“In One God”
In the Nicene Creed, the first statement of belief we make is in One God. Okay. That’s a no-brainer. Moving on. But wait. Let’s stop and think about it a minute. Just who is this One God? I freely admit I’m out of my depth here. People far wiser than I have been trying to answer that question every since human history began. If St. Paul couldn’t accurately fully describe the mystery of the Trinity, I sure can’t.
This simple phrase is the statement of the belief in the Holy Trinity. Almost the entire remaining portion of the creed is a description of each person of the trinity. Three distinct persons, which we refer to for want of a better term as people, and yet only one God. Not three Gods. They are all of one Divine substance. What the Father is, the Son is. What the Father and the Son are, the Holy Spirit is. CCC 253 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 253) No matter what combination you choose, they are all consubstantial (of the same substance), exactly equal in power and divinity.
The Holy Trinity is eternal, God from all eternity is a communion of persons but God was not revealed as Trinity until the coming of Christ. We see the first mention of it (or them) in Genesis 1:26 when God says, “Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness.” NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition) Note the use of the plural here. Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all present at the creation of mankind. We are all created in their image.
One of the greatest thinkers and writers of the Church, St. Augustine, wrote a wonderful book titled, The Trinity. Over several hundreds of pages he explores how the Trinity functioned in both the Old and New Testaments When it comes to explaining exactly how they are all three, yet one, yet three, how it all works, he’s just like the rest of us. He can’t.
We have to accept that it’s a mystery. It’s not something we will ever understand this side of heaven. Maybe Adam and Eve did before the Fall. Maybe it all made perfect sense to them. Maybe that’s one of the things we lost when we lost paradise. We lost the ability to see clearly. As St. Paul wrote, “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12 NABRE)
In other words, when we get to heaven and we see the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the consubstantial unity together we’ll slap ourselves in the forehead and exclaim, “Oh! So that’s how that all works!” Until then…we believe. In One God. Even though we can’t explain it. We believe it.
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