Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 37 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 37 - Part II. Why is God “Father”?

(Youcat answer - repeated) We revere God as Father first of all because he is the Creator and cares lovingly for his creatures. Jesus, the Son of God, has taught us, furthermore, to regard his Father as our Father and to address him as “our Father”.        

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 515) The Gospels were written by men who were among the first to have the faith (Cf. Mk 1:1; Jn 21:24) and wanted to share it with others. Having known in faith who Jesus is, they could see and make others see the traces of his mystery in all his earthly life. From the swaddling clothes of his birth to the vinegar of his Passion and the shroud of his Resurrection, everything in Jesus' life was a sign of his mystery (Cf. Lk 2:7; Mt 27:48; Jn 20:7). His deeds, miracles and words all revealed that "in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col 2:9). His humanity appeared as "sacrament", that is, the sign and instrument, of his divinity and of the salvation he brings: what was visible in his earthly life leads to the invisible mystery of his divine sonship and redemptive mission. (CCC 239 a) By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood (Cf. Isa 66:13; Ps 131:2), which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature.       

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Several pre-Christian religions had the divine title “Father”. Even before Jesus, the Israelites addressed God as their Father (Deut 32:6; Mal 2:10), realizing that he is also like a mother (Is 66:13). In human experience, father and mother stand for origin and authority, for what is protective and supportive. Jesus Christ shows us what God the Father is really like: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus addresses the most profound human longings for a merciful father.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 516) Christ's whole earthly life - his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking - is Revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father", and the Father can say: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" (Jn 14:9; Lk 9:35; cf. Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7, "my beloved Son"). Because our Lord became man in order to do his Father's will, even the least characteristics of his mysteries manifest "God's love… among us" (Jn 4:9). (CCC 517) Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross (Cf. Eph 1:7; Col 1:13-14; 2 Pt 1:18-19),  but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life: - already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty (Cf. 2 Cor 8:9); - in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience (Cf. Lk 2:51); - in his word which purifies its hearers  (Cf. Jn 15:3); - in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases" (Mt 8:17; cf. Isa 53:4); - and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us (Cf. Rom 4:25).      

(This question:  Why is God “Father”?  is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 37 – Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 37 - Part I. Why is God “Father”?

(Youcat answer) We revere God as Father first of all because he is the Creator and cares lovingly for his creatures. Jesus, the Son of God, has taught us, furthermore, to regard his Father as our Father and to address him as “our Father”.       

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 238) Many religions invoke God as "Father". The deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world (Cf. Dt 32:6; Mal 2:10). Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born son" (Ex 4:22). God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is "the Father of the poor", of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection (Cf. 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 68:6). (CCC 511) The Virgin Mary "co-operated through free faith and obedience in human salvation" (LG 56). She uttered her yes "in the name of all human nature" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living. (CCC 512) Concerning Christ's life the Creed speaks only about the mysteries of the Incarnation (conception and birth) and Paschal mystery (passion, crucifixion, death, burial, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension). It says nothing explicitly about the mysteries of Jesus' hidden or public life, but the articles of faith concerning his Incarnation and Passover do shed light on the whole of his earthly life. "All that Jesus did and taught, from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven", is to be seen in the light of the mysteries of Christmas and Easter.

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Several pre-Christian religions had the divine title “Father”. Even before Jesus, the Israelites addressed God as their Father (Deut 32:6; Mal 2:10), realizing that he is also like a mother (Is 66:13). In human experience, father and mother stand for origin and authority, for what is protective and supportive. Jesus Christ shows us what God the Father is really like: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus addresses the most profound human longings for a merciful father.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 513) According to circumstances catechesis will make use of all the richness of the mysteries of Jesus. Here it is enough merely to indicate some elements common to all the mysteries of Christ's life (I), in order then to sketch the principal mysteries of Jesus' hidden (II) and public (III) life. (CCC 514) Many things about Jesus of interest to human curiosity do not figure in the Gospels. Almost nothing is said about his hidden life at Nazareth, and even a great part of his public life is not recounted (Cf. Jn 20:30). What is written in the Gospels was set down there "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:31).        

(This question:  Why is God “Father”?  is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 36.

YOUCAT Question n. 36 - Can we deduce logically that God is triune?

(Youcat answer) No. The fact that there are three persons (Trinity) in one God is a mystery. We know only through Jesus Christ that God is Trinitarian.         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 237) The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God" (Dei Filius 4: DS 3015). To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Men cannot deduce the fact that God is a Trinity by means of their own reason. They acknowledge, however, that this mystery is reasonable when they accept God’s Revelation in Jesus Christ. If God were alone and solitary, he could not love from all eternity. In the light of Jesus we find already in the Old Testament (for example, Gen 1:2; 18:2; 2 Sam 23:2), indeed, even in all of creation, traces of God’s Trinitarian Being.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 261) The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (CCC 50) By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation (Cf. Dei Filius DS 3015). Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 36) "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason" (Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2: DS 3004 cf. 3026; Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum 6). Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God" (Cf. Gen 1:27). 

(The next question is: Why is God “Father”?) 

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

YOUCAT Question n. 35 - Part V. 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 256) St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called "the Theologian", entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople: Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down… the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God… the three considered together…. I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendour. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me  (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 40, 41: PG 36, 417).      

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 266) "Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal" (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16). [End]  

(The next question is: Can we deduce logically that God is triune?)

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

YOUCAT Question n. 35 - Part IV. 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 254) The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary" (Fides Damasi: DS 71). "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son" (Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 530:25). They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds" (Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 804). The divine Unity is Triune. (CCC 265) By the grace of Baptism "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (cf. Paul VI, CPG § 9).       

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 255) The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance" (Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 528). Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship" (Council of Florence (1442): DS 1330). "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son" (Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331).       

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