The Triune God — Study Guide for Final Exam

Compiled from Class Lecture and Outline | Primary Resource: Theology and Sanity (Frank Sheed)

I. INTRODUCTION TO THEOLOGY

A. What Is Theology?

• Broadest definition: The study of God in and of Himself, AND all things related to Him.

• In its strictest, most narrow sense: the study of God in and of Himself — this is what this class focuses on.

• Because God is the source of all things, 'all things that relate to God' is in some sense all things. The tree outside points to God; our very existence points to God.

• Types of theology (all are interconnected and cannot be divorced from each other):

◦ Biblical theology: The study of Scripture and salvation history.

◦ Pastoral theology: The application of theological truth to pastoral situations. IMPORTANT: Pastoral theology can NEVER be removed from theology itself. You are not being 'pastoral' by withholding truth from someone heading toward hell — though charity and gentleness in delivery are always appropriate.

◦ Sacramental theology: The seven sacraments, their biblical foundations and effects.

◦ Moral theology: How the Christian is to live in accord with divine truth.

◦ Pneumatology: The mystery of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

◦ Ecclesiology: The mystery of the Church.

• Theology must NEVER be separated from spirituality or pastoral application. Spirituality is the personal, interior appropriation of theological truth — allowing truth to shape you, integrate you, transform you.

B. Why Theology Matters

• If God has revealed something, it behooves us to reverently examine it. Love desires intimacy, and God desires to show us who He is. To ignore His self-disclosure is a failure of reverence.

• Practical reason: Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, knowing what the 'pattern' is helps us better conform ourselves to it in cooperation with grace — undoing the 'dysformity' introduced by the fall.

• Understanding who God is helps us better understand His dealings with us — just as knowing who a doctor is helps you accept his reaching for your neck.

• This is the most intellectually difficult class covered in formation. The imagination must be disciplined. We will try not to feel or to imagine, but to CONCEIVE and THINK.

C. Ways of Talking About God

• Everything said about God falls short — He is INCOMPREHENSIBLE (Vatican I's Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith) and INEFFABLE. Yet what we say is not illusionary — it sheds real light, even if it is never the complete picture.

• Two proper ways to speak about God:

◦ Positive (Cataphatic) statements: 'God is love.' True, but the similarity between your experience of love and God-who-IS-love is outweighed by the dissimilarity. Always by way of analogy, with far more dissimilarity than similarity.

◦ Negative (Apophatic) statements: Saying what God is NOT — often more precise. 'God is not a family; He is a community of persons.' Both approaches point toward truth but neither captures the totality.

• Key principle: We must QUELL THE IMAGINATION when speaking of God. The moment you image God, you have given Him a spatial limitation. We can THINK about and CONCEIVE of God; we should not try to PICTURE Him (Frank Sheed).

D. Natural Theology vs. Revealed (Sacred) Theology

• Natural theology: Arriving at knowledge of God through reason, experience, and observation — unaided by revelation.

• The ancient Greek philosophers (Plato, Aristotle) arrived at monotheism through this method alone — no serious contact with Jewish revelation. They used an INDUCTIVE method: moving from particular beings to Being itself.

• What the Greeks could discover through natural theology:

◦ There is a God — the existence of contingent things demands a necessary, non-contingent source.

◦ There is only ONE God — a perfect Being admits no second, which would be distinguished from the first by lacking something.

◦ God must be personal — since I have an intellect and a will, and I am derived from being itself, God must have an intellect and a will.

◦ God is the 'unmoved mover,' the necessary being — St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways develop this (contingency argument, etc.).

• The Greek desire for rest (ataraxia): The philosophers recognized that pleasure, friendship, and even virtue — while good — are subject to change and death. They yearned for something unchanging, a 'being' in which the restless intellect and will could finally rest. St. Augustine: 'Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in Thee.'

• What natural theology CANNOT discover: that God is a Trinity of Persons. This is hidden entirely from reason and creation until Christ reveals it. Once revealed, we begin to see 'Trinity's fingerprints' in creation — but only in hindsight.

• Sacred (Revealed) Theology: Wisdom fully given in Jesus Christ. The Incarnation is the moment when eternity touches time — when infinite Being enters the realm of finite beings. 'Before Christ: eternity did not touch finitude. With Christ: eternity is born into time.'

