The Purpose Of Catholic Catechism

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The purpose of the Catholic Catechism is to educate and form man in the faith given to us by our lord Jesus Christ. Therefore it is seemly fitting to discuss man in relation to the Catechism. The very first chapter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with man, and continues, at great length, to discuss man in all four sections of the catechism. It is the collection of church teaching, which have been given to man by for the salvation of mankind. The follow essay will draw out and develop the recurring theme of man from the catechism. “ The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never …show more content…

Man capabilities of reason are limited. In other words he is unable to understand everything. This is because certain things can only be obtain by faith in revelation, “man stands in need of being enlighten by God’s revelation.” . It can clearly be seen that there is a higher intellect (God) who bestows the gift of, “spiritual powers of intellect,” to the human soul. Despite this we still have to assign to the human soul some power which allows it to take part in this superior intellect, which is God. “By his reason, man recognises the voice of God.” It is through this power that the human soul can make things intelligible. Yet the human soul sill draws from the power of the higher intellect (God) so that is is able to know. The nature of man partakes and depends on both reason and …show more content…

He is a body that is, a human body by reason of its union with the soul. The souls is the “whole human person.” In the Thomistic system, the substantial union is a relation by which two substances are so disposed that they form one. “The soul is essentially the form of the body.” The catechism also states, “the unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the form of the body.” In the general theory, neither "matter" nor "form", but only the composite (unity between body and soul), is a substance. In the case of man, the soul has been proved in reality to be capable of a separate existence. “The human soul retains its own existence.” The "body" can in no shape or form be called a substance in its own right. It exists only as determined by a form; and if that form is not a human soul, then the "body" is not a human body. It is in this sense that it is an incomplete substance. Each human is “endowed with a spiritual soul,” which is directly created by God Himself, it is not “produced by the parents.” The parents produce only the human body, and do even that, only with the help of God's power. “Male and female, He (God) created them, blessed them, and said be fruitful.” The uniting of the soul with the body is called infusion. Modern biology knows that at the moment of conception, when the 23 chromosomes from each parent join, the complete genetic pattern of a unique being is already

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