Compendium of the Traditional Catechism of the Catholic Church
Approved by His Excellency Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan from Campos Brazil
by
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I. THE DESIRE FOR GOD
27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:
The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.[1]
28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:
From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For "in him we live and move and have our being."[2]
II. WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD
31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.
32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.[7]
And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?[8]
33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",[9] can have its origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone calls God".[10]
35 Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.(so) The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.
A1 The scientific and logical evidence for God is key and of extraordinary importance. The foundation of liberalism and modernism is Atheism. The Godless worldview if the foundation of all ideologies that oppose the Church and Good in the world: freemasonic liberalism, modernism, Marxism, feminism, etc, etc. A strong foundation in Apologetic is key today in order to defend the Faith against attacks of non believers and the cuasi absolute power of liberalism.
I do recommend some concrete books to gain a strong foundation on apologetics. The evidence of God based on the beginning of the Universe and as cause of the Big Bang, the fine tune of the Universe that allows matter and the existence of life must be familiar to all educated Catholics. I recommend to begin with:
1. “Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics” by protestant writer Dr. William Lane Craig. Actually I recommend all writings from Dr. Craig as his brilliant intellect provide a solid philosophical foundation against all Atheist objections. I strongly recommend his books and articles!
2. “New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy” by Catholic priest Father Dr. Robert J. Spitzer.
3. “There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind” by the late Dr. Antony Flew (formerly the worlds most famous Atheist) and Roy Abraham Varghese.
3. “Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God” by Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker.
4. “The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions” By Dr. David Berlinski.
5. "The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism" by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley.
6. The DVD “Cosmic Origins” presented by Father Dr. Robert J. Spitzer and directed by Martha Cotton. This DVD featured some of the greatest scientists of our times that are also religious people such as Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias (who discovered the background radiation from the Big Bang), Templeton Prize winners Dr. Father John Polkinghorne (Cambridge) and Dr. Father Michael Heller (Vatican Observatory), Owen Gingerich (Harvard), Lisa Randall (Harvard), Jennifer Wiseman (NASA) and Stephen Barr (University of Delaware).
7. "Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design" by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer.
8. "Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (The Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute Vol. 9)" by Michael J. Behe , William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer
--A2 There are five logical philosophical ways to prove God’s existence according to St. Thomas Aquinas:
The first method proceeds from motion. It is certain that things on earth undergo change. Now, everything that is moved is moved by something; nothing, indeed, is changed, except it is changed to something which it is in potentiality. Moreover, anything moves in accordance with something actually existing; change itself, is nothing else than to bring forth something from potentiality into actuality. Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing: thus heat in action, as fire, makes fire-wood, which is hot in potentiality, to be hot actually, and through this process, changes itself. The same thing cannot at the same time...
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About the Book
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the “sure norm for teaching the faith” (Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum ). Still the language and wording of both the Catechism and the Second Vatican Council is one full of poetic beauty and soft diplomacy. This style of poetry and diplomacy is not the most appropriate for clarity. In many places the language results hard to understand and multiple contradictory interpretations are possible due precisely to the language full of charity but not of clarity. The purpose of the “Compendium of the Traditional Catechism of the Catholic Church” is to provide absolute clarity about the Faith of All times and less room for open interpretations and ambiguity.
The world today in order to keep the Faith of All times needs more than poetic words. It needs clear teachings with full power, strength, and clarity above: no room for misinterpretations, no wiggle room for heretical interpretations at all. That is the purpose of this work: high clarity above all.
With total clarity several subjects are covered: the definition of schismatic, the Limbo, Freemasons, heretic, the so called “marriage” among homosexuals, the doctrine of the Church regarding the liberal freemasonic Democracy, the responsibility that Catholics must have when voting or taking action on the political field, the so called “New Atheists” movement, the Consecration of Russia according to Our Lady of Fatima, the future of the world according to the City of God of St. Agustin, etc. All of these subjects of today and many others are addressed in this work with extreme and total clarity. Here there is no room for error and no room for misunderstanding. This is the Traditional Catechism that is really needed in the Year of the Faith and in any year!About the Author
Roniel Aledo is a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem living in Washington DC. He is an expert in military affairs, strategic analysis, and international relations and a former European champion of Brazilian Jujitsu. He studied Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology in Puerto Rico, Spain, Germany and the USA. He is a personal friend of Bishop Fernando Rifan of Campos Brazil.