• Two earliest credal affirmations about Jesus (Colonel Brandson):

◦ 'Jesus is Lord' — He is THE ONE, not one among many; the being the Greeks were looking for.

◦ 'Jesus has risen' — He died (a very human thing) and rose (a very God thing), conquering the one thing that had stumped every philosopher and religion.

II. THE LIMITLESSNESS OF PURE SPIRIT — THE "I AM"

• Key disciplinary rule for this entire section: SUPPRESS THE IMAGINATION. Use only the intellect. Images will always impose spatial limitations on what is non-spatial.

• 'Be still and know that I am God.' The 'great I AM' — God's name revealed to Moses — is a linking verb without a predicate. He just IS. This is the foundation of everything that follows.

A. God Is Non-Spatial

• God is purely spiritual — He has NO PARTS.

• Why having no parts means having no space: 'If something occupies space, then one end is not the other. The upper surface is not the lower surface, the outside is not the inside. Unless a being is composed of elements that are not each other, it cannot occupy space.' (Frank Sheed) Since God is uniquely simple, He cannot occupy space. If He did, He would have a limit — and therefore would not be God.

• Human experience of parts: My pinky is not my thumb, my foot is not my head. My power to act is dispersed — I cannot at once play violin, write a letter, and build a fire. God's power is NOT dispersed; it is concentrated in one infinite, simple act.

• My human experience of parts means I never fully possess the totality of myself, either in time or in space. God possesses Himself wholly in one inclusive act of being.

• Important implication: Since we are made in the image and likeness of God (sharing in intellect and will), we can REFLECT on God. But the gulf between creature and Creator is immeasurable — just as what a chair tells you about its craftsman is extremely limited. We are like God; God is not like us. The arrow only points one way.

B. Nowhere or Everywhere? — Omnipresence

• The question: If God is non-spatial, is He nowhere? Or is He everywhere (omnipresent)?

• The answer: He is omnipresent — but NOT in the way imagination conceives it. He is NOT 'spread out spatially to occupy everything' like water in a cup, like a blanket surrounding us, or like an invisible gas filling the room. All such images are spatial and therefore incorrect.

• The philosophical key: 'A spirit is where a spirit operates.' God sustains everything in existence by His will. Everything that exists does so only because God is willing it into being. Therefore He is operationally present in all that exists.

• Philosophically: He is not 'locally present' (that would be spatial) but He IS present by operation.

• Is God present in hell? YES — philosophically. Hell exists, and for anything to exist, God must be sustaining it. He is operationally present even in hell.

• The Byzantine image of God's presence in hell: His all-consuming love is present everywhere — even in hell. In purgatory that love purifies (like a flame drying a water-drenched candle until it ignites). In hell, the soul that has irrevocably rejected God is like a fire-retardant candle: the flame is right there, still present, still loving — but the soul will never ignite. The 'fire of hell' is the same God who is 'fire' in heaven; the difference is in the soul's disposition, not in God.

• Immense: Not merely 'very large.' Philosophically, immense means IMMEASURABLE — not subject to measure at all. God does not submit to being measured. He is not 'really big'; He is beyond measure entirely.

• 'I AM': The name God reveals to Moses. A linking verb without a predicate. He simply IS. This speaks to His infinitude — no limits whatsoever. Infinitude = no limits of extension, no limits of time, no limits of anything.

• Where was God before He created anything? The question is a non sequitur — 'before' is a word of time, and there was no time before the universe. God just IS. We must stop the sentence there, even if it is unsatisfying. He has no 'where.' He is.

C. God Is Eternal — A Look at Time

• Time defined: The measure of change. The duration of that which changes. Every material being expresses itself successively in time.

• Human experience of time: What I said is already in the past; what I will say has not yet occurred. I am always in a 'flowing now' (nunc fluens). Even the word 'now' does not remain the same while we are saying it — 'n' is in the past while 'ow' is still in the future. Time's present is a very fleeting present.

• God's experience: God possesses Himself wholly in the ETERNAL NOW (nunc stans). There is no 'that was' or 'that will be' in God. He simply IS, in one timeless, complete act.

• What eternity is NOT: Eternity is NOT time open at both ends — not a timeline stretching infinitely into the past and into the future. That is an image and it is wrong. It imports time into eternity.

