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

YOUCAT Question n. 43 - Part IV. 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 301) With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence: For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured, if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living (Wis 11:24-26). (CCC 320) God created the universe and keeps it in existence by his Word, the Son "upholding the universe by his word of power" (Heb 1:3), and by his Creator Spirit, the giver of life.   

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 300) God is infinitely greater than all his works: "You have set your glory above the heavens" (Ps 8:1; cf. Sir 43:28). Indeed, God's "greatness is unsearchable" (Ps 145:3). But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures' inmost being: "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). In the words of St. Augustine, God is "higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self" (St. Augustine, Conf. 3, 6, 11: PL 32, 688).      

(The next question is: Who created the world?)