The Trinity & the incarnation

Question 1

catholic beliefs about the trinity

Answer 1

• believe in one single god, who made himself known to the world (revelation) as three separate persons: God the father, God the son, God the Holy Spirit. known as doctrine of the trinity and is a fundamental belief for all catholics
• trinity is a mystery which means that catholics can never fully understand this idea. this belief is found clearly in the nicene creed. “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty….We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God….We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life” . importance of this is shown through prayer as catholics make the sign if the cross which is trinitarian. bible doesn’t mention the Trinity directly but the concept is shown in the stories such as Jesus’ baptism and in John’s Gospel. St Augustine helped describe the Trinity using the analogy of of love (lover, loved, and love itself). “There are three things in love…love is of someone that loves, and with love something that is loved. Behold,then,there are three things: he that loves, and that which is loved and love”

Question 2

jewish beliefs about the trinity

Answer 2

• don’t accept any belief in the trinity as they don’t accept jesus as the son of god
• different qualities of God such as ‘lawgiver’, ‘judge’ and ‘creator’ but these are only characteristics of the one God. these attributes of God are nit separate persons but just the different ways in which human beings experience God
• Orthodox Jews may argue that the belief in the Trinity challenges the first commandment “You shall have no gods before me”. A belief in the Trinity would break the covenant that God made with Abraham and Moses

Question 3

catholic belief in the incarnation

Answer 3

• believe that jesus is God the Son. God became a human being through the person of jesus. It is called the ‘incarnation’ because God became human ‘in the flesh’ in the person of jesus.
• when catholics call jesus ‘Son of God’ they mean that he is God who became a human being;that he is the ‘incarnate son’
• catholics also believe that jesus is ‘fully God and fully human’. Catholics believe that Jesus is one person, with two natures: one human nature and one divine (which means ‘godly’)
• Gospel of John highlights that God became human and lived in the world. Gospel of John highlights that God became human and lived in the world. “The word became flesh and made its dwelling among us”
• St Paul wrote the kenosis hymn. Kenosis means ‘empty’ and shows that God gave up his power to become human in Jesus and shows that God gave up his power to become human in Jesus. “Who, being in very nature God….made himself nothing”

Question 4

Jewish beliefs about the incarnation

Answer 4

• don’t accept that Jesus was God as this challenges their basic belief that God is one
• belief stated in the Shema, which is a very important prayer for Jews. It also stated in the Ten commandments which were given to Moses on Mt Sinai: “You shall have no other Gods before me”
• the jewish patriarch, abrahamic taught the early jews that they were to believe in one god only as part of the covenant (promise/agreement) made with god
• orthodox jews reject beliefs about incarnation due to their beliefs about the messiah. jews reject belief that jesus is the messiah because they believe the messiah will be a human descendant of King David