.
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 so is the 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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