Section Two Chapter One - I Believe in God the Father - The Symbols of Faith

10-10-2021Compendium

56. How do we collaborate with divine Providence?

While respecting our freedom, God asks us to cooperate with him and gives us the ability to do so through actions, prayers and sufferings, thus awakening in us the desire “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

57. If God is omnipotent and provident, why then does evil exist?

To this question, as painful and mysterious as it is, only the whole of Christian faith can constitute a response. God is not in any way - directly or indirectly - the cause of evil. He illuminates the mystery of evil in his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose in order to vanquish that great moral evil, human sin, which is at the root of all other evils.

58. Why does God permit evil?

Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil. This was realized in a wondrous way by God in the death and resurrection of Christ. In fact, from the greatest of all moral evils (the murder of his Son) he has brought forth the greatest of all goods (the glorification of Christ and our redemption).

Heaven and Earth

59. What did God create?

Sacred Scripture says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Church in her profession of faith proclaims that God is the Creator of everything, visible and invisible, of all spiritual and corporeal beings, that is, of angels and of the visible world and, in a special way, of man.

60. Who are the angels?

The angels are purely spiritual creatures, incorporeal, invisible, immortal, and personal beings endowed with intelligence and will. They ceaselessly contemplate God face-to-face and they glorify him. They serve him and are his messengers in the accomplishment of his saving mission to all.

61. In what way are angels present in the life of the Church?

The Church joins with the angels in adoring God, invokes their assistance and commemorates some in her liturgy.

“Beside each believer stands an angel as a protector and shepherd leading him to life.” (Saint Basil the Great)

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