The Trinity (11)

To have no hold of one’s own upon existence is the most limiting limitation of all and points to the greatest difference between the finite spirit which is our soul and the infinite spirit which is God. Our existence is dependent.  God is existence, is being. We learn this about God when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. When Moses asked Him His name, God said “I am who am.” This is God’s name for Himself, I AM. That is the primary truth about God. He is, He exists, He is being.

Bishop Robert Barron writes, “You and I are contingent (dependent) in our being in the measure that we eat and drink, breathe, and had parents; a tree is contingent inasmuch as its being is derived from seed, soil, water, etc.; the solar system is contingent because it depends upon gravity and events in the galaxy.  To account for a contingent reality, by definition we have to appeal to an extrinsic cause. But if that cause is itself contingent, we have to proceed further. This process of appealing to contingent causes in order to explain a contingent effect cannot go on indefinitely, for then the effect is never adequately explained. Hence, we must finally come to some reality that is not contingent on anything else, some ground of being whose very nature is to-be. This is precisely what Catholic theology means by “God.””

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (10)

God is a spirit. As a first step towards forming a modestly better idea of Him, imagine your body away and think of your soul existing and functioning bodiless; without parts, not occupying space, immortal, knowing, loving, deciding, acting. All these things are true of God. But our soul is not God’s equal, it is only His image. For God is infinite: we are not. God is without limit or boundary or end. Whatever perfection there is, God has it totally.

“Can God make a weight so heavy that He cannot lift it?” asks the unbeliever; thinking he has us cornered. If we say “yes,” then God cannot lift it; if we say “no” then God cannot make it. Our reply is that God can indeed do all things, but a self-contradiction is not a thing. God cannot make a four-sided triangle, because the terms contradict each other: a four-sided triangle is meaningless; it is not a thing at all, it is nothing. A weight that an almighty Being cannot lift is as much a contradiction in terms as a four-sided triangle. It too is nothing. And (to give an old text a new emphasis) nothing is impossible to God.

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (9)

The most I – or anyone - can do is to offer a few observations. (From last time)

Think of anything that occupies space, and it must have parts, there must be components which are not the whole of it—the top is not the bottom, the inside is not the outside. If it occupies space at all, be it ever so microscopic, or so infinitesimally submicroscopic, there must be some “spread.” Space is what matter spreads its parts in. But a being with no parts has no spread; space and it have nothing whatever in common; it is space-less; it is superior to the need for space. The trouble is that we find it hard to think of a thing existing if it is not in space.

 

We all know that God is not an old man with a beard (looking rather like Karl Marx, especially when the artist wanted to show God angry). We likely realize, too, that even the somewhat more complex picture of an old man with a long beard, a young man with a short beard, and a dove, bears no resemblance to the Blessed Trinity: it is merely an artist doing his or her best. But getting rid of the pictures is of value only if, in their place, we acquire a more accurate – though still imperfect – idea of God: otherwise we have merely an empty space where the pictures used to hang. 

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (8)

A spirit differs from a material thing in that it has no parts. A part is any element or component in a being which is not the whole of it, as my chest is a part of my body, or an electron a part of an atom.

A spirit has no parts. 

There is no component part in it which is not the whole of it. There is no division of parts as there is in matter.  Our body has parts, each with its own specialized function: lungs are to breathe with, eyes to see with, legs to walk with. And while our soul similarly is able to do a remarkable variety of things—knowing, loving, animating a body; no part of the soul does any specific function as with the body.  The whole of the soul is involved in each activity.

Concentrate on what follows from this - a being which has no parts does not occupy space. There is nothing I can say to make this truth any clearer: you merely go on looking at it over time, until suddenly you find yourself seeing it.  The most I – or anyone - can do is to offer a few observations (next time).

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (7)

Every living body—vegetable, lower animal, human—has a life principle, a soul, which animates a given body.   However, unlike vegetables or animals, our soul is also uniquely a spirit. And just as ours is the only soul which is a spirit, so ours is the only spirit which is a soul. God is a spirit, but has no body; the angels are spirits, yet have no body. Only in man is spirit united with a body. 

Why is it reasonable to conclude that we are a union of body (which is visible) and spirit (which is not visible)? Our ideas are not material; they have no shape, no size, no color, no weight, no space. And yet it is not accurate to say an idea is nothing.  Ideas produce thought, and thought is one of, if not the, most powerful thing in the world. Ideas have no resemblance whatsoever to our body. They must derive from something similar in nature and that something is what we call spirit. Ideas resemble their source, that is, our spirit. 

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (6)

To get a better grip on the four truths regarding the Trinity, we need a good understanding of: spirit, person, and nature. 

Start with spirit. In theology, spirit is not only a keyword, it is the keyword. Jesus advised the Samaritan woman, “God is a spirit.” Without a good understanding of spirit, we won’t know what Jesus said about God.  So, it’s critical to know what spirit is; and not just a definition. We must take hold of the idea, make it our own, become comfortable with it.  And to help us be comfortable with it, let’s start with the familiar – ourselves.

Spirit is the element in us by which we know and love, and by which we make decisions. The mind with which you are processing this information is a spirit. Our body knows nothing; it loves nothing. Bodily pleasures are not enjoyed by the body; it reacts to them physically: heightened pulse, for instance, or acid stomach; but it is the knowing mind that enjoys the reactions or dislikes them.  Two people riding a roller coaster will experience physically the same thing, yet one enjoys it and the other does not.  The difference arises from the mind – one mind enjoys the “feeling” the body has, the other mind does not.

In Christ, Ken.

The Trinity (5)

The Catechism summarizes the Trinity in this way: We do not confess three Gods but one God in three persons… The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire. (CCC 253).

The primary scriptural data from which the Church derives the doctrine of the Trinity are:

a. that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4); 

b. that the Father is God (John 5:18);

c. that the Son is God (John 8:58); and 

d. that the Holy Spirit is God (Matthew 28:19).

In its simplest outline, the doctrine of the Trinity contains four truths: 

1.    In the one divine Nature, there are three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

2.    No one of the Persons is either of the others, each is wholly Himself. 

3.    The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.

4.    They are not three Gods but one God.

In Christ, Ken.