THEOLOGICAL TIDBITS
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How is it possible to maintain the unity of God, since there is a distinction of the divine Persons on the basis of the divine relationships? A solution is suggested by analogy with human relationships. Every human person has a multitude of relationships. A man might be husband, father, brother, son, uncle, great-uncle, grandfather and even great-grandfather. A woman might be wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt, great-aunt, grandmother and even great-grandmother. But the man is only one individual and the woman is only one individual. Both have a multitude of relationships—but both remain one in themselves. If many human relationships can exist within the unity of an individual human being, can that not also be posited of God? God is three Persons—i.e., three subsisting relations, in one, perfect and simple Godhead—nature. The analogy does not completely explain the mystery of the Trinity. No human analogy could ever explain the Trinity.

There are three Persons in one God. How can there be one in three or three in one? The three divine Persons are distinguished among Themselves solely by the relations which They have with one another. In everything but Their relationships, the three divine Persons are identical.

In God, the divine relationships define the three divine Persons. The Father is Fatherhood itself. Fatherhood defines “Who” He is. The Son is Sonship itself, existing in its own right. Sonship defines “Who” the Son is. The Holy Spirit is Love itself. Love is a relationship between at least two persons. We can love ourselves even though love is a union of two or more persons, because in loving ourselves we unite our wills with God Who loves us. The Holy Spirit is Love, existing in its own right. Love defines “Who” the Holy Spirit is. These relations distinguish the three Persons in God from one another. The Father is distinct from the Son precisely because He is Fatherhood and not Sonship. The Son is distinct from the Father because He is Sonship and not Fatherhood. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son because He is Love and not Fatherhood or Sonship.

There are three Persons in one God. How can there be one in three or three in one? The three divine Persons are distinguished among Themselves solely by the relations which They have with one another. In everything but Their relationships, the three divine Persons are identical. The relations among the three divine Persons are unlike any relations that human persons experience. For example, sonship is a relationship. It is a vital relationship only when at least two human persons exist: a living son and at least one living parent. After both parents have died, the son, at least in a certain sense, ceases to be a son. The relationship no longer exists—as least not as it had before. Nevertheless, the human being who was a son does not cease to be a human person just because death has ended the relationship. All human beings are persons because God created them as persons. In other words, a human relationship does not constitute a human person as the divine relationships constitute the three divine Persons in the Trinity. Human relationships do not make human beings “who” they are, but the divine relationships do make the divine Persons “Who” They are.

All human beings share the same humanity, the same human nature. In a sense, they are all one because they are all human—i.e., they have a common human nature. Thus, there is a oneness among all human persons even though every human person is a unique individual. In God, there is one divine nature, but three Persons. If God had one divine nature as all humans share one human nature, the unity and trinity of God could be explained in the same way as the unity of human nature among the billions of human persons.

However, human nature exists separately and distinctly in each and every human person. In God, the divine nature does not exist separately and distinctly in each of the divine Persons because the divine nature is perfect, unified and simple. There are not three individualized, separate, concrete repetitions of the divine nature—in each divine Person—as there are an incalculable number of individualized, separate, concrete repetitions of human nature—in each human person. How can there be one in three or three in one?

The three divine Persons are distinguished among Themselves solely by the relations which They have with one another. In everything but Their relationships, the three divine Persons are identical.

Although it is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith that there are three Persons in one God, this teaching in no way compromises or diminishes the other equally firm teaching that there is only one God. But there seems to be a difficulty. Since there are three Persons in one God, then there must be distinctions among the Persons. Since there are distinctions, then it would seem that God is not a perfect, simple unity. How can there be one in three or three in one? The three divine Persons are distinguished among Themselves solely by the relations which They have with one another. In everything but Their relationships, the three divine Persons are identical.

Although it is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith that there are three Persons in one God, this teaching in no way compromises or diminishes the other equally firm teaching that there is only one God. But there seems to be a difficulty. Since there are three Persons in one God, then there must be distinctions among the Persons. Since there are distinctions, then it would seem that God is not a perfect, simple unity. How can there be one in three or three in one? The three divine Persons are distinguished among Themselves solely by the relations which They have with one another. In everything but Their relationships, the three divine Persons are identical.

