Review Questions Flashcards
- What are the elements that make up the Covenant that God established with man?
Elements:
Parties: God and Man
Promise: I will be your God and you will be my people
Condition: Circumcision
- What is the starting point of Theology?
Faith
- Under what light do we study Theology?
Reason
- What is the paradigm of the Old Covenant?
Paradigm: Old (filiation), New (Spousal)
- Give a quotation from the Old Testament that tells us we can know God from creatures.
Wisdom 13: 5 For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.
- Give a quotation from the New Testament that says we can know God from creatures.
Rom 1:20-21 Eversince the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
- Give the three most common names used by the Bible to designate God.
Ans: El, Elohim (The Most High), Yahweh (I am who am)
- What does El Shaddai mean?
El is one of the names of God. “Sadday” is found in (Ex 6:3). Etymology is unknown although often translated as omnipotent. Hence, El Shaddai means “God Omnipotent”.
- What does Adonai mean?
Adonai means “Lord”.
- In what biblical passage can we find the name God gave of himself?
In the theophany of the burning bush (Ex 3:1-15) Yahweh reveals his mysterious name: I am who am. (Ex 3:14).
- In Hebrew the name that God gave of himself can be understood in a causative sense. What does this tell us of God?
In Hebrew the verb “to be” can be understood in the causative form (in hiphil). This will mean “to give being”. And so Yahweh would mean “he who gives being”, that is, the Creator.
- Give a quotation from the Bible that says there is only one God.
Deut 6:4
“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
1 Cor 8:4
“There is no God but one.”
- God created the world by speaking. Give a passage to show this.
Psalm 33:6:
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.”
Gen 1:1-3
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters.God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
- Give a passage that says God is holy.
Is 6:3
“…and they were shouting these words to each other: Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth. His glory fills the whole earth.”
- Give a biblical passage from the New Testament that speaks of the omnipotence of God.
Luke 1:37
“For with God nothing will be impossible.”
- Give a passage from the Old Testament that speaks of God having maternal characteristics.
Is 49:15
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
- Give a passage from the Psalms that speaks of God as Father.
Ps 89:26 He shall cry to me: Thou art my Father , my God, and the Rock of my salvation.
- Give proof from the New Testament that God is a merciful Father.
Lk 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus distinguished his filiation to the Father from our filiation.
Jn 20:17: “…I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus affirmed his identity with the Father.
Jn 10:30,38: “I and the Father are one” and “ the Father is in me and I am in the Father”
- What are the hints in the Old Testament for the existence of the Second Person of the Trinity?
Psalm 2:7 You are my Son, I have begotten you this day
- Passage in the New Testament where Jesus claimed to have the power to forgive sins.
Mark 2:10-11 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” then he said to the paralytic “Rise up and take up your pallet…”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be superior to the Temple.
Matthew 12:6: “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
- Passage where Jesus demanded his disciples to give their lives for his sake.
Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
- Passage where the Father gave testimony that Jesus is his Son.
Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.
Matthew 3:17
and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
- Give a passage from St. Paul where he affirmed the divinity of Jesus.
St. Paul’s beginning letter to the Corinthians
1 Cor 1:9
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord
- Passage where Jesus attributed pre-existence to himself.
Jesus warns the unbelieving Jews.
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be the Life and the way to the Father.
Jesus reveals the Father
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
- Passage from Genesis that revealed the Spirit of God.
Six days of Creation and the Sabbath
Gen 1:2
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
- Passage from Isaiah that prophesied the Messiah having the fullness of the Spirit of Yahweh.
Isaiah in this passage talks about a servant, who will Be a Light to the nation.
Is. 42
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him,
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
- Passage where Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth.
Jesus Christ talks about the actions of the Holy Spirit
John 16:13
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
- Passage where the Christians were called temples of the Holy Spirit.
St Paul speaks about the offences to Christ and to the Holy Spirit.
1 Cor 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
- Passage from the Gospels that speak of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Baptism
Matthew 3:16-17.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Ascension
Matthew 28:19
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
- What was Dynamic Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This heresy tried to save the divine Unity by sacrificing the Trinity of Persons. This means Jesus was not God, rather He was just a man endowed with power from God at birth.
- Dynamic Monarchianism teaches that God is the Father, that Jesus is only a man, denied the personal subsistence of the Logos, and taught that the Holy Spirit was a force or presence of God the Father.
- Who started Dynamic Monarchianism?
Theodotus of Byzantium
- What was Modal Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This is also a similar heresy with dynamic monarchianism, meaning, there is only the divine unity and no trinity of persons, except that here Jesus is the mode of existence of the Father, so it was the Father who died on the Cross.
- Modal monarchianism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are just modes of the single person who is God. In other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not simultaneous and separate persons but consecutive modes of one person.
- Who first taught Modal Monarchianism?
Noëtus of Smyrna (Bishop)
- Who extended Modal Monarchianism to the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius
- What was Gnosticism?
It was a hodgepodge of religions and sciences like zoroastrianism and astrology, that tried to explain Christianity. It stated that God gave being to all things by emanation through aeons which are like demiurges. These aeons mixe the principles of good and evil, thus creating everything.
- What was Arianism?
It was the heresy that denied the divine nature and attributes of the second person of the Blessed Trinity. ; It denied that the Son had a divine nature and divine attributes. “There was a time when the Logos did not exist.” Also, that God cannot get into direct contact with matter; That the Logos is subject to change and development. He is united to God only by will. The Logos can be called “God” only metaphorically.
- What was the Ecumenical Council that condemned Arianism? What year?
Ans: Council of Nicaea (period: May to July 325)
- What was the solemn pronouncement about the Son that was made by the Council that condemned Arius?
Ans: A Creed was drawn up on June 19, 325 (Nicene Creed). The Son was declared to be “of the same essence as the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made consubstantial with the Father (όμοουσιος τώ πάτρί) through him all things in heaven and earth are made”.
- What was the Pneutomachian heresy?
Ans: The error of Subordinationism was extended to the Holy Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit was only a ministering spirit. He was just different in rank from the other angels. [After 380, the Pneumatomachi (Comabators against the Spirit) were called Macedonians]
- What Ecumenical Council condemned the Pneumatomachian heresy? What year?
Ans: Council of Constantinople pronounced the official and authoritative condemnation of the Pnematomachian heresy in 381.
- What was the solemn declaration the above mentioned council made about the Holy Spirit?
Ans: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.”
- Who was the ancient philosopher whose ideas about substance, accidents, act, potency, prime mover, and causality was accepted by St. Thomas Aquinas?
Ans: Aristotle
- Who was the philosopher whose ideas about participation in the Ideas was assimilated by St. Thomas?
Ans: St. Augustine
- What was Boethius’ definition of eternity?
Ans: eternity as “interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta posessio” the perfect, total and simultaneous possession of life.
