Did God cause this typhoon to strike the Philippines? (poll)

[tonyrey]

I would disagree and nothing actually suggests this in the bible to my knowledge. The natural essence of material things is that they break down, if a things make of material isn’t to break down it would be supernatural. This is what many in the Church, and correctly so, say was given to Adam and Eve at their creation but then they lost it due to original sin.

I would again disagree, I agree with the thomistic understanding that says God created the world to work towards an end. God didn’t create a world that was perfect in the beginning rather when all things are brought into their final end, who is God, this is when the cosmos will be perfect. So God’s original design of the universe include entropy, and things like hurricanes tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis are a natural part of the cosmos, not something that is fallen.

I’ve tried to do this, but I think it is an incorrect understanding to say that God created the cosmos in a way then our fall cause it to have a radical change. I rather think that God created the world with rational seeds (a word Augustine uses c.f. De Genesi 1.10.21; cf. 4.26.43, Ibid., 5.23.45. De Trinitate 3.9.16. Ibid., 3.8.13. I’m taking this from footnotes from lecture notes I have in a class so they may not all exactly speak to it but this is contextual support my teacher used to talk about rational seeds, I rather not quote all of that stuff to much to quote.)

the main issue that I’m having is that causality is misunderstood modern society. I say both because causality refers to God in the primary sense, meaning that he is the prime cause of the universe and sustains all things in the universe, and secondary causality which applies to creatures and things in the cosmos, that God does not necessarily take part in (you could maybe say doesn’t take part in at all). When you say that God caused a natural disaster you are not being clear enough in your question. Even a question like did God will this to happen, did is God the direct cause, is God sending this Typhoon to the Philippines, is all coming from a modern understanding of causality and not a augustinian or thomistic view point of causality.

**(added after edit) **The same problem rises in the issue of original sin and natural disaster, but other issue still apply, God must create the cosmos as he intends to and not have to intervene after the fact. Natural science sees no evidence of a substantial change of the nature of the cosmos sometime in the distant pass. AKA the laws of nature have been unchanged since the big bang. If we are going to claim that original sin changes the nature of the cosmos which will cause natural disasters to happen than you are claiming something that is not found in natural science. Can you claim it sure the Church doesn’t speak definitively on these matters, but hopefully as someone who respects the truth of the world and the truth that natural science show us we won’t let our interpretations of faith corrupt science or visa versa. I can’t remember who said it but I think the phrase is appropriate here. Science removes superstition from theology, theology removes idolatry from science (I think that is how it goes.) (sorry for the long edit).

Not all natural evils are caused by moral evil:

CCC 385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.

 

[vames]

Estevao;11399142:

Even the sceptic David Hume conceded that God generally works through the laws of nature rather than by “direct volitions” - in contrast to Calvin’s untenable view that not a drop of rain falls without the express command of the Creator. The immense multiplicity and complexity of events in the universe make it inevitable that disasters occur. Sooner or later persons and animals are bound to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is reasonable to expect God to intervene to prevent suffering and death but if He did so too often everyone would be compelled to believe He exists - which would defeat the purpose of creating us to choose what to believe and how to live. We would know there is a benevolent Power protecting us. We would lose our most precious gift - freedom - and be like lapdogs trying to please their Master, incapable of true love.

Jesus demonstrated that the worst evils are not suffering and death but the folly, greed, selfishness and lack of love which cause disasters. Scientists predicted such events fifty years ago. Mexico City is just one example of another catastrophe waiting to happen…

Do you really imagine a God who loves us, yet remains adamant that hiding Himself is always more important than saving His sons and daughters from a horrific disaster? Then why does the Church even pay attention to apparitions and private revelations? Don’t they directly undermine this superior interest of God to hide Himself?

And Calvin probably did take this seriously:
“Five sparrows are sold for two pennies, aren’t they? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Why, even all the hairs on your head have been counted! Stop being afraid. You are worth more than a bunch of sparrows.”

I can’t understand how “folly, greed, selfishness and lack of love” **caused **this typhoon.

 

[catholictiger]

Not all natural evils are caused by moral evil:

I’m a-little confused by this post.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Thanks for the meteorology lesson there, but God is all powerful and controls such things, does he not? Does he not have an infinite knowledge of everything that goes on in his creation? He even knows how many stands of hair I have on my head, does he not?