A word in a language signifies a concept or an idea. In fact, it is almost impossible for anyone to think of anything without at the same time thinking of the word for that thing—or, at least, a mental picture of it. In God’s act of knowing Himself, He gen-erates a self-concept. This self-concept is signified by a word. Since the self-concept of the Father is perfect, it encompasses all concepts and, therefore, all words. Clearly, the divine self-concept is the Word, par excellence. St. John confirms this insight when he names Christ the “Word” of God—in Greek, Logos (Jn. 1:1). Pope St. John Paul compared the procession of the Son from the Father to the self-knowledge of human beings: “By analogy with the cognitive process of the human mind, whereby man, in knowing himself, produces an image of himself, an idea, a ‘concept’, that is a ‘conceived idea’, which from the Latin verbum (word) is frequently called the interior word, we dare to think of the generation of the Son or the eternal ‘concept’ and interior Word of God. God in knowing Himself begets the Word, the Son, Who is God just as the Father” (Catechetical Series, no. 37).

Since God is perfect, He knows Himself perfectly. In other words, His consciousness contains an identical image of Himself. This image would not be identical to God Himself if it only existed in the mind of God and not in reality. God is—i.e., He exists. If His consciousness contains an identical image of Himself, it, too, must exist. This image does exist in reality and is the second Person of the blessed Trinity, God the Son. God the Son is begotten from the Father’s consciousness of His act of knowing Himself. The second Person mirrors the Father. He is the identical image of the Father. He is the Father’s self-concept.

In a sense, God knows Himself “before” He knows anything else. His act of knowing Himself is logically prior to His knowing anything else. In this, God somewhat resembles human beings. Before we learn about the created world, we learn about ourselves. For example, as a child develops and grows, there are the wonderful discoveries of hands, fingers, feet, etc. As human persons, we come to know ourselves before we know the world around us. What is true for us is, in this case, especially true of God. All reality depends on God. As the Creator, by knowing Himself He knew the world and everything in it “before” it was created. As Being itself, He possesses all the powers and potentialities that are in creation. Thus, God knew Himself and in knowing Himself, He knew creation. His “first” act of knowing is the act of knowing Himself. There was nothing else to know.

Each one of us is a human person with the powers of thinking and choosing—i.e., with a mind and a will. However, as persons, we not only are capable of independent thought and free choice, we are also aware of the thoughts we think and the choices we make. We have an awareness of our own acts. This self-awareness or consciousness pertains to personhood. Consciousness contains the acts that we knowingly and freely choose. Consciousness mirrors all these acts—those expressed in and through the body and those that remain internal. Our consciousness is a kind of inner image that we have of the acts we knowingly and freely choose. By viewing this inner image, we know ourselves.

God reaches down to us through creation, revelation, and sanctification. We cannot reach up to Him because He dwells “in unapproachable light” (1 Tim 6:16). God is unapproachable because He is infinite—i.e., He is the fullness of Being—Being itself. Further, as the uncaused cause, He is infinite because He is eternity. In addition, since He is every possible perfection imaginable, He is infinite. God superlatively surpasses all that exists outside of Him.

Although God in His divinity does not experience emotions, He does love. In fact, God is Love. Since God loves and He does not experience emotions, it is important to realize that love is not an emotion. Love is the choice to give oneself to another. It is a choice made in the will founded on the truth known by the intellect. In human beings, will-choices are almost always accompanied by emotions because the body is the expression of the person—i.e., the expression of what is known by the mind and chosen by the will. But in God’s divinity, there are no emotions, and therefore in Him love is a purely spiritual act, an act of the will. How can God have a “heart”, if He does not have emotions? He has a “heart” because He loves. He gives Himself to the world, and most especially to those made in His image and likeness.

Since God is timeless, God lives in the present and everything He creates is present to Him at the same time. In the same gaze God sees Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary, all those living now, and all those living at the second coming. It is as though God sees all time and the whole world frozen on a movie screen. Nothing happens for God “before” or “after”. Everything is in the present. God sees everything on the “screen” in one perpetual, everlasting “look”. Therefore, there is no question of God’s predestining us in the sense of determining beforehand whether we will be in heaven, purgatory, or hell. He sees all our decisions at once. There is not, and could never be, any question of a predetermination that would interfere with our free will.

