LESSON 2.

1: INTRODUCTION TO THEOLOGY:
“I BELIEVE IN GOD”

TARGET:

After going through this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Understand the doctrine of the Church about God and the Holy Trinity
2. Appreciate the Love of God through learning the nature of God and the Holy Trinity.
3. Create a reflection that indicates your personal experience encountering God in your
daily lives.

I. CHALLENGE
A. Answer the following questions?
1. Why do we need Faith?
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2. Do you believe in God?
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3. Who is God?
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4. What made you believe in God?
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5. Why Are People Losing Faith in God?

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II. Discussion

A. “I BELIEVE IN GOD”

“I believe in God” is the first affirmation of the Apostles’ creed is also the most
fundamental. The whole Creed speaks of God. And when it also speaks of man and of
the whole world it does so in relation to God.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 199

Scriptures begin: “In the beginning God” (Gen 1:1) because all reality starts here
and it summarizes all reality (Catholic Faith, Creeds) and teaches us to live in reality. It is
also the basis of sanctity, which is the ultimate end of faith. The first and most basic
requirement for living, in reality, is to believe in God. Faith in God comes first because
God comes first.

B. HOW CAN MAN KNOW GOD?

We can know God in two ways:

a. Reason – by our natural mind
b. Faith – God’s supernatural divine revelation
  By thinking and speaking about God and by listening to God speaks to us.

 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BY HUMAN REASON

 Even without supernatural divine revelation, however, all men by
nature know something about God. Scripture itself says so: “His
invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been
clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20).
 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BY DIVINE REVELATION
 God has revealed much more of himself than human reason could
ever discover, especially his love and his plan for the salvation of
mankind. This revelation took place historically in three
“trinitarian” steps:
1. He revealed HIMSELF to Israel, His “chosen people”
2. God reveals himself by the incarnation. CHRIST is the
word of God in the flesh. He is a perfect and complete
revelation.
3. When Christ ascended to heaven, he left his Holy Spirit
and his body, THE CHURCH, to continue his work. The
Church is the Mystical (invisible) body of Christ, and the
Holy Spirit is her soul (CCC 813).

 HOW ADEQUATELY CAN WE KNOW GOD?

“This alone is the true knowledge of God:

to know that God is beyond knowing “
St. Thomas Aquinas

 God is “transcendent”; that is to say that God is “always more” more

than we can ever know or think or imagine.
 Love grasps him better than knowledge: for love conforms itself to its
object, while knowledge has to fit its object into itself, into the limitation
 of the knower. Though we cannot comprehend God, love can apprehend
him.

 ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
1. God is one God is unique, that there is only one God: and that God is simple, not composed of
(Deut. 6:4) parts. He is three persons, not three parts. Trinity does not lessen his unity.
He is perfect, that he is “whatever it is better to be than not to be” (St. Anselm). He
2. God is Good is righteous: just, holy right, moral. Moral law reflects his own nature: “be holy, for
I am holy”. (Lev. 11:44)
With us, it is usually either/ or, but God it is both/ and. That is why the
3. God is just and
Father sent his Son to die in our place to save us from the just punishment
merciful
for our sins.
4. God is All-knowing and wise. He numbers every hair (Mt. 10:30)
omniscient
5. God is All-powerful, he created everything out of nothing can do anything. “With God, all
omnipotent things are possible” (Mt. 19:26)
6. God is love Love (charity) is the highest meaning of “goodness” for any person.

 GOD’s NAME

“GOD has a name; he is not anonymous force”

- CCC 203

Man has given God many names, but once God spoke to man his own true name.
 The name is “I am” (Yahweh in Hebrew)- a name so sacred no Jew will
pronounce it. For “I” is the absolute unique name, proper to the speaker
alone. Jesus attacked and eventually executed for speaking it, for claiming to
bear this name; that is, claiming to be God.

The name signifies:

a. God’s reality “I am”

b. God oneness “I” is the name of only one
c. God’s God is not just one being among others, but the absolute Being
uniqueness He is not a finite being, he is an infinite being.
d. God’s “I” signifies the self-consciousness only a person can have.
personhood
e. God’s eternity He is present (“am”), not past nor future. God’s being is not like ours,
 limited in time.
f. God’s mystery He does not tell us who he is, but says simply “I am who I am.”
Hebrew verb can also be translated: “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”

 When the church speaks of God, she does not claim to know or say what God
is, to define his nature. Instead of defining him, she presented him, or rather
introduces us to him as he presents himself, above all in CHRIST. “For he who
has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14: 9)

 GOD AS A FATHER (“ABBA”)

Calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things:
1. God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority.
2. He is at the same time good and loving care for all children.
The language of faith draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the
first representative of God for us.
 Jesus always used this name-calling God in Aramaic/ Hebrew “Abba.”

 TRINITY

The doctrine of the Trinity is the primary

The doctrine of Christianity in that it reveals
The ultimate truth, the nature of ultimate
the reality, the nature of God.

The Scriptural data from which the Church derives the doctrine of the Trinity;
 Deut 6:4 There is only one God
Jn. 5: 18 The Father is God
Jn 8:58 The Son is God
Mt. The Holy Spirit is God
28:19

God’s progressive revelation of himself, first as the transcendent Creator “outside” us; then as
the incarnate Savior “beside” us; then as the indwelling Spirit “inside” us. The reason for this
progression, (1) Father (Old Testament), (2) Son (Gospel), then (3) Spirit (Acts of the Apostles
and Church), is found in God’s very being, which is love, and in the purpose and motive for
God’s self-revelation to man, which is love.

“The Churches confesses… ‘one God and Father from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are’”
-CCC 258

“The Divine person does not share the one divinity among themselves” (as triplets share
humanity among themselves) “but each of them is God whole and entire… “Each of the persons
is that supreme reality viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.’”
-CCC 253

 TRINITY and LOVE

 The reason God is a trinity is that God is Love. Love requires Threeness: the
lover, the beloved, and the act or relationship of love between them. God is
Trinity because God is love itself in its completeness.
 The doctrine of the Trinity also tells us the nature of love. Love is altruistic, not
egoistic. God is other-love because he has otherness within himself, he is more
than one person.
 Catechism of the Catholic 221 explains; “God’s very being is love. By sending his
Son and the Holy Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his
innermost secret. God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.”

Key points:
 “I believe in God” is the first affirmation of the Apostles’ creed is also the
most fundamental. The whole Creed speaks of God.
 We know God by reason and supernatural Divine Revelation.
 God has a name he is not an anonymous force.
 God is a Loving Father that takes care of his children.
 God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.