[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 10:30 [/BIBLEDRB]:

I made the point in another thread that God continually sustains this universe since ultimately it was made from nothing, adds up to nothing (sum zero energy universe) and will go to nothing (it will “vanish” to quote Scripture somewhere).

If I’m going to make that point, I’d have to say that I think God is ultimately responsible for the typhoon, and every other natural disaster. We often talk about climate change, and how much humans may or may not have contributed to it, but I remember my old pastor saying to me before he died some twenty years or so ago that “I think He (God) is doing something to the sun.” Time will tell whether he was correct or not, but we seem to be having a few massive storms lately - Katrina in the US (2005), Yasi over here (2011), Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), etc. I find it a bit hard to believe this is all because we’re burning too much coal or oil.

He might be the God of the butterfly, but He’s also the God of the crocodile, which grabs it’s prey with ruthless jaws, drags it underwater to drown, and then lets the carcase ferment for a while before eating it. He’s the God of the Black Hole, which swallows everything in its neighbourhood. If the crocodile and the black hole are figments of God’s sustained imagination, then there’s a side to God’s imagination that is less than lovey-dovey.

Our job is to do something to help the victims and prevent such disasters if possible - build sea walls: don’t push the poor onto cheap, low lying ground while the rich buy the high ground.

Why God sent this disaster to a predominantly Catholic country I don’t know, but then I don’t know what the people of Cambodia did to deserve Pol Pot, or the Jews the Holocaust, or the Russians Joseph Stalin, or the middle ages in Catholic Europe the Black Death, or the Ugandans Idi Amin.

God is ultimately responsible. The devil may have a job to do, but it was God who made him. The whole plan is God’s.

In the face of these sort of questions, we’re thrust back on faith, and the realisation that …

Isaiah 55:8 NIV -

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

He’s not soft. To quote my old pastor again, “I think Catholics soft pedal judgement. I think they do anyway.” And he was pretty accurate with his predictions or prophecies if you like.

I don’t like God much at times, but my opinion isn’t going to make much difference to Him.

 

[tonyrey]

I made the point in another thread that God continually sustains this universe since ultimately it was made from nothing, adds up to nothing (sum zero energy universe) and will go to nothing (it will “vanish” to quote Scripture somewhere).

If I’m going to make that point, I’d have to say that I think God is ultimately responsible for the typhoon, and every other natural disaster. We often talk about climate change, and how much humans may or may not have contributed to it, but I remember my old pastor saying to me before he died some twenty years or so ago that “I think He (God) is doing something to the sun.” Time will tell whether he was correct or not, but we seem to be having a few massive storms lately - Katrina in the US (2005), Yasi over here (2011), Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), etc. I find it a bit hard to believe this is all because we’re burning too much coal or oil.

He might be the God of the butterfly, but He’s also the God of the crocodile, which grabs it’s prey with ruthless jaws, drags it underwater to drown, and then lets the carcase ferment for a while before eating it. He’s the God of the Black Hole, which swallows everything in its neighbourhood. If the crocodile and the black hole are figments of God’s sustained imagination, then there’s a side to God’s imagination that is less than lovey-dovey.

Our job is to do something to help the victims and prevent such disasters if possible - build sea walls: don’t push the poor onto cheap, low lying ground while the rich buy the high ground.

Why God sent this disaster to a predominantly Catholic country I don’t know, but then I don’t know what the people of Cambodia did to deserve Pol Pot, or the Jews the Holocaust, or the Russians Joseph Stalin, or the middle ages in Catholic Europe the Black Death, or the Ugandans Idi Amin.

God is ultimately responsible. The devil may have a job to do, but it was God who made him. The whole plan is God’s.

In the face of these sort of questions, we’re thrust back on faith, and the realisation that …

Isaiah 55:8 NIV -

He’s not soft. To quote my old pastor again, “I think Catholics soft pedal judgement. I think they do anyway.” And he was pretty accurate with his predictions or prophecies if you like.

I don’t like God much at times, but my opinion isn’t going to make much difference to Him.

Your last statement gives the game away! Could it be that your concept of God is misguided? Or is His infinite love a fantasy?

Do you really believe God commanded the typhoon to strike the Philippines?