• What eternity IS: 'The duration of that which simply is.' (Frank Sheed) Eternity is a perfect, complete, indivisible act of existence — not a very long time, but a timeless NOW.

• Technically, only God is eternal. Even the souls in heaven are not 'eternal' in the strict sense — they exist in a type of time (they had a beginning), even though they will never end. We use the word colloquially (e.g., 'He has entered into eternity') and that is acceptable in context, but ministers of God should understand the precise meaning.

• God is without change — because He is infinite, there is nothing to be added or taken away. This means there is NO TIME in God. None whatsoever.

• God and predestination: God is outside of time. He knows everything that WAS, IS, WILL BE, and also COULD BE. His knowing is not the same as causing. A person on a rooftop who can see a collision coming does not CAUSE the collision — they simply know it with certainty from their vantage point. God knows the outcome of every soul He creates, but knowing is not the same as making it happen. He creates every soul with the intent of sharing heaven — not for hell. If a soul ends up in hell, it is because of that soul's freely chosen rejection. He creates knowing the tragedy but does not will the tragedy.

• Before the universe was created: The question 'What was God doing before He created?' is meaningless — 'before' requires time, and time began with the universe (because time is the measure of change, and there was no change until creation). As Frank Sheed: 'We must not think of God creating the universe after a certain amount of eternity had rolled by. Because there are no parts in eternity, it does not roll by.'

III. ATTRIBUTES OF THE DIVINE BEING — THE TRANSCENDENTALS

• Also called the 'transcendentals' in classical philosophy. These are the attributes that transcend all categories and apply to being as being. They are also called the 'convertibles' — each implies and entails the others.

• Important caveat: Everything we say about God as true, good, beautiful, etc. is by way of analogy and falls infinitely short. These statements are not limitations — they are pointers. God does not merely HAVE these qualities; He IS them.

A. One

• When we say God is one, we are NOT making a mathematical statement (one as opposed to two). We are saying God is ONE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF TWO.

• Why there can be only one God: If there were two gods, they would be distinguished from each other — one would have something the other lacked. But a being lacking something is by definition not perfect. Since God is the perfection of perfections, there can be no other.

• This is critical when we say 'one God, three persons' — that is ALSO not a mathematical statement. It is a statement of a unique and unrepeatable reality that has no analogue in creation.

• God is singular, unique — there is no 'other' in the sense of a second divine being.

B. True

• God is not merely truthful — He IS truth itself. He is reality itself (the perfect act of existence).

• What makes a statement true? It conforms to the reality of what exists. Truth = conformity to reality.

• God, being reality itself, cannot be otherwise than true. He cannot lie, deceive, or be 'two-faced.' This is not a limitation on His power — it is a consequence of His perfection.

• Frank Sheed / Theology and Sanity: Theology is about conforming ourselves to reality. Sin is always a departure from conformity with reality — it is an act of unreason, like jumping off a cliff believing you can fly.

• Jesus Christ: 'I am the truth' (John 14:6). He is not only revealing truth; He is the Truth Himself — the pattern and plan of what everything is supposed to be.

• We cannot fully define what truth IS (that would be to limit it and limit God). We can only say what it is not: no deception, no falsehood, no two-facedness.

C. Good

• God is not merely good — He IS goodness itself. His goodness flows from His will, as truth flows from His intellect.

• An evil genius can KNOW everything and then use that knowledge to destroy. God knows everything AND His will is perfectly, entirely good. The two are inseparable in God.

• We cannot fully capture what goodness IS for the same reason we cannot fully capture truth — any statement we make will fall short and impose a limitation.

• Practical experience: We get a 'taste' of God's goodness — but His goodness infinitely exceeds our categories. ('The wife He provided blew all my categories out the window.')

• God's goodness in action: He gives each person a level of goodness/grace proportioned to their capacity — not because He cannot give more, but because the full weight of His goodness would 'crush' us.

D. Beauty

• God is not merely beautiful — He IS beauty itself.

• St. Thomas Aquinas' three attributes of beauty:

◦ Perfection: God is perfect — entirely complete, lacking nothing.

◦ Simplicity (integrity): Perfection is uniquely singular, undivided. Beauty requires wholeness.

◦ Clarity (claritas): Radiance, luminosity — the light that shines through a perfect and integral thing. Contemplate what this means in reference to God.

