Jesuit Editor: Man Is Called To A Supernatural End—The Face-To-Face Vision Of God In Heaven For All Eternity"

Man lives in two worlds
June 2008
Man lives on two levels; he lives in two worlds. What are those two worlds? They are the world of nature, which we can perceive with our senses—what we can see, hear and feel—and the world of the spirit. The former is visible and the latter is invisible. The former is the order of nature and the latter is the order of grace. Atheists and materialists deny the existence of anything spiritual. According to them all reality is limited to the material universe—what can be perceived by the senses. For them, apparently, the mind and ideas are merely highly refined operations of matter.
Since materialists deny the existence of God and spirit, they also logically deny that there can be anything like a miracle.

They deny the truth of the miracles at Lourdes, and they dismiss the historical account of the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament as “mythology” and highly emotional “fables” invented by the Christians in the first and second centuries to support their claim that Jesus Christ is God and so worthy of divine worship. According to them Jesus worked no miracles and did not rise from the dead on Easter Sunday.

The Catholic view of this is completely different. We hold and believe that God created the heavens and the earth, and that he created all things visible and invisible—that is, the physical universe with its trillions of stars, the angels who are pure spirits and the human soul, which is spiritual and immortal. Since God is infinitely wise and powerful, whatever he makes is perfect for its purpose and is made according to definite principles or laws. There is consistency in everything that God does. He is not a capricious God as some voluntarists have maintained, be they Christian or Muslim or pagan. His works therefore operate according to definite laws and so their actions are predictable. Each of the elements has certain properties, like hydrogen and oxygen, and they always react in the same way in the same circumstances. If that were not true, science would be impossible and there would be no modern technology, no airplanes, no electricity and no computers. There are certain laws for the physical universe and certain laws for the spiritual universe. Certainly God guides everything by his Providence and keeps everything in existence, since he is the sole source of all existence. Why he allows many tragedies to happen remains mysterious to us since we do not see the whole picture.

God rarely intervenes in the physical world, but he does so occasionally, working a miracle by curing someone suddenly of cancer, for example. But God is operative all the time in the world of the spirit, the invisible world. Man is called to a supernatural end—the face-to-face vision of God in heaven for all eternity.

Accordingly God offers his grace to all. Grace is a participation in the divine life and is wholly spiritual. Since grace is offered to all, it means that God is very active in the world of the spirit. His grace comes to us in many ways: through the seven sacraments, through prayer, through hearing or reading God’s word as contained in the Bible. Since man is one being composed of body and soul, and God enlightens the soul with his grace daily, it is not true to say that God is not operative in the world. He is operative on both levels, but his activity is different in each level. Each person has the responsibility to be open and receptive to the enlightenment and inspiration that come to him each day. Each person will be judged by God according to his response. He is with us. Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you” (John 15:4) and “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review

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