and existence upon the gratuitous activity of the Creator.

The reason for stressing the gratuity is found in the very concept of a necessary Being, which must imply the impossibility of change: there can be no development in something which is totally determined by its essence, without room for new ways of existence. Consequently, the act of creation cannot be a kind of predetermined internal development, nor a sort of pantheistic emanation: whatever is created cannot be a part of the creator, since nothing contingent can be found in a necessary Being.

The so-called Process Theology, in so far as it can lead to assert intrinsic changes in the Creator, contradicts the basic idea upon which rests the reasoning process that infers the need for its existence as a sufficient reason for whatever is contingent. The essential self-sufficiency of a necessary nature forbids suggesting that a need for self-fulfillment might require the creation of something different and infinitely inferior to the Creator.

Because any change, be it physical or psychological, is both the source and sign of time and its measurement, the unchanging Being will be outside of time: a-temporal and a-spatial, since time and space appear so closely related -both in philosophy and in the physical sciences- that both parameters are applicable only to contingent beings. This is the meaning of the attributes of Eternity and Immensity which are applied to the Creator, not as infinite magnitudes of the same kind as the time and space of our experience, but as references to a type of existence to which both are as foreign as the concepts of weight or color.

Once this reasoning is accepted we are still faced with a question: why does God create? If the act of creation can add nothing to His happiness or perfection, it seems that we are left without an answer in human terms: in some way, our actions are justified by some benefit, be it real or imagined, that we hope to attain. Even if it is only the satisfaction of doing our duty, or of leaving behind some good and beautiful work, we find a psychological enrichment in our activity, which leads to our personal development.

This is clear when we compare a life spent in an attitude of egotism and mental or physical sloth with another brimming with human, social, artistic or scientific achievements, in the family environment or with a worldwide impact. We want to be creative, in a limited and analogical meaning, because we want to enlarge our boundaries with other realities that contain something of ourselves, and because in the creative activity we develop our capabilities. Thus we leave an imprint upon our environment that is a certain outgrowth of our very existence, so limited in space, time, and the energy needed to show our unceasing quest after Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

But a Being that is INFINITE TRUTH, BEAUTY and GOODNESS by its very essence, in a simplicity where all attributes are one, without distinctions or limitations in their perfection, cannot be happier or more perfect by creating. Thus we cannot seek a reason that would imply that it must create. We can only search for a sufficient reason, of logical coherence, that will show that to create is possible and fitting for this infinite and unchanging Being.

The only possible answer must be, finally, that it is proper for infinite Goodness to share its happiness with other beings who, in some way, are capable of partaking of the eternal happiness of the Creator (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 295) This implies the creation of persons, who by their knowledge and free will imitate the kind of life proper to the Creator and thus can, analogically, enjoy the same kind of happiness that He essentially has.

CREATION OF THE ANGELS

From a philosophical viewpoint we might be able to suggest the likelihood of creating spiritual beings, similar to God in the kind of activity which is proper only to a spirit: intellectual knowledge, not due to the senses, and free volition, not merely instinctive, but due to the appreciation of some good as such. It might also be plausible to say that such creatures would not exist in a frame of time and space -just as God is free of such constraints- even if it is difficult for us to understand how a finite and limited being might exist without temporal changes. We cannot fathom a-temporal life in the case of God either: let us proceed with such a hypothesis for now.

Christian Theology speaks of such spiritual creatures, the angels, first fruits of God's creating power, images of the Creator in their personal nature that reflects the divine nature (Catechism nos.328 & following) Their life is, just as for God, only to know and to love, with an activity that is always finite but that fills their entire being and makes them sharers of the Creator's happiness with a personal relationship toward God of a filial character, because the proper image of a living being is another life that reflects the nature and life that is the source of its existence.

