LESSON 4
GOD AND THE BLESSED TRINITY
"I am the First. and I am the Last: and besides me there is no God. (Isaias 44:6)
DIRECTIONS TO THE STUDENT
The whole purpose of your life is to go to God. Religion teaches us the means by which we go to God, the means by which we give to God honor and service due Him as Creator, Master and Supreme Lord. Through religion you learn about God, how to love Him, and how to serve Him.
A. THE MEANING OF THE WORD "GOD"
By "God" we mean, the Supreme Being, the Creator of all things. We mean the one "who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the things that are in them." (psalm 145: 6) To create means to make something out of nothing. God is the creator of all things because He made all things out of nothing. A creature is anything created by God. Men, angels, animals, plants, chairs- all things except God-are creatures.
B. THERE IS A GOD: As you are walking, suppose that you find a watch on the sidewalk. You pick it up and look at it. You see that it gives you the correct time. You open it up and look at the wheels and springs which keep the watch running. You see that dozens of tiny cogs, wheels and springs are set up very accurately so that one wheel moves the other, so that one spring acts on another spring, so that one cog rotates another. What a marvelous and complicated piece of machinery .You know that you would not dare to take it all apart unless you knew how to repair watches. You know that you could not possibly put all the hundreds of pieces back together so that the watch would tell time again.
Imagine, that as you are thinking of all of this, a friend comes up and says to you: "Do you know who made that watch?" You might say: "I don't know his name. But I do know that it was someone who knew a lot more about watches than I do. He had a fine mind to be able to arrange hundreds of tiny pieces together, so that they give the correct time of the day. It took a lot of intelligence, planning and labor to plan that watch." Your friend looks at you and scoffs: "Why that watch made itself. No one planned it or designed it No one made it. It just happened that way: the wheels and cogs came together by themselves. "You would tell your friend that he was joking. How could any sane man talk such nonsense. Only a fool would say that the watch had no maker.
Now let us examine something billions of times larger and more complicated: the world in which we live. The earth turns around at the rate of one thousand miles an hour. If it turned at one hundred miles an hour , our days and nights would be ten times as long as now, and the hot sun would burn up the plants and trees during the long day. While in the long night any surviving sprout would freeze. Again, the sun has a temperature of 12,000 degrees and our earth is just far enough away so that this "Eternal Fire" warms us just enough and not too much. If the sun gave off only half its present radiation, we would freeze, if it gave half as much more, we would roast. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, without which animal life must die. If the ocean had been a few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no plant life would exist.
The earth on which we live is only one of nine planets which travel around the sun as their center at tremendous speeds- thousands of times faster than the fastest jet plane. Each planet has its own path or orbit in which to travel about the sun. These planets-many of them much larger than our earth-have traveled in these paths for thousands of years, and they never stray out of their orbits, never collide with one another. They have moved at the very same speed for century after century-never slowing down, never speeding up. Did you know that our earth moves eighteen miles a second, 65,000 miles an hour. It travels 1,500,000 miles a day and moves at this very same speed day after day, year after year, century after century- never even a second off schedule?
As you can see, the watch is a simple toy compared to our world. Yet no one would admit that the watch did not have a maker. Then how can anyone say the order and harmony of the world in which we live is a mere accident-that the earth, the sun and the moon have no Maker. Common sense tells you that if a watch requires a maker, a world that is billions of times larger and more complicated must have a Maker. The Maker of our universe, and the one who preserves the order and harmony of that universe, is God.
Now you understand what David meant in the Book of Psalms when he said: "The heavens show forth the glory of God: and the firmament declares the work of his hands." (Psalms 18:2) "Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things."
C. GOD IS A SPIRIT : The Bible tells us. ..God is a spirit:. (John 4:24) Everything that exists is either material or spiritual. A material thing is something that you can see. touch, smell. Or hear .A spiritual thing is real. but it is not material. Angels are spiritual beings. Your thoughts and your will are spiritual: you have never seen a thought on the movie screen because no one can take a picture of a thought: it is spiritual. Man is partly spiritual and partly material -he has a soul and a body. God is a spirit -He has no body: therefore you cannot see God. D. GOD IS EVERYWHERE God is everywhere. God is in the stars, the sun the moon: God is in the earth; in this room: God is in the man next to you, in the food you eat, in the air you breathe. God is in your bones, your blood—God is in you. There is no place where God is not present. God is everywhere at the same time: you are always in his presence. "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall l see from thy face ? If l ascend into heaven , thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present" (Psalm 138:7-8)
E. GOD IS ALMIGHTY
To say that God is Almighty means that God can do all things. The magnificence of the things that God has created gives us an indication of the almighty power of God. He created the whole world through His almighty power speaking a simple word to have it come into being.