• Application: We are made in God's image and likeness, destined to pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful. Our tendency toward YouTube's 'base and ugly' is a consequence of the fall — it takes humility and discipline to approach what we were actually made for.

E. The Other Attributes — The Convertibles

• Justice, mercy, love, wisdom, almightiness — all are convertible with each other and with the transcendentals. To speak of one is to speak of all.

• What 'convertible' means: They are interchangeable — they imply each other. God's justice IS His mercy. God's mercy IS His justice. These are not contradictory; they are identical in God.

• From our perspective we can make useful distinctions: 'justice = getting what you deserve; mercy = getting better than you deserve.' These are appropriate for everyday language and pastoral application. But ultimately, in God, they are one and the same act.

• Pastoral application: When God disciplines/punishes, He is simultaneously loving and showing mercy. His chastisement is His exaltation. (Breviary, Week 2 Friday: 'We are happy to be chastened by God, who heals as He wounds.')

• God's love and wisdom: He creates every soul out of love, destined for the Beatific Vision (the totality of love), but He creates them FREE — because love requires freedom. He knows which souls will reject Him, yet creates them anyway out of the same infinite love and wisdom. This is incomprehensible to us. We simply must hold that His love and His wisdom are one and the same act, and trust them both.

F. God Is Personal — He Has an Intellect and a Will

• Natural theology can take us here: the ancient Greeks reasoned that since I have an intellect and a will (immaterial faculties), and I derive from Being itself, God must also be personal — He must have an intellect and a will.

• God is NOT an impersonal force, energy of the universe, or abstract principle. He KNOWS. He is reason itself. He WILLS. He is the most free, most sovereign being.

• He reveals His name: 'I AM' — a personal, relational invitation into relationship.

• Hinduism (by contrast): presents a non-personal ultimate reality. A god that does not act is not personal. The Christian God acts throughout salvation history and ultimately in the Incarnation.

IV. A TRIUNE GOD

A. God Reveals He Is a Communion of Persons

• The Trinity is NOT something reason alone could ever discover. It is absolutely hidden from natural experience and natural theology. It required divine self-disclosure.

• Once revealed, we can see hints of the Trinity retrospectively throughout creation and Scripture — but only IN HINDSIGHT.

• Why God reveals it: Love in its very nature desires intimacy. Intimacy requires disclosure. God, who IS love, reveals Himself as a community of persons because love in solitude is not love — there must be a beloved.

• Old Testament hints of the Trinity (all retrospective):

◦ Genesis 1:2 — 'The Spirit swept over the waters.' No Jew would have guessed a third divine person from this — only in hindsight.

◦ 1 Chronicles 8:29 — Abiel (grandfather of King Saul) — his name means 'God is my father.' If God is Father, this implies a Child. God was hinting: 'I have an eternally begotten One. I'll introduce Him in a few centuries.'

◦ Exodus — 'Israel is my son, my firstborn' (God to Pharaoh through Moses). From Israel flows the House of David; from David flows the Messiah. Hidden foreshadowing.

• The revelation is given definitively by Jesus Christ: He reveals Himself as the eternally begotten Son, and promises to send the Paraclete — the Holy Spirit — as Counselor and Consoler.

B. Four Important Doctrinal Statements

• These four statements must be held together without sacrificing any one of them:

◦ 1. The Oneness of God: There is one God, one divine nature, one substance, one essence. This we can know from natural theology. It is not a mathematical 'one' — it is one without any possibility of two.

◦ 2. The Distinction of the Persons: The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. No one of the three persons is either of the others. They are ABSOLUTELY DISTINCT.

◦ 3. The Unity of the Divine Nature: The Father, though distinct from the Son, is God. The Son, though distinct from the Father, is God. The Holy Spirit, though distinct from the Father and the Son, is God. All three persons possess the one divine nature fully — not divided among them, but each fully possessing it.

◦ 4. One God, Not Three Gods: Despite the three persons, there is only one God. This is not a contradiction — it is a mystery in the proper theological sense (see below).

• The familiar Trinity diagram: A triangle with 'Father,' 'Son,' 'Holy Spirit' at the corners; lines reading 'is not' between the persons; lines reading 'is' connecting each person to 'God' in the center. This is a helpful visual shorthand.

