Saturday, April 4, 2009

Heb 11, 4-5 By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice

(Heb 11, 4-5) By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice
[4] By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain's. Through this he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts, and through this, though dead, he still speaks. [5] By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and "he was found no more because God had taken him." Before he was taken up, he was attested to have pleased God.
(CCC 292) The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit (Pss 33: 6 104: 30; Gen 1: 2-3) inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of faith: "There exists but one God… he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom", "by the Son and the Spirit" who, so to speak, are "his hands" (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 2, 30, 9; 4, 20, I: PG 7/1, 822, 1032). Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity. (CCC 316) Though the work of creation is attributed to the Father in particular, it is equally a truth of faith that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are the one, indivisible principle of creation. (CCC 296) We believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance (Cf. Dei Filius, can. 2-4: DS 3022-3024). God creates freely "out of nothing" (Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 800; cf. DS 3025): If God had drawn the world from pre-existent matter, what would be so extraordinary in that? A human artisan makes from a given material whatever he wants, while God shows his power by starting from nothing to make all he wants (St. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum II, 4: PG 6, 1052).

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