In the very first chapter of the Bible we read how God created the world and all that is in it: "God said. Be light made. And light was made... Let there be a firmament Let the earth bring forth the green herb... Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven. .." and so forth. Nothing is difficult or impossible to God. He can create a million other worlds if He so chooses He could, if He wished, destroy this world and all that is in it in an instant.
F. GOD KNOWS ALL THINGS
God knows all things, past, present, future, even our most secret thoughts. words. and actions. S, Paul warns us. "but all things are naked and open to his eyes" (Hebrews 4:13)
G. GOD IS ETERNAL
When we say God is eternal we mean that God always was and always will be. God has no beginning. He will have no end. There was never a time when there was no God: God never began to exist: He always was.
"Before the mountains were made. or the earth and the world was formed; from eternity and to eternity thou art God." says David in the 89th Psalm
H. GOD IS ALL HOLY AND ALL JUST
God has all perfections without limit, But holiness is a perfection Therefore God is all holy Himself
Christ tells us to imitate the holiness of God. "Be you therefore, perfect. as also your heavenly Father is perfect' " (Matt 5: 48) Since God has every perfection, He is all just. Since God hates evil, He will reward the good and must punish the wicked in the next world.
I. GOD IS MERCIFUL
When we say that God is merciful. we mean that He pursues the sinner with His grace and receives him back with joy. God is all merciful because He is all good
Christ told us that there ;s more joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance for his sins than there is over the ninety-nine just who do not need penance. But you should not tempt God to punish you by pulling off your conversion.
J. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD: God's loving care for us is called God's providence God created every one of us: He keeps us in existence. and watches over us with loving care. If He were to forget you for an instant you would be nothing: you would not simply die. you would not exist at all-neither body nor soul In the midst of the problems and worries of your life. no matter how poor or insignificant you are, God loves you and watches over you with a father's care.
Christ tells us that God cares for us and that it is foolish for us to worry "Behold the birds of the air. for they neither sow. nor do they reap nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them Are not you of much more value than they? Be not solicitous therefore. saying. What shall we ear or. What shall we drink or. Wherewith shall we be clothed? For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:26-33) The good God watches over us: but sometimes He permits poverty. sickness, suffering and other trials to draw us back from sin, to punish us for our wrong doings. and to make us more like Christ by our suffering Offer the sufferings of life to God to make up for your past sins.
K. THE BLESSED TRINITY
The Blessed Trinity is God. There is only one God, but there are three Persons in God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost .
Christ clearly told us that there are three Persons in God when He told the Apostles to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son. and of the Holy Ghost." {Matthew 28:19) God the Father is the First Person of the Blessed Trinity and is really God. God the Son is the Second Person of the Blessed trinity and is truly God. God the Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed trinity and is truly God.
One of the Persons in God, the Second Person, Jesus Christ, became man and suffered and died for our sins.
The existence of three divine Persons in one God is a mystery. A mystery is a truth which the human mind cannot fully understand. Some of the truths of the Christian faith are mysteries. We believe these mysteries because God has told us to believe them. When we believe, we make an act of faith. Faith is believing what God has taught because God has made it known to us. We believe what God has taught because of His authority, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
QUETIONS FOR REVIEW For Lessons 3 & 4
1. Who is the Author of the Bible? 6. How do we know there is a God?
2. Is there any difference between the 7. Why can't you see God?
Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible? 8. What is a spiritual thing?
3. Does God guide the mind of everyone 9. Name some spiritual things?
who reads the Bible so that the reader 10. Are spiritual things real?
cannot read the Bible incorrectly? 11. What is the Blessed Trinity?
4. Are all God's truths written in the Bible?
5. What is tradition?
GO TO LESSON 5 -PRAYER
