Essential Truths

Detailed notes taken by Aida Tamayo on Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism Series

EXISTENCE OF GOD
St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas present a strong case for the existence of God, using math, reason, and logic. Aquinas developed 5 arguments. Contingency. Things come into being and they pass out of being. They don’t carry within themselves the reason for their own existence; there is an extrinsic cause that brought them into being- a cause outside of them… A flower opens up and withers, a dog is born and dies, a cloud develops and passes away, even the planets are contingent and will end one day. We haven’t explained the existence of any of it. We must come finally to some reality which does exist through itself, to some necessary being whose very nature it is to BE. This is GOD. Keep this in mind and remember the answer Moses got when he asked God its name: I am who AM. Not a being among many, but the one whose very nature it is to BE. The theological language is meant to change us spiritually in relation to God. God is the one I can never control. Through a sheer act of generous non-violent love, He creates all from nothing. Personally, I don’t question God’s existence, just His Will when it comes to me. Working in Faith Formation, with a temperament for reflection, and with Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament next door, I have the opportunity to experience God daily, and I need no other proof of God’s existence. I see Him acting everywhere and to me His existence is palpable.

MYSTERY OF GOD – HE WHO IS
This is a reality – Psalm 139 tells us that we cannot grasp God in his transcendence, and we cannot hide from him either. Adam and Eve learned this hard lesson having tried to do both. We just need to Love Him. Augustine said: If you think you understand God, then it is not God. St. Augustine also knew that our souls are searching for eternal satisfaction and it is not to be found in any terrestrial thing. Jesus also revealed to us the Trinity: The lover, the beloved, and shared love (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

THE QUESTION OF EVIL
If God is benevolent why does he permits evil? I used to ask myself that same questions until one day I gazed upon the body of Christ on the cross above the tabernacle. I got it, this is the greatest evil ever committed in the history of humanity: The killing of Goodness Himself by His own creation, in the most horrible way possible. We are not talking about sinful men killing sinful men. We are talking about sinful men killing the One who sustains them, the One in front of whom they should have been prostrated in adoration. Even after Jesus in His humanity asked the Father to take this cup from him, He still surrendered to the Will of the Father and so this most hideous evil occurred. Why did God the Father willed that the Son submit to evil? There are a few lessons here. I finally realized…this has to do with free will, choices, and consequences and God’s perfect balance of justice and mercy… and yes, our place in the order of Creation.

LESSON FROM THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE SON
1. Good over Evil – God allows an evil to occur to bring about a greater good. (For example, Christ’s death and resurrection). On the cross the darkness of the human condition met the fullness of divine love and found itself transfigured into light making even death itself a place of hope. Good and evil meet. Justice and mercy flow. His justice flows from His holiness, His mercy flows from His love. Thus the Suffering Servant.

2. The Suffering Servant – Jesus suffered for our inequities (justice) so that turning to Him we can find mercy.

3. Underserved Suffering – What about evil that befalls us causing underserved suffering like it did Jesus? Let’s take Job from Old Testament, a righteous and faithful servant who saw everything taken from him. When Job challenged God on this question, God took Job on a tour of the cosmos, showing Job all the patterns of His designs and how the event of Job’s life is but a dot in the great canvas of God’s Creation. God looking from eternity has a perfect view of all events and he is always bringing goodness out into existence. Job saw his suffering was not wasted and at the end greater goodness came about in his life. We lack holiness to offer sufferings directly to the Father for reparation but can join our suffering (deserved or underserved) to Jesus’ suffering to help others. When we look at our lives, we must include eternity in our range for this to make sense.

FREEWILL, CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES –

The Church teaches that when God created humanity He gave it a touch of divinity by creating a soul in his image with faculties to reason (intellect), to choose (will), and capacity to remember (memory). Unlike God the Son who was begotten not created of the same nature as the Father, we are just a creation with limitations and lacking the attributes of the creator. Our perfection and goodness is tied to our union with God by freely choosing love and fidelity to Him. The moment we take our eyes off God and contemplated ourselves as God’s equal we opened the door for evil. God cannot commit evil because his essence is love and goodness. He is the source of Goodness. If we separate from the source, then our goodness fades away. What remains is evil. Evil does not have an origin as does goodness, it is the lack of goodness.

