Atheism and Agnosticism
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Simplified
Three Forms of Atheism (2123-2124)
Atheists either do not perceive man's vital bond to God or they explicitly reject it.
Atheism takes many forms:
- Practical materialism which restricts man's hopes to his life on earth.
- Atheistic humanism which sees man as having supreme control of history.
- Contemporary atheism which sees man being liberated by economics. It claims that religion thwarts emancipation because it turns man's hopes to a future life and discourages earthly progress.
Sources of Atheism (2125-2126)
By rejecting or denying God's existence, atheism sins against the virtue of religion. Believers often contribute to atheism by not knowing their faith, by presenting it falsely, or by failing to live a life which truly reveals God to others.
Atheism is founded on a false idea of human autonomy which rejects any dependence on God. Acknowledging God does not oppose man's dignity, and is in harmony with man's own desires.
Forms of Agnosticism (2127-2128)
Agnosticism (the belief that God's existence cannot be known) takes many forms:
- Accepting the existence of a transcendent being who cannot reveal himself and about whom nothing can be said
- Declaring the impossibility of proving, affirming, or denying that God exists
Agnosticism, while sometimes including a search for God, often shows a flight from this ultimate question and a certain moral sluggishness (practical atheism).
God is Greater than Images (2129-2130)
God said to Israel, "You act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure" (Deut 4:15-16). God revealed himself to Israel, yet he is "greater than all his works" (Sir 43:27-28).
Even in the Old Testament, God ordered or allowed the making of the bronze serpent, the Ark of the Covenant, and the cherubim.
Christ - A New Era (2131-2132)
Christ introduced a new "economy" of images. The Church has felt justified in making icons of Christ, Mary, angels, and saints (Second Council of Nicaea).
The Christian veneration of images is permitted because the honor given to an image passes to its prototype. "Whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it" (St. Basil). "Religious worship is not directed to the images in themselves, but toward that whose image it is" (St. Thomas Aquinas).
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