What does the Church teach about the Father of Jesus Christ? Part One

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.  Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  John 14:6-9

Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we discussed last series, points us to the Father.  In this series, we will discuss the Father.

Like the last series, this series, too, will base itself on the Nicene Creed that we say every Sunday at Mass.   The section we will deal with in this series is the very first part which reads:

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

There are some important words in there, all of which we will touch in this series:  one, God, Father, almighty, maker, heaven, earth, visible, invisible

We will begin today with the first line “I believe in one God.”

I did a few posts a while back on the ways of coming to know God.   We can come to know him through nature, through our interior longings, and also through Divine Revelation.   For more details, here are the links to the posts in question:

http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/coming-to-know-god.html

http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/divine-revelation.html

As we come to know God through all these means, what do we come to know?

We know he is one, and he is the only one. We see this in both the Old and New Testaments, as we read in #201 and #202 : To Israel, his chosen, God revealed himself as the only One: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Through the prophets, God calls Israel and all nations to turn to him, the one and only God: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.... To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 'Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.'" Jesus himself affirms that God is "the one Lord" whom you must love "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength".

God indeed reveals himself as the only God to the people of Israel.   This is the beginning of the Divine Revelation, which will culminate in the person of Christ.   To Moses at the burning bush, he says his name is YHWH, which means “I am who am.”   Disclosing a name to someone is a means of allowing one to get to know you.  It does not mean we then know right then and there everything about a person, but revealing a name certainly goes a long way: we cannot get to know someone without knowing their name.   God’s name which means “ I am who am” means he is someone who is always there, faithful, unique, and the source of all that we have, without whom we are nothing.   He is truth itself, and love itself.

But even with this name, God does remain mysterious.  The phrase “I am who am” is a revelation, but it is still a little mysterious as the Catechism explains in #206:  This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God", his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men.   In #230, the Catechism has a nice quote on this from Saint Augustine:  "If you understood him, it would not be God"

What are the implications of having faith in one God?   The Catechism lists several in #223-#227:

It means coming to know God's greatness and majesty.

It means living in thanksgiving: if God is the only One, everything we are and have comes from him

It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: everyone is made in the image and likeness of God.

It means making good use of created things: faith in God, the only One, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to him, and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from him

It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity.

There are many beautiful implications to God being the one and only, but also obligations, as we see here.

In the next post, we will discuss God as Father.

Joseph, renowned offspring of David, pray for us.