Believe

Well, what do Catholics believe? Reading the press or watching TV you might think that it doesn’t stretch much past some weird old-fashioned shibboleths about sex (gosh, you mean they don’t think it’s all right to sleep with whoever you want?) and babies (don’t you know it’s just a clump of cells?). And it’s true, these are important parts of Catholic belief. But they’re not what comes first. In fact, there’s no great secret to Catholic belief at all: it’s proclaimed at each Mass, you know in that bit that begins ‘We believe in one God…’ The Creed. There we have the core of our faith, and from this all else flows.

But underlying this faith are two basic convictions that animated the discussions of the Church Fathers in the early centuries after Christ. Gerald O’Collins identifies these ideas in his book, Jesus Our Redeemer.

The fathers of the Church shared two basic convictions. First, the situation of fallen humanity was so desperate that any effective saviour of humanity must be divine; only the personal presence of the Son of God among us could have brought salvation…

Second, the fathers of the Church understood that all the stages of his incarnate history effected human redemption, and not merely his death on the cross.

But of course, the question then arises, just how did we manage to get into this mess? After all, God made the universe and ‘behold, it was very good’  (Genesis 1:31), so where did it all go pear shaped? No definitive answer to that question can be given by reason alone but, guess what, we don’t have to rely just on our own poor straining brains. That’s what’s called Revelation. Thus one possible answer is given in the Book of Wisdom: ‘God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living… It was through the devil’s envy that death entered the world’ (Wisdom 1:13, 2:24).

Not exactly a fashionable answer in today’s psychological world. You mean a real, dishonest-to-evil spiritual, non-corporeal being had something to do with it? Well, yes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is quite clear about it:

Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called ‘Satan’ or the ‘devil’ (391).

Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls ‘a murderer from the beginning’ (394).

But, frankly, it seems like a bit of an oversight on God’s part to have made a universe where things could go so badly awry. Why not just get it right the first time? But then, of course, he would be making – as we make – rather than creating – as He does. And out of the woven strands of good and evil that we creatures make, God fashions something infinitely greater, something so far beyond our capacity that it does not even occur to us until finally we see it and greet it with our usual human, ‘Oh, of course, why didn’t I think of that before?’

JRR Tolkien, the greatest Catholic writer of the 20th century, sums this up beautifully in a profound theological tale, the Ainulindalë, the story of how Ilúvatar (God) created Middle-earth through the agency of angelic beings called Ainur.

Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.