BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION ANALYSED
by Pope John Paul II from his General Audience on 12 September 1979. Read text via EWTN.
And that’s how Pope John Paul II ended his 2nd catechesis on the Theology of the Body, Male and Female He Created Them. There are many high points given to us by the Holy Father in this 2nd catechesis. He speaks to us about biblical criticism. This is a very intense study of Sacred Scripture. Those who spend their lives studying the inspired text claim to be able to recognize different hands at work. Not only the Primary Author who is Almighty God but there are said to be the Yahwist, and the Elohist. These two are mentioned specifically by the Holy Father in this catechesis. Yahwist, so called, because whenever God is referred to in those passages God is called Yahweh. The Elohist, because in those passages God is referred to Elohim. These are findings of biblical scholarship. There are said to be other secondary authors involved in the Pentateuch. The Holy Father was neither endorsing nor prohibiting just acknowledging what the scripture scholars say.
He identifies different accounts of creation focusing his attention in this passage on the first account of the creation of man, which he says, thanks to biblical scholarship, is chronologically later. It is not the oldest even though it is presented first in the canon of Sacred Scripture.
The Holy Father reminds us that the Sacred Scripture is theological in character, specifically the creation which we have heard. The theological character of these passages of Sacred Scripture is evident in that it reminds us of the original innocence in which we were made and which John Paul will treat in greater depth in future catechesis. Not only the theological character of original innocence but also the theological character of the original happiness is addressed by the Holy Father.
In the beginning God made us innocent, in the beginning God made us happy and made us for happiness. This is also related to the classical ethics of happiness: eudemonia. And the theological character of this passages of Sacred Scripture regarding the original goodness of creation “God saw all that He had made and it was good.” These points of the theological character of the passages of Sacred Scripture the Holy Father is studying also include Original Sin; the Fall. Likewise, that we are made in the image of God. That is part of the theological character of these passages of Sacred Scripture. Not only God in Himself ,even with anthropomorphic presentations, breathing the life breath into our nostrils but even that we are in the image of God.
That is part of the theological character which our Holy Father highlights as he focuses on these beginning chapters of the Sacred Scripture. He reminds us that these inspired words present to us a vision of man, gives us a definition of man, and here the Holy Father does not site Boethius as he has in other of his writings: man is a rational animal. Here he focuses on man as image of God: imago Dei.
The Holy Father reminds us that these passages of Sacred Scripture present to us essential truths about man and not only about God, but truths about ourselves; how we were “in the beginning” and how our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ refers back to “the beginning” in order to know where we have come from and where we are going. Even as in the last catechesis, where he referred to the primordial law of the Creator, in today’s passage he cites the Law of Moses, which is at least two-fold, the big Ten Commandments, the Decalogue but also it is a reference to the Torah wherein we read these inspired words. The Holy Father reminds us that it is our task in our day, not just when he first gave these talks back in 1979 but even until Christ the Lord should return in glory to judge the living and the dead, that we are to be His interlocutors today. That it is through the Sacred Scripture and through Mother Church, guardian of the sacred text, that we are to converse with God. We are to listen to Him speak to us and we lift our hearts and minds to the Lord in prayer. We analyze the sacred text using the gray matter, our minds, using the natural intelligence God has given us.
And several times the Holy Father used a phrase “at the same time.” This is a part of the principle of non-contradiction, which is a rational law: “something cannot both be and not be at the same time, in the same sense, of the same subject.” It is a foundational truth.
The Holy Father highlights the cosmological reality in these words of Sacred Scripture. We see the Heavens and the Earth and all that they contain. We see that God has made us well. Our origin in the good God, Who is all good, Who has made us good. We see ourselves as the subjects of creation and objectively so. The Holy Father strikes a very serious tone when addressing objective reality and the objective fact. The scripture exists, creation exits, our faith exits. We are subject to believe the faith. God is the subject who created the Heavens and the Earth. These are objective things, cosmology writ large, the cosmos, the Heavens and the Earth, us included.