But the Revelation of the Trinity unveils for us a new aspect of divine life that we would never have suspected. God is a family: three Persons share a single essence, so that the very existence of each Person is inseparable, even logically, from the relationship to the other two. The Father is only fatherhood, and the Son is only sonship, and the Father and Son cannot express themselves except through the unique and mysterious relationship to the Spirit -love- who proceeds from both (see the end Note regarding the use of the word Father in the context of divine activity).

Subsistent relationships define the three Persons as distinct, even if there is in God only one intellect and one will, just as there is only one essence and all the perfections that we might mention are a single reality (Catechism nos. 249-260) We are presented with an awe-inspiring mystery: the mutual self-giving of the divine Persons is their very life, and they cannot, literally, live -exist- except in relation to each other, and there can be no independent activity.

If God is so essentially a family, the total and loving sharing of life, relationships of total interdependence, this central aspect of Godīs Being is not reflected properly in the creation of the angels as images of God. They cannot give life, either by creation (which requires always an act of Omnipotence) nor by a total self-giving, which makes no sense towards other angels already existing independently. As pure, simple spirits, they cannot give a part of themselves as a seed from which a new life might eventually develop to the full.

This is why St. Thomas taught that each angel is a separate species, even if the concepts of genus and species, drawn from earthly life and the criterion of reproductive compatibility, cannot be equally applied to spirits. More simply we can say that the angels are creatures of the same kind of essence, but without mutual relationships that could be the basis for a dependence of one individual from another. They can and do relate by knowledge and love, recognizing in each other a limited and different image of God (Catechism no. 339) loving God in all things and all things in God, just as St. Ignatius says when talking about our own attitude towards all created beings.

CREATION OF MATTER

At this point we might consider as possible the existence of other beings, not simple in their nature, but structured from different parts, constantly changing, capable of developing their potentialities in a gradual way, and also able to give something of themselves to grow into similar structures with their own independent activity, including the ability to transmit life. The composite and changing nature of such entities would imply that they would not be spiritual, and this fact automatically limits their activity: they will have no abstract knowledge or free will, even if they are endowed with organs that react to their environment and their behavior shows a degree of spontaneity.

This is a suitable description of living material structures, plants and animals: rooted in space and time, marvelous in their complexity. They can grow with a self-contained program and can also show an unlimited variety in the evolution of each individual and in the amazing richness of forms found in the history of earthly life through billions of years.

The entire material Universe that is the object of study of the experimental sciences appears as an uninterrupted ascent towards life and its development (Catechism nos. 339-344) The initial conditions and parameters of the Big Bang established the four interactions that later structured matter into galaxies, stars and planets, synthesizing the necessary elements for the chemistry of life, which depends upon carbon and liquid water. We cannot state as yet when or where or how the first living structure appeared on the primitive Earth -made of stellar ashes- nor how it is possible to go from a single cell to mammals, nor from the fertilized ovum to the 100 trillion specialized cells of an adult primate.

We might dare to say that God shows a greater ingenuity and originality in creating living matter than in creating the angelic spirits, even if animal life, limited by the activity of physical and chemical laws, does appear as a rather poor and restricted image of God. But it has the ability to reflect Godīs trinitarian nature through relations of interdependence, which are more and more evident as we study life at increasing levels of complexity: from the simple division of a single cell, where we cannot establish that one is mother and the other daughter, and where there is no need for mutual care, up to the level of birds, mammals, primates, incapable of survival for extended periods unless cared for by the parents.

It can be said, as a general statement, that the higher the level of life, the greater is the dependence of the offspring from the parents, both qualitatively and in the length of time it involves. And it is in the Trinity itself where the dependence is so total that the Son can never be self-sufficient apart from the Father. It is this caring instinct -love- that makes animal life especially attractive for us, as compared to the more self-contained and formal beauty of stars, minerals and flowers.

