The Knowledge Of God According To The Church

“Our holy mother, the Church, holds and instructs that God, the first concept and last end of all things, can be understood with certainty from the developed world by the natural light of human reason.” Without this capacity, man would not have the ability to welcome God’s discovery. Man has this capacity due to the fact that he is created “in the image of God”.

In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, nevertheless, man experiences lots of problems in coming to understand God by the light of reason alone.

Human reason is, strictly talking, truly qualified by its own natural power and light of obtaining to a true and particular expertise of the one personal God, who views over and regulates the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are lots of barriers which avoid reason from the efficient and rewarding use of this innate faculty. For the facts that concern the connections between God and guy completely transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are equated into human action and influence it, they require self-surrender and abnegation. The human mind, in its turn, is obstructed in the attaining of such truths, not just by the effect of the senses and the imagination, but likewise by disordered cravings which are the repercussions of initial sin. It takes place that guys in such issues easily encourage themselves that what they would not such as to be real is false or at least doubtful.

This is why guy stands in demand of being enlightened by God’s revelation, not just about those things that surpass his understanding, however likewise “about those religious and moral realities which of themselves are within the grasp of human reason, so that even in today condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with simplicity, with company certainty and without any admixture of mistake”.

ccc  36 – 38