ARTICLE
I
"I
Believe In God The Father Almighty Creator Of Heaven And Earth"
Meaning
of this Article
The meaning of the above words is this: I
believe with certainty, and without a shadow of doubt profess my belief in God the
Father, the First Person of the Trinity, who by His omnipotence created from
nothing and preserves and governs the heavens and the earth and all things
which they contain; and not only do I believe in Him from my heart and profess
this belief with my lips, but with the greatest ardor and piety I tend towards
Him, as the Supreme and most perfect good.
Let
this serve as a brief summary of this first Article. But since great mysteries
lie concealed under almost every word, the pastor must now give them a more
careful consideration, in order that, as far as God has permitted, the faithful
may approach, with fear and trembling, to contemplate the glory of his Majesty.
“I
BELIEVE”
The
word believe does not here mean to think, to suppose, to
be of opinion; but as the Sacred Scriptures teach, it expresses the deepest
conviction, by which the mind gives a firm and unhesitating assent to God
revealing His mysterious truths. As
far, therefore, as regards the use of the word here, he who firmly and without
hesitation is convinced of anything is said to believe.
Faith
Excludes Doubt
The
knowledge derived through faith must not be considered less certain because its
objects are not seen; for the divine light by which we know them, although it does
not render them evident, yet suffers us not to doubt them. For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, hath himself shone in our hearts, 1 that the Gospel be not hidden to us, as to
those that perish. 2
Faith
Excludes Curiosity
From
what has been said it follows that he who is gifted with this heavenly
knowledge of faith is free from an inquisitive curiosity. For when God commands us to believe He does
not propose to us to search into His divine judgments, or inquire into their
reason and cause, but demands an unchangeable faith, by which the mind rests
content in the knowledge of eternal truth.
And indeed, since we have the testimony of the Apostle that God is
true; and every man a liar, 3 and since it would argue arrogance and presumption to disbelieve
the word of a grave and sensible man affirming anything as true, and to demand
that he prove his statements by arguments or witnesses, how rash and foolish
are those, who, hearing the words of God Himself, demand reasons for His
heavenly and saving doctrine's? Faith, therefore, must exclude not only all
doubt, but all desire for demonstration.
Faith
Requires Open Profession
The
pastor should also teach that he who says, I believe, besides declaring
the inward assent of the mind, which is an internal act of faith, should also
openly profess and with alacrity acknowledge and proclaim what he inwardly and
in his heart believes. For the faithful
should be animated by the same spirit that spoke by the lips of the Prophet
when he said: I believe, and
therefore did I speak, 4
and should follow the example of the Apostles who replied to the princes
of the people: We cannot but speak
the things which we have seen and heard. 5 They should be encouraged by these noble
words of St. Paul: I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
believeth; 6 and likewise by those other words; in which the truth of this doctrine is
expressly confirmed: With the heart
we believe unto justice; but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
7
{a}
“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 the 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 but pierces the heavens, and, illumined with divine light,
contemplates first, the eternal source of light, and in its radiance all
creative 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 to the faithful profess first to believe in God, whose majesty,
with the Prophet Jeremias, we declare incomprehensible. 9 For, as the Apostles 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. {b}
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 benificent, and gave Him
also many other appellations expressive of Supreme and absolute
perfection. They recognize that His
immense and infinite power fills every place and extends to all things. {c}
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
opennest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature; 20 and finally: Wither shall I go from thy spirit? Or wither 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 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 a
long before those of the Apostle: From
the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the it
ears: the eye hath not seen besides
thee, O God, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee. 24
{d}
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. {e}
The Trinity of Persons
In God
The
Christian faith, therefore, believes and professors, 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. {f}
“THE FATHER”
As
God is called Father for more reasons than one, we must first determine
the more appropriate sense in which the word is used in the present instance.
