THEOLOGICAL TIDBITS
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In some respects, man resembles an animal. He is a material being because he has a body that is not unlike the bodies of animals. However, as an image of God, man is a person, a spiritual being. Thus, within the sphere of material creation, man represents the boundary between the visible and invisible creation. The pinnacle of earthly development is reached in man because all other earthly beings are material—but man is both material and spiritual. Above man is God Who is perfect spirit. It is reasonable to suggest a gradation in the spiritual world similar to the one that exists in the material world—i.e., the order in the universe suggests the existence of pure spirits, beings in between God and man.

In creating human beings and angels, God establishes their value creating them in His own image. As images of God, they are persons—i.e., they have the faculties of thinking and choosing, minds and wills. Unlike human persons, the angels are pure spirits. As pure spirits, they do not have bodies and therefore are more like God than are human beings. However, they still are not God because they are not the source of their own being. Rather, God created them.

In creating persons, God gives Himself to them—i.e., He loves them. God’s love establishes a value—i.e., a goodness, in those He creates. Without God’s love, there would be no value or goodness outside of God because nothing outside of God would exist. Clearly, then, God’s love is not a response to an already existing value because His love is the source of all value. However, the self-gift of created persons does not establish value in others as God’s love does. Instead, the love of created persons is a response to the value they discover in others.

The creation of persons out of nothing is a stupendous act of power. We, as powerful as we are with all our advanced technology, cannot create. We cannot call things, not to speak of persons, into being from nothing. In creating persons from nothing, God shared His power. However, the creation of persons also reveals God’s wisdom—divine self-knowledge—because God makes Himself known in a unique way through persons who are made in the image and likeness of God. Further, the creation of persons is an act of love because in creating persons, God shared existence. Since He is existence—Being—itself, God gave Himself when He gave existence to persons. In other words, He loved. Thus, the creation of persons was not only an act of power and wisdom, it was also an act of love.

Since there is no necessity in God or for God, His creative acts are not necessary. Still, He does create angelic and human persons. However, it is fairly clear that many of those God has created have turned their backs on Him. He knew this would happen. Since He does not “have to” create, one might well ask: Why does He bother?

God is Power, Wisdom, and Love. Human beings possessing these attributes give them to others. Power is meaningless if it is not exercised. For example, what benefit does bodily strength have if it is never used in work or in play? Wisdom is useless if it is not shared. For instance, why would a scholar spend years studying if he never intends to transmit his knowledge either in teaching or in writing? Love is a self-gift of one person to at least one other person. Thus, how can one love without giving oneself to another? As human persons, we share our strength, our wisdom, and our love. God is like us. As Power, Wisdom, and Love, God seeks to share Himself. He does not create out of any necessity, but rather out of a burning desire to give His power, His wisdom, and His love to others.

When God shares His life—grace—with human beings, it is not only an act of His love, it is also an act of His power. In giving Himself to us, God gives us new life. Just as God’s gift of human life in His creative act is an act of power, the giving of His divine life is also an act of power. God’s caring for those He has blessed with His grace is also an act of His power. He not only gives His divine life, He cares and nurtures that divine life in all those who share it. The awesome number of people who share God’s own life indicate the scope and magnitude of His omnipotence exercised through the gift of His own life. All those who share God’s life have “Put on Christ” (Gal 3:27). They are other “Christs” because they live God’s own life.

God lacks absolutely nothing. In other words, God does not need anyone or anything outside of Himself to fulfill Himself. It was not in any sense necessary for Him to create anything. In fact, God is completely free of any and all necessities. If something were necessary in Him or for Him, there would obviously be some cause outside of Himself responsible for the necessity. Since He is the uncaused cause, there can be no outside cause acting upon Him. Therefore, there is no necessity in God or in any of His actions.

God carries on the work of sanctification by giving human beings His very own life—grace. This self-gift of God is clearly identified with the Holy Spirit. Just as it is fitting for the Son, Who is the Wisdom of God, to reveal the truths about God to us, so it is fitting for the Holy Spirit, Who is Love, to sanctify us by giving us God’s life. Love unites persons. In the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit—Love unites Father and Son. In the world, the Holy Spirit through His gift of divine love—i.e., divine life or grace, unites human beings in the union of all those who share God’s grace.

The incarnation shows us the self-gift—love—of God. God “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7). He emptied Himself—i.e., He gave Himself and he who gives, loves. God’s stupendous love is also marvelously present on the cross: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).

Christ’s life is not only the most complete manifestation of God’s wisdom, it is also an act of divine power. The power of God can be seen in the union of the two natures in the one divine Person. The power of God is also obviously present in the miracles of Christ and in the resurrection. But the awesome power of God can most clearly be seen in the effect of the paschal mystery: death is conquered with death.

The work of revelation, the unveiling of God’s wisdom, is accomplished most completely through Christ, God the Son—the Wisdom of God—made man. In and through the incarnation and the redemption, God’s wisdom is revealed. As the Second Vatican Council taught, Christ is “both the mediator and the sum total of revelation” (Dei Verbum, 2). Christ Himself said in response to Philip, who asked to see the Father, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (Jn 14:9). God’s wisdom is revealed in every act of Christ, but most especially in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. In the paschal mystery, Christ revealed God as One Who loves. Clearly, God knows Himself as One Who loves. God has a perfect knowledge of Himself. Since He is Love, He knows Himself as Love. Thus, in revealing God as Love, Christ revealed the divine self-knowledge.

Creation is not only an act of God’s power, it also reveals God’s wisdom. When we see the work of an artist, we perceive the artist’s knowledge of his craft. When we see the world, we see a reflection of the divine artist’s knowledge. However, in God, all knowledge is included in His own self-knowledge, because His self-knowledge is perfect. God’s revelation of His wisdom through His creative act is most obvious in the case of man, who is made in God’s own image and likeness. When anyone sees another person, he sees an image of God. In a limited way, he sees God—i.e., he sees divine self-knowledge. In addition, creation is an act of God’s love. To create means to give—especially to give existence. And he who gives, loves. In creation, the Trinity—Power, Wisdom and Love—act as one principle.

The union within the Holy Trinity exists through the personal choice of each divine Person to give Himself totally to the others. This total self-gift of each Person within the Trinity is founded on the perfect knowledge that each Person has of the other two. This is what divine love is: a personal choice, a will-act, made by each divine Person based on knowledge of the truth, to surrender Himself totally and completely to the other two Persons. The self-donation of each divine Person to the others unites all three in a communion of Persons. In effect, among the Persons of the Trinity, there is an attitude, a choice, to act as one. The divine communion of Persons is a total union. It is mutual indwelling. The Council of Florence expressed this trinitarian truth: “Through this unity…the Father is completely in the Son, completely in the Holy Spirit; the Son is completely in the Father, completely in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is completely in the Father, completely in the Son.”

The three divine Persons are perfectly united with one another. Christ said, “All that the Father has is mine” (Jn 16:15). In another passage, Christ indicates the union between Himself and the Holy Spirit when He says that the Holy Spirit “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16:14). The Holy Spirit has what is Christ’s—and what is Christ’s is the Father’s. Consequently, there is a total union among the three Persons of the Trinity.

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).