BY HERBERT VEGO
LAWYER Edwin R. Catacutan has made a name here in Iloilo City not only because of his legal expertise but also because of his “incursion into Christian theology.” Having received a copy his book Creation, Fall, and Redemption, I would like to briefly reflect on the salient points of his book.
For this is one book that can rightly be judged by its cover: a colorful telescope image of an outburst of Monocerotis, a star which is about 20,000 light years away from our sun, echoing the Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1)
Catacutan alludes to the first three chapters of the book of Genesis on creation and fall of man, which is less than 0.3 percent of the entire Bible, as “the substantive law defining the individual’s rights and conditions of having and maintaining eternal life.”
The author agrees with Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century French mathematician behind the famous Pascal’s Wager.
“If there is no God,” Catacutan simplifies Pascal, “then no one is benefited; but if there is a God, the believer wins and the unbeliever loses.”
The lawyer believes that while the Bible does not explain but simply asserts confidently the creation of the heavens and the earth, they could not have always been there.
He quotes famous physicists, including Paul Davies, who wrote that “the essential hypothesis – that there was some sort of creation – seems, from the scientific point of view, compelling.”
God did not have to create, Catacutan asserts, to sustain Himself. He did so “for His pleasure.” When He finished his work, He found the entire creation “very good.”
He created Adam and Eve in his image (Genesis 1:27), but with “free will.”
It was out of such free will that they disobeyed God’s instruction to them to refrain from eating the “forbidden fruit” of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”; otherwise, “you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)
It was then that Satan burst into the picture, deceiving Eve that God did not want them to eat the forbidden fruit because “God knows that when you eat it, you will be like God.”
Their disobedience, Catacutan explains, marked “the fall of man,” shedding off immortality.
“The bodies of Adam and Eve,” Catacutan writes, “immediately became vulnerable to the death process of diseases, old age and decay… The Bible says that Adam lived 930 years.”
It was a “death penalty” handed down to us, the descendants of the first man and woman.
Catacutan asks us to fear not. The Redeemer would come by “virgin birth” and save us by grace. We can claim back the immortality promised by the most popular New Testament verse, John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Catacutan explains, “Jesus’ coming to earth in the flesh, His dying on the cross and His resurrection completed the redemption process from the side of God. It perfected the justice-compliance stage. In this context, Jesus is the last messenger from God as He himself is the message.”
The lawyer’s book offers Jesus Christ as the only way to eternal life after death. Either man believes in Him for the transformation of the soul from perishable to imperishable in the resurrection or stands condemnation by default.
If there is no discussion on the so called “fire of hell” that is widely believed to be the destination of non-believers, it could be because the Bible itself has no adequate discussion on the matter. In fact, he refers to his son Edwin Jason as the only one in his family, being “now with the Lord,” who knows all the answers to the questions that he had been asking about./PN
