What is God? What is Creation?

After watching the first Curiosity show on Discovery Channel last weekend, I was reminded on this question and how it is generally assumed that everyone share the same understanding of the answer to it.
Even Physicist Stephen Hawking does not provide a background to 'God' before dismissing Him as non-existant. I believe that, with his brilliant mind, if he would look into 'God' nearly as much as he looks into Physics, he would accomplish the promise of this quote:

Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. - John Paul II

In the first Curiosity documentary titled: Did God Create the Universe? Hawking does a good job of purifying religion from superstition. This is because the science he presents is reasonable. Without realizing it, he did a great favor to religion by comfirming the fact that God is not native of Time. Unfortunately, he does not seem to be aware that some religions are already aware of that. He clearly did not do even a little research of 'God' beyond what we may call the street understanding of 'God'.

Here is the last part of the presentation which includes how Hawking concludes that God does not exist.





Fortunately, I know people who probably think about God perhaps as much as Hawking thinks about Physics, so my faith was not shaken. It was not shaken because I have gone through those arguments before, but also seen video clips like this one:



I was actually glad about the arguments Hawking used because they do reject the common false notion of God and by doing so, they support the true notion of what God is. Somehow, I have a feeling that Hawking my be surprised by finding God since the truth always lead to God and as much as he sees and follow what is true, he get closer and closer to God. Of course this means farther and farther from the false notions of God which he is considering the notion of God...

To be more fair, I will also share Fr. Barron comment on Creation. It is not a particular response to Science, but can give hints about the attitude we should have in regard to God/Creation.



This will be all, even though I saw some other interesting youtube clips on Catholic view on Creation.

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity ...some quotes from the CCC

257 "O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!" God is eternal blessedness, undying life, unfading light. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the "plan of his loving kindness", conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: "He destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son", through "the spirit of sonship". This plan is a "grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. It unfolds in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church.


813 The Church is one because of her source: "the highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of Persons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit." The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross, . . . restoring the unity of all in one people and one body." The Church is one because of her "soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity." Unity is of the essence of the Church:
What an astonishing mystery! There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I should like to call her "Church."

260 The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: "If a man loves me", says the Lord, "he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him":
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.


266 "Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal" (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).


256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called "the Theologian", entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople:
Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me. . .

2845 There is no limit or measure to this essentially divine forgiveness, whether one speaks of "sins" as in Luke (11:4), "debts" as in Matthew (6:12). We are always debtors: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another." The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relation ship. It is lived out in prayer, above all in the Eucharist.
God does not accept the sacrifice of a sower of disunion, but commands that he depart from the altar so that he may first be reconciled with his brother. For God can be appeased only by prayers that make peace. To God, the better offering is peace, brotherly concord, and a people made one in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.


738 Thus the Church's mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity (the topic of the next article):
All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father's and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided. He binds together the spirits of each and every one of us, . . . and makes all appear as one in him. For just as the power of Christ's sacred flesh unites those in whom it dwells into one body, I think that in the same way the one and undivided Spirit of God, who dwells in all, leads all into spiritual unity.

Adam the priest-king, the sanctuary, and the sacrifice

Gen 2:16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

Adam the Priest and Eden the Sanctuary

Gen 2:10 And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.
Gen 2:11 The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth.
Gen 2:12 And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone.
Gen 2:13 And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.
Gen 2:14 And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
Gen 2:15 And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it.

The Universe: a Temple - Worshippers

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth:
Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth.
Gen 2:6 But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth.
Gen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

7th day Covenant making complete: The Universe: A Temple

Gen 2:1 So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them.
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
Gen 2:3 And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone.

I have just come from Holy Mass. At the end of the Mass we sang the beautiful song "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it began with me..."
One of the way to be at peace is to be better organized, this is my resolution this year. I always saw it as easy matter but it is not that easy. Well, for me I really need to make myself into a serious habit of setting priorities and sticking to them in everyday activities. A question of improving my time-management skills. But I will need great strength of the spirit. So that means lots of prayers.

On the missionary side of the christian life this have an enormous advantage. It involves listening carefully to God and serving faithfully, and of course producing many fruits for the Kingdom.

Here is a popular story about time management.

Happy New Year everyone and may the Peace of the Lord be with all of us always.

Alleluia He reigns!

British Columbia is naturally beautiful but today Vancouver is just looking great. It is sunny, the sky is clear, and it is not hot. Nature is declaring the glory of God. And people seem to be joining in the song. I hope it is the same wherever you are!