26 We begin our profession of faith by saying: "I believe" or "We believe". Before expounding the Church's faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of God's commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what "to believe" means. Faith is man's response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).
The problem is, Rome has given precedence to myths of the Virgin Mary. She has added to the Creed she espouses. She has added to the work of Christ alone. To pray to Mary is contrary to the law of God of having no god besides him. We must honor God the Trinity over Marian veneration.
27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:
The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.
The God of the Bible does not allow image worship. The God of the Bible does not understand the truth to be the so-called plus religion. That is, I mean the following: Mary plus Jesus, faith plus works, grace plus merit, and Scripture plus tradition. This is an unsafe balance that will lead to eternal ruin.
28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:
From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For "in him we live and move and have our being."
No one seeks after God. There is an unseeking seeking by men. That is, it will not led to grace but to self-righteousness. Mankind cannot seek after God because they are dead in transgressions and sins. Mankind is religious but it’s a form of godliness not conforming to the doctrine of Christ.
29 But this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 § 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.
The Bible calls men to the highest standard of living and righteousness. However, this righteousness cannot be of mere mankind but it is from Christ alone.
30 "Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice." Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, "an upright heart", as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.
You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
The Christian is the one who seeks after God. It is not the other way around. That is, it is not the unbeliever who seeks God. Rather it is the Christian who is called to seek God because he has been born from above by the Spirit and the Word. Only Christians rejoice at God’s will. Unbelievers do not rejoice nor seek after God. The moment someone seeks after God they have become a Christian.
