In 1992, Pope John Paul II authorized a new Catechism of the Catholic Church, a 700 page comprehensive explanation of the teachings of the Church. Since then , a smaller version for youth was published. This series will try to explain various teachings of the Catechism in a simple way that hopefully will be easily understood . It will not attempt to be comprehensive like the original text but will select items that seem to be relevant to the pastoral needs of our time.
We begin with the fundamental question. Why would God who is supremely happy now and always has been and always will be want to create us and tthis world? Only God can give the answer to that question. But some very smart persons have concluded that He wanted to share His happiness. (26) (The number refers to a paragraph in the Catechism upon which this explanation is based.)
We understand that the first creatures He created were angels—spiritual beings and like God in that way who is pure spirit. Also, humans were created were created after the angels.had been created. But theyhave a material body that is united to a spiritual soul.
A further fundamental question is how did God make it possible for the angels and humans to express their love of God. The answer leads us to the gift of having been created with a free will for each angel and each human being..(27-30)
We know from experience that we have a free will. We can choose to do or not to do something. We show our love of God by choosing to do what we know He wants us to do. The Church teaches that the angels were presented with a choice of some kind that would prove their love of God.. They would do so by choosing what they knew God wanted.
Those angels who refused to choose what they knew God wanted, were banned from companionship with God . And those who refused to obey knew the consequence of their choice to disobey. We are taught that those angels who rejected God are now what we call devils and are confined to hell as their abode.
Humans also were tested to prove their love of God. This testing and their failure are known by us in the Biblical account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.. It is not an eye-witness account of what happened originally, but it is presented in a way that we can understand with our limted human minds.