--- God Is Called " The Father " Because He Is Creator And Ruler ---
Even
some on whose darkness the light of faith never shone conceived God to be an
eternal substance from whom all things have their beginning, and by whose
Providence they are governed and preserved in their order and state of
existence. Since, therefore, he to whom
a family owes its origin and by whose wisdom and authority it is governed is
called father, so by analogy derived from human things these persons
gave the name Father to God, whom they acknowledge to be the Creator and
Governor of the universe. The Sacred
Scriptures also, when they wish to show that to God must be ascribed to the
creation of all things, supreme power and admirable Providence, make use of the
same name. Thus we read: Is not he
thy Father, that hath possessed thee and the thee and created thee? 29
And: have we not all one
Father? hath not one God created us?
30 {g}
God Is Called "
Father " Because He Adopts Christians Through Grace
But
God, particularly in the New Testament, is much more frequently, and in some
sense peculiarly, called the Father of Christians, who have not receive the
spirit of bondage again in fear; but
have received the spirit of adoption of sons (of God), whereby they cry: Abba
(Father). 31
For the Father hath bestowed upon us that manner of charity that we
should be called, and be the sons of God, 32 and if the sons, heirs also; heirs
indeed of God, and joint- heirs with Christ, 33 who is the first born amongst many
brethen, 34 and is not
ashamed to call us brethen. 35
Whether, therefore, we look to the common title of creation and
Providence, or to the special one of spiritual adoption, rightly to the
faithful profess their belief that God is their Father. {h}
The Name " Father
" Also Discloses The Plurality of persons in God
But
the pastor should teach that on hearing the word Father, besides the
ideas already unfolded, the mind should rise to more exalted mysteries. Under the name Father, the divine
oracles begin to unveil to us a mysterious truth which is more abstruse and
more deeply hidden in that inaccessible light in which God dwells, and which
human reason and understanding could not attain to, nor even conjecture to
exist.
This
name implies that in one Essence of the Godhead is proposed to our belief, not
only one person, but a distinction of persons; for in one Divine Nature there
are Three Persons - the Father, begotten of none; The Son, begotten of the
father before all ages; the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son,
likewise from all eternity.
The
Doctrine Of the Trinity
In
the one Substance of the Divinity the Father is the First Person, who with His
Only begotten Son, and the Holy Ghost, is one God and one Lord, not in the
singularity of one Person, but in the trinity of one substance.{i} These three persons,
since it would be impiety to assert that they are unlike or unequal in
anything, are understood to be distinct only in their respective
properties. For the Father is
unbegotten, the Son begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from
both. Thus we acknowledge the Essence and the Substance of the Three Persons to
be the same in such wise that we believe that in confessing the true and
eternal God we are piously and religiously to adore distinction in the Persons,
unity in the Essence, and equality in the Trinity.
Hence,
when we say that the Father is the First Person, we are not to be understood to
mean that in the Trinity there is anything first or last, greater or less. Let none of the faithful be guilty of such
impiety, for the Christian religion proclaim the same eternity, the same
majesty of glory in the Three Persons.
But since the Father is the beginning without a beginning, we truly and
unhesitatingly affirm that He is the First Person, and as He is distinct from
the Others by his peculiar relation of the paternity, so of Him alone is it
true that He begot the Son from eternity.
For when in the Creed we and pronounce together the words God and
Father, it means that He was always both God and Father. {j}
Practical
Admonition Concerning The Mystery Of the Trinity
Since
nowhere is a too curious inquiry more dangerous, or error more fatal, {k} than
in the knowledge and exposition of this, the most profound and difficult of
mysteries, let the pastor teach that the terms nature and person
used to express this mystery should be most scrupulously retained; and let the
faithful know that unity belongs to essence, and distinction to persons. But these are truths which should not be
made the subject of too subtle investigation, when we recollect that he who
is a searcher of majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory. 36 We should be satisfied with the assurance
and certitude which faith gives us that we have been taught these truths by God
Himself, to doubt whose word is the extreme of folly and misery. He has said: Teach
ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost; 37 and again there are three who give
testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and of the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. 38 {l}
Let
him, however, who by the divine bounty believes these truths, constantly
beseech and implore God and the father, who made all things out of nothing, and
ordereth all things sweetly, 39
who gave us power to become the sons of God, 40 and who made known to the human mind the
mystery of the Trinity - let him, I say, pray unceasingly that, admitted one
day into the eternal tabernacles, 41
he may be worthy to see how great is the fecundity of the father, who contemplating
and understanding Himself, begot the Son like and equal to Himself, how a love
of charity in both, entirely the same and equal, which is the Holy Ghost,
proceeding from the father and the Son,
connects to begetter and begotten by an eternal and in dissoluble bond; and
that thus the Essence of the Trinity is one and the distinction of the Three
Persons perfect.