- The city in northern Egypt where a school of theology flourished and where the Hebrew bible was translated into Greek.
Answer: Alexandria
Additional info: Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great. The biblical translation work (from Hebrew to Koine Greek) is known as the Septuagint (LXX).
- The type of exegesis that was adopted by this said school.
Answer: Allegorical interpretation
Additional info: Another type of exegesis is Biblical Literalism adopted by the Antiochene school (Antioch) and Historical Criticism.
- Who was the third successor of St. Peter, considered as an Apostolic Father and in his letter he emphasized the beauty and harmony of creation as coming from the divine mandate?
Answer: Pope Clement I (also known as St. Clement of Rome)
- He is considered also as an Apostolic Father. He was martyred on 22 Feb 156. In the story of his martyrdom he addressed God as Pantocrator and that this God is the Father of Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Polycarp of Smyrna
Additional info: Pantokrator is a compound word formed from the Greek words πᾶν, pan (gen. pantos), i.e. “all” and κράτος, kratos, i.e. “strength”, “might”, “power.” The most common translation of Pantocrator is “Almighty” or “All-powerful”.
- He wrote apologies and the work entitled Dialogue with Trypho where he accepted the same God the Jewish Trypho believed in but he emphasized that this God is the Father of Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Justin (also known as Justin Martyr; c. 100 – 165 AD)
Additional info: The Dialogue with Trypho depicts an intellectual conversation between Justin and Trypho, a Jew (fictional character). The work tries to prove, among other things, that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
- He was a great debater. He wrote Adversus haereses. He taught that God is the Creator and that he revealed himself in Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Irenaeus (early 2nd century – c. AD 202)
Additional info: St. Irenaeus was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire (now Lyon, France). Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) is the name of a two-volume work against Gnosticism (and other Christian heresies), written about 180 AD.
- He became the head of the school of Alexandria around 216 AD. He was a great exegete using the allegorical method. He taught that the existence of God is a truth we can know by natural reason.
Answer: St. Clement of Alexandria (150-216 A.D.) also known as Titus Flavius Clemens
Additional info: Clement of Alexandria is considered as the first Christian theologian to use allegorical interpretation.
- He was the heretic who identified “being un-engendered” as the essence of God and so he concluded that the Son who is “engendered” cannot be God.
Answer: Eunomius of Cyzicus (died c.393)
Additional info: Eunomius is one of the leaders of the extreme or “anomoean” Arians. He was appointed bishop of Cyzicus in 360 AD.
- They were brothers and they fought the error of the heretic mentioned above.
St. Basil of Caesarea & St. Gregory of Nyssa
- He wasmade the bishop of Constantinople in 397 and was famous for his homilies. He preached five homilies on the Divine Incomprehensibility.
St. John Chrysostom
- What year and where was St. Augustine born?
Year 354, in Thagaste (present day Souk Ahras, Algeria)
- What year and where did St. Augustine die?
He died in 430 when the Vandals at the command of Genseric besieged Hippo.
- In the journey of the mind to God, Augustine distinguished three moments. What are they?
In De vera religione Augustine expounded this journey of the mind to God whose essential moments are three:
° (1) The question about the world. What the inner man thinks, when he admires the changeable beauty of the world, is that this beauty should come from beauty that is immutable.
° (2) Return to your interiority. Man recognizes himself with an act of intuition as a being that exists, thinks and loves. In the inner man lies the truth. Upon entering himself, in the deepest recesses of the soul, man finds the truth and goodness.
° (3) Transcend yourself. Man can therefore rise to God through the way of being, of truth and love. Here is how we pass from the multiple to the one, from the mutable to the immutable, from the partial truths to the absolute and eternal Truth.
- What is Augustine’s Theory of Illumination?
° The exemplary ideas, which are the models or archetypes of all things, are found in the Eternal Word, who is of the same in essence and substance as the Father and the Holy Spirit.
° Because of the simplicity of God, these ideas are not different from God, but they are identical and consubstantial with the divine essence.
° These exemplary ideas are the source of being, the immutable foundation of all mutable realities of the sensible world, and at the same time they are the source of intelligibility of things and the foundation of the certainty of knowledge.
° Therefore, all beings, but in a special way the human soul, are images of God. They are made in accordance with exemplary ideas.
° This exemplarism enables Augustine’s task of rising from self-knowledge to the knowledge of God, even to the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, upon discovering and discerning the imprint of the divine image in man, in his acts of knowing and loving.
° When seeing in man an analogy of the Trinity, man finds the Trinity in his soul: Mens, notitia, amor or memoria, intelligentia, voluntas. When the mind loves there are two things: the mind and its love. When the mind knows there are also two realities: the mind and its knowledge. When the mind knows and loves, the Trinity subsists – mind, knowledge and love – in those three realities, and without mixture or confusion.
- How did Augustine explain evil?
The providence of God was one of the key points of Christian doctrine against the Manichaeans. It was urgent to demonstrate to them that the existence of evil does not contradict the existence of a unique principle of all things, or the goodness of that one principle of all things.
If God is good, where did evil come from? These are the lines of argument:
° (1) From the necessary imperfection of the creature: Either we deny that God has the power to create, or we have to concede that every created being is imperfect and therefore, every created being is vulnerable to evil. However, this vulnerability does not negate the good of the perfections that creatures have. This justifies its creation.
° (2) The limitation of created freedom as the cause of moral evil: Physical evil is a relative evil. Moral evil – sin – is evil in an absolute sense. The limited nature of created freedom which divine providence “respects” is the real cause of the existence of sin. But freedom in itself can be perfect: this is what happens in God. Why, then, was freedom not created completely perfect? St. Augustine would say, following St. Paul, that “God has judged that there is more power and greater perfection in drawing good out of evil, that to prevent evil from existing.”
- What did Augustine consider as evil in the absolute sense?
Moral evil – sin – is evil in an absolute sense.
- To him was attributed a body of writings whose theology dominated teaching and studies from the 4th century even up to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, who quoted many times his De divinis nominbus.
Pseudo-dionysius
More info: Pseudodionysius tackles the question of how do we arrive knowledge of God in three ways: (1) Postitive theology - approaching God from the world of sense, (2) Negative theology - to delete from God everything that pertains to the created world and look only at what is above all creation, and (3) Mystical theology - Man, by closing the eyes of the soul, is immersed in the silence of darkness, and wrapped in a super light that is essentially formless, without figure, without sound and without concept. In this mystical immersion and ecstasy one becomes one with God. In this milieu we find the theology of symbols or symbolic theology: it is the access to God in the darkness of the mystical life, contemplating him through the divine symbols that we find in Sacred Scripture.
- He is considered to have closed the Patristic era in the East. He wrote De fide orthodoxa. He died in 750 AD.