 

[tonyrey]

He might be the God of the butterfly, but He’s also the God of the crocodile, which grabs it’s prey with ruthless jaws, drags it underwater to drown, and then lets the carcase ferment for a while before eating it. He’s the God of the Black Hole, which swallows everything in its neighbourhood. If the crocodile and the black hole are figments of God’s sustained imagination, then there’s a side to God’s imagination that is less than lovey-dovey.

Our job is to do something to help the victims and prevent such disasters if possible - build sea walls: don’t push the poor onto cheap, low lying ground while the rich buy the high ground.

Why God sent this disaster to a predominantly Catholic country I don’t know, but then I don’t know what the people of Cambodia did to deserve Pol Pot, or the Jews the Holocaust, or the Russians Joseph Stalin, or the middle ages in Catholic Europe the Black Death, or the Ugandans Idi Amin.

God is ultimately responsible. The devil may have a job to do, but it was God who made him. The whole plan is God’s.

In the face of these sort of questions, we’re thrust back on faith…

Your faith has a very insecure foundation if you believe God created the world with the express intention of sending disasters to afflict innocent people…

 

[oldcelt]

It is this type of question that brought me to fundamentally alter my belief in the nature of God. I could not reconcile history with the God that was worshiped in my original faith. So, hopefully out of honesty, I moved.

I believe that there is some sort of force out there but it has no control over the day to day activities of humanity or the universe as a whole. The horrific events that strike this earth are a result of natural and easily explained phenomena.

John

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Your last statement gives the game away! Could it be that your concept of God is misguided? Or is His infinite love a fantasy?

Do you really believe God commanded the typhoon to strike the Philippines?

I don’t know, but He set up the system of which the typhoon was a foreseeable part to Him. There’s no getting around that one.

I’ve also said before heaps of times that my (very cruel) father turned up in my room the night he died. He started with an apology, we argued and talked, and at the end he gave this terrifying scream and then disappeared. It was so terrifying that I started to scream, and yet all I could see was him. But it was pretty obvious something was coming for him, going by his “body” language.

So let’s just say I’m a bit more aware of God’s judgement than most.

I’m afraid that my concept of God’s “love” and yours are probably going to be quite different, due to our different experiences. God’s not soft, no matter how much we might want to emphasise His grace and mercy. He killed Ananias and Sapphira on the spot for nothing more than lying. And I’d say He’s killed other people too from time to time.

Then there’s the bit about creation groaning as written by Paul. I’d assume that would include things like typhoons, earthquakes etc. And Christ Himself specifically mentioned wars and earthquakes as part of the reality before He comes again. Besides being a figure of speech, these things kill people in a big way.

Romans 8:22 NIV

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

 

[tonyrey]

Do you really imagine a God who loves us, yet remains adamant that hiding Himself is always more important than saving His sons and daughters from a horrific disaster? Then why does the Church even pay attention to apparitions and private revelations? Don’t they directly undermine this superior interest of God to hide Himself?

Apparitions and private revelations are hardly in the same category as scientifically verifiable facts that persons and animals are always miraculously preserved from injury and death caused by typhoons and earthquakes.

Do you regard free will as less significant than disasters? If you had to choose between being a yes-man in a disaster-free world and being capable of unselfish love in this world which would you choose?

And Calvin probably did take this seriously:
“Five sparrows are sold for two pennies, aren’t they? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Why, even all the hairs on your head have been counted! Stop being afraid. You are worth more than a bunch of sparrows.”

I can’t understand how “folly, greed, selfishness and lack of love” **caused **this typhoon.

They didn’t!** Natural **events generally have **natural **causes - although human vice and folly cannot be completely ignored.

 

[Qoeleth]

God alone exists. He is immutable, impassible, wholly beyond all knowledge and thought.

Therefore the universe is an illusion. It has no lasting or real substance or meaning. The perceived reality of the universe is like the reality of water in a mirage. Should we seek ‘why’s’ and ‘wherefore’s’ for the events of a dream?

The question cannot be answered. Contemplate the crystalline purity of the unchanging One, untouched by time and space, and the question, like all the universe, is reduced to null…

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t know, but He set up the system of which the typhoon was a foreseeable part to Him. There’s no getting around that one.