CREATION OF MAN

The last step in the Creatorīs plan to give existence to a finite being capable of fully reflecting the richness of divine life can be found in the joining -difficult to imagine even as a possibility- of matter and spirit. A creature capable of abstract knowledge and free volition, a person and thus of a spiritual nature -just as God is personal, intelligent and free- but able as well to transmit life and to enter into family relationships of mutual dependence with regard to other individuals of the same kind (Catechism nos. 356-366).

A spirit joined to matter (Catechism nos. 362-366) and thus acting within the framework of space and time proper to matter, in an essential unity that gives rise to mutual conditioning and to effects that set limits upon the spiritual processes even at those levels where they reach the knowledge and love of the Creator.

Life is transmitted, according to Godīs plan, in a setting of mutual self-giving, so that the love of the parents -in cooperation with the eternal love of the Creator- is the environment where a new life begins to exist and where it develops, not only biologically, but also in the psychological and spiritual levels. Such is Man: an Image of God in every aspect where it is possible for a creature to reflect the richness of life that overflows within the Trinity.

The Anthropic Principle, which finds the only logical reason for the properties of the Universe in its adequacy for the eventual existence of intelligent organic life, underlines the finality of material creation (Catechism no. 358) We cannot consider a sufficient reason for creation the synthesis of atomic nuclei within stellar bodies during shorter or longer times, nor the simple growth of unconscious cells thanks to a complex genetic program.

Only in a personal relationship, based upon knowledge and love, can God find a suitable purpose to create somebody upon whom the most sublime gifts can be bestowed, so that a creature might partake of the happiness that He essentially enjoys. A material Universe would be absurd, it would lack a sufficient reason to exist, if it did not reach the level of Man, understanding this word in the philosophical sense: a Rational Animal, whatever its bodily shape might be. It is in this microcosm where all levels of creation are joined together.

THE INCARNATION: GOD BECOMES MAN

Christian Theology enlarges our view towards a more sublime horizon when it presents us with the central fact of all history, human and cosmic, in the marvel of the Incarnation: the union of Creator and creature in a single divine Person, who is also the perfect Man (Catechism nos. 456-478) He is the essential Image of the Father as his eternal Son, and also the created Image as a human being, rendering to the Father the gratitude and love that He deserves, and enjoying in full the love and happiness that God alone can have in the depths of Trinitarian life. With respect to us, Christīs Humanity is a seed of divine life, changing our almost-nothingness to make us capable of activities proper only to God, -even to the point of seeing the Trinity- when we will see Him as He is, using the words, truly inspired in their daring, found in the first letter of St. John (1Jn 3,2)

The resurrection and ascension of Christ raised his human nature to the throne of the Trinity, so that a Body -a material structure subject to change and decay by its very essence- exists now without the limitations of space and time (Catechism nos. 645-646) We adore matter when we adore the Body of Christ, be it in the Eucharist or in heaven, and it is this bodily matter that partakes of Godīs own life, raised in dignity above the angels, full of life and source of life for all of us who are called to share the glory of this Man for whom everything was created (Jn 1, 3; Col 1, 15-20).

We can truly admire the beauty of the Creatorīs plan, and be amazed at the infinite and incomprehensible love towards his creatures that reaches the extreme of calling us into his family! We are not children of God by a simple honorary and extrinsic title bestowed upon us, but by a remaking of our very nature as a consequence of the marvelous union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of Christ. In so far as we can fathom some reason why the Son became Man, not the Father or the Spirit, it is plausible to say that only the second Person, being totally Son, could enter into a filial relationship at the human level. Being the only Son of the only eternal Father, he could not have another father, but he could have a Mother, thus truly and biologically entering into the human family.

It is his personality as Son that makes possible the union of two natures that remain distinct and perfect, but simultaneously make real at two levels -infinitely diverse- the true divine and human sonship in the very same Person. Christ is always totally Son, and he never speaks of himself as father -even if he did call his disciples little children as a way to show his love at the Last Supper (Jn 13, 33)- and he had no children from his human nature (he could not have them unless he became a Father). When he stated -relinquishing mere human criteria - that "whoever fulfils the will of the Heavenly Father is my brother, my sister and my mother" (Mt 12, 50; Mk 3, 35) Christ did not include father in this list of family relationships. Our own sonship is referred to the Father: we are sons in the Son as members of the total mystical Christ.

