Just as he said: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”; He is existence, and existence is not without the truth and truth not without existence, and existence not without the reason, and reason not without existence, and reason not without the truth, and the truth not without the reason. They are different, but not separate, the same Divine substance but different persons

POINT 4: GOD IS ABSOLUTE INFINITE PERFECTION. HE IS GOODNESS AND TURE LOVE ITSELF

God is not a created being, He is Existence and Life itself and so much more. It is Him who existed since before time and He created time and reality as we know it; God is the supreme-transcendent being who IS. Where He is, is beyond limitations of time and any physical limitations, such that you cannot say that there was a “time” before He existed, because there was no time before him, all there was, is Him and He created time that we now perceive it in the manner of the way it is, like the way there was a time before you existed in this world and then a time you were then born. God is not created but has existed since before time, instead, He just is, as He told Moses “I Am” (Ex 3:14).

St. John Paul II has a great quote about what the source of love is; “It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”  [1].

God is love and in order to be love, there has to be a lover and a beloved. The trinity since before all creation were an infinitely perfect communion of love, the father loves the son and the son is beloved of the father and the son loves the father and the father is the beloved of the son and the same with the Holy Spirit who is lover and beloved of the father and the son. It is from them that the concept of love flows out. God created us out of love and gave us all that he could so that we could enter into His divine life and he is not calling us to be ‘Christians’ in the sense of just having some similarity to Christ, He is calling us to be Christ! That is for us to become God Himself, which is to become love not a variation of Christ or for us to love the way we wish to, or believe, because only if we are truly love can we enter into His Divine life of Love. So we are to abandon self-will and unite in the incarnation, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world because that is what love is, to love is to suffer for the ultimate good of the beloved, this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ for you to join Him in life, joy, mission and especially His suffering taking up your cross, giving up your self-will and suffering and dying for the love of others anything other than this is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when we live and die truly out of devotion to the truth and love because of the ultimate good of all souls then we will inherit the glorious God-life of the resurrection.

As St. Basil the Great said “What is the mark of love for your neighbour? Not to seek what is for your own benefit, but what is for the benefit of the one loved, both in body and in soul.” [2].

POINT 5: GOD IS A COMMUNITY OF THREE PERSONS WHO ARE ONE AND THE SAME DIVINE BEING OF ABSOLUTE INFINITE PERFECTION

Drafts from catholicism.org:

Scriptures explicitly testify to the truth of the divinity of Christ as is found in various passages: “Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, ‘God with us.’” (Matt. 1:23 & Isa. 7:14). “For a child is born to us and a son is given to us … and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, Prince of Peace.” (Isaias 9:6). The gospel according to John states that the Jews understood His claims to divinity as is stated in John 5:18; “Hereupon the Jews sought the more to kill him, because He did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was His Father, making himself equal to God.” John 10:33 also states this: “For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”

Scattered over the gospels are several records of Christ making this claim, like in John 5:23 “That all men may honor the Son, as they honor the Father.” And John 6:47 “He that believeth in me hath everlasting life.” “The Father and I are one.” (John 10:30). “I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live.” (John 11:25). “All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine.” (John 16:15). This is also seen in the passage (Matt. 26:63-4) “Tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God. Jesus saith to him: Thou hast said it.” And the response of the high priest: “He hath blasphemed.” Though there are those who, in willful disregard of Jewish idiomatic usage, are blind enough to insist that Our Lord was denying His divinity with this answer: “Thou hast said it.” The truth is the contrary. This form of reply was the most emphatic way a Jew could respond in the affirmative. If it were a denial then why did Caiphas consider it blasphemy? Here also he makes claims to divinity “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth.” (Matt. 28:18). Such authority could only belong to God. All power subjects all, whether in heaven or earth. If Jesus possessed less power than the Father then Jesus would not have all power and He would not therefore be equal to God. But Jesus received all Power in His eternal generation; He therefore, is God (catholicism.org) [3].

We find record of the revelation of the Holy Trinity here in the gospel according to John 14.1-31

” And I will ask the Father, and he will give another Advocate to you, so that he may abide with you for eternity: the Spirit of Truth, whom the world is not able to accept, because it neither perceives him nor knows him. But you shall know him. For he will remain with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will return to you. Yet a little while and the world will not see me any longer. But you will see me. For I live, and you shall live. In that day, you shall know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them: it is he who loves me. And whoever loves me shall be loved by my Father. And I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him.” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him: “Lord, how does it happen that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus responded and said to him: “If anyone loves me, he shall keep my word. And my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and we will make our dwelling place with him. Whoever does not love me, does not keep my words. And the word that you have heard is not of me, but it is of the Father who sent me. These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will suggest to you everything whatsoever that I have said to you.”

