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In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Very important things that we must focus on three words of the Creed:
1) We do not say, we believe "that" God exists.
2) We do not say, we "know" that God exists.
3) We do say, We believe IN God.
We say, "We believe" and not "we know"
because faith comes before knowledge.
Before I say two and two make four, I believe that numbers can be added.
Before knowing that we can do fixing cars, we believe that it will not vanish out of existence while we are working on it.
These examples are quite inadequate for our purposes
but they more or less show that at the beginning and at the end of our reasoning and an action there is belief.
We say we believe in God
because whatever we know derives from some further reality or truth and that further reality is God
or is made by God.
Whether we are speaking of the past, or of the present, or of the future
and what is imagined and can be imagined in our mind that there is God.
One way of seeing this is to ask ourselves a simple question:
The answer is no, because it is clear that people don't miss anybody
or anything they have never known or heard about.
Sure it is conceivable that the world should not exist at all.
As far back as we can go in history, people have entertained the possibility of the non-existence of the world.
And this very question contains the seeds of its own answer.
The cosmogonies and mythologies of the people of antiquity constitute this answer,
given in so many forms, to the effect that beyond the world there is One Who is responsible for the world.
One for whom no one else is responsible. He is self-existent. He is He Who is.
In Him we believe. We don't entertain the notion of His existence as another piece of information stored up in our head,
as we know, for instance, that Billy Junior's father is Billy Senior.
We believe in Him as a child believes in his own father.
The child doesn't simply believe "that" his father exists.
In a healthy relationship, the trust that the child as in his father makes a difference in his whole life
in general, in his outlook.
Likewise, our belief in God is of fundamental significance.
It is a belief that matters, for on one hand it gives meaning to our life,
gives us gladness
and courage
and patience,
and on the other, it implies a commitment.
When we believe in God, we LIVE differently.
We choose the "narrow" and more difficult path;
a life of service which, paradoxically, becomes a joy.
The above considerations might be put in somewhat more technical terms.
In order to do this we must familiarize ourselves with the words "absolute" and "contingent".
"Absolute" means independent of any other conditions, thing or person whatever".
"Contingent" means "dependent on something or somebody else".
For example, when we say that the existence of a house is contingent,
we mean that we cannot think of the existence of a house without being aware in our mind of a man who must have built it for a purpose.
Now the existing observable world is contingent.
This implies the necessity of an absolute being.
To this absolute being we give the name God.
In other words, the reason of the world existence is God's will.
We say that God made the world.
There are two principal ways of presenting this conviction.
The first and more familiar way consists in arguing from the cosmos to God.
This argument: the cause of the existence of an oak tree is a previous oak tree.
But this cause itself (that is, the previous oak tree) must have had a cause.
Thus going from cause to cause we arrive and are bound to stop,
the first acorn.
When we ask the question, who made the world where the first oak tree could grow,
the answer is GOD.
Great minds also find signs of God by looking inwards into their inner world.
For instance, they find that they can be aware in their souls of the Most Perfect Being.
But we can put things together in our imagination only if we have seen them before.
For instance, we can imagine a blue island in the middle of a faraway sea.
We can do this because we have seen the color blue, we have seen or at least know of islands and seas.
But we have never come across the Most Perfect Being and if we can think of Him, that is because He is there.
Those who have come to believe in God in a profound
and genuine way have done so with their whole being.
Belief in God is not a matter of intellectual cleverness.
It is a matter of self-giving requires one basic condition:
when we want to approach God we must cleanse our souls, because God is HOLY.
When a thing is covered with dirt, it is not open to the rays of the sun.
Likewise, an impure soul is separated from God.
The most widespread reason for unbelief is perhaps an original unwillingness to open oneself up to Him who requires perfect loyalty.
But that loyalty must be given freely. Otherwise it is worthless.
All lovely and beautiful persons and things they have seen around them,
have been given to them by our Father in heaven.
He is also the sources of everything true and meaningful.