I’ve also said before heaps of times that my (very cruel) father turned up in my room the night he died. He started with an apology, we argued and talked, and at the end he gave this terrifying scream and then disappeared. It was so terrifying that I started to scream, and yet all I could see was him. But it was pretty obvious something was coming for him, going by his “body” language.

So let’s just say I’m a bit more aware of God’s judgement than most.

I’m afraid that my concept of God’s “love” and yours are probably going to be quite different, due to our different experiences. God’s not soft, no matter how much we might want to emphasise His grace and mercy. He killed Ananias and Sapphira on the spot for nothing more than lying.

Do you think the Apostles were always infallible in their interpretation of events?

And I’d say He’s killed other people too from time to time.

Then there’s the bit about creation groaning as written by Paul. I’d assume that would include things like typhoons, earthquakes etc. And Christ Himself specifically mentioned wars and earthquakes as part of the reality before He comes again. Besides being a figure of speech, these things kill people in a big way.

Romans 8:22 NIV

“these things” are the key words. Can you imagine a world in which things never kill people?

 

[tonyrey]

God alone exists. He is immutable, impassible, wholly beyond all knowledge and thought.

Therefore the universe is an illusion. It has no lasting or real substance or meaning. The perceived reality of the universe is like the reality of water in a mirage. Should we seek ‘why’s’ and ‘wherefore’s’ for the events of a dream?

The question cannot be answered. Contemplate the crystalline purity of the unchanging One, untouched by time and space, and the question, like all the universe, is reduced to null…

How can God alone exist if He created us in His image and likeness. Do we have no lasting or real substance or meaning in heaven - or hell?

 

[tonyrey]

It is this type of question that brought me to fundamentally alter my belief in the nature of God. I could not reconcile history with the God that was worshiped in my original faith. So, hopefully out of honesty, I moved.

I believe that there is some sort of force out there but it has no control over the day to day activities of humanity or the universe as a whole. The horrific events that strike this earth are a result of natural and easily explained phenomena.

John

Do you think it is possible to create a totally accident-free world?

 

[tonyrey]

I would disagree and nothing actually suggests this in the bible to my knowledge. The natural essence of material things is that they break down, if a things make of material isn’t to break down it would be supernatural. This is what many in the Church, and correctly so, say was given to Adam and Eve at their creation but then they lost it due to original sin.

I would again disagree, I agree with the thomistic understanding that says God created the world to work towards an end. God didn’t create a world that was perfect in the beginning rather when all things are brought into their final end, who is God, this is when the cosmos will be perfect. So God’s original design of the universe include entropy, and things like hurricanes tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis are a natural part of the cosmos, not something that is fallen.

I’ve tried to do this, but I think it is an incorrect understanding to say that God created the cosmos in a way then our fall cause it to have a radical change. I rather think that God created the world with rational seeds (a word Augustine uses c.f. De Genesi 1.10.21; cf. 4.26.43, Ibid., 5.23.45. De Trinitate 3.9.16. Ibid., 3.8.13. I’m taking this from footnotes from lecture notes I have in a class so they may not all exactly speak to it but this is contextual support my teacher used to talk about rational seeds, I rather not quote all of that stuff to much to quote.)

the main issue that I’m having is that causality is misunderstood modern society. I say both because causality refers to God in the primary sense, meaning that he is the prime cause of the universe and sustains all things in the universe, and secondary causality which applies to creatures and things in the cosmos, that God does not necessarily take part in (you could maybe say doesn’t take part in at all). When you say that God caused a natural disaster you are not being clear enough in your question. Even a question like did God will this to happen, did is God the direct cause, is God sending this Typhoon to the Philippines, is all coming from a modern understanding of causality and not a augustinian or thomistic view point of causality.

**(added after edit) **The same problem rises in the issue of original sin and natural disaster, but other issue still apply, God must create the cosmos as he intends to and not have to intervene after the fact. Natural science sees no evidence of a substantial change of the nature of the cosmos sometime in the distant pass. AKA the laws of nature have been unchanged since the big bang. If we are going to claim that original sin changes the nature of the cosmos which will cause natural disasters to happen than you are claiming something that is not found in natural science…

This is certainly the teaching of the Catechism:

CCC 385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.

 

[Jaberwocky]

Simple question, did God, in his infinite love, wisdom, power and benevolence cause that typhoon to smack a hugely Catholic country like the Philippines?