C. Definition of Terms: Person and Nature

Nature (also: Essence / Substance)

• Nature = what a thing IS. The source of its operations. The 'what.'

• A marker has a nature: it marks. A human being has a nature: rational, animal, body + soul. The nature is what determines what a thing does and what it is designed for.

• Everything that exists has a nature. Not everything that exists is a person (a rock has a nature; it is not a person).

• Nature as essence/substance: these three terms are used interchangeably in this context.

• Key exam line: Nature is the SOURCE of our operations.

Person

• Person = who acts, the subject who acts THROUGH a nature. The 'who.'

• A person possesses a nature and acts through it. The nature does not possess the person.

• First philosophical definition: 'The one who acts' — that which acts freely through a nature.

• Important: We never experience human nature 'raw' and by itself, divorced from a person. I experience my human nature through my own personhood; I experience your human nature through your personal actions and interactions with me. We cannot separate them in our experience.

• Frank Sheed: 'Of the self that has the qualities and has done the things, we cannot tell [anyone] anything. We cannot bring it under [their] gaze. Indeed, we cannot easily or continuously bring it under our own.' — We know there is a 'self' (person) there, but we cannot get it into focus. Nature says WHAT we are; person says WHO we are.

• Nature is the source of our operations; person DOES them. Write this down and memorize it.

The Critical Distinction for Christ and the Trinity

• In human beings: ONE person — ONE (individuated) nature. Each human person possesses human nature, but it is individuated/instantiated by their body. My human nature and your human nature are the same KIND of thing but individuated by matter so that they are distinct.

• In Jesus Christ: ONE (divine) person — TWO natures (human nature AND divine nature). He is a DIVINE person, not a human person. This is one of the most commonly confused points: Jesus Christ is fully human but He is NOT a human person. He is the divine Second Person of the Trinity, who has assumed human nature. Get this right.

• In the Trinity: THREE persons — ONE (undivided, fully possessed by each) divine nature. This is the reverse of our only human experience (one person/one nature). There is no analogue in creation. We must accept it on the basis of divine revelation alone.

• St. Augustine on the beach: He encountered a child trying to empty the ocean into a small hole. The child said: 'What you are trying to do — fit the Trinity into your head — is exactly what I am trying to do.' The child disappeared.

• Instantiation (to instantiate): The process by which a nature is individualized in a particular person or thing. In human beings, the body individualizes/instantiates human nature. In God, the divine nature is not individuated by matter — it is fully, wholly possessed by each of the three persons without division.

D. Three Persons and One Nature — How the Persons Are Distinct Yet Each Fully Possesses the One Divine Nature

• The core difficulty: In all human experience, ONE nature is operated by ONE person. My nature is not shared with (in the sense of being operated by) another person. But in God, the ONE divine nature is fully operated by THREE distinct persons. We have no experience of this. We must accept it because Christ revealed it.

• Frank Sheed: 'The intellect feels baffled at the reverse concept of one nature being totally wielded, much less totally possessed by more than one person.' — This bafflement is entirely appropriate and honorable. It is not intellectual failure; it is an honest acknowledgment of our creaturely limits.

• We cannot argue backward from human experience to God ('since in humans it's one nature per person, it must be so in God'). The arrow only points one way. God is incomprehensibly greater than the creature made in His image.

• God has one nature — TRUE — expressed by three persons — THREE CENTERS OF ATTRIBUTION. These centers are distinct from one another. They are NOT separated from one another. That is where it gets 'weird' — and that is where mystery properly begins.

• Mystery (proper theological definition): Not a contradiction (contradictions are impossible in God who is all-true), but a reality that cannot be immediately seen as coinciding by our limited intellects. A mystery can be known in part through revelation but never fully comprehended.

E. A Bit More on the Distinctions

Perichoresis — 'The Divine Dance'

• Greek term meaning the mutual interpenetration or coinherence of the three persons. Each person is wholly present in and to the others — not spatially, but in perfect, eternal communion of love.

• The Father is fully in the Son; the Son is fully in the Father; the Holy Spirit fully in both and both in the Spirit. No separation whatsoever, yet real and absolute distinction of persons.

• The 'Divine Dance' metaphor: The three persons in an eternal exchange of love — a perfect communion in which each is entirely given to and received by the others. This is the destiny God wills for us: to be assumed into this dance (the Beatific Vision).

