Creation: A Revealed Truth

These are a few excerpts from an interesting article entitled Revealed Truth by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon. It is on Creation.

“We should reflect, first, that this [that all creation comes from nothing] is a revealed truth. Creation refers to a specific act that cannot be reached by the power of reason. Creation, as the Christian faith understands that term, means the passage from non-being to being. I do not know, nor can I know, by the ability of reason, that all things, visible and invisible, have passed from non-being to being.

Second, what has been created from nothing? We affirm, "heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible." Not just earth, we understand, but heaven too. Not just the material world that we see, but also the invisible world that we cannot see. Not just the chemical substances of things, but also the mathematical theorems and physical laws that give them coherence. Everything that is not God has been created from nothingness, no matter how high, how metaphysical, how spiritual. Apart from God, there is absolutely nothing that was not made from nothing.

Third, God's creating act is the only thing that separates all things from nothing. No creature is adequately considered, then, if it is considered only in se, in itself. Creatures do not have their being a se, of themselves. They are held in existence only because an immense and continuing act of love holds them in existence. All things that endure, endure because the Creator's hand sustains them in being.

If the doctrine of creation is true, the wise man is the one who finds that place in his being where God touches him and holds him in existence.”