All that is
said about God presupposes something said by God.
-St. Edith Stein (1891-1942)
In our last reflection on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we affirmed the possibility of knowing
God through natural reason. Movements in creation and in our souls can lead us
to a certainty in the existence of God.
Reason isn’t the only thing He leaves us
with, though. Out of love for His creation, God revealed Himself to man by
opening Himself and voluntarily speaking to the world. God freely showed
Himself to man so that we may know Him:
Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us out of love (YouCat, 17).
God first made Himself known to Adam and Eve,
when “he invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with
resplendent grace and justice” (CCC, 54).
God continued to reveal Himself after the
Fall, when men were scattered and divided by sin. He first did this in the
covenant with Noah and then when He selcted Abraham as patriarch of the chosen
people, who were specially called “to prepare for that day when God would
gather all his children into the unity of the Church” (60).