We are made in God’s Image, but we are NOT His equal. Every time we make a choice there a consequence that will bring us closer to God or set us apart from Him. Evil in the world is the result of choices humans have made throughout humanity’s existence that negates the goodness of God, because the choice goes against one of God’s laws, whether it is physical, moral, or natural laws. God is always acting to bring goodness out of evil but if He gave us the freedom to choose, He will respect our choices, thus the suffering. If more people were making good choices we would see goodness overtaking evil.

A Trilogy of the Unreal: Part III – The Reality of Evil

There are those who contend that the U.S. has become awash in sin, corruption and evil of all kinds. They can offer rather convincing statistics to support their belief. They cite the high abortion rate (55 million), the billion-dollar pornography industry, the high numbers of illegitimate births and the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases and more.

There are even more who contend that there is nothing wrong and that those who do “evil” are not immoral at all, but are merely exercising their free choice to determine for themselves what their personal moral code will be. (Can a society survive without objective moral codes?)

Why do we call evil “evil?” It is the opposite of good and in order to call anything evil, we must be familiar with a standard of goodness. If we did not know what was morally good, we could never judge anything to be morally evil because there would be no standard of comparison. The only absolute standard of goodness is God and His moral law which binds all humans to obedience whether they believe it or like it or not. When an action or a series of actions violates the natural moral law, it is considered to be evil or sinful.

A problem arises when a society rejects God, at least in practice as has American society. The standard of moral goodness is changed from the infallible God to fellow human beings in various positions of power: legislators, judges, media. They tend to set the standard based usually on personal and subjective preferences. Those who do not like the restrictions of divine law to begin with easily succumb to the lure of evil now described as a good, or at least no longer evil. (None of this changes God’s mind at all.)

Machiavelli, the author of “The Prince”, taught that humans were basically evil in action and intent. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the French “philosopher”, taught that people are all basically good and that society corrupts them . . . forgetting that a society is composed of people. St. Paul called men sinners, but he did not say they were evil. The Church teachers that, because of Original Sin, man has a tendency to sin and evil and does fall, but is not per se evil because there is the possibility of forgiveness for the repentant. Evil does not seek forgiveness because real evil sees nothing to be forgiven for because it does not see its evil actions as evil.

There is an objective standard of moral goodness and moral evil (sin). This is imposed by the Creator and its validity and force does not depend on human acceptance of the standards. This is the standard by which all humans will be judged. Too many people think they are free to change divine law to suit themselves. The Supreme Court attempted this in Roe vs Wade. The problem is that God did not agree. A city council cannot change state law and a state cannot change federal law, and humans cannot change divine law . . . even though they attempt to do rather frequently.

The safest course is to strive to be on God’s side if for no other reason that no human or group of humans has even a scintilla of divine intelligence. Why follow the ignorant and weak? “Right is still right even if no one is right and wrong is still wrong even if every one is wrong.”

The choice is ours, choosing human “wisdom” because it appeals to us is at least risky. Choosing divine wisdom is not always to our liking, but it will keep us on the right road. And only the right road will reach the destination.

Good and evil

 

• Aristotle once wrote that “our character is determined by our choosing good or evil, not by the opinions we hold” (cf. Nichomachean Ethics 3.2). In other words, actions speak louder than words when it comes to character formation.
• If we wish to be “good” people, then it is imperative to do what is right and good, not just know what is right and good.
• Last week I spoke about striving to overcome temptation and sin in order to become that ideal person God desires us to be. We should choose to do what is right and good and thereby become this ideal person not simply for our own salvation, but also for God’s glory!
• Today’s readings remind us that there’s another reason we should strive to become the best version of ourselves: viz., for the sake of other people.
• All of us are necessarily in relationship with other persons. Whether we like it or not, our actions (and inactions) readily affect other people. None of us lives in a vacuum. And today’s readings speak about how our relationships with others should be governed.
• Of course Jesus Himself reminds us in the Gospel today that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, while the Book of Exodus speaks to us of how we should deal with the poor, the needy, and less fortunate in our midst.
• Thus, these two readings remind us of the importance of exercising the virtues of charity and justice with others. Today I’d like to focus a bit on these virtues, especially justice.
• The word justice comes from the Latin root jus, which means “right” or “equitable.” Practicing justice requires that we treat people with fairness, not just courtesy.
• Thus, the virtue of justice leads us to give people their proper due, to respect their rights: both their natural and legal rights as people, as well as the rights that arise from the obligations each of us has towards our family and friends.
• Perhaps in theory this doesn’t sound too difficult, but the long docket of court cases in our society today, as well as the demonstrations, political uprisings, and wars in our world, show that justice often is lacking in human relationships – not to mention charity.
• At this point in my life, I’ve been a priest long enough to witness many, many examples of human relationships of all sorts falling apart, and the devastation engendered by a lack of true justice within those relationships.
• So many times marriages fail, families fall apart, and friends no longer speak because justice within a relationship is neglected and someone is not accorded the proper respect.
• So how do we become truly just people so that our all of our relationships can be properly governed? Practicing justice relies on knowledge of the truth, and therefore practicing justice begins with the virtue of humility.
• Humility is the virtue that enables us to see truth clearly, especially the truth about ourselves. Humility enables us to see ourselves as God sees us. Moreover, humility enables us to see that everything we have, every good quality we possess, is an unmerited gift from God.
• So many of us today operate under a mistaken sense of entitlement. So many of us believe that we deserve all the successes we enjoy in this life because we’ve worked hard for them. And perhaps we have worked hard, which is good.
• But the full truth is that God, in His great love, mercy, and solicitude, has given us every talent, every skill, and every positive character trait that has contributed to whatever successes we enjoy in this life. No one is a self-made man.