Perhaps we can also say that it was impossible for the Son to become an angel, since those pure spirits cannot have family relationships or give their nature to another, as previously stated. The union of the divinity with an angel would appear as a coexistence of two independent realities, not integrated into a unique personal subject: the full relationship denoted by Son would not be maintained for the hypothetical God-angel. It is our mysterious duality that allows a human person -soul and body- to be truly a child of human parents, even if the soul is created by God when the parents offer the cooperation of their bodies. And it was Maryīs cooperation that through her humanity gave God the possibility of becoming Man (Catechism nos. 488-495)

IN THE FATHER's HOME

God's plan seeks to make us live like He does, in an eternity without temporal connotations, in a New Heaven and a New Earth without spatial boundaries. We cannot imagine or understand that way of existing, but we might be more inclined to accept it as a mystery referred to God alone, rather than to creatures as changeable and obviously material as we are. But our eternal life is a defined truth of our Faith, underlining our instinctive need for some type of life after death, so that we might avoid an absurd emptiness as the final outcome of whatever was good and beautiful in our earthly existence (Catechism nos. 1023-1029)

From a merely scientific viewpoint, no evolutionary process can reduce to nothing a single atom: nothing is created or destroyed -but only transformed- in any activity of matter according to physical laws. Therefore no scientific reason can predict nothingness as an end to the evolution of the Universe, forever expanding and becoming increasingly empty, dark and cold. All matter -particles, energy, the physical vacuum- should continue existing and changing in spatial and temporal coordinates, even if there are neither observers nor possibilities of life or recycling for the dead ashes of so many stars. Is this bleak panorama all we can offer as an answer to our human longings? Certainly not. We have philosophical reasons and theological dogmas that enlarge our horizon towards a new hope that is bright and appealing beyond anything we might dream.

First of all, it is reasonable to argue that the spiritual reality that gives us our personal dignity, the soul, not being part of the material world, might be immune to decay and death even if the body is destroyed and the link between matter and spirit is broken. It is true that we only know the soul in its intimate union with the body, and we cannot explain what kind of existence it might have without the constant influx of sense impressions and deprived of the activity of the brain. But this problem is not too different from our lack of comprehension of the process by which abstract knowledge is obtained and free will is exercised under all kinds of material constraints. Nor do we understand the brainīs mysterious role in giving rise to something that has no measurable properties which might allow us to verify the reality or value of an idea or an act of love.

When our ignorance is so vast it would be presumptuous to define the limits for possible ways of existence.If the soul does not perish, but rather continues its existence after death even without the body -as taught by Christian belief as set forth in many councils and authentic pronouncements of the Churchīs magisterium (Catechism no.366)- the main purpose of the material Universe is already accomplished: it has provided the setting for our existence. But this is not sufficient if we want to say that Man, essentially body and soul as a single entity, is truly surviving after death.

Our faith in Christīs resurrection implies, as a necessary consequence, the faith in our own resurrection, when our body -transformed after the pattern of the risen body of Christ- will also partake of a new kind of life independent of the evolution of cosmic structures (Catechism nos. 997-1001) It is thus true that even the material world is rescued from futility (Rom 8, 21) and the bodies of all those who have been saved by Christ are free from the corruption and decay that is the expected outcome of purely physical processes.

TIME AND TIMELESSNESS

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches both the material nature of the risen body of Christ and its new way of existing like a spirit outside of space and time. It seems, therefore, that it is presented as possible -even for a finite and created being- to be free from the constant temporal flux (at least as understood on the basis of our present life and our experience of the mutability of matter). This means living in the eternal now that is proper of God and perhaps also of all spiritual beings. The same idea might be the reason behind the theological tenet regarding the unchangeable nature of the final state of the human soul. There can be neither change from grace to sin, nor any repentance after death, but this is not due to any external imposition, as if God were to prevent anybody from repenting, but rather to the obvious logic that change is impossible when time no longer flows for the soul.