- “ALMIGHTY” -
The
Sacred Scriptures, in order to mark the piety and devotion with which the most Holy
name of God is to be adored, usually express
His supreme power and infinite majesty and a variety of ways; but the
pastor should, first of all, teach that Almighty power is most frequently
attributed to Him. Thus He says of
Himself: I am the Almighty Lord;
42 and again, Jacob when sending his sons to
Joseph thus prayed for them: May my Almighty God make him favorable to you. 43
In the Apocalypse also it is written:
The Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty;
44 and in another place the last day is called
the great day of the Almighty God. 45 Sometimes the same attribute is expressed
in many words; thus: No word shall be impossible with God; 46 Is the hand of the Lord unable? 47 Thy power is at hand when thou wilt,
48 and so on.
Meaning Of The Term " Almighty "
From
these various modes of expression it is clearly perceived what is comprehended
under the single word Almighty.
By it we understand that there neither exist nor can be conceived in
thought or imagination anything which God cannot do. For not only can He annihilate all created things, and in a
moment summon from nothing into existence many other worlds, an exercise of
power which, however great, comes in some degree within our comprehension; but
He can do many things still greater, of which the human mind can form no
conception.
But
though God can do all things, yet He cannot lie, or deceive, or be
deceived; He cannot sin, or cease to
exist, or be ignorant of anything.
These defects are compatible with those beings only whose actions are
imperfect; but God, whose acts are always most perfect, is said to be incapable of such things,
simply because the capability of doing them implies weakness, not the Supreme
and infinite power over all things which God possesses. Thus we so believe God to be omnipotent that
we exclude from Him entirely all that is not intimately connected and
consistent with the perfection of His nature.
Why
Omnipotence Alone Is Mentioned In The Creed
The
pastor should point out the propriety and wisdom of having omitted all other
names of God in the Creed, and of having proposed to us only that of Almighty
as the object of our belief. For by acknowledging
God to be omnipotent, we also of necessity acknowledge Him to be omniscient,
and to hold all things in subjection to His supreme authority and
dominion. When we do not doubt that He
is omnipotent, we must be also convinced of everything else regarding Him, the
absence of which would render His omnipotence altogether unintelligible.
Besides,
nothing tends more to confirm our faith and animate our hope that a deep
conviction that all things are possible to God; for whatever may be afterwards proposed
as an object of faith, however great, however wonderful, however raised above
the natural order, is easily and without hesitation believed, once the mind has
grasped the knowledge of the omnipotence of God. Nay more, the greater the truths which the divine oracles
announce, the more willingly does the mind deem them worthy of belief. And should we expect any favor from heaven,
we are not discouraged by the greatness of the desired benefit. But are cheered and confirmed by frequently
considering that there is nothing which an omnipotent God cannot effect.
Advantages
Of Faith In God's Omnipotence
With
this faith, then, we should be specially fortified whenever we are required to
render any extraordinary service to our neighbor or seek to obtain by prayer
any favor from God. It's necessity in
the one case we learn from the Lord Himself, who, when rebuking the incredulity
of the Apostles, said: If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you
shall say to this mountain: remove from hence thither, and it shall remove; and
nothing shall be impossible to you;
49 and in the other case, from these words of
St. James: Let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering. For he that
wavereth is like a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried about by the
wind. Therefore let not that man
think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. 50
This
faith brings with it also many advantages and helps. It forms us, in the first place, to all humility and lowliness of
mind, according to these words of the Prince of the Apostles: Be you humbled
therefore under the mighty hand of God.
