.png)
Come and See: A Graduate Level Course in Theology
A 3-year long course designed to give listeners a graduate level education in the theology of the Catholic Church.
Come and See: A Graduate Level Course in Theology
Class 15: The Trinity
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Good morning. Please per turn to page 165. There's that beautiful prayer to the Holy Spirit.
unknownSt.
SPEAKER_02Augustine talks about, you know, for the preaching to have any impact, the Holy Spirit has to be in me and in you. Same thing for teaching. So page 165. Does it have a title? Prayer to the Holy Spirit in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We'll pray together. Grant us the gift of understanding to perfect our perception of the mysteries of faith. Grant us the gift of wisdom, the fruit of perfect charity, to improve our loving knowledge of God and all that leads to and comes from Him. Grant us the gift of knowledge to make us understand properly what created things are and what they ought to be according to the divine plan of creation and elevation to the supernatural order. Grant us the gift of counsel, so that by correctly judging God's will at every moment and for each person we may be able to advise others. Grant us the gift of fear, which by making us detest all sin will impress upon our hearts a spirit of adoration and a profound and sincere humility. Grant us the gift of fortitude to make us steadfast in the faith, constant in struggle, and faithful in our perseverance. Grant us the gift of piety to teach us the meaning of our divine filiation, the joyful supernatural awareness of being children of God, and in Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters of all mankind. Saint Louis, pray for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So today we begin chapter three. Let's find that page number. So page 56, if you have your books. Are there any parents of a first grader or second grader here today? Make sure you check in if you needed to be on the look.
unknownOkay, very good.
SPEAKER_02So page 56, as you see, the chapter is entitled The Nature of God, the Blessed Trinity. And when I first saw that that was our topic for today, I thought, oh, that sounds so kind of vague and kind of familiar. How interesting could this be? Talking about the Trinity. And then in our Band of Brothers session this morning, someone made the comment that, you know, when someone's going through a difficult time, a good question to ask that person is what are you doing to go outside of yourself? Someone's dealing with, could be depression, someone's dealing with the loss of a job, someone's dealing with family conflict, someone's dealing with financial crisis, someone's dealing with whatever kind of disappointment, but they seem to be kind of in a rut, or maybe they just feel like their life doesn't have purpose or just kind of lacking meaning. It might sound like it's a harsh question. Okay, sorry for what you're going through, but I do have one question for you. What are you doing in this time? In your life right now, what are you doing that takes you outside of yourself? If the answer is nothing, that is part of the problem, or that's part of the unhappiness. And we'll come back to that because we are made in the image of God who is a trinity. It doesn't stay up there in the clouds, this supernatural, mysterious thing. It has serious and direct and significant implications for who we are, because if we're made in the image of God who is a trinity, that's different than being made in the image of God who is not. Right? That's different. And we'll see about that. So first I want to ask you: did we know about the Trinity in the Old Testament? No. There's some really subtle hints there, but you've got to kind of really look for them, which we'll look at here today. When did we know that God was a father who had a son?
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_02When Jesus says, I and the Father are one. When did we really know about the Holy Spirit?
unknownPentecost.
SPEAKER_02Pentecost for sure, right? Without doubt. He was experienced as a person. The baptism of the Lord, I would guess, because to some degree, you know, the Father speaks. This is my beloved son, and John the Baptist talks about the one you see the spirit descend upon. So I'm guessing a small circle, maybe the apostles, maybe some of the followers of John, like maybe the word was starting to get out. There is a Holy Spirit, too. Yeah. About you mean with regard to the Holy Spirit? There's the enunciation as well, right? So I would say maybe Mary has a sense. It's certainly like it's it's kind of unfolding, right? Certain events. And then Jesus teaches, right? He says, I will send you another advocate, the spirit, right? The spirit of truth, right? So Jesus does name the Holy Spirit. But you you get the idea, right? That Old Testament, really pretty, not revealed yet. The life of Jesus, step by step, and then Pentecost in a big way. They receive the Spirit. Yeah.