We speak also according to these ideas when faced with the sin of the angels: it does not happen after some period of living in Godīs grace, nor as a result of some twisted process of reasoning or deliberation. It is rather the instantaneous decision of creatures who refuse to accept their dependence from God in the very first act of their conscious existence, and who remain frozen in that rebellious attitude because, once more, change is impossible if there is no temporal flux.

We do not know how a pure spirit thinks and loves, but it is plausible to say that its knowledge is intuitive, not a reasoning process with logical steps that require time, as in our own experience. Love does not develop in time if it is not the outcome of an increasing understanding that might present new reasons or experiences to intensify the appeal of some good already known intuitively. It is likely that our own internal perception of these processes as a succession is due to the intimate union of soul and body, which limits the human spirit in such a way that it exists and acts in a material way, and both reasoning and memory (recovering data and experiences) are dependent upon brain activity. There is no obvious way to explain how memories could be stored or recovered in a simple spiritual substance.

It is true that the classical definition of eternity, due to Boethius (Aeternitas igitur est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio) is given in terms of a simultaneous and perfect possession of an endless life, which seems inapplicable to a limited and finite being. Perhaps the word simultaneous is the source of confusion when it is time itself that is being questioned; something similar is the case when we say that for God my birth and my death are simultaneous because He exists in a timeless now: we might argue that God must see things the way they are and that my death occurs after my birth. The difficulty of using language without falling into contradictions when dealing with something as mysterious as time, leads us to a feeling of reasonable doubt with regard to many inferences that are drawn from our human experience, always immersed in time.

If we consider that timeless existence might be applicable to angels, then it would seem logical to accept its possibility also for the soul separated from the body. But the risen body, existing in a spiritual way (the spiritual body mentioned by St. Paul, 1Cor 15, 44) will also be outside of the framework of space and time. Such environment is unnecessary for activities that occur no longer constrained by physical laws, but under the perfect control of the soul upon the human material structure, now enjoying a divine glory shared with the soul: we shall be like the angels (Mt 23, 30) This marvelous transformation has occurred already for the humanity of Christ and Mary (Catechism no.966) and it will happen at the end of time for all those who have been incorporated to Christ. This is the constant teaching of the Church through the centuries, and upon this certainty our faith rests, in the words of St. Paul to the faithful in Corinth (1Cor 15, 14).

ETERNAL LIFE

Eye has not seen nor ear has heard, nor can it fit into human thought what God has in store for those who love Him (1Cor 2, 9). If St. Paul admits his defeat when trying to explain what eternal life is like, we would be presumptuous if we were to think that we can do better. We must joyfully accept the teaching of our Faith which promises that we shall see God directly, face to face (1Cor 13, 12) and even, in the words of John, that we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (1Jn 3,2).

We cannot understand how a creature, always finite, can see the infinite God as He really is in his infinity, even after a transforming divinization gives to Man a new capability that by its nature belongs only to God. But nothing less than that is enough for a Love that wants to make us sharers of the life of the Trinity, truly members of Godīs family by a real participation of His nature.