51 It also teaches us not to fear where there
is no cause of fear, but to fear God alone, in whose power we ourselves and all
that we have are placed; for our Savior
says: I will shew you whom you
shall fear; fear ye him, who after he
hath killed, hath power to cast into hell. 52 This faith is also useful to enable us to
know and exalt the infinite mercies of God towards us. For he who reflects on the omnipotence of
God, cannot be so ungrateful as not frequently to exclaim: He that is
mighty, hath done great things to me. 53
Not Three Almighties
But One Almighty
When,
however, in this Article we call the Father almighty, let no one be led
into the error of thinking that this attribute is so ascribed to Him as not to
belong also to the Son and the Holy Ghost.
As we say the father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, and
yet there are not three Gods but one God; so in like manner we confess that the
Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty, and yet there
are not three almighties but one almighty.
54
The
Father, a particular, we call Almighty, because he is the source of all being;
as we also attribute wisdom to the Son, because he is the eternal word of the
Father; and goodness to the Holy Ghost, because he is the love of both. These, however, and similar appellations,
may be given indiscriminately to the Three Persons, according to the teaching
of Catholic faith. {m}
"CREATOR"
The
necessity of having previously imparted to the faithful a knowledge of the
omnipotence of God will appear from what we are now about to explain with
regard to the creation of the world.
The wondrous production of so stupendous a work is more easily believed
when all doubt concerning the immense power of the creator has been removed.
For
God formed the world not from materials of any sort, but created it from
nothing, and that not by constraint or necessity, but spontaneously, and of His
own free will. Nor was he impelled to
create by any other cause then a desire to communicate His goodness to
creatures. Being essentially happy in
Himself, He stands not in need of anything; as David expresses it: I have said to the Lord, thou art my God,
for thou hast no need of my goods. 55 {n}
As
it was His own goodness that influenced Him when He did all things whatsoever
He would, so in the work of creation He followed no external form or model; but
contemplating, and as it were imitating, the universal model contained in the
divine intelligence, the Supreme Architect, with infinite wisdom and
power-attributes peculiar to the Divinity - created all things in the
beginning. He spoke and they were
made: he commanded and they were created. 56 {o}
"Of
HEAVEN and EARTH"
The
words heaven and earth include all things which the heavens and
the earth contain; for besides the
heavens, which the Prophet has called the works of his fingers, 57 He also gave to the sun its brilliancy, and
to the moon and stars their beauty; and that they might be for signs, and
four seasons, and four days and years. 58 He so ordered the celestial bodies in a
certain and uniform course, that nothing varies more than their continual
revolution, while nothing is more fixed than their variety. {p}
Creation Of the World Of
Spirits
Moreover,
He created out of nothing the spiritual world and Angels innumerable to serve
and minister to Him; and these he enriched and adorned with the admirable gifts
of His grace and power.
That
the devil and the other rebel Angels were gifted from the beginning of the
creation with grace, clearly follows from these words of the Sacred Scriptures:
He (the devil) stood not in the truth. 59 On this subject St. Augustine says: In creating the Angels He endowed them with
good will, that is, with pure love that they might adhere to Him, given them
existence and adorning them with grace at one and the same time. Hence we are to believe that the holy Angels
were never without good will, that is, the love of God. 60
As
to their knowledge we have this testimony of Holy Scripture: Thou, my Lord,
O king, art twice, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to understand
all things upon earth. 61
Finally, the inspired David ascribes power to them, saying that they are
mighty in strength, and execute his word; 62 and on this account they are often called
in Scripture the powers and the armies of the Lord. {q}
But
although they were all endowed with celestial gifts, very many, having rebelled
against God, their Father and Creator, were hurled from those high mansions of
bliss, and shut up in the darkest dungeon of earth, there to suffer for eternity
the punishment of their pride. Speaking
of them the Prince of the Apostles says: God spared not the Angels that
sinned, but delivered them, drawn by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto
torments, to be reserved unto judgment. 63 {r}
Formation
Of The Universe
The
earth also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world, rooted in its own
foundation, and made the mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place
which he had founded for them. That
the waters should not inundate the earth, He set a bound which they shall
not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. 64 He next not only clothed and adorned it with
trees and every variety of plant and flower, but filled it, as He had already
filled the air and water, with innumerable kinds of living creatures. {s}
Production Of Man
Lastly,
He formed man from the slime of the earth, so created an constituted in body as
to be immortal and impassible, not, however, by the strength of nature, but by
the bounty of God. Man's soul He
created to His own image and likeness; gifted him with free will, and tempered
all his motions and appetites so as to subject them, at all times, to the
dictates of reason. He then added the
admirable gift of original righteousness, and next gave him dominion over all
other animals. By referring to the
sacred history of Genesis the pastor will easily make himself familiar with
these things for the instruction of the faithful. {t}
"Of
ALL Things VISIBLE and INVISIBLE"
What
we have said, then, of the creation of the universe is to be understood as conveyed
by the words heaven and earth, and is thus briefly set forth by the
Prophet: Thine are the heavens, and
thine is the earth: the world and the fullness thereof thou has founded. 65 Still more briefly the Fathers of the
Council of Nice expressed this truth by adding in their Creed these words: of
all things visible and invisible.
