The Catholic World, Vol. 04, October, 1866 to March, 1867Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 04, October, 1866 to March, 1867
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
This is not so, however. The body is to rise again and live for ever.
The universe is to remain for ever, with all its various grades of
existence, including even the lowest, or those which are purely
material. There is therefore a natural order coexisting with the
supernatural in a subordinate relation to it--a minor and less
principal part, but still an integral part of the divine, creative
plan. There is a _cognitio matutina_ and a _cognitio vespertina_, a
matutinal and vesperal knowledge, in the blessed; the one being the
immediate intuition of the trinity in unity, the other the mediate
intuition of the idea or infinite archetype of creation in God,
through his creative act. There is a natural intellectual life in the
angels, and a natural intellectual and physical life in man, in the
beatific state. The natural order is preserved and perfected in the
supernatural order, with all its beauty and felicity--with its
science, virtue, love, friendship, and society. The material world is
everlasting, together with the spiritual. All orders together make up
the universe; and it is the whole complex of diverse and multitudinous
existences which completely expresses the divine idea and fulfils the
divine purpose of the creator. The metaphysical finality or apex of
the creative act is in the incarnate Word, but the relation to the
final cause exists in everything, and is fulfilled in the universe as
a totality, which embraces in one harmonious plan all things that have
been created, and culminates in Jesus Christ, through the hypostatic
union of the divine and human natures in his person.
In this universe there may be an order of intelligent existences,
touching at its lowest point the highest point of irrational
existence, and at its highest point the lowest in the grade of the
beatified spirits. That inferior order of knowledge and felicity may
exist distinctly and separately which exists conjointly with
supernatural beatitude in the kingdom of heaven. The perfection of the
universe requires that there should be a beatified, glorified order at
its summit. It may even the maintained that this consummation of
created nature in the highest possible end is the only one which the
divine wisdom could propose in creating. Yet this does not exclude the
possibility of an inferior order of intelligence, upon which the grace
elevating it to a supernatural state is not conferred.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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