unknownProverbs, I don't know. You might know this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
unknownProverbs is along who is his son. I think that's like Proverbs. I don't know if it's in 30 or something. It has 30, it's in 30.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, no, there is uh in Proverbs a talk. I'm not gonna remember the language exactly, but um uh and interesting enough, I'm sorry, I can't remember the line exactly but who is his son as a well actually I was gonna talk about the spirit actually. There could be that too, I wouldn't doubt it. But there actually is in Proverbs, I'm not remembering the exact language, but it's it's it speaks about a feminine presence of wisdom, and that's a certain prefiguring of the Holy Spirit, which is interesting, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The rua, the spirit hovered over the waters, bringing order to the chaos. So these there are some hints. You're absolutely right, yeah. Um, so there are hints for sure, but as far as the actual Trinity, three persons, one God, that is um even for the church, right? That'll take time to work out like Father, Son, Spirit, you know. Well, for sure, though, Matthew, see if anybody knows this passage. Matthew 28, 19. Does anybody know what that passage is? It's a really important passage. You all know it, you just don't know the name or the numbers, maybe. Matthew 4. Matthew 28, 19.
unknownGo therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.
SPEAKER_02Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus ascends, before Jesus ascends, he gives them that what we call the Great Commission. So certainly there it's definitive. There's a father, there's a son, there's a Holy Spirit. Well, let's take a look at this. So um on page 57, look at that quote from the Catechism, paragraph 234. I'm gonna read it just because I'm told lots of people listen to our recordings of classes. So if you read it, I'd have to repeat it for people to hear. So I prefer for you to read things, but you get it. Okay. So I'm gonna read this paragraph, paragraph 234, which is on page 57 in our textbook. The mystery of the most holy trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith. The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin. First line there again. The mystery of the most holy trinity is the central mystery. So you might want to think about it this way you throw a rock into a pool, right, and ripples go out from that central, you know, concentric circles, right? So the Trinity is the one in the middle. So everything that we know and believe about God flows from or radiates out from that central mystery, or use the phrase here, hierarchy of the truths of faith. So um God is merciful as a truth of faith. That's not in the center, the Trinity is in the center. Jesus is the Savior, pretty important truth, but it's not even the central one. The central one is that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Um, Mary is the mother of Jesus, pretty important truth of faith, but it's not in the center. Absolutely in the center is God is a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, one God. So just to have a sense of just how important this is. The other, the two great truths of our faith are the Trinity and the Incarnation. Like those two are just I get I don't know how you keep the analogy going, but um I guess the first ripple out, maybe you might say, after you got the Trinity, the next ripple right outside of that is that Jesus is God made man, right? So the the incarnation. Um so we all know that it's the it's a mystery, which means we cannot completely understand it. But mysteries don't mean that we can't understand them to some degree, right? So that's that's why it's worth our effort to delve into it and see what what revelation gives us and what our human minds are able to um to grasp. But to keep you humble, I'm not gonna remember the exact language, but it's something like this that um what we're able to not, what what we don't know about God is much more than what we do know. I I didn't say that very art you know in a very eloquent way, but you know what I'm trying to say, right? That that keeps us humble always. So that's why we got to go to heaven to find out like the rest of the story. But nevertheless, so this central mystery of our faith is fundamental, and um we are called to use our mind. But love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, you know, strength, etc. So we use our mind to the best um to the furthest um extent that we can. Excuse me, sorry. Um turn the page here. Not to go through this in detail because we said it briefly that the old testament really just uh reveals to us that there is one God as opposed to many gods, right? Because in the Old Testament, idols, right? So that that seeking after God, he reveals himself, Abraham, Moses, etc., the one God, the God of Israel. And the passage there at the bottom, which has that um from Deuteronomy, which pious Jews would repeat throughout the day, that's that's almost like our like our our father. This would be like for the Jews, like almost like their our father, a daily prayer, what's called the Shema, right? Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Deuteronomy 6, 4 to 9. Turn to the next page, 59. I learned something I didn't know. I'm not sure how I missed this in scripture class, but you've heard that name. There's different names for God in the Old Testament, right? But one of the names you hear is um Yahweh. So Y H W H. Um, that's you know, when God reveals Himself to Moses. Well, who do I say that you are, God? I am who am. This book tells me, I'm assuming it's true, that the letters Y H W H in Hebrew are the um, as it says right here, an acronym of the four Hebrew words. I didn't know that. I know that Hebrew doesn't have vowels, like it's just consonants, and there's somehow the vowels come a different way. But in any case, um God clearly revealing himself as the one God. There are not multiple, there is one creator, one uh source of all being. And that I am who am is actually a very philosophical kind of name, right? It's kind of mysterious. What's your name? I am who am. Okay, yeah. Um it's like you walk in a room like, hey, what's your name? Uh the person who is a person. Okay, yeah. So it's it's almost philosophical. It's very interesting, right? Of course, philosophy will play a role later in helping us to kind of dissect and have a deeper understanding of who God is. Now I do want to go to this next part. I think the next two parts are really interesting for us. So, how the Trinity is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. There are some very meaningful passages there which do. You know, God loves to do that, right? God loves to reveal Himself gradually, step by step, with hints, right? It makes, by giving us hints, what is he doing? He's making us seek, right? Seek and you shall find. He loves for us to not just, he doesn't want to just, you know, show up, here it is, here's the full story, right now, you know, let's just get it over with. He's all about a relationship of us seeking and him sort of almost sometimes hiding, right? And not revealing himself completely. So you mentioned this, right? In Genesis. So I'm gonna read that first on page 16. In quote, our image. In Genesis, God declared, let us make man in our image. It didn't say my image. You would think, well, let me make man in my image, right? The one God. Rather, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Some of the church fathers and early theologians, including Saints Irenaeus, Saint Justin Martyr, and St. Barnabas, held that by speaking the plural, God foreshadowed the revelation of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Trinity. Nowhere else in Scripture, however, does God refer to Himself in the plural. And so the meaning of this passage remains something of an enigma. Okay. As you might have gotten a sense as we go through this class, have you noticed that the church doesn't say, this is the only way to interpret this passage? Have you noticed that? That's almost never stated. There's almost never like this is the only permitted interpretation of this particular passage. That's how scripture is. It is dynamic, it is alive, it's the word of God, living and effective, as Hebrew says. And so many interpretations are acceptable within the whole of our faith. Just so you know, so theologians and scripture scholars can disagree. So we are, or in other words, we are perfectly within our rights to see a prefigurement of the Trinity in that let us make man in our image. Scripture scholars next year might figure out why it was in the plural and it didn't have that direct intention. Scripture study, by the way, scripture study and analysis, it's like archaeology. It keeps going and going, like other layers and other layers. Really neat. Okay, next is God as a family. As Christians, we understand God as a trinity, a family of persons. The father loves the son, and the son returns that love. The fruit of that love is the life-giving spirit who proceeds from the Father through the Son. In Genesis, we read that God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. The human family is an image of the divine family. Well, that's kind of on the level of natural revelation, right? Father, son, child. Father, mother, child. That's kind of a neat analogy, you might say. There's almost an analogy for the Trinity in our own human life. And in fact, I'm going to tell you something really interesting. 80%, this is interesting research done and it's been confirmed over and over again. 80% of the people who are in the pews today in a church, whichever denomination, whichever Christian denomination, 80% of people who are in a pew today, on Sunday, grew up in a family with both parents present. Obviously, 20% didn't, right? It's not the only way that faith happens, obviously. But that's a pretty amazing correlation, right? I think it's a correlation because mom, dad, children together is just such a natural image of the Trinity. You believe in God because you experience God sort of indirectly just by being in a family. Doesn't mean it was a perfect family. Doesn't mean mom and dad were just amazing. And in fact, they may not have even had any faith. It's not about religious practice, it's just experiencing on the natural level a community of persons. Do you see that? What is a family on a natural level? It's a community of persons. And I don't know why, but Levi is here today. And I don't know why. We'll figure it out as we go through what he has to do with the Trinity. I'm sure he has something to do with it. I don't know what it is yet. But I just decided he was going to come today. Okay. So on a natural level, like the book is saying, a community of persons is kind of a reflection of God Himself, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think it's pretty significant that sociological research finds that attending a church that believes in the Trinity, 80% of those people grew up in a family that had like an image of the Trinity, whether they realize it or not. And again, not to discourage the 20%. If you're in the 20%, well, that's God's grace. Awesome, right? God is not limited by mere natural things, right? Next sort of preview or prefigurement. Abraham and the three visitors. Later in the book of Genesis, Abraham received a mysterious visit from three men, one of whom we know is God. Some have viewed these three men as representative of God as Trinity, and the image is especially common in Eastern Christian iconography. You've seen this icon before. If you don't know it, you'll it's it's uh very commonly um common image you've seen before. In fact, it's too bad it's not like on one of these pages because you would recognize it. But in any case, that's not a lot of hints, though, right? That's not a lot of hints in the Old Testament. He's keeping it pretty hidden. I would say that means that the real um need of God's people or the need of humanity was to know that there is one God, one creator God, right? Um comment your thoughts about that. First, just sort of discussion there.