This is also recorded here in Matthew 28:19 “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

POINT 6: THE PERSONS OF GOD ARE EXISTENCE, TRUTH AND GOODNESS

God the father is the person of God who is existence. Jesus Christ is the person of God who is the truth. The Holy Spirit is the person of God who is the Reasons and choices of God which is perfect love and mercy (goodness).

Drafts from catholicism.org:

“In the Book of Exodus, God identifies Himself to Moses as “I am Who am.” There is an infinite depth of mystery here. Philosophy provides a wisdom in understanding at least a glimpse of the meaning. Saint Thomas teaches that God is His own existence. By this the doctor would have us understand that God receives His Being from no other; therefore, we can reason that God must be eternal, He can have no beginning. In order for anything to come to be another must first have being that being might be communicated. But God could not have received His Being from anyone for there is no being greater or before Him. All created things were brought into being by God. God is the first cause of all that is, but He Himself must be uncaused, because nothing can be the cause of itself – that would be a contradiction. If God is the Uncaused Cause, as Saint Thomas says, then God must have had no beginning; He must be eternal.”

“And He (Christ) was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood; and his name is called the Word of God.” (Apoc. 19:13).

“In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things were made by him and without him was made nothing that was made.” (John 1:1-3). “And we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father.” (John 1:14)

“As the sun and its splendour are inseparable, so too is God One and the same as His divine expression, His Logos. The divine Idea, the Concept of God of His own very Essence, can be nothing less than the generation (conception) of another Person. If the Father’s eternal self-knowledge were less perfect than the eternal generation of a consubstantial Son, then this reflection of Himself would not be perfect nor infinite, and the divine knowledge would have a potency about it which is impossible for God Who is Pure Act. The Son of God, therefore, is the Father’s very Thought or Understanding or Knowledge of His own infinite and eternal Essence. He, the Word, is Eternal Wisdom. Applying this truth to our text we may say that the Father is glory, the Son is His brightness. He ‘manifests’ the glory of the Father.”

“The Son is also called Truth. Truth is a manifestation of what is. It is a conformity of what is to a mind that comprehends it. Truth presupposes two: a thinker and a thought; a knower and something known. Truth presupposes being, for something must exist before it can be true. Now the Son being eternally begotten of the Father, is His Truth, His Brightness. Brightness proceeds from light as truth from being, therefore it is proper to attribute Being to the Father and Truth to the Son who proceeds or is generated. And, as in nature, we know that light and its splendour are one and the same substance, so too, by Faith we know with Saint Paul that the Father and Son are one and the same substance.” (catholicism.org) [3]. In the gospel according to John 18.35-38 we see another record of divine self revelation were Christ implicitly identifies himself as the truth:

“You are saying that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world: so that I may offer testimony to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and he said to them, “I find no case against him.”

“In Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees in John 8: 58, notice that Jesus does not say, ‘Before Abraham was made I was;’ rather He says: “Before Abraham … I am.” Because there is no time in eternity. Time is a measure of change in created things. God is not created and does not change. In God, when we speak of change, we speak analogously and only in terms of His relation with us. There is neither past nor future in God; if there were, God would be a changing being with potencies unrealized. An infinite and eternal being can have no potency to anything; He must by necessity be what philosophers call Pure Act. God as God is immutable; however God could adopt a nature capable of change, this He did two thousand years ago. But remember, Jesus had two natures. As man, He could say: ‘I am thirty-three years old;’ as God He could say: ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’ If you were to ask Jesus when His Birthday was as God, He would say ‘Now!” (catholicism.org) [3].

The Holy Spirit being the Spirit of God and the spirit of truth is the reason for God’s action and being. When we say that God is his own existence, we speak of the holy spirit. As God is absolutely infinitely perfect so is his Spirit which is the one who sanctifies us by bringing forth the true and pure will of God in all that is disposed to him.   

THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

The three persons of the Trinity are not three different individuals or separate beings, they are just three “persons”. You have to understand the difference between persons and individuals, you remain the same individual throughout your life but you change as a person even over time. You are not the same “person” you were when you were 12 years old, your perception of the world, your choice pattern and your reasoning has changed.

This means your personality has changed. Changing personality is due to the fact that we are created things and are finite. Another example of personality is “multiple personality disorder” where a person possesses multiple personalities but are only manifested one at a time.

The persons of God are the three identifiable hypostases of absolute infinite perfection. One is the absolute infinite existence or reality, the source and sustenance of all existence or reality, the second is the absolute infinite truth of all things which is the way everything truly is. Every truth comes from and goes back to him. The last is the absolute infinite reason for everything. He is the reason anything that is good actually is, he is love and mercy itself and is the reason for freedom which can be abused but not in any way that would hinder his infinite nature.

From these we come into a full contemplation of a view concerning the Blessed Trinity our God: The Divine Being which is God is absolute in all He is, He is always eternally in His absoluteness, and is eternally never not absolute. His absoluteness is what we know as and call the three divine persons in the one God, the three divine persons are His absoluteness, thus is eternally with and never without any of the three persons.

Since God is is absolutely perfect, perfectly absolute, infinity perfect and perfectly infinite in Himself, who He is and all that He in His essence stands for

He infinitely exists before, throughout, beyond and outside of time. It was him who fashioned our experience of time. From His infinite existence, all reality and life come to be. He is truly existence, life and reality {the father}.

His absolute reflection of infinite truth is the whole truth about everything/anything that exists which actually comes from him and the reflection of his infinite self. And this whole truth comes out of his infinite perfection. This absolute reflection of the truth is absolutely perfect, is perfectly absolute, infinitely perfect and perfectly infinite. Since His reflection of the absolute infinite truth is His very essence which is the complete reflection of everything that he really is. His reflection of absolute infinite truth cannot be anything less than but only Him, and in all eternity He is always with this absolute infinite reflection of truth and eternally has never been without it. He necessarily exists with this truth which is eternally Him. {the son}.

His “Will” which is the reason for his being and the same reason for him doing anything he chooses to do. This “Will” is absolutely perfect, perfectly absolute, infinitely perfect and perfectly infinite. He will not “Will” or infinitely choose anything that is less than what He can perfectly “will” or infinitely choose. The perfect thing He can “Will”, is to wish for the infinitely perfect thing which he can wish for and this is nothing else but Himself; infinite perfect Love and Mercy.

He necessarily exists with this absolute infinite perfect “will”; the reason for his being and choice and the absolute infinite perfect will is eternally Him. {the Holy Spirit}.

Just as he said: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”; He is Existence, and Existence is not without the Truth and Truth not without Existence, and Existence not without the Will, and Will not without Existence, and Will not without the Truth, and the Truth not without the Will. They are different but not separate, the same Divine substance but different persons.

God is absolute Existence the source of existence through whom all reality comes forth, all true realities comes from and leads back to their source of origin which is the designer and creator the absolute Existence of God.

God is the absolute Truth the testimony of the absolute truth of all existence, all truths comes from and leads back to their source of origin which is the word, the supreme declaration of truth, the absolute Truth of God.

God is the true absolute goodness which is Love and Mercy, all true goodness comes from and leads back to their source of origin which is love and mercy the absolute Will of God.

“To put this doctrine in terms more understandable, let me phrase it the way I once heard our founder, Father Leonard Feeney, express it: In God there are Three Whos and only one What. (The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is, of course, understood) To the question: Who is God? I answer: God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. To the question: What is God? I respond: God is One, the Infinite, the Eternal, the Omnipotent Supreme Being. None of the many divine attributes can be multiplied or communicated. Powers belong to nature; Actions belong to a person.”

“The distinction then between ‘figure’ and the ‘substance’ of which the figure is, is a distinction of person. The Person of the Son (the Exemplar) subsists (exists on His own) independent of the Father and the Holy Ghost as an agent or doer. Enough commentary has been given. The mystery of the Holy Trinity can only be affirmed, not explained.” (catholicism.org) [3].

References

1. Address at world youth day, Rome, 19^th August, 2000: http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2000/jul-sep/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000819_gmg-veglia.html  

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• http://inspiringquotes.us/author/4543-saint-basil

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• The Divinity of Christ: Proofs from Scripture. https://catholicism.org/scripture-christ-divinity.html

Copied in February 2019.