 .
TWO GREAT
MYSTERIES:
“God cannot be without man:
this is a great mystery”
— Pope Francis June
7, 2017
“Jesus
Christ’s Gospel reveals to us that God cannot be without
us: He will never be a God ‘without man’; it
is He who cannot be without us, and
this is a great mystery! God cannot be God without
man: this is a great mystery!”
Vatican Press &
Rome Reports
We have added
the emphasis above to clarify the emphasis implied in the
existential reciprocity (we need God and God needs us) that Francis
himself maintains as an ontological reality — however much such a statement
conflicts with reason and revelation.
If God stands in need of anything
... in actuality, potentiality or possibility — existential or otherwise
— He would not be God. This is Theology 101 (the most
basic theology). This is absolutely contrary to the most basic Christian
(and non-Christian) concept of God.
God is the
“I AM WHO AM” — the “HE WHO
IS” of Exodus 3:14. He is
in and of Himself, being itself, self-existent,
and the source of all other participated being (that is to say,
“contingent
being.”
or a being only inasmuch as it participates in God
Who alone is absolute Being.) He is in need of nothing
and no one.
Saint Paul is clear:
“Neither
is He served with men’s hands, as though He needed anything; seeing
it is He who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.”
(Acts 17.25)
And even is the (modernized) Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“Without
the Creator, the creature vanishes.”
CCC Part I.49
Saint Thomas Aquinas explained it thus:
“God
is His own existence, and not merely His own
essence. ... if the existence of a thing differs from its
essence, this existence must be caused either by some
exterior agent or by its essential principles. Now it is
impossible for a thing’s existence to be caused by its
essential constituent principles, for nothing can be the
sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is
caused. Therefore that thing, whose existence differs
from its essence, must have its existence caused by another.
But this cannot be true of God; because we call God the
first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in
God His existence should differ from His essence.”
(Summa Theologiae Part I Question 3 Article 4)
More simply — and much more beautifully
— is this expressed by the Psalmist:
“Before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou had formed the earth
and the world, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God.”
(Psalm 90.2)
Oh ... the Second Great Mystery?
That the man who uttered
this, can be the Pope of the Catholic Church — this is a great
mystery indeed.
Geoffrey
K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Printable PDF Version
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
___________________________________________
Further Reading on the Papacy of Francis:
Totally Faithful to the Sacred Deposit of
Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti
verbum Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power,
and yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My
Name.”
(Apocalypse 3.8)
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