St. John of Damascus
St. John of Damascus repeated the doctrine of St. Gregory Nazianzen: God is neither fully accessible to human knowledge or completely inaccessible. The former has a Scriptural support in the verse, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has mad him known” (Jn 1:18). However, there is no man in whom God has not planted naturally the capacity to know that God exists. Then, created things and also the manifestation of God himself through the law, prophets and Jesus Christ.
- It is the 12th Ecumenical Council convoked in 1215 by Pope Innocent III. This council professed faith in the Trinity explaining the relations of the three divine Persons to one another.
The Fourth Lateran Council
- He was the Abbot whose teachings were condemned by the above mentioned ecumenical council.
Joachim de Fiore
- What was the error of this Abbot?
Joachim accused Peter Lombard of introducing into the Trinity a kind of Quaternity because Lombard said that the divine essence, which is common to the three Persons, was not generans (generating), generata (engendered), or procedens (proceeding).
Joachim thought that the unity of persons in the Trinity was a unity in the species: something like three men who are distinct one from another but share the same human nature. The unity of God is compromised: there is no real unity but simply a collective unity or an analogical unity.
- What specific doctrine did this council (4th Lateran Council) teach in relation to the divine essence and each Person?
The council affirms that the distinctions in the Trinity are in the Persons and the unity is in the nature.” Hence, IV Lateran Council taught that the numerical unity of the divine essence is affirmed. There is identity between the Persons and the divine essence whether they be considered separately or together. There is identity between the divine essence and the Father who engenders. There is identity between the divine essence and the Son who is engendered. There is identity between the divine essence and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Council denied that it is the divine essence that engenders. And so there is no quaternity in God because the essence does not exist separately from the three Persons. The Father does not proceed from an impersonal “divine essence”. The divine essence did not exist prior to the Father.
- It is the 14th Ecumenical Council and was held in 1274. It clarified the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.
Council of Lyons
- It is the 17th Ecumenical Council that was held in 1438 to 1442. It declared that the expression ex Patre Filioque and a Patre per Filium were equivalent.
Council of Florence
- He was a Latin ecclesiastical writer of the second century who already affirmed that to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is the same as saying the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
Tertullian. Tertullian already affirmed that to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son is equivalent to saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
- He was the bishop of Milan who baptized St. Augustine and who also used the term Filioque in the liturgy.
St. Ambrose (Aurelius Ambrosius)
- This was the city in Spain where in 446 the Filioque began to be used in the liturgy to combat Arianism.
Toledo
- In the 5th century, he was the first of the Greek Fathers of the Church to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
St. Cyril of Alexandria
- He was the last of the Greek Fathers of the Church who in his De fidei orthodoxa said the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
St. John Damascene
- He was the Patriarch of Constantinople, who in 867 began to condemn the inclusion of the Filioque in the symbol.
Photius
- What reason did Photius give for the condemnation of the Filioque?
He claimed that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, setting aside even the teachings of the Greek Fathers who said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Photius claimed that operations in the Trinity had as subject either the nature or the Person. One person cannot share such operation with another. Now, spiration belongs to the Father only and so it cannot belong to the Son also. Photius radicalized the divergence in theology between the Greeks and the Latins.
- The Ecumenical Council held in 1870 and which re-affirmed the natural capacity of reason to know God and his attributes.
Vatican I and specifically in the constitution Dei Filius
- The II Vatican Council did not make any new declaration about the Blessed Trinity. But what was the treatment this council made regarding the Trinity?
The Trinity is the center of all Christian doctrine and is presented and related in all the documents of Vatican II. It thus serves as the framework of the Vatican II
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II dealt with Jesus as our Redeemer?
Redemptor Hominis
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II taught about the mercy of God the Father?
Dives in Misericordia, November 30, 1980 (First Sunday of Advent)
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II taught about the Holy Spirit?
Dominum et Vivificantem, May 18, 1986 (Solemnity of Pentecost)
- St. Anselm wrote two works on the Trinity. What are these?
These works are the: 1) Monologion and 2) Proslogion. For clarification, this question is actually not very precise (Carlo Florendo): There are actually 3 works: Monologion, Proslogion, and “Cur Deus Homo.”
Monologion - God’s existence and divine attributes
Proslogion - Synthesis of the arguments Monologion. The multiple arguments in the Monologion were fused or synthesized in the Proslogion.
Cur Deus Homo - Treatise on the incarnate word
- St. Anselm combated the error of Roscelin. What did Roscelin teach that was erroneous?
Roscelin was regarded as the founder of nominalism. Consistently with his nominalistic doctrines, he held that the genus and species have no substantial unity, – that the union of individuals in the genus or in the species is a mere fabrication of language or at most the work of thought. Roscelin maintained that the distinction of the whole and its parts is also the result of mere mental analysis. Applying this to the Blessed Trinity, he said that the one nature in three divine persons must, he argued, be a universal. Now, the universal has no real existence. Therefore, he concluded, the oneness of the divine nature is not real (tritheism). Roscelin considered the three Divine Persons as three independent beings, like three angels; if usage permitted, he added, it might truly be said that there are three Gods. Otherwise, he continued, God the Father and God the Holy Ghost would have become incarnate with God the Son. To retain the appearance of dogma he admitted that the three Divine Persons had but one will and power.
- What axiom did St. Anselm develop that will be used by the 17th Ecumenical Council and by subsequent theology?
An axiom or a postulate is a truth that is self-evident, and thus, requires no proof. An axiom can usually be used as a starting point for a proof. Thus, Anselm’s argument that God exists is a proof and not an axiom. Thus, this question is probably phrased incorrectly. St. Anselm’s tenet was “fides quaerens intellectum” (faith seeking understanding). Strictly speaking, this is a model or a framework, not an axiom. This model was used subsequently by theology. Another answer: omnia sunt idem ubi non obviat relationis oppositio: in the Trinity everything is the same where there is no opposition of relation.
- Richard of St. Victor had a basic insight about God and his essence. From this insight he deduced the other attributes of God as one and triune. What was this insight?
Richard of St. Victor wrote De Triniate. The major point made by Richard of St. Victor (d. I 173) is that the infinite perfection of God demands that the Godhead be a Trinity of Persons. He starts off with the affirmation that true love is not possible if it is not love directed to another, if it is not self-transcending and self-donating—and this is especially true of infinite love. God being the supreme and absolutely perfect Good must have true and supreme love. For his love to be perfect it must be directed to another of equal dignity, a divine person. Moreover, the fullness of happiness that God as God necessarily enjoys must come from a mutual love, a love that arises from giving and receiving. Thus the total self-donation that is fundamental to true love calls for at least two divine Persons in one God who are eternal and equal. Taking this train of thought one step further, Richard points out that two perfect lovers would want to have a common object of their love, a communication of their love for each other that is itself a person.