unknownIn Genesis early before sin. God walked with Adam in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_02The cool of the day, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So that is the day tell me that, yeah. Because he doesn't have any sin, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So what was that like? Like what was he seeing, you mean? That's a great question. I don't know. What the question Brian has is a great question for all of us. If God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, what did Adam and Eve experience of God? They had this intimate union with God, he wasn't hidden from them. I don't know. That's a great question. Was there a sense of a communion of persons?
SPEAKER_05They can see it because they don't have we can't see it because they're not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. That's interesting. That's a great question. What was their experience of the Trinity in the Garden of Eden? I'm sure somebody's written an article.
SPEAKER_03Understanding what he did because they had to use their wills to choose him to look at they when they were tested, they failed. So they didn't receive the information like angels that were saved before memory. So it would be something less than that, right? It would be kind of like it wasn't heaven.
SPEAKER_02It wasn't heaven.
SPEAKER_03It's not going to have been because yeah, they they didn't choose rightly, so they weren't given, they didn't pass the test, and God doesn't allow if you're not united with any will, then that's not heaven. It's a great question. I don't know, yeah, I don't have a better answer for what it was exactly, but it's a good question because it's something that we wouldn't have a concept of how we experience God here on earth in general.
SPEAKER_02And remember this, right? So the Father, Son, and Spirit are spirit, invisible. It is only Jesus who makes God visible to the eye, right? So it must have been something at the level of the soul, their Adam and Eve, right? Their knowledge of God was something, I'm using the word mystical, not physical. And also to mention this a little ahead of our conversation, when we say that God the Father, Son, and Spirit always exist, the Son in his divinity, right, the Son and His humanity does not yet exist until the Annunciation, right? So the Son takes on the human nature in time, but the Son always exists. So the Father and the Son and the Spirit always exist. But I think it's a great insight that it was less than heaven, and so maybe it was just a sense of the one creator, God, as opposed to a communion of persons. But I don't know the answer. It's a great question. You're gonna say yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they would at least be able to coherently understand on an intellectual level because they hadn't sinned, so they hadn't dulled their intellects yet, so they would be able to kind of like how the angels initially saw God, but then before they were damned or before they were beatified. Then they would they have an intellectual understanding of who God is. Insofar as he's just a real child on a limited level. Because he doesn't allow that to happen to show me that.
SPEAKER_04They knew that there was something more that they didn't understand about it. And the word that is jumping into my head is Mishnah, but I don't know if that's the right word, uh the right Hebrew word for describing that.
