Author Topic: Two Senses of Fatherhood (Read 1151 times)

trad123 · « **on:** September 09, 2010, 02:00:42 AM »

From this thread:

http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php/The-newest-anti-pope

I wrote:

Quote from: trad123

I couldn't find a whole lot about this doctrine, but it appears that there are two senses of fatherhood that God has in relationship with man, the first according to the natural order, and secondly to the supernatural order. To the first belong all of mankind without exception, and to the second belong Christians.

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Catechism of the Council of Trent

The propriety of the word "Father," as applied to God, the faithful may be taught from the works of Creation, Government and Redemption. God created man to his own image and likeness, an image and likeness which he impressed not on other creatures ; and, on account of this peculiar privilege with which he adorned man, he is appropriately designated in Scripture the Father of all men, the Father not alone of the faithful but of all mankind.

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Penny Catechism

149. Is God also the Father of all mankind?

God is also the Father of all mankind because He made them all, and loves and preserves them all.

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Catechism of St. Pius X

Q. Why do we call God the Father?

A. We call God the Father because by nature He is the Father of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, that is to say, of the Son begotten of Him; because God is the Father of all men, whom He has created and whom He preserves and governs; finally, because by grace He is the Father of all good Christians, who are hence called the adopted sons of God.

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Douay Catechism

Q. What signifies the word Father?

A. It signifies the first person of the most blessed Trinity, who by nature is the Father of his own only begotten Son, the second Person of the blessed Trinity; by adoption is the Father of all good Christians; and by creations is the Father of all creatures.

I add now:

http://drbo.org/chapter/51017.htm

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[26] And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation. [27] That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: [28] For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring. [29] Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.

trad123 · « **Reply #1 on:** September 09, 2010, 03:43:44 AM »

Further proof that God is Father of all mankind in the natural sense:

St. Gregory of Nyssa

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/290112.htm

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1.

"For there is one God," he says, "and Father, of Whom are all things 1 Corinthians 8:6 ." Accordingly human nature did not enter into the creation from any other source, nor grow spontaneously in the parents of the race, but it too had for the author of its own constitution none other than the Father of all.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/290101.htm

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18.

But as it is, none would venture to affirm that, while the heavens are the work of God, the sun is that of the heavens, and the moon that of the sun, and the stars that of the moon, and other created things that of the stars: seeing that all are the work of One: for there is one God and Father of all, of Whom are all things.

St. John of Damascus

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33041.htm

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Chapter 12

And I shall add He is also the Father of all His creatures (for God, Who brought us into being out of nothing, is in a stricter sense our Father than are our parents who have derived both being and begetting from Him ):

St. Justin Martyr

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

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Chapter 36. Different modes of prophecy

But when you hear the utterances of the prophets spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves them. For sometimes He declares things that are to come to pass, in the manner of one who foretells the future; sometimes He speaks as from the person of God the Lord and Father of all; sometimes as from the person of Christ;

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Chapter 45. Christ's session in heaven foretold

And that God the Father of all would bring Christ to heaven after He had raised Him from the dead, and would keep Him there until He has subdued His enemies the devils...

St. Ambrose

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/34044.htm

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Chapter 11.

156. You must therefore believe that all things are of the Son of God [even as of God the Father, for even as God is the Father of all, so likewise is the Son the Author and Creator of all. We see, then, the vanity of this their questioning, forasmuch as it holds good of the Son [as of the Father], that "of Him and through Him and in Him are all things."

Pope Leo XIII

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13frc.htm

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13. Therefore has he deserved well of that brotherhood established and perfected by Jesus Christ, which has made of all mankind one only family, under the authority of God, the common Father of all.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13rerum.htm

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25.

For they will understand and feel that all men are children of the same common Father, who is God; that all have alike the same last end, which is God Himself, who alone can make either men or angels absolutely and perfectly happy; that each and all are redeemed and made sons of God, by Jesus Christ, "the first-born among many brethren";

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13human.htm

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34.

