Chapter 2

Monotheism

Christian Perspective

(Monos meaning "only" or "one"; Theos meaning "God")

Christians believe that there is only one God:

"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone."
(Deut.6: 4)

"I am the first and I am the last, there is no God but me." (Is.44: 6)

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1. The Activity of God in Our World

Creation: Many Christians are more aware these days that the Bible was written mainly in Hebrew or Greek and its "text type" was not that of scientific or historical writing. Some Christians still have a more literal approach to the scriptures but many look towards the intent of the author and the religious truth intended to be conveyed. Therefore many Christians, including Catholics, do not have to accept that creation happened in seven days. It is possible for Christians to take scientific discoveries seriously, for example theories of evolution, and to accept these discoveries, provided that Christians never cease to believe that God is the creator and source of all life and that human beings have a dimension other than the physical.

"Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out. Who spread out the earth with its crops, who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people." (Is.42: 5-6a, see also Is.43: 10-13)

History: The Hebrew people, reflecting on their experience of the Exodus, their exile in Babylon, and other life experiences, also believed that this Lord of Creation was Lord of History, that is, that God acts in history.

"But I will make the Egyptians so obstinate that they will go in after them. Then I will receive glory through Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots and charioteers. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." (Ex.14: 17-18a)

While people often ask why does God not step in to prevent disasters, the Bible also suggests, that God's way of acting in history is through people's hearts. Christians also believe that God has given us free will and wants us to respond freely to his movement in our hearts:

"I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that means life to you." (Deut.30: 19b-20a)

God respects the free choices we make, even when such choices led to the death of Jesus. However, the just person is the one who trusts God to act, even in the face of death. For Christians, Jesus trusted in God:

"Jesus cried out in a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"; and when he had said this he breathed his last." (Lk.23: 46)

For the Christian, believing in the Resurrection of Jesus means also believing that God will never allow evil to have the last word in our world.

Jesus: As well as being active and known in our world through creation and history, God is particularly active and known through his prophets and in a unique way through Jesus. The prophets spoke God's word to people. Jesus came teaching the Word of God. For Christians, however, Jesus so perfectly lived the message he preached, that his whole being was identified with the Word of God that he taught. Jesus in his own person is believed to be the Word of God, the definitive and most perfect expression of God's Word to us.

People: God is also known through and active in every human being. Every human being is called to participate with God in the stewardship of creation:

"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them rule over the works of your hand." (Ps.8: 3-6a; See also Ps.139: 13-16)

The disciple is one who is attuned to the mind and heart of God:

"Being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing." (Phil.2: 2,4)

For:

"God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him." (1Jn.4: 16)

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2. The Nature of God

From God's activity in our world, we learn that God is:

Wise, powerful, holy:

"How varied are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures." (Ps.104: 24)

"He... who made the earth by his power, and established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his skill." (Jer.51: 15)

"Keep yourselves holy, because I am holy." (Lev.11: 44; cf. 1Pet.1: 16)

"With him are wisdom and strength; his are counsel and understanding... with him are strength and prudence." (Job 12: 13, 16)

"Yet he saved them for his name's sake, to make his power known." (Ps.106: 8)

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!" (Rom.11: 33)

A Just God

"The Lord is trustworthy in every word, and faithful in every work. The Lord supports all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. ...You, Lord, are just in all your ways, faithful in all your works. You, Lord, are near to all who call upon you, to all who call upon you in truth." (Ps.145: 13-18)

The justice of God is especially experienced by the poor, the broken-hearted, the widow, the stranger and the orphan:

"I will draw near to you for judgment, and I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, those who defraud the hired man of his wages, Against those who defraud widows and orphans, those who turn aside the stranger, and those who do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts." (Mal.3: 5; See also Ex.23: 9; Dt.24:14, Jer.20: 20; Zech.7: 10)

"The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, stronghold in times of trouble. Those who honor your name trust in you; you never forsake those who seek you, Lord." (Ps.9: 9-10)

God can therefore be angry on behalf of his people when they are oppressed and afflicted (Ps.90: 7-8; Is.30:27).

Forgiving, tender mercy and compassion

Although the anger of God can flare, the Bible also depicts God as being slow to anger and his anger lasting but a moment:

"For divine anger lasts but a moment; divine favor lasts a life time." (Ps.30: 5a)

"The Lord is slow to anger, and rich in kindness, forgiving wickedness and crime." (Num.14: 18a)

"How could I give you up, O Ephraim, or deliver you up, ...My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again; For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you, I will not let the flames consume you." (Hos.11: 8-9)

"The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to all, compassionate to every creature." (Ps.145: 8-9)

Jesus taught that we are to be merciful just as our God our Father is merciful (Lk.6: 36). Jesus told many parables about a God of forgiveness, a God "ruled by the heart rather than the head" so to speak, e.g. the Prodigal Son and the lost sheep. Jesus commanded his disciples to forgive seventy times seven (Mt.18: 22), that is, infinitely.

