Thursday, January 26, 2012

A Creature Might Exist Who Is Directly Intended By God For Himself

No human being is simply a product of chance. Each person has origins in the vast creative potential within the Godhead. This fact does not mean that no element of chance is found in our individual lives. But chance itself is the result of the crossing of voluntary or necessary acts. From our viewpoint, what looks like chance looks like purpose within a providential order. 
The most significant entities in creation are not stars, planets, comets, black holes, or other sidereal phenomena. They exist from the ages in order that within the universe a creature might exist who is directly intended by God for Himself. The order of cosmic development is anthropic in character. Once the cosmos itself exists, with the sundry orders of living and sentient beings within it, we only begin the drama of what the universe is about. 
The human being is the one being in the physical cosmos who belongs both to the world and to what transcends the world. All levels of being are found within each human person – mineral, vegetable, animal, spirit. They exist there in a coherent whole. Every human being, however, finds that he does not just live in a physical world. He lives in a world of pleasures and pains, of opinions, thought, willings, and searchings. His own good is not simply himself. He exists “for himself” in order that he may act, know, and choose. To be what he is, it is not enough simply to be. 
Link (here) the full piece by Fr. James Schall, S.J. The Catholic Thing

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