In Tempore Gratiae: In a Time of Grace

God created the world to demonstrate His Goodness and because He conceives the world as something good. For that reason He gives the highest form of freedom to His most supreme creation- man. God’s grace can be materialized only in time and only in the world. Taken in itself, grace is useless without the existence of the world. On the other hand, we should be thankful to God for our creation and that He has endowed us with freedom of will. This is the foundation of our love towards all people and everything which exists in general. This is also the basis of our aspiration towards beatitude which is to be achieved only in God and through God. However, grace essentially is a mystery- we cannot grasp it in a rational manner.

The assumption that the world has been created out of God’s goodness leads to the conclusion that nothing existed before the initial act of creation. This is so because God’s grace animates the world, and also it gives reality to the world. Without grace, our world would have been a mere fantasy, mere imagination. We cannot accept the view that matter existed before the act of creation. This is not a novel point, but its relation to grace can bring us to a new understanding of the act of creation and the meaning of our existence in this world.