- What was the title of Richard’s work about the Trinity?
De Trinitate
- St. Bonaventure devoted much attention to the question of the Trinity. What was his dictum about the Trinity?
St. Bonaventure (c.1217-1274) starts with the insight that God as supreme Goodness is self-diffusing. God is self-sufficient but, because of his primacy of will, he is self-communicating. “The Good is said to be diffusive of itself. Therefore the Most High Good is most highly diffusive of itself,” writes Bonaventure in his Journey of the Mind to God.
- St. Bonaventure found “traces” of the Trinity in the powers of man. In what power of man did he find traces of the Father?
There are many. One is that man can pro-create. (cf. Creation is attributed to God the Father.)
- St. Bonaventure differed from St. Thomas Aquinas regarding what he thought constituted the Persons of the Trinity. Thomas thought the relations constituted the Persons. For Bonaventure what constituted the Persons?
St. Bonaventure thought that the Persons are not constituted by their relations but by their origins. For him between person, relation and property (notions) there is just a distinction of reason. St. Thomas would not agree to this; he said that between person, relation and property there is complete identity though we cannot think that person exists even before his relation. St. Thomas thought that the relations are constitutive of each Person. St. Bonaventure thought they were characteristics of the Persons; these are already constituted by reason of their origins. The relations for him just manifested their properties.
- St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about God one and Triune in his Summa Theologiae. In what part of the Summa can we find his teachings about God one and Triune?
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas about God One and Triune in his Summa Theologiae can be found in the first part.
This is his order of development of the subject the one God:
1) the existence of God,
2) the nature of God,
3) the operations of God,
4) the beatitude of God.
About the Trinity this is his order of development:
1) the divine processions,
2) the divine relations,
3) the divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
-[from Notes of Fr. Ces]
Additional information:
1. De Deo Uno is from Part I Questions 1 to 26
2. De Trinitate is from Part I Questions 27 to 43
- What was the basis for Aquinas’ analogical thought about the Trinity?
At the basis of Aquinas’ teaching about the Trinity is the use of analogy with the intellectual operations of knowledge and love.
- How did Aquinas describe the procession of the Son from the Father?
The first procession is that of the Word who proceeds from the Father secundum emanationem intelligibilem Verbi intelligibilis a dicente, quod manet in ipso (according to the intelligible procession of the intelligible Word of the one who speaks but which remains within him).
- Why did Aquinas think this procession can rightfully be called generation?
When one says that something is generated, the nature of the one who generates resides in the one generated. The procession of the Son is the act of the Father’s knowing himself. In a human person, the knowledge of the self resides in one’s self and is only a logical thought. In God the Father, the knowledge of Himself resides in Him but, unlike human persons, the knowledge is not only a logical thought but a real Person, the Son. The kind of knowledge that the Son is, is the knowledge of the Father, thus, whatever the Father is, the Son is. In other words, the Father and the Son have the same nature. This fits the concept of generation stated earlier.
- According to Aquinas what are the elements of a relation?
The elements of a relation according to Thomas Aquinas are:
a. Subject that is ordered to another
b. A terminus or subject of the reference
c. Basis for the references
- How many relations are there in God and what are these relations?
According to Thomas Aquinas, the following relations are present in God:
a. Paternity – refers to God the Father
b. Filiation – refers to God the Son
c. Passive spiration – refers to God the Holy Spirit [the expressed love as the person]
d. Active spiration - [love being “actively” expressed by the Father and the Son]
- If according to St. Thomas the relations constitute the Persons in the Trinity and there are four relations, then there should be four Persons. Why are there only three?
In God there are four real relations. But the relation of active spiration is not opposed to the relations of paternity and filiation so this will not constitute another Person. There are only three relations that are really distinct one from the other.
- St. Thomas used the definition of person given by Boethius. What was this definition?
St. Thomas took as basis for his teaching on the Divine Persons the definition given by Boethius: rationalis naturae individua substantia. In God this definition is perfectly realized for as long as we do not predicate of God the imperfections found in limited creatures like us.
- What are the elements that make up the Covenant that God established with man?
Elements:
Parties: God and Man
Promise: I will be your God and you will be my people
Condition: Circumcision
- What is the starting point of Theology?
Faith
- Under what light do we study Theology?
Reason
- What is the paradigm of the Old Covenant?
Paradigm: Old (filiation), New (Spousal)
- Give a quotation from the Old Testament that tells us we can know God from creatures.
Wisdom 13: 5 For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.
- Give a quotation from the New Testament that says we can know God from creatures.
Rom 1:20-21 Eversince the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
- Give the three most common names used by the Bible to designate God.
Ans: El, Elohim (The Most High), Yahweh (I am who am)
- What does El Shaddai mean?
El is one of the names of God. “Sadday” is found in (Ex 6:3). Etymology is unknown although often translated as omnipotent. Hence, El Shaddai means “God Omnipotent”.
- What does Adonai mean?
Adonai means “Lord”.
- In what biblical passage can we find the name God gave of himself?
In the theophany of the burning bush (Ex 3:1-15) Yahweh reveals his mysterious name: I am who am. (Ex 3:14).
- In Hebrew the name that God gave of himself can be understood in a causative sense. What does this tell us of God?
In Hebrew the verb “to be” can be understood in the causative form (in hiphil). This will mean “to give being”. And so Yahweh would mean “he who gives being”, that is, the Creator.
- Give a quotation from the Bible that says there is only one God.
Deut 6:4
“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
1 Cor 8:4
“There is no God but one.”
- God created the world by speaking. Give a passage to show this.
Psalm 33:6:
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.”
Gen 1:1-3
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters.God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
- Give a passage that says God is holy.
Is 6:3
“…and they were shouting these words to each other: Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth. His glory fills the whole earth.”
- Give a biblical passage from the New Testament that speaks of the omnipotence of God.
Luke 1:37
“For with God nothing will be impossible.”
- Give a passage from the Old Testament that speaks of God having maternal characteristics.
Is 49:15
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
- Give a passage from the Psalms that speaks of God as Father.
Ps 89:26 He shall cry to me: Thou art my Father , my God, and the Rock of my salvation.
- Give proof from the New Testament that God is a merciful Father.
Lk 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus distinguished his filiation to the Father from our filiation.
Jn 20:17: “…I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus affirmed his identity with the Father.
Jn 10:30,38: “I and the Father are one” and “ the Father is in me and I am in the Father”
- What are the hints in the Old Testament for the existence of the Second Person of the Trinity?
Psalm 2:7 You are my Son, I have begotten you this day
- Passage in the New Testament where Jesus claimed to have the power to forgive sins.
Mark 2:10-11 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” then he said to the paralytic “Rise up and take up your pallet…”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be superior to the Temple.
Matthew 12:6: “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
- Passage where Jesus demanded his disciples to give their lives for his sake.
Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
- Passage where the Father gave testimony that Jesus is his Son.
Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.
Matthew 3:17
and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
- Give a passage from St. Paul where he affirmed the divinity of Jesus.
St. Paul’s beginning letter to the Corinthians
1 Cor 1:9
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord
- Passage where Jesus attributed pre-existence to himself.
Jesus warns the unbelieving Jews.
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be the Life and the way to the Father.
Jesus reveals the Father
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
- Passage from Genesis that revealed the Spirit of God.
Six days of Creation and the Sabbath
Gen 1:2
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
- Passage from Isaiah that prophesied the Messiah having the fullness of the Spirit of Yahweh.
Isaiah in this passage talks about a servant, who will Be a Light to the nation.
Is. 42
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him,
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
- Passage where Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth.
Jesus Christ talks about the actions of the Holy Spirit
John 16:13
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
- Passage where the Christians were called temples of the Holy Spirit.
St Paul speaks about the offences to Christ and to the Holy Spirit.
1 Cor 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
- Passage from the Gospels that speak of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Baptism
Matthew 3:16-17.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Ascension
Matthew 28:19
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
- What was Dynamic Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This heresy tried to save the divine Unity by sacrificing the Trinity of Persons. This means Jesus was not God, rather He was just a man endowed with power from God at birth.
- Dynamic Monarchianism teaches that God is the Father, that Jesus is only a man, denied the personal subsistence of the Logos, and taught that the Holy Spirit was a force or presence of God the Father.
- Who started Dynamic Monarchianism?
Theodotus of Byzantium
- What was Modal Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This is also a similar heresy with dynamic monarchianism, meaning, there is only the divine unity and no trinity of persons, except that here Jesus is the mode of existence of the Father, so it was the Father who died on the Cross.
- Modal monarchianism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are just modes of the single person who is God. In other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not simultaneous and separate persons but consecutive modes of one person.
- Who first taught Modal Monarchianism?
Noëtus of Smyrna (Bishop)
- Who extended Modal Monarchianism to the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius
- What was Gnosticism?
It was a hodgepodge of religions and sciences like zoroastrianism and astrology, that tried to explain Christianity. It stated that God gave being to all things by emanation through aeons which are like demiurges. These aeons mixe the principles of good and evil, thus creating everything.
- What was Arianism?
It was the heresy that denied the divine nature and attributes of the second person of the Blessed Trinity. ; It denied that the Son had a divine nature and divine attributes. “There was a time when the Logos did not exist.” Also, that God cannot get into direct contact with matter; That the Logos is subject to change and development. He is united to God only by will. The Logos can be called “God” only metaphorically.
- What was the Ecumenical Council that condemned Arianism? What year?
Ans: Council of Nicaea (period: May to July 325)
- What was the solemn pronouncement about the Son that was made by the Council that condemned Arius?
Ans: A Creed was drawn up on June 19, 325 (Nicene Creed). The Son was declared to be “of the same essence as the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made consubstantial with the Father (όμοουσιος τώ πάτρί) through him all things in heaven and earth are made”.
- What was the Pneutomachian heresy?
Ans: The error of Subordinationism was extended to the Holy Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit was only a ministering spirit. He was just different in rank from the other angels. [After 380, the Pneumatomachi (Comabators against the Spirit) were called Macedonians]
- What Ecumenical Council condemned the Pneumatomachian heresy? What year?
Ans: Council of Constantinople pronounced the official and authoritative condemnation of the Pnematomachian heresy in 381.
- What was the solemn declaration the above mentioned council made about the Holy Spirit?
Ans: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.”
- Who was the ancient philosopher whose ideas about substance, accidents, act, potency, prime mover, and causality was accepted by St. Thomas Aquinas?
Ans: Aristotle
- Who was the philosopher whose ideas about participation in the Ideas was assimilated by St. Thomas?
Ans: St. Augustine
- What was Boethius’ definition of eternity?
Ans: eternity as “interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta posessio” the perfect, total and simultaneous possession of life.
- The city in northern Egypt where a school of theology flourished and where the Hebrew bible was translated into Greek.
Answer: Alexandria
Additional info: Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great. The biblical translation work (from Hebrew to Koine Greek) is known as the Septuagint (LXX).
- The type of exegesis that was adopted by this said school.
Answer: Allegorical interpretation
Additional info: Another type of exegesis is Biblical Literalism adopted by the Antiochene school (Antioch) and Historical Criticism.
- Who was the third successor of St. Peter, considered as an Apostolic Father and in his letter he emphasized the beauty and harmony of creation as coming from the divine mandate?
Answer: Pope Clement I (also known as St. Clement of Rome)
- He is considered also as an Apostolic Father. He was martyred on 22 Feb 156. In the story of his martyrdom he addressed God as Pantocrator and that this God is the Father of Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Polycarp of Smyrna
Additional info: Pantokrator is a compound word formed from the Greek words πᾶν, pan (gen. pantos), i.e. “all” and κράτος, kratos, i.e. “strength”, “might”, “power.” The most common translation of Pantocrator is “Almighty” or “All-powerful”.
- He wrote apologies and the work entitled Dialogue with Trypho where he accepted the same God the Jewish Trypho believed in but he emphasized that this God is the Father of Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Justin (also known as Justin Martyr; c. 100 – 165 AD)
Additional info: The Dialogue with Trypho depicts an intellectual conversation between Justin and Trypho, a Jew (fictional character). The work tries to prove, among other things, that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
- He was a great debater. He wrote Adversus haereses. He taught that God is the Creator and that he revealed himself in Jesus Christ.
Answer: St. Irenaeus (early 2nd century – c. AD 202)
Additional info: St. Irenaeus was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire (now Lyon, France). Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) is the name of a two-volume work against Gnosticism (and other Christian heresies), written about 180 AD.
- He became the head of the school of Alexandria around 216 AD. He was a great exegete using the allegorical method. He taught that the existence of God is a truth we can know by natural reason.
Answer: St. Clement of Alexandria (150-216 A.D.) also known as Titus Flavius Clemens
Additional info: Clement of Alexandria is considered as the first Christian theologian to use allegorical interpretation.
- He was the heretic who identified “being un-engendered” as the essence of God and so he concluded that the Son who is “engendered” cannot be God.
Answer: Eunomius of Cyzicus (died c.393)
Additional info: Eunomius is one of the leaders of the extreme or “anomoean” Arians. He was appointed bishop of Cyzicus in 360 AD.
- They were brothers and they fought the error of the heretic mentioned above.
St. Basil of Caesarea & St. Gregory of Nyssa
- He wasmade the bishop of Constantinople in 397 and was famous for his homilies. He preached five homilies on the Divine Incomprehensibility.
St. John Chrysostom
- What year and where was St. Augustine born?