For Christians, the supreme expression of God's compassion and mercy is seen in Jesus. Before Jesus, the people of Israel constantly failed in their living of God's law. God forever was faithful in his forgiveness and mercy. Jesus came, and as one of us, lived the law of God perfectly. In so doing, humanity's dignity and honour was restored (redeemed) and, as Christians, we believe that we share in what Jesus did. This for us is God's gift to us (Rom.6:23). St Paul says:

"But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Rom.5: 8)

For Christians, the infinite mercy of God is an expression of the love of God and "we love because he first loved us" (1 Jn.4: 19).

Infinitely Loving

Christians believe that God makes the first move in establishing a relationship of love with humanity and creation. We are to love one another because God loved us first. We do not earn the love of God. We respond to that love given to us first. That love is infinite:

"With age-old love I have loved you; so I have kept my mercy toward you." (Jer.31: 3)

"For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior... you are precious in my eyes, and glorious, and because I love you..." (Is.43: 3-4)

"Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you." (Is.54: 10)

Hence the greatest commandment that we have is to love:

"One of the scribes... asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

(Mk.12: 28-31)


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3. What of Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Is this not three Gods (Tritheism)?

After Jesus' death some women and the apostles found Jesus' tomb to be empty and experienced Jesus as alive and with them in a unique, profound and unprecedented way. This presence of Jesus they experienced cut across known human limitations of space and time:

"On the evening on that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'" (Jn.20: 19)

They expressed this experience as Jesus having been raised from the dead. This way of presence of Jesus continued for some time, after which Jesus returned to his Father (Ascension) and sent his Spirit (Pentecost), so that the followers continued to experience the presence of Jesus among them through his Spirit with them.

From this experience of the continuing presence of Jesus with them, through His Spirit, they reflected on his earthly life amongst them and told that story (the Gospels). They tried to capture the meaning of his life, the significance of what he said and did, through titles such as Son of God, Lord, the Christ (the anointed one). As time went by and they reflected more and more on the life of Jesus, they came to see deeper and richer meanings in the titles they gave to Jesus. When they considered what Jesus did and the significance of his death and resurrection for them, they asked: well if this is what he did and its significance, who is He? They came to claim that he was God, that he came from God, was truly "begotten" by God.

And so began some centuries of debate and theological reflection. How can Jesus be God—there is only one God? How can one person be both human and divine? They reflected on these questions using the tools of ancient philosophy—not particularly helpful to us in the 21st century. There were theories and counter theories. It was complex. The Council of Nicaea (Isnik) in 325 declared that Jesus was of the same "substance" as the Father. The Council of Chalcedon in 425 declared that Jesus was perfectly human and perfectly divine. The Spirit was also declared to be of the same "substance" as the Father and Son.

The early Christian writers struggled to express the affirmation that God is one together with their experience of personal relating to God as three persons, as:

  • Father who creates and sustains life, who is the source of all being;
  • Son who lived as one of us on earth, who showed so perfectly in his humanity who God is for us, that he is known as God's Word, God's expression of the being of God to us. This expression of who God is reveals a God so infinitely loving that there is no limit to the love God has for his creation, not even the death of his Son. In the self-surrender of Jesus to be the fullest and most perfect expression of God's love for us, the dignity of what it means to be authentically and fully human was also manifested.
  • Spirit in the love of God still among us, as the source of our unity, courage, truth and love. Some started with the unity of God and showed distinction through relations. God begets the Son and the Spirit is the bond of unity or the love between them. Others started the other way around.

Suffice to say, that for Christians, our one God, is a God, whose very being is one of relationship. The unity of the three persons, Father, Son and Spirit, is a being in, with and for the other. God is a "being-in-relation". Christians believe that humanity is created in the image of God:

"So God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him, male and female he created them." (Gen.1:27)

St Paul says "in him we live and move and have our being."(Acts 17:28a). We know from our own experience that we are most authentically human and alive when we are in right relationship with others. For the Christian this stems from the fact that we are made in the image of God, whose very nature is to be in relationship. However, the mutuality of relationship that exists in God is one of perfect unity.

Thus God is one.

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References