Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 43 – Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part III. Is the world a product of chance?

(Youcat answer - repeated) No. God, not chance, is the cause of the world. Neither in its origin nor with respect to its intrinsic order and purposefulness is it the product of factors working “aimlessly”.         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 299) Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: "You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight" (Wis 11:20). The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the "image of the invisible God", is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the "image of God" and called to a personal relationship with God (Col 1:15, Gen 1:26). Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work (Cf. Ps 19:2-5; Job 42:3). Because creation comes forth from God's goodness, it shares in that goodness - "and God saw that it was good… very good" (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31) - for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world (Cf. DS 286; 455-463; 800; 1333; 3002). 299 

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians believe that they can read God’s handwriting in his creation. To scientists who talk about the whole world as a random, meaningless, and aimless process, Pope John Paul II pointed out in reply in 1985, “Given a universe in which there is such a complex organization of its elements and such a wonderful purposefulness in its life, talking about chance would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact it would be tantamount to accepting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human reason, which in this way would be refusing to think and to search for a solution to problems.”

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 49) Without the Creator, the creature vanishes (GS 36). This is the reason why believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring the light of the living God to those who do not know him or who reject him.   

(This question: Is the world a product of chance? is continued)