catholicism 101 -- part 11

Catholicism 101
(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)
Church of the Holy Cross
May 11, 2008
Part 11
Christian Duty: Christian Belief: The Three Great Creeds: Concerning God

- Last time we considered the existence of God. Today:
- The Nature of God. Remember the definition given by St. Anselm (in the “ontological proof” for the existence of God): God is that “that than which greater cannot be thought” – i.e. he is the greatest thing conceivable. This implies:

• God is Spirit (John 4.24).

• As Spirit, God is “incorporeal” – i.e. he is not composed of matter as we are. He is without spatial dimensions, and he transcends time (he is “eternal” – more on this later).

• He cannot be seen with the eyes of the body.

• “No one has ever seen God” (John 1.18, and 1 John 4.12).

• He cannot be touched with the hands.

• He cannot be heard with the ears.

• Scripture speaks of the “face of God” (e.g. Genesis 33.10), and of his hands (e.g. Deut 4.34), and of “the eyes of the Lord” (e.g. 1 Peter 3.12) etc. But these phrases are analogical. Because there is no way to speak of the actions of an incorporeal being, a Spirit, without recourse to corporeal concepts and words.

• God is self-existent.

• Exodus 3.14: when Moses asks God his name, he says “YHWH” – “I AM WHO I AM.”

• God is the creator of all that “is”. As such he transcends “is-ness” – he transcends the being which we know by “being” among those things that “are” – those things which he has made (namely everything).

• God is eternal.

• He has no beginning and no end.

• Just as he has no spatial location or extension, so he has no temporal location or extension. He is timeless – he abides outside the framework of time. This is expressed in Scripture: God is he “who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4.8). But even this is analogical. We find ourselves trying to describe with temporal words a being who transcends temporality

• With God all is as though an eternal present: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, * from age to age you are God” (Psalm 90.2) (yet these words, too, fail).

• So far it doesn’t look very likely that we will be able to say much accurate about God. He is chiefly identified in his being DIFFERENT from everything, and since our words and our thoughts arise within the ambit of “everything” (within the sphere of creation), its not likely that they will prove adequate to circumscribe a being who is characterized chiefly by being “different from everything”.

• Saint John of Damascus (“Doctor of the Church”, 600’s-700’s AD) wrote in his book “An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” – God “does not belong to the class of existing things: not that He has no existence , but that He is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all forms of knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is above knowledge must certainly be also above essence : and, conversely, that which is above essence will also be above knowledge.”

• So the transcendence of God, his ineffability (our inability to speak accurately of him) and his transcendence of knowledge are at the center of the teaching of orthodox Christianity.

• God is holy.

• Not only is he transcendent, above and beyond all things, but as such he is also the supreme good.

• The angelic hymn sung in his presence is “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isaiah 6.3).

• Revelation 4.6 & 8: “…round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind…. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.”

• We join in this hymn at every mass.

• God’s perfection, his goodness, his holiness, his transcendence are such that by comparison: “…the heavens are not clean in his sight…” (Job 15.15).

• God is almighty (omnipotent).

• His will is supreme, governing the highest order of magnitude and the lowest.

• “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, * and the heavens are the work of your hands; / They shall perish, but you will endure, they all shall wear out like a garment; * as clothing you will change them, and they shall be changed; / But you are always the same, * and your years will never end” (Psalm 102.25f).

• “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will” (Matthew 10.29).

• Though creation rebelled against God, yet at the end of time, all things will be subjected to him, “that God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor. 15.28).

• God’s omnipotence means that he can do anything (“with God, all things are possible” Matt. 19.26). But this does not mean he can do absurd things. He can’t sin, because that would be a violation of his own nature (it would be a logical contradiction). Similarly, he can’t cause a triangle to have four sides. He can’t make a rock so big that he can’t pick it up. God can do anything. These are non-things.

• God is everywhere (omnipresent).

• This means that in virtue of his transcendence and perfection, he is mysteriously present to all things. Or rather, perhaps it is better to say that all things are eternally and immediately present to him.

• “…before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4.13).

• “God is LOVE” (1 John 4.8).

• God is now what he has always been. He has always been love. This is a part of his perfection (in a sense, the WHOLE of his perfection – because he IS love).

• The love of God necessarily has an object. If it didn’t, his love would be unrequited, and his desired unfulfilled; and he would thus not be “that than which greater cannot be thought” – because a being whose love has an object, and who is himself beloved is greater than a being with unfulfilled and unrequited love.

• The beloved of God is the Son of God, and this love is substantive, fructive, generative – God BEGETS the Son in love eternally.

• The perfect, eternal, and mutual love of the Father and the Son is itself the Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son. That is, this love of Father and Son is itself God with the same “Godness” (the same divinity, the same “essence”, the same “substance”) of the Father and the Son. So God is love.

• So the realization that “God is love” prepares the mind for God’s disclosure of himself, of his identity in the teaching of the Church – that he is “Three persons; one God”.