God’s Divine Revelation (His Plan)


By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. God Plan

THE STAGES OF REVELATION

The Fall (Adam and Eve)
The LORD God gave man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die." (Gen 2:17)

But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die!  No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad." (Gen 3:4).

God manifested himself to our first parents, spoke to them and, after the fall, promised them salvation (cf. Gen 3:15) and offered them his covenant.

The Covenant with Noah
After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood: “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” It will remain in force as long as the world lasts.

God chooses Abraham
In order to gather together scattered humanity God calls Abram from his country, his kindred and his father's house, and makes him Abraham, that is, "the father of a multitude of nations". "In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed."

”On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,  Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21NIV)


God forms his people Israel
God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets, he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity. God formed Israel as his people by freeing them from slavery in Egypt. He established with them the covenant of Mount Sinai and, through Moses, gave them his law. (The Ten Commandments)

Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts.

CHRIST JESUS "MEDIATOR AND FULLNESS OF ALL REVELATION"

God has said everything in his Word
God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant forever. The Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him.
By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life.

 

Source: Some excerpts from Catechism of the Catholic Church

 

The Nature of God


There are things that we will never understand about God. They remain a mystery to the human mind. Even our language that is based on familiar things to us cannot begin to describe or understand these mysteries. We can however describe some important “attribute” of God that helps us to shed a small bit of light on His Nature.

God Exists Absolutely
This does not mean that God is always there.
God is the “source” of being or existence. There is no difference between “what “he is and “that” he is. There is no cause that caused him. God must be identical to the fullness of being. That is what God exists absolutely means.

God is Infinite
God must be infinite, utterly limitless. By infinite we do not mean immense size or endless duration. We mean that we must deny of God limitations (like age or size). There s no other thing that limits God.  If God is the very source of being, he must be without limit. There for he is infinite.

God is One
If God is infinite, can there be another God? Obviously not.

God is Spiritual
God is not a material being.  Bodies are limited by something. God must be immaterial, that is spiritual.

God is Eternal
God is not bound by the kind of changing being which times measures. God is eternal (non-temporal). Because God is not temporal, he can become temporal.

God is Transcendental and Immanent
God cannot be part of the universe. If he were he would be limited by it. God is the creator of all things. God must be other than his creation.  This is what we mean by transcendence.
God is the creator, the giver of the total being to all things. As such he must be active in giving the need to be and to act. If he was not actively communicating being to all things then they would cease to exist. In him we live and move and have our being.  In other words, God is imminent.

Gods is Intelligent
God is the creator and sustainer of all things.  We know that Chemicals and living organisms are intelligible structures. (DNA) A system which things act and react to each other in a certain specific way determined by the system.  This we refer to as a plan or act of intelligence.  His intelligence is not like ours.  His intelligence must be infinitely greater. Although we this is a mystery to us we call God intelligent.  

God is Good
God is the source of all that we recognize as good. God is the source of all being. Therefore God cannot be evil in any way.  Evil is what should be there and is not. Something is good of its kind if it succeeds in being that kind of thing to the fullest. It is bad if it fails. God is of the fullest, therefore there can not be a question of failure on the part of the Creator.  God is one with perfect being. God is perfect good.

Source: Some excerpts from Handbook of Christian Apologetics Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tracelli