SPEAKER_02But do is that something you're doing? Yeah, if I remember correctly, um, so there's you know, there's the Hebrew, there's the Talmud, there's the um the Torah, and the Mishnah is like, if I remember correctly, is like probably percent like commentaries and like wise sayings and things like that. So there was a sense of the more mystery to God than what we're something we don't sense, yeah. It was more of that feminine quality in that um thing. But just to kind of give them a little credit that they're well done. We don't want to deny those who are making advanced. Yes. A hundred years ago when I was in junior seminary, I was the reason why that really shadows is precisely because the reasons for the polytheism.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02It would have been confusing. Yeah. That's a great insight, thank you. So get getting the clarity about the one God, you know, take your time with that for a couple thousand years. Let's not rush the project. Let's get that really established. There's one God. Okay. And then once the incarnation comes, yeah, that's a great, great, great, that makes a lot of sense just on a human level, right? That um they didn't have the internet, right? So things had to take their time. So let's get it really well known that there's one God, the chosen people, the one God, to then prepare us for the full revealing of the one God as three persons. Yeah, that's that's a that's a makes a lot of sense, I think. Yeah. Now let's look in the New Testament. After a couple thousand years of getting the word out about the one God, that one God is actually mysteriously three persons. And I want to make a quick comment first. We are used to counting, because it's how we are, each person, one nature, right? So you have one nature and one person, but like they occur in that in that pairing. With God, it gets other um other um, it could it's not limited to that, what I just said. So each one of us is a single person, and we have a single nature, a human nature. And God, it's one nature, one divinity. I mean, there's a one divine nature, but three persons have it. So that blows out of the water this one-to-one relationship, right? One human, one human nature, one person, one human nature, one divine nature, and three persons have it. So that just goes beyond our capacity to understand. And then, of course, with Jesus, one person, two natures. All the math gets messed up, right? So there's a lot. In fact, think about that. The two central myths, well, the central mysticular trinity, and then the next one right after that, the incarnation, mess up the math. They both mess up the math on one person has one nature. So again, one nature being divine, but three persons have it, Father, Son, and Spirit, all equally possessing the divine nature. That's obviously beyond our mind's ability to understand, to we take it on faith the way it's revealed to us. And then with Jesus, similarly, one person, but he has two natures, right? So the math gets messed up there as well.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02So looking at the passages, I hope you're getting a sense, by the way, as we do this, this theology class. Are you seeing, and I think that Father Thompson treated this topic over the past class or two, scripture, tradition, and magisterium, right? So there's three legs of the stool. Scripture, tradition, magisterium. Scripture, we're quoting scripture throughout as we try to figure things out. Tradition, just meaning what's handed on, which is a lot of things. And then magisterium is official declarations by the hierarchy of the church, bishops and popes, mostly popes and bishops, um, formal statements about belief. So you're I think you're noticing it's like we were mentioning just now the fathers of the church, what they thought. We're looking at scripture, we'll look at you know the catechism is a formal declaration. So there's all these interweaving of the three legs of the stool, and we're always relying on all three. So here we are looking again at what scripture can teach us about or show us when it's really now being revealed. So I think if somebody mentioned this, right? So the Annunciation. So I'll read there on page 61 at the Annunciation. When the blessed Virgin Mary was asked to bear the Christ child, the angel told her the Holy Spirit. So she heard the words. By the way, I want to this neat thing to know. Luke, which is where you have a lot of the um um um scriptures about the annunciation, um, the birth of Jesus, etc. Scripture scholars have analyzed the gospel of Luke, and there's a lot of what they call Hebraisms, meaning like Hebrew phrasing, obviously translated into Greek, but when you translate the Greek back into Hebrew, they're able to see, oh, we could tell that phrase came from Hebrew. That's what the experts are able to do. My point being that, please understand that um Luke probably just talked to Mary and she just told him what happened. See what I'm saying? Because they would have been contemporaneous. So, Luke being an assistant of St. Paul. So, anyway, so when the blessed Virgin Mary was asked to bear the Christ child, the angel told her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy the Son of God. In other words, God the Holy Spirit, through the power of God the Father, would incarnate Jesus Christ, God the Son, and the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So that is a very um significant moment of revelation. And to whom is it first revealed? To Mary, right? Kind of beautiful to think about her being the first one