The Holy Father raises the specter of Exodus 3 just by allusion here where God reveals His name to Moses, “I am Who am sent me.” That is what God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh and Israel. But even this earlier passage of Sacred Scripture in the book of Genesis the Holy Father insists five (5) times in this one catechesis on the metaphysical content, how it is so important that we understand what we read and how what we read helps us to understand not only the Sacred Scripture but reality; life itself. The Holy Father specifically mentions, in this metaphysical context, being and existing. We are human beings, the radio or the computer upon which you are listening has existence, it is. It has being, but its being like our being is contingent, dependent upon another. The computers do not exist without the manufacturers. The manufacturers cannot make what they make without the materials. Even when synthetic materials are used for which ever fabrication it presupposes the existence of the cosmos of which we read about in Genesis: “the Heavens and the Earth and all that is therein.”
God is the supreme being, the necessary being, Who exists apart from all else, in Whom we live and move and have our being. And we have been made a new creation in Christ by grace and faith and Baptism which the Holy Father has not yet addressed in this catechesis but will not doubt get there.
The Holy Father not only in this passage cites the anthropological reality which is found in Genesis: anthropology, the study of man, the science of man, anthropos; what does it mean to be human being, but also ethics. What good should we do and what evil should we avoid? Is there anything that is good? There is. Is there anything that is evil? There is. What is valuable? What is worth doing? God believed that it was valuable to make “the Heavens and the Earth and all that is therein.” To create in the divine image, male and female we have been created because God thought it was worth while. A worthy task, a valuable task, the good God did well to make us and He calls us to mirror Him in Whose image we are made, for us to do good. This is how we are true to our nature as human beings.
Pope John Paul II in this 2nd catechesis of the Theology of the Body uses that exact phrase “Theology of the Body” twice. He promises to go over it in the future talks and he will. Theology is the science of God. Theos is the Greek word for God and the -ology is the science. There is natural theology and there is supernatural theology or theology based upon revelation. In this case the Holy Father is doing theology based on sacred scripture but he is also doing a natural theology based on his natural ability, his human intelligence, his understanding. What does the body tell me about God? What does the body tell me about myself made in the image of God? It is actually in view of the incarnation that God became like us in all things but sin in Christ Jesus to save us from our sins by His death and resurrection in His body, by His ascension to the Father’s right hand in glory in our human nature where He awaits us, where He intercedes for us, from whence He shall come in glory to judge the living and the dead. The Holy Father Pope John Paul II went through these five (5) years of talks in order to help us all be ready, in order to help us all to understand well our faith. The faith handed on once for all the saints. Faith in the one only Son, Jesus Christ in Whom we are adopted sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, not only to one another but even to Christ himself.
Pope John Paul II, cites several passage of sacred scripture in this 2nd catechesis of the Theology of the Body: Matthew 19, Mark 10, and three passages from Genesis. Genesis 1:1-2:4, Genesis 2:5-25, and all of Genesis 3. Let us never forget to read the Sacred Scripture not only with faith and devotion but with whatever keen insight our natural intelligence can bring to bear. The God Who has made us to believe in Him has also made us to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him in this world so as to be happy with Him not only in the here and now but even in the hereafter. We had to be restored to His grace, by the death and resurrection Jesus, Who is the new Moses, Who gives us the grace we need to keep the Law once given us on Sinai’s height.
The Law which is inscribed not only on those stone tablets but even on our fleshy hearts. Let us remember our role as the current interlocutors of the Lord. He speaks to us in Sacred Scripture, He speaks to us in the sure and certain teaching of Mother Church. He speaks to us in that still small voice. We are called to answer. We are called to listen and to respond in faith and love knowingly like the Yahwist, like the Elohist, like holy Moses and David before us. True to our nature, true to our Creator, true to the very being which we have. Thanks be to God.