Commentary on My Catholic Faith: God the Supreme Being
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. Supernatural Revelation matches Natural Revelation that there is God, the Highest Being (or Supreme), lacking in nothing, beginning and sustaining all things in existence with the exception of Himself. By Natural Revelation we acknowledge that all traditions of all nations and races have an idea of some sort of God. They all have an inner conviction of His existence, and our intellect supports this instict.
By Revelation, we know
that God is immaterial, He possess no body in His Nature. He has an intellect
and a will, which in the end are simply His Existence. As such, when we speak
of “body parts” of God, it is merely figurative to ease our understanding of
God. The purer understanding and language of God has no reference to such body or
body parts. We are now revealed to the existence of angels and devils, which
are also pure spirits, meaning they are immaterial and like God possess intellect
and will. In a previous writing we acknowledge that the devil is evil, angels
being distinct from devils are implied to be good spirits in alliance and
service of God. It is revealed to us that we have a soul, the “self” which
rises beyond the body is called a soul.
God is causally
unlimited, His Existence, which is His Essence, has no beginning and thus His
Being does not originate from any other Being. He simply is. It is revealed to
us that man as a finite creature cannot fully understand the infinite, this
follows from Natural Revelation and thus reason. Even in heaven, it is implied
that our knowledge of God will always be in part and not in full. For by
reason, only God can have full knowledge of Himself. Infinite Perfection means
He possess all perfections without limit. His Infinity leads to incomprehensibility,
comprehensibility being complete knowledge of something, therefore we cannot
have complete knowledge of God.
Revelation speaks of every
creature possessing some likeness to God, yet even the combination of every
power and perfection of creation is united, it would still not face up to God’s
supremacy. Some perfections of God are Eternity, Goodness, Knowledge, Presence,
and Power. All of these perfections are actually identical among themselves and
to God’s Existence. This is the idea of Divine Simplicity, a fundamental
doctrine of the Faith, known to us through both kinds of Revelation. Glory be
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.
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