Year 354, in Thagaste (present day Souk Ahras, Algeria)
- What year and where did St. Augustine die?
He died in 430 when the Vandals at the command of Genseric besieged Hippo.
- In the journey of the mind to God, Augustine distinguished three moments. What are they?
In De vera religione Augustine expounded this journey of the mind to God whose essential moments are three:
° (1) The question about the world. What the inner man thinks, when he admires the changeable beauty of the world, is that this beauty should come from beauty that is immutable.
° (2) Return to your interiority. Man recognizes himself with an act of intuition as a being that exists, thinks and loves. In the inner man lies the truth. Upon entering himself, in the deepest recesses of the soul, man finds the truth and goodness.
° (3) Transcend yourself. Man can therefore rise to God through the way of being, of truth and love. Here is how we pass from the multiple to the one, from the mutable to the immutable, from the partial truths to the absolute and eternal Truth.
- What is Augustine’s Theory of Illumination?
° The exemplary ideas, which are the models or archetypes of all things, are found in the Eternal Word, who is of the same in essence and substance as the Father and the Holy Spirit.
° Because of the simplicity of God, these ideas are not different from God, but they are identical and consubstantial with the divine essence.
° These exemplary ideas are the source of being, the immutable foundation of all mutable realities of the sensible world, and at the same time they are the source of intelligibility of things and the foundation of the certainty of knowledge.
° Therefore, all beings, but in a special way the human soul, are images of God. They are made in accordance with exemplary ideas.
° This exemplarism enables Augustine’s task of rising from self-knowledge to the knowledge of God, even to the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, upon discovering and discerning the imprint of the divine image in man, in his acts of knowing and loving.
° When seeing in man an analogy of the Trinity, man finds the Trinity in his soul: Mens, notitia, amor or memoria, intelligentia, voluntas. When the mind loves there are two things: the mind and its love. When the mind knows there are also two realities: the mind and its knowledge. When the mind knows and loves, the Trinity subsists – mind, knowledge and love – in those three realities, and without mixture or confusion.
- How did Augustine explain evil?
The providence of God was one of the key points of Christian doctrine against the Manichaeans. It was urgent to demonstrate to them that the existence of evil does not contradict the existence of a unique principle of all things, or the goodness of that one principle of all things.
If God is good, where did evil come from? These are the lines of argument:
° (1) From the necessary imperfection of the creature: Either we deny that God has the power to create, or we have to concede that every created being is imperfect and therefore, every created being is vulnerable to evil. However, this vulnerability does not negate the good of the perfections that creatures have. This justifies its creation.
° (2) The limitation of created freedom as the cause of moral evil: Physical evil is a relative evil. Moral evil – sin – is evil in an absolute sense. The limited nature of created freedom which divine providence “respects” is the real cause of the existence of sin. But freedom in itself can be perfect: this is what happens in God. Why, then, was freedom not created completely perfect? St. Augustine would say, following St. Paul, that “God has judged that there is more power and greater perfection in drawing good out of evil, that to prevent evil from existing.”
- What did Augustine consider as evil in the absolute sense?
Moral evil – sin – is evil in an absolute sense.
- To him was attributed a body of writings whose theology dominated teaching and studies from the 4th century even up to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, who quoted many times his De divinis nominbus.
Pseudo-dionysius
More info: Pseudodionysius tackles the question of how do we arrive knowledge of God in three ways: (1) Postitive theology - approaching God from the world of sense, (2) Negative theology - to delete from God everything that pertains to the created world and look only at what is above all creation, and (3) Mystical theology - Man, by closing the eyes of the soul, is immersed in the silence of darkness, and wrapped in a super light that is essentially formless, without figure, without sound and without concept. In this mystical immersion and ecstasy one becomes one with God. In this milieu we find the theology of symbols or symbolic theology: it is the access to God in the darkness of the mystical life, contemplating him through the divine symbols that we find in Sacred Scripture.
- He is considered to have closed the Patristic era in the East. He wrote De fide orthodoxa. He died in 750 AD.
St. John of Damascus
St. John of Damascus repeated the doctrine of St. Gregory Nazianzen: God is neither fully accessible to human knowledge or completely inaccessible. The former has a Scriptural support in the verse, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has mad him known” (Jn 1:18). However, there is no man in whom God has not planted naturally the capacity to know that God exists. Then, created things and also the manifestation of God himself through the law, prophets and Jesus Christ.
- It is the 12th Ecumenical Council convoked in 1215 by Pope Innocent III. This council professed faith in the Trinity explaining the relations of the three divine Persons to one another.
The Fourth Lateran Council
- He was the Abbot whose teachings were condemned by the above mentioned ecumenical council.
Joachim de Fiore
- What was the error of this Abbot?
Joachim accused Peter Lombard of introducing into the Trinity a kind of Quaternity because Lombard said that the divine essence, which is common to the three Persons, was not generans (generating), generata (engendered), or procedens (proceeding).
Joachim thought that the unity of persons in the Trinity was a unity in the species: something like three men who are distinct one from another but share the same human nature. The unity of God is compromised: there is no real unity but simply a collective unity or an analogical unity.
- What specific doctrine did this council (4th Lateran Council) teach in relation to the divine essence and each Person?
The council affirms that the distinctions in the Trinity are in the Persons and the unity is in the nature.” Hence, IV Lateran Council taught that the numerical unity of the divine essence is affirmed. There is identity between the Persons and the divine essence whether they be considered separately or together. There is identity between the divine essence and the Father who engenders. There is identity between the divine essence and the Son who is engendered. There is identity between the divine essence and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Council denied that it is the divine essence that engenders. And so there is no quaternity in God because the essence does not exist separately from the three Persons. The Father does not proceed from an impersonal “divine essence”. The divine essence did not exist prior to the Father.
- It is the 14th Ecumenical Council and was held in 1274. It clarified the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.
Council of Lyons
- It is the 17th Ecumenical Council that was held in 1438 to 1442. It declared that the expression ex Patre Filioque and a Patre per Filium were equivalent.
Council of Florence
- He was a Latin ecclesiastical writer of the second century who already affirmed that to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is the same as saying the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
Tertullian. Tertullian already affirmed that to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son is equivalent to saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
- He was the bishop of Milan who baptized St. Augustine and who also used the term Filioque in the liturgy.
St. Ambrose (Aurelius Ambrosius)
- This was the city in Spain where in 446 the Filioque began to be used in the liturgy to combat Arianism.
Toledo
- In the 5th century, he was the first of the Greek Fathers of the Church to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
St. Cyril of Alexandria
- He was the last of the Greek Fathers of the Church who in his De fidei orthodoxa said the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
St. John Damascene
- He was the Patriarch of Constantinople, who in 867 began to condemn the inclusion of the Filioque in the symbol.