Circumincession and Circuminsession

• Two Latin terms for essentially the same reality as perichoresis (mutual indwelling), approached from slightly different angles:

◦ Circumincession: Emphasizes the dynamic, active mutual interpenetration — the 'flowing into' each other.

◦ Circuminsession: Emphasizes the stable indwelling or 'resting in' one another.

• Both terms affirm: The three persons are so perfectly one that there is no gap, no separation, no distance between them — while remaining genuinely, absolutely distinct persons.

Appropriation

• Appropriation: Attributing a particular divine work or characteristic to one person of the Trinity, even though all three persons are involved in every external act of God (since they share one nature and one will).

• Examples: Creation is 'appropriated' to the Father, redemption to the Son, sanctification to the Holy Spirit — even though all three persons act in every work. This is a pedagogical and devotional tool, not a strict division of labor.

• Why appropriation matters: It helps us grasp the distinct 'character' or 'personality' of each person as revealed in Scripture and tradition, while avoiding the error of thinking only one person acts in each domain.

V. FALSE ATTITUDES AND HERESIES ABOUT GOD

A. Denying the Existence of God (Atheism)

• The Psalms condemn atheism as the most foolish of positions — it denies the plain evidence of creation and the voice of reason.

• Nevertheless, pastoral context matters: people deny God's existence today not primarily out of malice but often because of cultural relativism, scientism, poor catechesis, or personal wounds. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

• Pastoral approach: Earn the right to be heard by the witness of your life. Build communities where people feel loved, seen, and accepted — a 'taste of heaven' — so that unbelievers are drawn to ask 'What do they have that I don't?'

B. Denying God as Personal (Impersonalism)

• Some philosophical systems (certain strands of Hinduism, New Age spirituality, pantheism) present God as an impersonal force, energy, or ground of being — not a 'who' but an 'it.'

• The Catholic faith insists: God is irreducibly personal. He has an intellect and a will. He ACTS. He LOVES. He KNOWS. He CALLS each person by name. An impersonal god cannot love, cannot save, cannot have a relationship.

• Descartes' error: Beginning from doubt ('I think, therefore I am') and making the self the arbiter of truth. This hermeneutic of doubt, followed to its logical end, leads to psychosis. St. Thomas Aquinas' epistemology: our minds are CREATED to interlock with reality — like a zipper. Reality is objective; our minds are designed to conform to it, not to create it.

C. Total Rejection of Trinitarian Disclosure

• Islam: Insists on God's absolute oneness (Tawhid) to the exclusion of any possibility of persons within God. Christ is accepted as a great prophet but NOT as God. This is essentially Arianism at the societal level.

• Judaism: The oneness of God is so emphasized that the revelation of three persons in the New Testament appears to violate it. Yet the hints were always there in the Old Testament (retrospectively visible).

• Strict Calvinist predestination: Taken to its extreme, can collapse into a form of determinism that conflicts with the personal, freely-loving God of Catholic faith.

• Modernism: Divorcing the historical Christ from the Christ of faith; reducing the Trinity to a mere symbol or human projection. This progressively leads to the denial of Christ's divinity altogether.

D. Rejection of Proper Distinctions of Persons

• Modalism (Sabellianism): The three persons are merely three 'modes' or 'masks' that the one God wears at different times — Father in the Old Testament, Son in the Incarnation, Holy Spirit at Pentecost. CONDEMNED. The persons are not modes; they are genuinely, eternally distinct.

• Monarchianism: Overemphasizes the oneness of God to the point of denying real personal distinction. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit become merely aspects or manifestations of one undifferentiated being.

• Key error of the 'Trinity as family' metaphor if taken too literally: It can suggest that the human family is the proper model for understanding the Trinity, rather than the other way around. The correct order: the human family is an image, a shadow, an imitation of the divine community of persons — not a template for it.

E. Rejection of Equality of Persons

• Arianism: The Son is a created being — the first and greatest creature — but NOT co-equal with the Father. 'There was a time when the Son was not.' CONDEMNED at Nicaea (325 AD). The Son is CONSUBSTANTIAL (same substance/nature) with the Father — not similar, not almost-divine, but fully and equally divine.

• Subordinationism: The Son or Holy Spirit are somehow 'less than' or subordinate in nature to the Father. CONDEMNED. There is no hierarchy of being within the Trinity. (There is an eternal 'order' of relations — the Father generates, the Son is begotten, the Spirit proceeds — but this is relational, not ontological inequality.)