Through our incorporation into Christ, our intelligence is empowered to know as the human intelligence of Christ knows his divine Personality, in an intuitive way, due to the most intimate union without barriers or laborious reasoning processes. Such knowledge is necessarily followed by the deepest total love, which makes every fiber of the soul -and even of the glorified body- resound with the highest joy of affection and possession that we might ever dream of. This will be a very special closeness, different from the love and happiness of the angels, because our heart will be tuned to the beat of the human Heart of Christ to love the Father with our own love fused with Christīs own. The eternal intimacy with Christ should be the final flowering of the union with Him that He has wanted to develop in His followers through the gift of His living Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

We may feel privileged in having the special relationship that allows us to call Christ truly our brother, thus being close to the Father at a family level that even the angels might envy. It is true that also in this aspect of eternal life God has wanted that the last be the first, by grace of the Creator who has sought to achieve in Christ the final synthesis of all His works. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son (Jn 3, 16). These words of Christ to Nicodemus seem to ring with wonder, even of Christ himself, at the infinitely generous goodness of the Father. He has wanted for us the same source of happiness that He enjoys: the Son in whom He has all pleasure, his pride and joy (Mt 3, 17; 17, 5). When an infinite Love has at its service an infinite Wisdom and an equally infinite Power, all our predictions of what will likely happen, in time and in eternity, are bound to fall very short. And GOD IS LOVE.

NOTE: FATHER in the context of the Trinity and the Incarnation

Divine revelation reaches us through human language, and God chooses the language, in a particular time and cultural setting, so that it will suitably communicate divine Truth.

At the time when the historical revelation took place, in the people of Israel, it is well known that all the surrounding peoples had developed mythologies where gods and goddesses were present, with more or less fantastic features, but conceived along human patterns and always endowed with some type of material bodies (even if it was a more subtle kind of matter) capable of the basic functions of nutrition and sexual activity; this last aspect was frequently made a part of rituals especially in the cult of goddesses. It is in this context where Yahweh is asserted as a non-material Being, independent of any spatial or temporal restriction, free from any need for food or for any kind of service from His creatures.

The earlier view of human generation assumed that the male element was always capable of fulfilling its role, and that lack of children was always due to the woman being barren. Today we know that this is not necessarily the case, and that both sexual partners might equally suffer some kind of sterility or there might be a biological incompatibility between them. Still, in every type of sexual reproductive process, biologists will identify the male and female cells, the ovum and spermatozoid, by their different way of contributing to the formation of the new cell from which an organism will develop.

The ovum, typically larger, receives the male cell, which in a multiple contest wins the race to introduce its genetic material into the ovum, thus making fecund the female cell that has waited for its arrival. It is this receptive behavior that biologically is implied when the word mother is used as distinct from father, while other possible differences -like a more or less caring attitude towards the siblings- are not significant and they vary widely throughout the animal kingdom.

We must consider this way of understanding human language when we seek a reason why God refers to Himself exclusively as Father, even if He uses comparisons with a motherīs tender affection to underline his love for us. It would be illogical to think that this way of speaking is a limitation imposed upon God by the culture of the time and place (freely chosen and prepared by Him) and it would also be an absurd arrogance to claim that we have a right to correct the way that revelation was given to us.

Because in God there is no receptiveness or passivity, the concept of mother is not applicable to Him, but the word Father is adequate to express the relation of pure activity in the generation of the Son. There is no receptive element to receive that activity: the generation is by way of knowledge, so that the Son is the pure expression of the Fatherīs essence, his Word. Because the divine Persons are identified with their relations, it has been said before that the Son can only have the one Father (no single Person can have two) and that Christ -divine Person- had no human father.

Christ has, as well, one Mother only: Mary received the action of the Holy Spirit, from whom she conceived her Son, not by a biological contribution, but through a miraculous intervention that gave the ovum the necessary impulse to develop and also modified its DNA so that a male would be born, even without the chromosome normally furnished by the male cell (the Son in the Trinity, as a Person, has no receptivity either, that would be present if he had a female body). This is the meaning of the traditional saying about Christ: Son of an only Father in Eternity, of an only Mother in time.

Because our relationship towards God is based upon our being one with the Son, it is proper also for us to address God as Father, just as Christ taught us for our prayer. He even went as far as to say that we should call nobody on earth Father in the full sense of the word. There is no justifiable reason to change this way of speaking because of social or psychological tenets, which are, at best, quite secondary with respect to the strict meaning of the words.