Photius
- What reason did Photius give for the condemnation of the Filioque?
He claimed that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, setting aside even the teachings of the Greek Fathers who said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Photius claimed that operations in the Trinity had as subject either the nature or the Person. One person cannot share such operation with another. Now, spiration belongs to the Father only and so it cannot belong to the Son also. Photius radicalized the divergence in theology between the Greeks and the Latins.
- The Ecumenical Council held in 1870 and which re-affirmed the natural capacity of reason to know God and his attributes.
Vatican I and specifically in the constitution Dei Filius
- The II Vatican Council did not make any new declaration about the Blessed Trinity. But what was the treatment this council made regarding the Trinity?
The Trinity is the center of all Christian doctrine and is presented and related in all the documents of Vatican II. It thus serves as the framework of the Vatican II
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II dealt with Jesus as our Redeemer?
Redemptor Hominis
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II taught about the mercy of God the Father?
Dives in Misericordia, November 30, 1980 (First Sunday of Advent)
- What encyclical of Pope John Paul II taught about the Holy Spirit?
Dominum et Vivificantem, May 18, 1986 (Solemnity of Pentecost)
- St. Anselm wrote two works on the Trinity. What are these?
These works are the: 1) Monologion and 2) Proslogion. For clarification, this question is actually not very precise (Carlo Florendo): There are actually 3 works: Monologion, Proslogion, and “Cur Deus Homo.”
Monologion - God’s existence and divine attributes
Proslogion - Synthesis of the arguments Monologion. The multiple arguments in the Monologion were fused or synthesized in the Proslogion.
Cur Deus Homo - Treatise on the incarnate word
- St. Anselm combated the error of Roscelin. What did Roscelin teach that was erroneous?
Roscelin was regarded as the founder of nominalism. Consistently with his nominalistic doctrines, he held that the genus and species have no substantial unity, – that the union of individuals in the genus or in the species is a mere fabrication of language or at most the work of thought. Roscelin maintained that the distinction of the whole and its parts is also the result of mere mental analysis. Applying this to the Blessed Trinity, he said that the one nature in three divine persons must, he argued, be a universal. Now, the universal has no real existence. Therefore, he concluded, the oneness of the divine nature is not real (tritheism). Roscelin considered the three Divine Persons as three independent beings, like three angels; if usage permitted, he added, it might truly be said that there are three Gods. Otherwise, he continued, God the Father and God the Holy Ghost would have become incarnate with God the Son. To retain the appearance of dogma he admitted that the three Divine Persons had but one will and power.
- What axiom did St. Anselm develop that will be used by the 17th Ecumenical Council and by subsequent theology?
An axiom or a postulate is a truth that is self-evident, and thus, requires no proof. An axiom can usually be used as a starting point for a proof. Thus, Anselm’s argument that God exists is a proof and not an axiom. Thus, this question is probably phrased incorrectly. St. Anselm’s tenet was “fides quaerens intellectum” (faith seeking understanding). Strictly speaking, this is a model or a framework, not an axiom. This model was used subsequently by theology. Another answer: omnia sunt idem ubi non obviat relationis oppositio: in the Trinity everything is the same where there is no opposition of relation.
- Richard of St. Victor had a basic insight about God and his essence. From this insight he deduced the other attributes of God as one and triune. What was this insight?
Richard of St. Victor wrote De Triniate. The major point made by Richard of St. Victor (d. I 173) is that the infinite perfection of God demands that the Godhead be a Trinity of Persons. He starts off with the affirmation that true love is not possible if it is not love directed to another, if it is not self-transcending and self-donating—and this is especially true of infinite love. God being the supreme and absolutely perfect Good must have true and supreme love. For his love to be perfect it must be directed to another of equal dignity, a divine person. Moreover, the fullness of happiness that God as God necessarily enjoys must come from a mutual love, a love that arises from giving and receiving. Thus the total self-donation that is fundamental to true love calls for at least two divine Persons in one God who are eternal and equal. Taking this train of thought one step further, Richard points out that two perfect lovers would want to have a common object of their love, a communication of their love for each other that is itself a person.
- What was the title of Richard’s work about the Trinity?
De Trinitate
- St. Bonaventure devoted much attention to the question of the Trinity. What was his dictum about the Trinity?
St. Bonaventure (c.1217-1274) starts with the insight that God as supreme Goodness is self-diffusing. God is self-sufficient but, because of his primacy of will, he is self-communicating. “The Good is said to be diffusive of itself. Therefore the Most High Good is most highly diffusive of itself,” writes Bonaventure in his Journey of the Mind to God.
- St. Bonaventure found “traces” of the Trinity in the powers of man. In what power of man did he find traces of the Father?
There are many. One is that man can pro-create. (cf. Creation is attributed to God the Father.)
- St. Bonaventure differed from St. Thomas Aquinas regarding what he thought constituted the Persons of the Trinity. Thomas thought the relations constituted the Persons. For Bonaventure what constituted the Persons?
St. Bonaventure thought that the Persons are not constituted by their relations but by their origins. For him between person, relation and property (notions) there is just a distinction of reason. St. Thomas would not agree to this; he said that between person, relation and property there is complete identity though we cannot think that person exists even before his relation. St. Thomas thought that the relations are constitutive of each Person. St. Bonaventure thought they were characteristics of the Persons; these are already constituted by reason of their origins. The relations for him just manifested their properties.
- St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about God one and Triune in his Summa Theologiae. In what part of the Summa can we find his teachings about God one and Triune?
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas about God One and Triune in his Summa Theologiae can be found in the first part.
This is his order of development of the subject the one God:
1) the existence of God,
2) the nature of God,
3) the operations of God,
4) the beatitude of God.
About the Trinity this is his order of development:
1) the divine processions,
2) the divine relations,
3) the divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
-[from Notes of Fr. Ces]
Additional information:
1. De Deo Uno is from Part I Questions 1 to 26
2. De Trinitate is from Part I Questions 27 to 43
- What was the basis for Aquinas’ analogical thought about the Trinity?
At the basis of Aquinas’ teaching about the Trinity is the use of analogy with the intellectual operations of knowledge and love.
- How did Aquinas describe the procession of the Son from the Father?
The first procession is that of the Word who proceeds from the Father secundum emanationem intelligibilem Verbi intelligibilis a dicente, quod manet in ipso (according to the intelligible procession of the intelligible Word of the one who speaks but which remains within him).
- Why did Aquinas think this procession can rightfully be called generation?
When one says that something is generated, the nature of the one who generates resides in the one generated. The procession of the Son is the act of the Father’s knowing himself. In a human person, the knowledge of the self resides in one’s self and is only a logical thought. In God the Father, the knowledge of Himself resides in Him but, unlike human persons, the knowledge is not only a logical thought but a real Person, the Son. The kind of knowledge that the Son is, is the knowledge of the Father, thus, whatever the Father is, the Son is. In other words, the Father and the Son have the same nature. This fits the concept of generation stated earlier.
