Topic: What is the nature of God?

Date originally posted: November 21, 2002

Source of this posting: Moderator response to emailed question

Moderator who originally posted this source: Cathy Rusin

Question:   My muslim friend is discussing with me that there is only one God, then who is jesus, according to them he is prophet who did not die on cross – Please explain

Answer: 

Here is a second question also submitted by Olavo…
“Please explain the following :
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever
Muslims say that the Comforter is Mohammed”

Dear Olavo,

You ask questions for which the explanation can be difficult, because they go to the heart of the Ultimate Mystery – the nature of God!

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the three major world religions who share a common ancestor (Abraham) and belief in one God (monotheism). If you read through Genesis 11:27-12:9, 17: 1-8, you can get the story of God first calling Abraham into a covenant relationship.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the last time I was at a family reunion, I was amazed at just how different my cousins and I are from each other – and yet we all ultimately came from the same grandmother!! Just so, while sharing a belief in one God and counting ourselves as faithful followers of that same Deity, our ways of explaining that experience differ among these 3 religious traditions.

For Jews and Muslims, the person of Jesus is respected as a prophet (I am not very familiar with Islam, so it is news to me that they teach that Jesus did not die on the cross!). For Christians, Jesus was fully human and fully divine, and because of his life and message, we know of our one God as Triune, and speak of our belief in the Holy Trinity.

Earlier I used the term “Mystery” in reference to God, and I think that needs a bit of explaining. For a lot of people the word ‘mystery’ would have them think about a puzzle to be solved or a detective novel or show to figure out “whodunit”. Others run to use the word in order to avoid addressing a tough topic, “It’s a mystery, end of questions”. When we speak of the mysteries of our faith, the greatest of which is the nature of God, we are attempting to find words to describe the deepest realities that truly exist but are beyond any satisfactory definitions (go ahead, define love or hope or joy!).

God is beyond any definitions, any limits, and full knowledge of any human – that’s another way of saying that God is transcendent. And yet, we believe that God became human in the person of Jesus and continues to be intimately present with and in us through the Holy Spirit … another way to speak of the immanence of God.

By the 4th Century, a formula emerged from the Council of Alexandria (362 AD), which built upon the work of the earlier Council of Nicea (325) that speaks of God as one Being (homoousia – one substance, essence or nature) and three persons (hypostases) (but don’t think about persons as we might define it today, as separate individuals … let’s use some images to explain!).

St Augustine (354-430) uses the image of fire, saying “Fire cannot burn without its brightness and its warmth.” Fire represents the Father, the brightness of the fire we see shining in our world is Jesus Christ and the warmth of the fire we feel is the Holy Spirit.

Tertullian, in the second century, used a river as a metaphor for God: it has a source (Father), flows outward (Christ) and irrigates the land to make things grow (Spirit). He also used a plant as an example: the roots are hidden (Father) the shoot comes out into the world (Christ) and the plant brings forth leaves and fruit and seeds (Spirit).

St Patrick was famous for using a shamrock to illustrate how we can speak of 3 persons united in one substance (3 leaves, but one plant).

It is hard to explain, other than through examples like this, our belief that each divine person if the Trinity do not differ as the one God, but only in the way they are related to each other. By our baptism in the name (not names) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Christians enter in this life of the Trinity, whose nature was revealed to us through Jesus Christ and by whose Spirit we are sustained. Every time we make the sign of the cross and pray the words “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” we are remembering that our entire being has its source and its goal in this God.

Finally, to address your question about the “Comforter”, which is taken from John 14:16 and which my Bible (New American Bible) translates as “Advocate”, let’s not stop midsentence, and continue on to verse 17…

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.”

Acts chapter 2 recounts the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the effects that this divine gift caused in the early Christian community.

In as much as any of us is receptive to the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, we are called upon to comfort others, to advocate for justice and mercy, and to worship God through our prayers and lives.

Peace to you!
Cathy Rusin

Sources used: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catholic Updates: July 1988 "The Trinity: The Mystery at the Heart of Life" by Leonard Foley OFM and June 1995 "Who is the Holy Spirit?" by Elizabeth Johnson PhD