Does God revere His creatures?

[John_Hiner]

This is a question that arose in a separate discussion. In the course of discussing Jesus’ relation to Mary, an assertion was made to the effect that God loves His creatures but that He does not (or cannot) revere them.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this question? It seems to be to be a possible dividing point between the Catholic Faith on one hand, and various Protestant theories and non-Christian positions on the other.

To review the original discussion go here.

Any thoughts, arguments, or citations that might be helpful would be appreciated.

Pax Christi vobiscum.

John Hiner

 

[I_A]

It depends on what your definition of revere is. A quick glance at dictionary.com reveals definitions ranging from showing respect to idolotry.

God clearly shows a reverence, a respect to his creatures because he became one. What higher honor could he bestow on creation?

 

[John_Hiner]

It depends on what your definition of revere is. A quick glance at dictionary.com reveals definitions ranging from showing respect to idolotry.

God clearly shows a reverence, a respect to his creatures because he became one. What higher honor could he bestow on creation?

Is the Resurrected Body of Christ a creature? Does this affect the range of meanings for “revere” which describe what God bestows on creatures?

Pax Christi tecum.

John Hiner

 

[davidv]

Is the Resurrected Body of Christ a creature? Does this affect the range of meanings for “revere” which describe what God bestows on creatures?

Pax Christi tecum.

John Hiner

One cannot separate the Body of Christ from his person. As a person He was not created - He is God, therefore He is not a creature (that whch is created). I don’t believe that this changes the range of definitions for the work revere, nor does it reveal which one might be implied.

 

[LilyM]

One cannot separate the Body of Christ from his person. As a person He was not created - He is God, therefore He is not a creature (that whch is created). I don’t believe that this changes the range of definitions for the work revere, nor does it reveal which one might be implied.

As a person Christ is both the Son of the Father and the Son of Mary - or as he himself says, Son of God and Son of Man. The two (human nature and divine nature) are INEXTRICABLY linked in hypostatic union.

In that sense he is intrinsically BOTH creature man and non-creature God :yup: Hence his death alone being sufficient both to atone for all of man’s sins for all time (since he is truly God and thus of infinite capacities) AND open heaven to us, his fellow-creatures.

 

[I_A]

I in no way meant to deny the eternality of the Son, I wished to emphasize Christ’s love for us and how high of regards he has for creation.

In my diologue about the definition of revere I meant that a word can mean many things. It would be best to define it as it pertains to that conversation so there would be no confusion. If you define it to mean a form of respect than God certanily respects his creation, free will is a good example of that. If you were to define revere as worshiping something as God (I have never heard it used in this manner, but that was one of the definitions in the dictionary) than that would be impossible for God towards creation because God knows full well that he is God.

 

[John_Hiner]

The idea that I was hoping to address in this thread was the assumption (or assertion in some contexts) that there is an un-bridged separation between God and creation. It seems to me to be a sore spot in many discussions of the Faith.

In the discussion from which this thread was drawn, there was an assertion that Jesus would not (or could not) “revere” Mary, even as His mother, because it would be contradictory for God to “revere” a creature. It is clear that this discussion could take the path of considering what meaning one gives to the word “revere” and thereby take us to a discussion of the distinctions among latria, hyperdulia, produlia, and dulia.

However, in posting this thread I was trying to propose an alternative approach: namely, I was asking whether the hypostatic union of the Second Person with the created physical Body of Christ, and the full worship of Jesus’ Body which this entails, might not show that the supposed separation between the honor due God and the honor due creatures might be seen as bridged – not that there is no distinction between latria and dulia, but that this distinction between them is one of the separations between God and man which Jesus has bridged, a distinction that no longer separates.

It was my hope that grasping this would bring into stark relief the Catholic truth that God has shared both His glory and His rule with humans, whom He has ennobled and even divinized through the Savior.

It seemed to me that the physical ascension of Jesus’ Body establishes this union in a way that might relieve the anxiety generated by some Protestant and Islamic conceptions of the separation between God and creatures.

Pax Dei nobiscum.

John Hiner

Cf., Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 460:
The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:[78] “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”[79] “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”[80] “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”[81]

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.