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The Holy Trinity
April 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Holy Trinity
Our Christian faith tells us that God is not a solitary being. He is the eternal community of three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Every society outside of God, whether among the angelic hierarchy or among human beings, exists only because of the Holy Trinity.
Revelation tells us that there is in God a true fatherhood that belongs to the First Person alone. From all eternity, the First Person has been generating the Son, who is not a mere attribute of God, but a distinct Person. This is clear from the opening words of the Fourth Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Proceeding from the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.
In the language of the Credo of the People of God, “The natural bonds which eternally constitute the Three Persons, who are each one and the same Divine Being, are the blessed inmost life of God, thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that we can conceive in human measure. We give thanks, however, to the Divine Goodness that very many believers can testify with us before men to the unity of God, even though they know not the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.”
We Christians are specially blessed in believing that there is only one God, but also that He is a triune plurality. Our destiny is to share in the happiness of this heavenly society.
At this critical period of humanity, the world is more socially conscious than ever before in history. Christianity offers today’s believers both a timeless and timely understanding of the Trinity as the perfect model for living in a loving community.
Attributes of God
When we speak of God’s perfections, we call them “attributes” because we attribute to Him such qualities as belong to the divine nature. Yet all the while we realize that these perfections in God only dimly correspond, in human language, to various properties in creatures.In reality, the divine attributes are identical among themselves and with the divine nature. But in our human way of thinking there are different attributes because they are like the differences we see in creation, which itself is a manifestation of the indescribable greatness of God.
The Apostles’ Creed gives only one attribute of God: that He is almighty. Since apostolic times, however, the Church has identified no less than fifteen divine attributes and, by now, a library of literature has been written to explain what they mean.
God is absolutely one because He is the only Being who must exist, and because there are not many gods (polytheism). He is not just one chief god (henotheism), nor merely the good god along with an evil god (Manichaeism).
He is the true God because He really exists and is not a figment of the imagination projecting our own fears or desires.
He is the living God whose life is His very essence. He is the being whose inward activity is identical with His nature.
He is eternal because in God there is nothing past, as if it were no longer; nothing future, as if it were not yet. In Him there is only “is,” namely, the present. That is why when Yahweh first appeared to Moses in the burning bush and Moses asked Him for His name, God told him, “I Am Who Am” (Exodus 3:14).
God is immense because He is beyond all measurement. He encompasses everything, while He alone cannot be encompassed by anything.
He is incomprehensible because He is not limited in any way. God is not confined either in the manner of a body or of a created spirit.
God is infinite not only because He has no limitations, but because He has within Himself the plenitude of all perfection. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and has absolute fullness of being.
God is unique because there neither is nor can there be another God. He must have no equal.
God is pure spirit. He has no body or spatial dimension. In our own language, He is a spiritual being who thinks and who wills. He knows and He loves. He is in the deepest sense a personal God, and not some impersonal force or cosmic energy.
God is totally simple because there are no components or parts in Him, like body and soul or substance and accidental properties. Thus Christ said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
God is unchangeable because He eternally possesses the fullness of being. There is nothing He can acquire that He does not already have, nor lose what He already has.
God is transcendent not only because He surpasses all other beings, but because He is completely distinct from the world. He is the Totally Other.
He is perfectly happy in and of Himself, without dependence on any other being for beatitude.
God is finally the most sublime because He is beautiful in the highest degree. Beauty is that which pleases when seen. That is why the Scriptures condemn those who are seduced by creatures: “They have taken things for gods. Let them know how much the Lord of these excels them, since the Author of beauty has created them” (Wisdom 13:3).
The Catholic Church speaks of the foregoing attributes of God as internal, because they pertain to God as He is in Himself. In today’s world, in which atheism is so prevalent, we must be clear in our understanding of who the one true God is.
However, we must also recognize what are called the relative attributes of God. These are the divine perfections in relation to the world He has made. Among these, the Apostles’ Creed mentions only His omnipotence or almightiness. By this, we mean that He cannot do anything that would deny His nature, like tell a lie; nor can He act in a contradictory manner, like changing His mind.
We know, of course, that God is also omniscient because He knows all things past, present, and future. He is all-good because He wants only to benefit the creatures that He makes. And He is even all-merciful in forgiving human beings, provided they repent for the offenses they have committed against their loving Lord.
