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54 • Part I. The Creed: The Faith Professed
• Creation reflects God’s goodness and wisdom
. The creation story
in Genesis affirms the goodness of creation: “God looked at every-
thing he had made, and found it very good” (Gn 1:31). Because the
universe is destined for the human family, whom he calls to a per-
sonal relationship with himself, it is ordered in a way that allows the
human intellect to perceive God’s hand working in and through it.
As the
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
(
Dei Verbum
)
of the Second Vatican Council teaches, “God who creates and con-
serves all things by his Word (see Jn 1:3), provides men with con-
stant evidence of himself in created realities” (DV, no. 3; see Rom
1:19-20).
The answers to questions about the origins of the world and human-
ity provided by God’s own Revelation are intimately linked with the
meaning and purpose of the world and humanity. This provides a dis-
tinctive worldview that differs dramatically from those shaped by other
philosophies and points of view. In Pantheism, the development of the
world is identified with the development of God. In Dualism, our ori-
gins are explained by the perpetual conflict of good and evil. According
to Deism, God abandons the world, once made, to itself. There is also
materialism, in which the world is understood to have come from pre-
existing matter that developed naturally and not as a result of any type
of divine action or plan.
THE ANGELS
It is a truth of faith that God, the “maker . . . of all that is seen and
unseen,” created a realm of spiritual beings who do not share the limita-
tions of a physical body and yet exist as the result of his all-powerful,
loving act of creation. We call these spiritual beings
angels
. “As purely
spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal
and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as
the splendor of their glory bears witness” (CCC, no. 330). Angels glorify
God and work for our salvation. The Church celebrates the memory
of certain angels (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael) who were
God’s messengers.