CCC on Creation

CCC 279 - 324
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P19.HTM

279 - intro, citing Genesis 1:1 and promising to explain. Next two paragraphs merit citation in extenso, they are beautiful as they stand, if you ignore some later context:

280 Creation is the foundation of "all God's saving plans," the "beginning of the history of salvation"117 that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery of Christ casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": from the beginning, God envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.

281 And so the readings of the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the new creation in Christ, begin with the creation account; likewise in the Byzantine liturgy, the account of creation always constitutes the first reading at the vigils of the great feasts of the Lord. According to ancient witnesses the instruction of catechumens for Baptism followed the same itinerary.

Then 282 is again introductory, and tells us what kind of questions are answered. By the catechesis on creation, not exactly by Genesis 1 as such. Next two are however bad:

283 The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: "It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me."

284 The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin: is the universe governed by chance, blind fate, anonymous necessity, or by a transcendent, intelligent and good Being called "God"? and if the world does come from God's wisdom and goodness, why is there evil? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for it? Is there any liberation from it?

Now, King Solomon was a prophet who really could say of God "It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists". The scientists however are not prophets and their knowledge is far from unerring. It is however noteworthy that the Bible passage speaks of King Solomon's knowledge of the natural world. However, I think it is far closer to that of St. Thomas Aquinas than that of a modern scientist preaching Deep Space and Deep Time, as well as Heliocentrism and Evolution.

Not because King Solomon's knowledge was poor, but because it was fairly clearly operational science. I don't think there are many fields where such a thing would deviate from St. Thomas.

Here by contrast, we have what the paragraph wants to compare to King Solomon's wisdom:

"Enriched our knowledge of the age ... of the cosmos" = direct endorsement of Deep Time, of Millions and Billions of Years.

"Enriched our knowledge of ... the dimensions of the cosmos" = direct endorsement of Deep Space (and of Heliocentrism on which it depends and on its implications by Distant Star Light as to Deep Time).

Here is another aspect:

"The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin:"

Which is it? Do we get our knowledge of umtimate questions from the Catholic account of Creation (Bible, Church Fathers, traditional catechisms)? Or do we get them from this type of studies?

In fact, the paragraph 284 doesn't answer whether non-Christians are right to look to such studies for ultimate answers, it is, correctly, implied in the following we have a better source. However, this would be limited to "ultimate" answers like "why do we exist" rather than "factual" ones like "how did we come to exist", in the light of 283 and its excessive confidence in science.

But as for first three chapters, we have again a very deceiving answer here:

289 Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. the inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.

As far as Catholic tradition is concerned, there was one ultimate hagiographer, Moses. Sure, he did not single handed write all of the Pentateuch, the last chapter of Deuteronomy was by Joshua and for Genesis he used sources.

He took the six days from his own vision on Mount Sinai, and since the tradition about this vision does not include any further vision about the early life of the first men, we must assume that most of chapter 2 and also chapter 3 are parts of Adam's autobiography - the ones he thought it was relevant to transmit in short and easy to memorise accounts that could be safely transmitted over some generations (Adam to Noah = 10, Shem to Abraham = 10 or 11, Isaac to Levi = 3, Caath to Moses = 3, 26 or 27, with so many overlapping that a tradition reduced to as few overlaps as still would be contemporaneous would be 8 to perhaps 12 different people, plus the other ones who helped along).

So, the Creation account is in this untraditional catechism not seen as history, and "beginning" is put into quotation marks, to note that this is not chronologically true in relation to the beginning of the actual universe.

This precisely would suffice to make it untraditional, and therefore CCC can be dismissed as a non-Catholic document, despite the predominance in quantity of unobjectionable paragraphs in this section.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Maundy Thursday
1.IV.2021