I heard that God’s church is the only true church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Philippines is a huge bastion of Catholicism. Surely one would think that God in his infinite love, wisdom, power and benevolence would spare this country from this? Since the beginning of time, in God’s mind, in his infinitely wise and benevolent and loving mind, this typhoon was planned out: yes, no or other?

Usually the theist response to the problem of evil I’ve heard is that God could possibly have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil. Now this seems good when we’re dealing with personal evil that people do to each other. But when it comes to typhoons like this one that smacked the Philippines, i.e. natural evil, one wonders what the morally sufficient reasons for permitting there could be, and whether they are even possible?

It’s this particular typhoon I’d like to address, as I don’t think it is possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for this typhoon.

It seems that God so ordered this typhoon that aid is not able to get to the affected areas, leaving people to die of exposure, dehydration or their injuries if they weren’t killed outright by this storm. One could imagine that a storm such as this might be considered to be morally okay if help could get to people quickly, allowing for a “greater good” to come out of this evil in the form of aid, and people helping one another. But God just seems to have ordered this typhoon to frustrate transportation of people and aid and allow his beloved children to languish without any outside help.

Thoughts?

This is what comes to my mind after meditating on your question for few moments.

God in his divine providence did allow the cataclysm in the Philippines! Could he have prevented it? Yes. But he did not because he can and will bring greater good from it.

Now,

Is this a divine punishment to chastise the wicked?
Is this a divine punishment to end the lives of those who are too wicked to live for they may corrupt others?
Is this an opportunity given for the righteous to do penance and gain merit?
Is this an opportunity for sinners who have turned in their life to expiate the temporal punishment they owe for their sins?
Is this an opportunity given for righteous outside the Philippines to gain merit by helping those in the Philippines?
Is this an opportunity given for others to know the Christian faith as they see the prayers and help offered by fellow Christians?

I think it is all of those and perhaps something entirely different, and only those who are affected by it know that it is what God has called them to do.

These disasters touch everyone who makes it through them differently depending on their prior state in life. Whatever it is, we must accept this opportunity lest we be condemned for missing the Grace God has offered us through this disaster.

 

[Jaberwocky]

God alone exists. He is immutable, impassible, wholly beyond all knowledge and thought.

Therefore the universe is an illusion. It has no lasting or real substance or meaning. The perceived reality of the universe is like the reality of water in a mirage. Should we seek ‘why’s’ and ‘wherefore’s’ for the events of a dream?

The question cannot be answered. Contemplate the crystalline purity of the unchanging One, untouched by time and space, and the question, like all the universe, is reduced to null…

The claim that “God alone exists” is first a claim we must accept to agree with some of the conclusions you have said.

There can be given no actual evidence to prove that claim and surely there is no reason to accept many who make the claim as being a valid authority on the subject. So I think to even accept it and then presume what to do and which questions are unanswerable would be to speculate idly.

The Catholic Church on the other hand, which is the only reasonable authority to assent in such matters because of her authority from Christ (who demonstrated his authority by dying and rising from the dead and many other miracles), has settled the question that all creation is not just illusions but that definitely do exist.

 

[vames]

Apparitions and private revelations are hardly in the same category as scientifically verifiable facts that persons and animals are always miraculously preserved from injury and death caused by typhoons and earthquakes.

Do you regard free will as less significant than disasters? If you had to choose between being a yes-man in a disaster-free world and being capable of unselfish love in this world which would you choose?

But I have no problems with the existence of free will and the existence of typhoons. I know they are natural phenomena and this is the way our planet functions. Humankind can always extract some good from natural disasters, because studying them stimuates the development of science and technology and trying to help people who live in such areas stimulates charity and responsibility towards people and the environment. So, in this sense, of course they have a place in the plan of God, just like moral evil: we learn from them, learn to better our lives, learn to care about each other. This is easy to understand and accept.

I just don’t buy the idea that God doesn’t intervene to save people from natural disasters BECAUSE He wants to stay hidden for the sake of our freedom. Is this freedom, to be kept in the dark and left to painfully wonder if God exists or not and what happens after we die? Should we be thankful for natural disasters, because they are the price that we have to pay for being unsure about the existence of God? People who are furious that God doesn’t intervene to spare us from natural disasters or who are scared thinking that God sends typhoons to punish humankind are already firm believers in God, so this freedom doesn’t help them. Atheists who are convinced that God doesn’t exist don’t use such freedom either.

