ONE GOD
MALIZU COLLINS
malizucollins@gmail.com
God is unique; there is only one God: “The Christian faith confesses that God is one in nature, substance, and essence” (Roman Catechism, I. 2, 2.). The classic question is whether God is One or Three. The answer is yes to both. He is One and He is Three. One God, one nature, one substance, but three divine Persons. The best way to understand this is from the point of view of a family. Imagine a family in which there was perfect love and perfect unity. Of course this is only possible in Heaven because we live in a fallen world. But just try to imagine it. A family where there is perfect love, perfect harmony, perfect unity, etc. Additionally, imagine if each individual was in perfect union with God’s will. Each member knew, understood, chose and lived God’s will perfectly. Now let’s say this family is the Johnson family. You would say that this is one family but that this one family is made up of individual members. Different persons. But each person is a member of the one Johnson family and that one family is perfect in every way.
Now I know a perfect family is close to impossible to imagine in this world. Even the best of families have regular disagreements and issues. But if you can try to imagine this ideal, then perhaps it’s possible to at least understand the nature of God in an analogous way.
The analogy does fall short in one way. The Johnson family would be one family of many families in our world. But the family of the Trinity is the one and only divine family. The Trinity is the only family possessing divine nature. There are countless human families possessing human nature. So, consider the following points to help clarify:
The three Persons of the Trinity are the only three to share in the one divine nature.
They love each other perfectly.
They each have the same perfect knowledge of the Truth.
They each share the same perfect will of love grounded in their perfect knowledge of the Truth.
Therefore, the three are of the same essence, nature and being. They are one while at the same time remain three.
God’s Name
“But,” said Moses to God, “if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?” God replied to Moses: I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. (Ex. 3:13-15)
How would you like to have the name, “I Am Who I Am.” Pretty deep. In fact, it’s so deep that it’s a name that can only be applied to God. This is God’s name given Him by Himself and revealed to Moses for all to come to know. This is God’s essence, His very being, His nature. It is Who He Is!
The Catechism explains this using mysterious language:
God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.
So what exactly does that mean? That’s right! The question is the answer! Huh? Confusing? Well, in fact it’s not actually confusing; rather, it’s profoundly mysterious. This is the nature and essence of God. To Be. To exist. To be existence itself. To have always been. And, interestingly, God’s name is a sort of refusal to have a name. It’s as if God were saying, “Look, I cannot be named. My essence IS WHO I AM and this is how I AM to be known.”
Yes, it’s still confusing. But that’s OK. Perhaps what we should be happy understanding is that God cannot really be named but if we try to do so then we are left with a profound mystery. It’s the mystery of His nature. And it will only be understood properly in Heaven. But for now we do our best.
What else can we say about God from His name? That He is stable, permanent, unchanging, the fullness and source of all being, the beginning and the end of all being, Truth, and the source of all truth, and so much more. The rest of our reflections on the Creed should help us enter more deeply into this mystery of the essence and nature of God.