Whatever exists in the universe, whatever we confess to have been
created by God, either falls under the senses and is included in the word visible,
or is an object of mental perception and intelligence and is expressed by the
word invisible.
We
are not, however, to understand that God is in such wise the Creator and Maker
of all things that His works, when once created finished, could thereafter
continue to exist unsupported by His omnipotence. For as all things derive existence from the Creator supreme
power, wisdom, and goodness, so unless preserved continually by His Providence,
and by the same power which produced them, they would instantly return into
their nothingness. This the Scriptures
declare when they say: How could
anything endure if thou wouldst not? Or be preserved, if not called by thee?
66
Not
only does God protect and govern all things by His Providence, but He also by
an internal power impels to motion and action whatever moves and acts, and this
in such a manner that, although He excludes not, He yet precedes the agency of
secondary causes. For His invisible
influence extends to all things, and, as the Wise Man says, reaches from end
to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. 67
This is the reason why the Apostle, announcing to the Athenians that God
whom, not knowing, they adored, said: He is not far from every one of us:
for in him we live, and move, and are. 68 {u}
Let
so much suffice for the explanation of the first Article of the Creed. It may not be superfluous, however, to add
that creation is the common work of the Three Persons of the Holy and undivided
Trinity, - of the Father, whom according to the doctrine of the Apostles we
hear declare to be Creator of heaven and earth; of the Son, of whom the
Scriptures says, all things were made by him; 69 and of the Holy Ghost, of whom it is
written: The spirit of God moved over the waters, 70 and again, By the word of the Lord the
heavens were established; and all the power of them by the spirit of his
mouth. 71 {v}
Endnotes - Article 1
1.> 2 Cor. iv. 6. 2.> Ibid. iv. 3.
3.> Rom. iii. 4. 4.> Ps. cxv.10.
5.> Acts iv. 20. 6.> Rom. i. 16.
7.> Rom. x. 10. 8.> 1 Pet. i. 8; 1 Pet. ii. 9.
9.> Jer. xxxii. 19. 10.> 1 Tim. vi. 16.
11.> Exod. xxxiii. 20 12.> Acts xiv. 16.
13.> John iv. 24. 14.> Matt. v. 48.
15.> Heb. iv. 13. 16.> Rom. xi. 33.
17.> Rom. iii. 4. 18.> John xiv. 6.
19.> Ps. xlvii. 11. 20.> Ps. cxliv. 16.
21.> Ps. cxxxviii. 7, 8, 9. 22.> Jer. xxiii. 24.
23.> Heb. xi. 6. 24.> Isa. lxiv. 4.
25.> Duet. vi. 4. 26.> Exod. xx. 3.
27.> Is. xlviii. 12; xliv. 6. 28.> Eph. iv. 5.
29.> Duet. xxxii. 6. 30.> Mal. ii. 10.
31.> Rom. viii. 15. 32.> 1 John iii. 1.
33.> Rom. viii. 17. 34.> Rom. viii. 29.
35.> Heb. ii. 11. 36.> Prov. xxv. 27.
37.> Matt. xxviii. 19. 38.> 1 John v. 7.
39.> Wis. viii. 1. 40.> John i. 12.
41.> Luke xvi. 9. 42.> Gen. xvii. 1.
43.> Gen. xliii. 14. 44.> Apoc. i. 8.