“Scientifically verifiable facts that persons and animals are always miraculously preserved from injury and death caused by typhoons and earthquakes” - there’s no such thing as a perfect natural disaster, so there will always be a puppy or a lost child or a group of people who are found alive after an astonishing number of days. And when there’s a typhoon that kills tens of thousands or a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands, it’s a bit cynical to say that, well, not every living being was killed, so this must be a proof of a miracle. Either everything is micromanaged like “even all the hairs on your head have been counted” - so it means that God kills 10,000 and God saves 100 - or not everything is micromanaged, so God doesn’t kill the 10,000 and doesn’t save the 100. Logically, you can’t have one without the other.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Apparitions and private revelations are hardly in the same category as scientifically verifiable facts that persons and animals are always miraculously preserved from injury and death caused by typhoons and earthquakes.

Do you regard free will as less significant than disasters? If you had to choose between being a yes-man in a disaster-free world and being capable of unselfish love in this world which would you choose?

They didn’t!** Natural **events generally have **natural **causes - although human vice and folly cannot be completely ignored.

Well, I’m sorry but I saw my father that night as surely as I had porridge for breakfast this morning. To me it’s a fact. It may not be to you, but I know what I experienced.

How much free will have you got in a typhoon with a 6 metre wall of water coming at you?

 

[Qoeleth]

The claim that “God alone exists” is first a claim we must accept to agree with some of the conclusions you have said.

There can be given no actual evidence to prove that claim and surely there is no reason to accept many who make the claim as being a valid authority on the subject. So I think to even accept it and then presume what to do and which questions are unanswerable would be to speculate idly.

The Catholic Church on the other hand, which is the only reasonable authority to assent in such matters because of her authority from Christ (who demonstrated his authority by dying and rising from the dead and many other miracles), has settled the question that all creation is not just illusions but that definitely do exist.

The Catholic Church, based on the authority of Christ and Sacred Scriptures, and the Orthodox Holy Fathers, maintain that God Alone has absolute existence. Other things have apparent or relative existence, only so far as the partake of the Absolute, God. Insofar as they are seen as other than God (i.e. typhoons), they are merely appearances, or deprivations of true Esse, which is God.

Sacred Scripture, which cannot be rejected, and which is the cornerstone of the orthodoxy of the Church, constantly maintains that the world of appearances is a mere shadow and dust:
“Dies mei sicut umbra declinaverunt”-
“Recordatus est quoniam pulvis sumus.”-
Homo vanitati similis factus est ;
dies ejus sicut umbra prætereunt."-

“Debemusne, sumus nonnisi pulvis and vanitas, sequi umbras et umbras umbrarum, hunc mundum? Nullus est ‘quare’ istius qui est nullus.”-
Ought we, who are but dust and vanity, to follow shadows and the shadows of shadows, this world? There is no ‘why’ of that which is nothing.

 

[Jaberwocky]

The Catholic Church, based on the authority of Christ and Sacred Scriptures, and the Orthodox Holy Fathers, maintain that God Alone has absolute existence. Other things have apparent or relative existence, only so far as the partake of the Absolute, God. Insofar as they are seen as other than God (i.e. typhoons), they are merely appearances, or deprivations of true Esse, which is God.

Sacred Scripture, which cannot be rejected, and which is the cornerstone of the orthodoxy of the Church, constantly maintains that the world of appearances is a mere shadow and dust:
“Dies mei sicut umbra declinaverunt”-
“Recordatus est quoniam pulvis sumus.”-
Homo vanitati similis factus est ;
dies ejus sicut umbra prætereunt."-

“Debemusne, sumus nonnisi pulvis and vanitas, sequi umbras et umbras umbrarum, hunc mundum? Nullus est ‘quare’ istius qui est nullus.”-
Ought we, who are but dust and vanity, to follow shadows and the shadows of shadows, this world? There is no ‘why’ of that which is nothing.

It is one thing to say that God is absolute existence (which itself means something relativistic depending on what you define it to be philosophically), and to say that “rest of creation is an illusion”. That view has been refuted by the Catholic Church. Creation most certain does exist though its existence is maintained by God. To even say that Creation is an illusion is to say that God created nothing.