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Roman Catechism
“In God”
From these words we may learn how exalted are the dignity and excellence of Christian wisdom, and what a debt of gratitude we owe to the divine goodness. For to us it is given at once to mount as by the steps of faith to the knowledge of what is most sublime and desirable.
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD MORE EASILY OBTAINED THROUGH FAITH THAN THROUGH REASON
There is a great difference between Christian philosophy and human wisdom. The latter, guided solely by the light of nature, advances slowly by reasoning on sensible objects and effects, and only after long and laborious investigation is it able at length to contemplate with difficulty the invisible things of God, to discover and understand a First Cause and Author of all things. Christian philosophy, on the contrary, so quickens the human mind that without difficulty it pierces the heavens, and, illumined with divine light, contemplates first, the eternal source of light, and in its radiance all created things: so that we experience with the utmost pleasure of mind that we have been called, as the Prince of the Apostles says, [[out of darkness into his admirable light, and believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable.8
Justly, therefore, do the faithful profess first to believe in God, whose majesty, with the Prophet Jeremias, we declare incomprehensible.9 For, as the Apostle says, He dwells in light inaccessible, which no man hath seen, nor can see;10 as God Himself, speaking to Moses, said: No man shall see my face and live.11 The mind cannot rise to the contemplation of the Deity, whom nothing approaches in sublimity, unless it be entirely disengaged from the senses, and of this in the present life we are naturally incapable.
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OBTAINED THROUGH FAITH IS CLEARER
But while this is so, yet God, as the Apostle says, left not himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.12 Hence it is that the philosophers conceived no mean idea of the Divinity, ascribed to him nothing corporeal, gross or composite. They considered him the perfection and fullness of all good, from whom, as from an eternal, inexhaustible fountain of goodness and benignity, flows every perfect gift to all creatures. They called him the wise, the author and lover of truth, the just, the most beneficent, and gave him also many other appellations expressive of supreme and absolute perfection. They recognised that his immense and infinite power fills every place and extends to all things.
These truths the Sacred Scriptures express far better and much more clearly, as in the following passages: God is a spirit;13 Be ye perfect, even as also your heavenly Father is perfect;14 All things are naked and open to his eyes;15 O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!16 God is true;17 I am the way, the truth, and the life;18 Thy right hand is full of justice;19 Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature;20 and finally: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art there. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, etc.,21 and Do I not fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?22
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OBTAINED THROUGH FAITH IS MORE CERTAIN
These great and sublime truths regarding the nature of God, which are in full accord with Scripture, the philosophers were able to learn from an investigation of God’s works. But even here we see the necessity of divine revelation if we reflect that not only does faith, as we have already observed, make known clearly and at once to the rude and unlettered, those truths which only the learned could discover, and that by long study; but also that the knowledge obtained through faith is much more certain and more secure against error than if it were the result of philosophical inquiry.
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OBTAINED THROUGH FAITH IS MORE AMPLE AND EXALTED
But how much more exalted must not that knowledge of the Deity be considered, which cannot be acquired in common by all from the contemplation of nature, but is peculiar to those who are illumined by the light of faith?
This knowledge is contained in the Articles of the Creed, which disclose to us the unity of the Divine Essence and the distinction of Three Persons, and show also that God himself is the ultimate end of our being, from whom we are to expect the enjoyment of the eternal happiness of heaven, according to the words of St. Paul: God is a rewarder of them that seek him.23 How great are these rewards, and whether they are such that human knowledge could aspire to their attainment, we learn from these words of Isaias uttered long before those of the Apostle: From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen besides thee, O God, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.24
THE UNITY OF NATURE IN GOD
From what is said it must also be confessed that there is but one God, not many gods. For we attribute to God supreme goodness and infinite perfection, and it is impossible that what is supreme and most perfect could be common to many. If a being lack anything that constitutes supreme perfection, it is therefore imperfect and cannot have the nature of God.
The unity of God is also proved from many passages of Sacred Scripture. It is written: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord;25 again the Lord commands: Thou shalt not have strange gods before me;26 and further He often admonishes us by the Prophet: I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God.27 The Apostle also openly declares: One Lord, one faith, one baptism.28
It should not, however, excite our surprise if the Sacred Scriptures sometimes give the name of God to creatures. For when they call the Prophets and judges gods, they do not speak according to the manner of the Gentiles, who, in their folly and impiety, formed to themselves many gods; but express, by a manner of speaking then in use, some eminent quality or function conferred on such persons by the gift of God.
THE TRINITY OF PERSONS IN GOD
The Christian faith, therefore, believes and professes, as is declared in the Nicene Creed in confirmation of this truth, that God in his nature, substance and essence is one. But soaring still higher, it so understands him to be one that it adores unity in trinity and trinity in unity. Of this mystery we now proceed to speak, as it comes next in order in
the Creed.
8. 1 Pet 1:8; 1 Pet 2:9
9. Jer 32:19
10. 1 Tim 6:16
11. Exod 33:20
12. Acts 14:16
13. John 4:24
14. Matt 5:48
15. Heb 4:13
16. Rom 11:33
17. Rom 3:4
18. John 14:6
19. Ps 47:11
20. Ps 144:16
21. Ps 138:7-9
22. Jer 23:24
23. Heb 11:6
24. Isa 64:4
25. Deut 6:4
26. Exod 20:3
27. Isa 48:12; Isa 44:6
28. Eph 4:5