• Semi-Arianism: The Son is 'of like substance' (homoiousios) rather than 'of the same substance' (homoousios) with the Father. Condemned. One iota of difference (literally) was the difference between orthodoxy and heresy.

QUICK REFERENCE: KEY TERMS, DISTINCTIONS, AND PHRASES TO KNOW

Essential Definitions

• Theology: The study of God in and of Himself, and all things related to Him.

• Natural theology: Knowledge of God attained by reason and observation, unaided by revelation.

• Sacred / Revealed theology: Knowledge of God given through divine self-disclosure, fully given in Jesus Christ.

• Ineffable: Beyond all speech — everything said about God falls infinitely short.

• Incomprehensible: Beyond full comprehension — God cannot be fully grasped by any finite intellect.

• Immense: Not 'very large' but IMMEASURABLE — not subject to measure at all. Beyond all spatial categories.

• Infinite / Infinitude: No limits of any kind. God has no extension, no duration, no boundary.

• Omnipresent: Present everywhere — not locally or spatially, but by operation (sustaining all things in existence by His will).

• Eternity: The duration of that which simply IS. Not time extended infinitely in both directions, but a perfect, timeless act of existence — the eternal NOW.

• Nunc stans: Latin: 'the standing now' — God's eternal present, unlike our 'flowing now' (nunc fluens).

• The Transcendentals: One, True, Good, Beautiful — the attributes of being itself, all convertible with each other and all fully identified with God.

• The Convertibles: Justice, mercy, love, wisdom, almightiness — interchangeable in God; to speak of one is to speak of all.

• Nature / Essence / Substance: What a thing IS — the source of its operations. Used interchangeably in this context.

• Person: Who acts — the subject who acts through and in a nature. Nature says WHAT we are; person says WHO we are. Nature is the source of operations; person DOES them.

• Instantiation: The individualization of a nature in a particular person or thing. In humans, the body instantiates/individualizes human nature.

• Perichoresis: The mutual interpenetration/coinherence of the three divine persons — the 'Divine Dance.'

• Circumincession: Dynamic mutual indwelling of the persons (active interpenetration).

• Circuminsession: Stable mutual indwelling (resting in one another).

• Appropriation: Attributing a divine work or quality primarily to one person of the Trinity for pedagogical purposes, even though all three are involved in every external act.

• Mystery (theological): Not a contradiction, but a reality that cannot be fully comprehended by finite intellects even when revealed — distinct persons, one nature.

• Consubstantial (homoousios): Of the SAME substance/nature — the Son is consubstantial with the Father (Nicaea, 325 AD). Contrasted with homoiousios ('of LIKE substance' — Arianism/Semi-Arianism).

Key Scripture References

• Exodus 3:14 — 'I AM WHO I AM' — God's name; pure, unlimited existence.

• Genesis 1:2 — 'The Spirit swept over the waters' — retrospective hint of the Holy Spirit.

• 1 Chronicles 8:29 — Abiel ('God is my father') — retrospective hint of divine Fatherhood/Sonship.

• John 14:6 — 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life' — Christ as truth itself.

• John 8:12 — 'I am the light of the world.'

• Psalm 46:10 — 'Be still and know that I am God.'

• Matthew 28:19 — Baptize 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' — explicit Trinitarian formula.

• John 1:1 — 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

• John 17:4 — 'I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do' (High Priestly Prayer).

Key Condemned Positions (Heresies)

• Arianism: The Son is a created being, not co-equal with the Father ('There was a time when He was not'). Condemned at Nicaea 325.

• Semi-Arianism: Son is 'of like substance' (homoiousios) rather than 'same substance' (homoousios). Condemned.

• Modalism / Sabellianism: Father, Son, Spirit are three 'modes' or masks of one God, not genuinely distinct persons. Condemned.

• Subordinationism: The Son or Spirit are ontologically lesser than the Father. Condemned.

• Pelagianism: Man can achieve salvation by natural virtue alone without grace. Condemned. (Relevant to how we understand God's goodness and our need for grace.)

• Modernism: Christ did not personally and directly establish the Church; Church structure evolved as a human response to the delayed Parousia. Condemned by Pius X.