AboutJ.M.J. West Expertise I will make an attempt at almost any question. I am a trained Catechist and Apologist, and I can answer most questions regarding:
-Church Doctrine
-Biblical questions (I have a cursory understanding of Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic)
-Catholic Philosophy
-History of the Church (especially the early church)
-Apologetic questions (i.e. why we believe what we believe)
-Ethics
I look forward to your questions!
Experience I work as the College Catechist of Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and the Director of RCIA. I am a revert to the Catholic faith and had to learn my way home, so to speak.
Education/Credentials B.A. Philosophy, Benedictine College
B.A. History, Benedictine College
To answer the first - and some of this will be tentative and philosophical, not just theological - He wills it because he's always willed it. God is eternal and outside of time. By His very nature He has willed to create us. He did this not because he was lacking in any way, or or had any need of us, but simply because "God is Love" (1 John 4:8), and love gives of itself freely expecting nothing in return. There is no way finite creatures could ever repay God, nor does He expect us to. Existence itself is a free gift, which allows us to participate in His very nature (Love Itself) freely. He created us through Himself alone, by Himself alone, and yet for us alone. When He created, He pronounced all of His creation "Good" (cf. Genesis 1). He created us free that we might love - but in being free, we are free to reject that love (as our first parents did, and some of the angels before them, cf. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm).
God wants the world to continue precisely because it is ultimately Good, and because we - images of God - inhabit it. He Himself entered it and even became one of us in Christ Jesus so as to reconcile us to himself.
God created more than just us, however, he created the angels too. Angels are "spiritual, non-corporeal beings" (CCC 328, cf. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p5.htm). They exist eternally and as such their freedom is different from ours. It seems to be the case that they made their fundamental choice to love or reject God 'eternally', outside of time, for reasons not entirely know to us.
The Catechism says:
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"391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.
"392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God." The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies".
"393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."
"394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.
"395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him."
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Satan has set himself against all that God has wrought, because he has completely and entirely rejected love.
Does that make sense?
Pax Christi,
-J.M.J. West
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QUESTION: Your answer was very informed and I thank you for your time. Your answer
definitely satisfied my question however what could possibly bring about
Revelations? What do you think humanity maybe as a whole could do to motivate
God to end it or start it over?
Answer Glad to be a help! Unfortunately, I don't know that I can be much of a help on this issue, because the exact nature of the revelations given to St. John are not fully clear to us. Many of the earliest Christians understood him to be talking about events which were very close at hand for them (i.e. the "666" was a reference to Caesar Nero, which is supported by some textual variants, cf. http://www.jimmyakin.org/2006/06/666.html).
Other's will make a claim that this "beast" and his "number" refer to a future ruler, or even have it all becoming an allegory for each one of us (not a theory I subscribe to).
The Church has the ultimate say on determining what passages of scripture do and don't say, but she also has left the vast bulk of scripture open to interpretation within certain guidelines (i.e. said interpretation doesn't contradict a certain truth of the faith).
The following links might help shed some light on the subject:
That aside, I know that God chastens those he cares about for the same reason I punish my daughter when she tries to hit her brother with a toy - our ultimate correction and improvement. That is in fact the very nature of punishment. If we take the common thread of the Apocalypse as a pre-cursor to the coming of Christ, then the very events would probably be geared ultimately to convict the world of the reality of sin (precisely why Christ came and sent his Spirit (John 16:8)).
God is Love, and he created us freely to love him; the result of this - the ultimate fruition - is heaven. The opposite of that is hell; it's not punishment (or at least not in the same way, because it's not meant to correct) but rather the fruition of our selfishness and rejection of Love Himself.
The wide-scale rejection of God and his ways (which are, incidentally, directly tied to what makes us happy because that's how he made us) could be something that would trigger this if it's human triggered, but even Christ said that only the Father knew the time. It will probably occur within the next 500 billion years though, because at that point the universe will pretty much cease to be.
...I hope that shed some light on the subject, and I'd be happy to take a shot at a more specific question.