45.> Apoc. xvi. 14. 46.> Luke i. 37.
47.> Num. xi. 23. 48.> Wis. xii. 18.
49.> Matt. xvii. 10. 50.> James i. 6, 7.
51.> Pet. v. 6. 52.> Luke xii. 5.
53.> Luke i. 49. 54.> Athanasian Creed.
55.> Ps. xv. 2. 56.> Ps. xxxii. 9.
57.> Ps. viii. 4. 58.> Gen. i. 14.
59.> John viii. 44. 60.> De Civit. Dei, lib. xii. c. 9.
61.> 2 Kings xiv. 20. 62.> Ps. cii. 20.
63.> 2 Pet. ii. 4. 64.> Ps. cii. 5, 8, 9.
65.> Ps. lxxxviii. 12. 66.> Wis. xi. 26.
67.> Wis. viii. 1. 68.> Acts xvii. 27, 28.
69.> John i. 3. 70.> Gen. i. 2.
71.> Ps. xxxii. 6.
{a} For an Explanation of the act and habit of faith see Summa Theol. 2a. 2æ. ii. iii. iv.
{b} On this question see Summa Theol. 1a. xii. 11.
{c} Xenophanes (c. 570 B.C.) describes the Deity as "sacred and unutterable mind, flashing through the whole world with rapid thoughts"; he teaches the unity, eternity, unchangeableness, sublimity and spirituality of God, and that God is all eye, all ear, all intellect. Empedocles (c. 490 B.C.) also describes God as mind. Anaxagoras (c. 500-430 B.C.) teaches that the moving power which formed the world is Mind, and that this Mind is distinguished from other things because It alone is simple and unmixed, has knowledge about everything, the future as well as the past. is self-ruled and has supreme power over all things. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) held that the order of the world proves the intervention of the Supreme intelligence, that God is eternal and immense, and that He governs the world; that man may enter into Communion with Him, and should invoke an honor Him. Plato (c. 427-347) freely criticised the anthropomorphic notions of God that prevailed in His day. The Divinity, he taught, is supremely perfect, the absolute Good, the Idea of goodness, who exercises over all things a providence which orders and governs everything for the best. He extols God's wisdom and truthfulness, says He has a care for the small as well as the great, and that He wishes all to invoke Him. Aristotle (384-322) teaches that God is pure actuality, one, incorporeal and indivisible, the intelligence of intelligence; that the divine life consists in contemplative thought; that God is eternal and unchangeable in Himself, the first cause and last end of all things.
{d} For a comparison of faith and reason see Summa Theol. 1a. xii. 13.
{e} On the unity of God see Summa Theol. 1a. xi.
{f} On the plurality of Persons in God see Summa Theol. 1a. xxx.
{g} More will be said on this subject in the explanation of the opening words of the Lord's Prayer.
{h} On the meaning of the word "Father" see Summa Theol. 1a. xxxiii. 2, 3.
{i} See Preface for the Mass fo the Holy Trinity.
{j} On the equality of the Persons of the Trinity see Summa Theol. 1a. xlii.
{k} St. Augustine, De Trinit. i. c. 3.
{l} On the impossibility of knowing or proving the Trinity from reason, see Summa Theol. 1a. xxxii. 1. On the necessity of faith in the Trinity, see Summa Theol. 2a. 2æ. ii. 8.
{m} On God's Omnipotence see Summa Theol. 1a. xxv.
{n} On the production of the world from nothing and on the motive of creation see Summa Theol. 1a. xliv. 2, 4.
{o} On God as the exemplary couse of creation see Summa Theol. 1a. xliv. 3.
{p} On Creation see Summa Theol. 1a. xlv.
{q} On the Angels see Summa Theol. 1a., 1 and following.
{r} On the fall and punishment of the Angels see Summa Theol. 1a. lxiii. lxiv.
{s} On the formation of the universe see Summa Theol. 1a. lxv-lxxiv.
{t} On the production of man see Summa Theol. 1a. xc and following.
{u} On the divine government of the world and movement of all things see Summa Theol. 1a. ciii and following.
{v} On this subject see Summa Theol. 1a. xlv. 6.