Amongst the many benefits to be expected from it will be the great benefit of drawing the minds of men to liberty, fraternity, and equality of right; not such as the Freemasons absurdly imagine, but such as Jesus Christ obtained for the human race and St. Francis aspired to: the liberty, We mean, of sons of God, through which we may be free from slavery to Satan or to our passions, both of them most wicked masters; the fraternity whose origin is in God, the common Creator and Father of all;

Pope St. Pius X

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10notre.htm

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Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.

Pope Pius XI

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11CARIT.HTM

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19.

And it is prayer precisely, that, according to the Apostle, will bring the gift of peace; prayer that is addressed to the Heavenly Father who is the Father of all men; prayer that is the common expression of family feelings, of that great family which extends beyond the boundaries of any country and continent.

Pope Pius XII

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12SUMMI.HTM

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28.

We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute Lawgiver, all-wise and just Judge of human actions.

http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/marye6.htm

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Hence, as the devout disciple of St. Anselm (Eadmer, ed.) wrote in the Middle Ages: "just as . . . God, by making all through His power, is Father and Lord of all, so the blessed Mary, by repairing all through her merits, is Mother and Queen of all; for God is the Lord of all things, because by His command He establishes each of them in its own nature, and Mary is the Queen of all things, because she restores each to its original dignity through the grace which she merited.[47]

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12CLERG.HTM

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29. Indeed, the sacrifice which the Lord made upon Calvary, hanging on the cross, was not only the immolation of His own Body; for He offered Himself, a Victim of expiation, as the Head of the human race and, therefore, "while commending His Spirit into the hands of the Father, He commends Himself to God as man, in order to commend to the Eternal Father all mankind".[37]

trad123 · « **Reply #2 on:** September 09, 2010, 04:05:28 AM »

http://drbo.org/chapter/56003.htm

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[14] For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, [15] Of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named,

Commentary:

[15] "All paternity"... Or, the whole family. God is the Father, both of angels and men; whosoever besides is named father, is so named with subordination to him.

http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id202.html

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Ver. 14-15. For this cause I pray and bow my knees to the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity (or fatherhood[5]) in heaven and earth is named. The Greek word oftentimes signifies a family, and therefore may signify, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named; and thus the sense will be, that God is not only the Father of his eternal Son, but (as not only the Latin text, but even the Greek may signify) of all angelical spirits in heaven, and of all men, especially Christians, made his adoptive sons in baptism. But here may be signified not only a family, but those in particular who are honoured with the name and dignity of fathers; so that the name which they have of fathers, or patriarchs, is derived from God the Father of all, and communicated to them in an inferior degree. This exposition is found in St. Jerome, in Theodoret, Theophylactus, St. John Damascene, &c. (Witham)

trad123 · « **Reply #3 on:** September 09, 2010, 04:31:55 AM »

http://drbo.org/chapter/50008.htm

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[44] You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/newtestament/8john.htm

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Ver. 44.—Ye are of your father the devil. “Not by descent but by imitation,” says S. Augustine, quoting Ezek. xvi. 4; and adding, “The Jєωs, by imitating their impieties, found for themselves parents, not of whom to be born, but with whom they would be lost, by following their evil ways.”

trad123 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 17, 2019, 10:28:16 PM »

Treatise on the Love of God By St. Francis de Sales

http://www.catholictreasury.info/books/on_love_of_God/lg66.php

Book IV. Of The Decay And Ruin Of Charity. Ch 8. An Exhortation To The Amorous Submission Which We Owe To The Decrees Of Divine Providence.

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Let us believe then that as God is the maker and father of all things, so he takes care of all things by his providence, which embraces and sustains all the machine of creatures.

On the Trinity (Book XI) by St. Hilary of Poitiers

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/330211.htm

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16. By assuming flesh, however, He [Christ] acquired our nature in our totality, and became all that we are, but did not lose that which He was before. Both before by His heavenly origin, and now by His earthly constitution, God is His Father. By His earthly constitution God is His Father, since all things are from God the Father, and God is Father to all things, since from Him and in Him are all things. But to the Only-begotten God, God is Father, not only because the Word became flesh; His Fatherhood extends also to Him Who was, as God the Word, with God in the beginning. Thus, when the Word became flesh, God was His Father both by the birth of God the Word, and by the constitution of His flesh: for God is the Father of all flesh, though not in the same way that He is Father to God the Word. (. . .)

