Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 35 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 35 - Part II. Do we believe in one God or in three Gods?

(Youcat answer - repeated) We believe in one God in three persons (Trinity). “God is not solitude but perfect communion.” (Pope Benedict XVI, May 22, 2005).         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 262) The Incarnation of God's Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father, the Son is one and the same God. (CCC 236) The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). "Theology" refers to the mystery of God's inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and "economy" to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Christians do not worship three different Gods, but one single Being that is threefold and yet remains one. We know that God is triune from Jesus Christ: He, the Son, speaks about his Father in heaven (“I and the Father are one”, Jn 10:30). He prays to him and sends us the Holy Spirit, who is the love of the Father and the Son. That is why we are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 249) From the beginning, the revealed truth of the Holy Trinity has been at the very root of the Church's living faith, principally by means of Baptism. It finds its expression in the rule of baptismal faith, formulated in the preaching, catechesis and prayer of the Church. Such formulations are already found in the apostolic writings, such as this salutation taken up in the Eucharistic liturgy: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Cor 13:14; cf. 1 Cor 12:4 - 6; Eph 4:4-6). (CCC 250) During the first centuries the Church sought to clarify her Trinitarian faith, both to deepen her own understanding of the faith and to defend it against the errors that were deforming it. This clarification was the work of the early councils, aided by the theological work of the Church Fathers and sustained by the Christian people's sense of the faith.         

(This question is continued: Do we believe in one God or in three Gods?)