- According to Aquinas what are the elements of a relation?
The elements of a relation according to Thomas Aquinas are:
a. Subject that is ordered to another
b. A terminus or subject of the reference
c. Basis for the references
- How many relations are there in God and what are these relations?
According to Thomas Aquinas, the following relations are present in God:
a. Paternity – refers to God the Father
b. Filiation – refers to God the Son
c. Passive spiration – refers to God the Holy Spirit [the expressed love as the person]
d. Active spiration - [love being “actively” expressed by the Father and the Son]
- If according to St. Thomas the relations constitute the Persons in the Trinity and there are four relations, then there should be four Persons. Why are there only three?
In God there are four real relations. But the relation of active spiration is not opposed to the relations of paternity and filiation so this will not constitute another Person. There are only three relations that are really distinct one from the other.
- St. Thomas used the definition of person given by Boethius. What was this definition?
St. Thomas took as basis for his teaching on the Divine Persons the definition given by Boethius: rationalis naturae individua substantia. In God this definition is perfectly realized for as long as we do not predicate of God the imperfections found in limited creatures like us.
- What are the elements that make up the Covenant that God established with man?
Elements:
Parties: God and Man
Promise: I will be your God and you will be my people
Condition: Circumcision
- What is the starting point of Theology?
Faith
- Under what light do we study Theology?
Reason
- What is the paradigm of the Old Covenant?
Paradigm: Old (filiation), New (Spousal)
- Give a quotation from the Old Testament that tells us we can know God from creatures.
Wisdom 13: 5 For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.
- Give a quotation from the New Testament that says we can know God from creatures.
Rom 1:20-21 Eversince the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
- Give the three most common names used by the Bible to designate God.
Ans: El, Elohim (The Most High), Yahweh (I am who am)
- What does El Shaddai mean?
El is one of the names of God. “Sadday” is found in (Ex 6:3). Etymology is unknown although often translated as omnipotent. Hence, El Shaddai means “God Omnipotent”.
- What does Adonai mean?
Adonai means “Lord”.
- In what biblical passage can we find the name God gave of himself?
In the theophany of the burning bush (Ex 3:1-15) Yahweh reveals his mysterious name: I am who am. (Ex 3:14).
- In Hebrew the name that God gave of himself can be understood in a causative sense. What does this tell us of God?
In Hebrew the verb “to be” can be understood in the causative form (in hiphil). This will mean “to give being”. And so Yahweh would mean “he who gives being”, that is, the Creator.
- Give a quotation from the Bible that says there is only one God.
Deut 6:4
“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
1 Cor 8:4
“There is no God but one.”
- God created the world by speaking. Give a passage to show this.
Psalm 33:6:
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.”
Gen 1:1-3
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters.God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
- Give a passage that says God is holy.
Is 6:3
“…and they were shouting these words to each other: Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth. His glory fills the whole earth.”
- Give a biblical passage from the New Testament that speaks of the omnipotence of God.
Luke 1:37
“For with God nothing will be impossible.”
- Give a passage from the Old Testament that speaks of God having maternal characteristics.
Is 49:15
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
- Give a passage from the Psalms that speaks of God as Father.
Ps 89:26 He shall cry to me: Thou art my Father , my God, and the Rock of my salvation.
- Give proof from the New Testament that God is a merciful Father.
Lk 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus distinguished his filiation to the Father from our filiation.
Jn 20:17: “…I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”
- Passage from the New Testament where Jesus affirmed his identity with the Father.
Jn 10:30,38: “I and the Father are one” and “ the Father is in me and I am in the Father”
- What are the hints in the Old Testament for the existence of the Second Person of the Trinity?
Psalm 2:7 You are my Son, I have begotten you this day
- Passage in the New Testament where Jesus claimed to have the power to forgive sins.
Mark 2:10-11 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” then he said to the paralytic “Rise up and take up your pallet…”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be superior to the Temple.
Matthew 12:6: “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
- Passage where Jesus demanded his disciples to give their lives for his sake.
Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
- Passage where the Father gave testimony that Jesus is his Son.
Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.
Matthew 3:17
and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
- Give a passage from St. Paul where he affirmed the divinity of Jesus.
St. Paul’s beginning letter to the Corinthians
1 Cor 1:9
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord
- Passage where Jesus attributed pre-existence to himself.
Jesus warns the unbelieving Jews.
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
- Passage where Jesus claimed to be the Life and the way to the Father.
Jesus reveals the Father
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
- Passage from Genesis that revealed the Spirit of God.
Six days of Creation and the Sabbath
Gen 1:2
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
- Passage from Isaiah that prophesied the Messiah having the fullness of the Spirit of Yahweh.
Isaiah in this passage talks about a servant, who will Be a Light to the nation.
Is. 42
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him,
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
- Passage where Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth.
Jesus Christ talks about the actions of the Holy Spirit
John 16:13
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
- Passage where the Christians were called temples of the Holy Spirit.
St Paul speaks about the offences to Christ and to the Holy Spirit.
1 Cor 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
- Passage from the Gospels that speak of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Baptism
Matthew 3:16-17.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Ascension
Matthew 28:19
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
- What was Dynamic Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This heresy tried to save the divine Unity by sacrificing the Trinity of Persons. This means Jesus was not God, rather He was just a man endowed with power from God at birth.
- Dynamic Monarchianism teaches that God is the Father, that Jesus is only a man, denied the personal subsistence of the Logos, and taught that the Holy Spirit was a force or presence of God the Father.
- Who started Dynamic Monarchianism?
Theodotus of Byzantium
- What was Modal Monarchianism?
Possible answers:
- This is also a similar heresy with dynamic monarchianism, meaning, there is only the divine unity and no trinity of persons, except that here Jesus is the mode of existence of the Father, so it was the Father who died on the Cross.
- Modal monarchianism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are just modes of the single person who is God. In other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not simultaneous and separate persons but consecutive modes of one person.
- Who first taught Modal Monarchianism?
Noëtus of Smyrna (Bishop)
- Who extended Modal Monarchianism to the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius
- What was Gnosticism?
It was a hodgepodge of religions and sciences like zoroastrianism and astrology, that tried to explain Christianity. It stated that God gave being to all things by emanation through aeons which are like demiurges. These aeons mixe the principles of good and evil, thus creating everything.
- What was Arianism?
It was the heresy that denied the divine nature and attributes of the second person of the Blessed Trinity. ; It denied that the Son had a divine nature and divine attributes. “There was a time when the Logos did not exist.” Also, that God cannot get into direct contact with matter; That the Logos is subject to change and development. He is united to God only by will. The Logos can be called “God” only metaphorically.