Since God does not change, He stands outside of time.

Without change, there is no time because time is the measurement of the process of change. The basic units of time mark and measure the changing positions of the earth and of the heavenly bodies. The 24hrs of the day measure the earth’s rotation on its axis. The year marks the orbit of the earth around the sun. The month measures the moon’s orbit around the earth. Without these changes, the most basic units of time would cease to exist because there would be no changes for them to mark. Of course, the concept of divine timelessness is difficult to understand because it is totally outside of human experience. In certain movies, the plot calls for all but one or two characters to be frozen in place. All change stops—except for the one or two characters. The clocks and other timepieces also stop. God is timeless because He is changeless. He is changeless because He is the uncaused cause.

When we make changes, even if they be unfortunate changes, we perceive them as improvements. No one undertakes the difficult process of altering a long-standing practice unless he makes the judgment that the change will somehow improve his life, or the lives of family or friends. Changes are made when there are benefits to be gained. But God is perfect already. He cannot change because He cannot improve Himself. God is not like us in our imperfections, but rather in our perfections. We change to improve. God does not change because He is perfection.

Philosophy is the knowledge of things through their ultimate causes. Things are known, when their causes are known. If one’s knowledge is limited to the proximate causes, the said knowledge is called science. If knowledge extends to the ultimate causes, it is called philosophy. Philos in Greek means lover or friend and sophia means wisdom. Thus, anatomy is science, since it limits itself to the investigation of the proximate causes—the nerves, bones and flesh of the human being—without going deeper to an investigation of the ultimate causes of these nerves, bones and flesh.

Anatomy does not study whether these nerves, bones and flesh simply appear—or were created out of nothingness.

God is not only beautiful, He is Beauty. God not only loves, He is Love. God not only knows truth, He is Truth. In other words, God has no parts. God is perfectly simple.

God indicated that He is the Creator and the source of His own existence when He revealed His name to Moses. Moses was pasturing his flock near Mount Horeb and saw a burning bush that was not consumed by the fire. God spoke to Moses from the burning bush and asked him to undertake the mission to free the Israelites from the slavery imposed by their Egyptian masters. Moses knew the people would want to know the name of God. God told Moses, “I am Who I am” (Ex. 3:14).

According to the tradition of Israel, the name expresses the essence. This name, “I am Who I am”, expresses being or existence. He Who is expresses the very essence of God, which is self-existence. He Who creates—the Creator—possesses existence in Himself and from Himself. To be pertains to His substance: His essence is to be. Thus, God Himself, in revealing His own name, told Moses, and through him all of us, that He is the uncaused cause, the one being Who is the source of His own being. In revealing this, God also indicated that His essence—what God is in Himself—is to exist. Existence or being defines What God is. Of all the things and persons in the universe, only God’s essence is to be—existence. In the simplest terms—God is.

God who created the world and the first human persons must not only be the source of the existence of the world and everything in it—but He must also be the foundation of His own being. Imagine that God is not the source of His own being. In that case, some other being created Him. We might call this second being, the creator of God, god-2. But, of course, the question immediately arises, “Who created god-2?” We could suggest that god-2 was created by god-3. We have the same problem we had before. There cannot be an unending series of beings who were created by others. There must be an origin point: a being Who created everything but Who Himself is not created. That being we call God. God is the uncaused cause, the origin point, Who Himself is the source of His own being. His is one, and not many. There can be no god-2 or god-3. There is only one God, and He created the world and everyone in it.

Human life suggests not only the existence of a living God, but also “who” and “what” God is. As Pope St. John Paul II has noted, “Seeing that man is created in the image and likeness of God, there is reason for speaking of God ‘in the image and likeness’ of man” (Catechetical Series, no. 32). Person signifies “who” someone is. Nature signifies “what” someone is. Since human beings are living persons with a nature that includes the powers of thinking and freely choosing, God must be a living, personal being possessing the powers of thinking and freely choosing.