• None of us can ever succeed in this life without God’s blessing or without God willing it. Sadly, so many of us are too blind to see this full truth, and when we are blind to the truth about ourselves, we are often blind to the truth about others as well.
• Obviously, we are all in God’s debt. Therefore, it is right and just that we render Him our homage, our praise, our adoration, and our sincere gratitude. To neglect to worship, praise, and thank God is a serious sin and a terrible injustice.
• While we can never repay God for His goodness to us, justice demands that treat Him with the greatest respect, loving Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind in order for our relationship with Him to be properly ordered.
• Coming to this understanding that it is our Lord who has given us every good thing should also help us to properly order our relationships with other people as well.
• Specifically, if it is God who is responsible for every gift that man has, then all men are truly equal in dignity. Put another way, each of us is a beggar before God. While certainly some people are greater sinners than others, each of is in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
• This absolute need for God’s mercy, the fact that none of us will be saved by our own merits, makes us all equal in God’s eyes – even the worst of sinners. As Christians, we must therefore look upon all people as worthy of love, respect, and compassion – for that’s how God sees us.
• While I think most of us may ascent to this notion of the radical equality of all people in God’s eyes, in practice too many of us fall short in treating others, especially those closest to us, with the proper respect at times. We often fail to see others as worthy of our love.
• When we lack humility, we do not always see the truth about ourselves and others, and in our lack of humility we sometimes feel justified in treating people badly. In our broken human nature, we are often inclined to think too highly of ourselves, and too little of others.
• So many of the sins we commit against others: our petty judgments, our gossiping, our insults, our unwillingness to forgive, our lies, our cheating and stealing, even sins of violence come from this failure to acknowledge this fundamental equality of dignity.
• Or we labor under the mistaken belief that because someone has harmed us or wronged us in some way, we therefore have the right to sin against them in turn, or at least withhold our forgiveness.
• But the truth, my brothers and sisters, is that we are all sinners. Each and every one of us. Each of us is worthy of God’s love, and conversely, each of us is also deserving of His damnation for whatever sins we’ve committed. We are all spiritually sick; we are all broken.
• We are all in need of God’s mercy. While it is true that some of us are greater sinners than others, true justice (tempered by charity and Christian wisdom) recognizes that none of us has a right to God’s mercy, and therefore none of has a right to withhold mercy from others.
• And thus Jesus must be our model for how to treat others. Despite our terrible sinfulness – a sinfulness that is rendered all the more terrible when we consider all that God has done for us – Jesus was still willing to suffer and die for us so that we might be redeemed.
• So, if we are going to call ourselves Christians, we must be willing to forgive the sins of others – even the most grievous of offenses – in order to treat people with justice and charity.
• Hardness of heart, bitterness, and lack of forgiveness have no place in God’s Kingdom.
• Therefore, let us all today examine ourselves well. Whom have we offended; to whom do weowe an apology? In justice let us take responsibility for our actions and do our best to make amends to all whom we’ve trespassed against.
•  And in charity, let us forgive all who have trespassed against us.

 

©Fr. Timothy Reid

Pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

Repentance

One cannot merely scrape away at the surface of evil; one has to get down to its roots, its causes, the inner truth of conscience….Lord, let me know how to live and walk in the truth.  K. Wojtyla