The Christian Sanctified By The Lord's Prayer by Jean Nicolas Grou

CHAPTER I. OUR FATHER.

https://archive.org/details/TheChristianSanctified/page/n25

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(. . .) Is He not indeed our Father? From Him we have our being: our souls and bodies, with all their varied qualities, are from Him. He has made us exactly as it has pleased Him, by a perfectly free volition; and having no need of us, being infinitely happy in Himself, yet by His great goodness He preserves us every moment. Our life is a continual gift of His beneficence; and, if He should withdraw His sustaining hand for one instant, we should fall into the nothingness from which He drew us. Can we doubt it, we who are not able to promise ourselves one moment of existence? How, then, should we not love, how should we not fear to offend, the Author and Preserver of our being, who has not only made us for His glory, but has rendered us capable of promoting it? He has not only given us life, but He sustains it and supplies every need. The whole universe exists for us only, and is designed for our service. Every thing which renders this earth an agreeable abode, every pleasure we enjoy, is a gift from His hand. He permits us to use all, but requires that we should do so according to His revealed will and with the gratitude which is his due. Ungrateful and rebellious children that we are, how dare we turn against our Father His own blessings, forgetting Him, abandoning Him for the vile creatures of earth, and grieving Him by our evil ways? Thou didst foresee this, O God, yet Thou hast never ceased the outpouring of Thy bounty. What earthly father would have acted like this? It is this excess of Thy goodness that renders me the more guilty. Shall I still continue thus, notwithstanding the reproaches of my conscience, Thy voice within me? Ah! take back Thy gifts, take away even my life, rather than that I should still offend Thee. Thou art my Father by creation, and much more my Father by grace.

Catechetical Lecture 7 by St. Cyril of Jerusalem

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310107.htm

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10. Thus much then at present, in the way of a digression, to put you in remembrance. Let me, however, add yet another testimony in proof that God is called the Father of men in an improper sense. For when in Esaias God is addressed thus, For You are our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us Isaiah 63:16, and Sarah travailed not with us , need we inquire further on this point? And if the Psalmist says, Let them be troubled from His countenance, the Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widows , is it not manifest to all, that when God is called the Father of orphans who have lately lost their own fathers, He is so named not as begetting them of Himself, but as caring for them and shielding them. But whereas God, as we have said, is in an improper sense the Father of men, of Christ alone He is the Father by nature, not by adoption: and the Father of men in time, but of Christ before all time, as He says, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Your own self, with the glory which I had with You before the world was John 17:5 .

11. We believe then In One God the Father the Unsearchable and Ineffable, Whom no man has seen 1 Timothy 2:16, but the Only-begotten alone has declared Him. John 1:18 For He which is of God, He has seen God : whose face the Angels do always behold in heaven Matthew 18:10, behold, however, each according to the measure of his own rank. But the undimmed vision of the Father is reserved in its purity for the Son with the Holy Ghost.

12. Having reached this point of my discourse, and being reminded of the passages just before mentioned, in which God was addressed as the Father of men, I am greatly amazed at men's insensibility. For God with unspeakable loving-kindness deigned to be called the Father of men — He in heaven, they on earth — and He the Maker of Eternity, they made in time — He who holds the earth in the hollow of His hand, they upon the earth as grasshoppers. Yet man forsook his heavenly Father, and said to the stock, You are my father, and to the stone, You have begotten me. Jeremiah 2:27 And for this reason, methinks, the Psalmist says to mankind, Forget also your own people, and your father's house , whom you have chosen for a father, whom you have drawn upon yourself to your destruction.

13. And not only stocks and stones, but even Satan himself, the destroyer of souls, have some ere now chosen for a father; to whom the Lord said as a rebuke, You do the deeds of your father John 8:41, that is of the devil, he being the father of men not by nature, but by fraud. For like as Paul by his godly teaching came to be called the father of the Corinthians, so the devil is called the father of those who of their own will consent unto him.