to hear really the naming of the Trinity, an experience of the Trinity in that mystical event. At the baptism of the Lord, next year, quote, when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. The baptism of the Lord is described, I'm pretty sure it's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three. So, gee, how would they have known? Like it says here, he saw the Spirit of God. How do we know that he saw the Spirit of God? Well, he had to tell somebody, right? I'm sure that was a big event. If you don't know this, but when when when someone is is described as being an apostle, um if you were there from the time of the baptism forward, like that's considered a very significant thing to have been present for, right? Because that's when his public ministry begins. So being present because you were following John the Baptist, that's how you would have been present, right? Because you're following John the Baptist, and that's how you got led to Jesus. So in any case, how would they have known that he saw the Spirit of He'd have to tell them, right? So you can imagine that he would have shared with the apostles what happened that day. It's a very important event in his life as Savior. You can imagine. If you've seen the chosen, you know they have conversations, right? Beyond what you see in the scriptures, right? These guys were there together for three years. They talked about a lot of things more than what's recorded in the scriptures. Um there's another presentation of the Trinity. Okay. Turn the page to page 62. In Christ's promise of the Holy Spirit, he's he talked about it. I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. But the counselor of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So as he gets to the end of his third year, he talks more and more about the Holy Spirit, right? Um, so that's explicit. There's no subtlety there. He's naming the Holy Spirit, speaking about who he is, what he will do in the life of the apostles. And then here we are, the Great Commission. So if you want to learn a passage today, be a good one to learn. Matthew 28, 19. There's no other way except to keep repeating the numbers. Matthew 28, 19. Christ explicitly directed his apostles, 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. So that's kind of interesting, right? That's one of the last lines of the Gospel of Matthew. So it's like the whole Gospel of Matthew leads up to the fullest declaration, the final teaching of Jesus, I am, or God is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Comments or thoughts about the New Testament passages there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the fact that we're going to say I'm reading this one. Uh is in uh nowhere else in the country, however, uh become like one of us.
SPEAKER_02And then Oh, you're right, in Genesis, right, right. Yeah, when Adam and Eve fall, yeah.
unknownAnd then like the Trinity, like I'm always asked this question.
SPEAKER_00So I'm not a new Catholic, I just come back to I was raised by six dozen out of one, right?
SPEAKER_02My mom was a nun karma like that. You were raised by six nuns in Nicaragua. Alright, that's intense, man.
SPEAKER_00Uh I uh I'm always asked this question.
SPEAKER_02We're ready, let's hear it again. Yeah. So well did the nuns answer?
SPEAKER_00If they did, I don't remember. All right. You know how it says it how the apostles preached to say uh, you know, it proceeds from the son uh from the Father and the Son. Right. But in the in the enunciation, it says the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
SPEAKER_02So doesn't the Holy Spirit come upon Jesus verse come upon Mary, right? We would say that. Well, yeah. But you're obviously in the uh baptism, the spirit descended like a dove. Yeah, there's two, and I'm always that always confused. But ask, you know, not that I don't believe in the Trinity, I do. Yeah, it's just I'm always confused of like why we say I received from the Yeah, so the relationship between the three, Father, Son, and Spirit, how that's described, and that's I'll be honest, I didn't read up on that for today. But there's theological terminology they use, and as you probably know, I don't think it's in this chapter, I think it's in the Holy Spirit chapter, there's a theological dispute between Catholics and Orthodox. Like from whom does the Holy Spirit proceed, right? We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. We say that in the Creed. What does that mean? Right? And apparently the Orthodox say he proceeds only from the Father, I guess. Yeah. Um as I understand it though, that theological debate is not the real reason for the schism or the split. It was more politics and things like that. But in any case, your question is about how the three relate, especially how the Holy Spirit proceeding for the Father and the Son, or just the Father? Or yeah, like uh, you know, I mean, like, yeah, that would help answer some questions probably to answer.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, um we'll wait until the chapter on the Holy Spirit, and we'll see what when we get deeper into that. No, it's a great question.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
unknownSorry, I don't have attempts to rectify the heresies in my head.
SPEAKER_02But the I love that. I'm here to rectify the heresies in my head. We're all here for healing or heretical thinking.
SPEAKER_04And I'm not a biblical scholar, but I that's another thing that I'm a biblical scholars saying that some of those passages from the end of Matthew mentioned people actually not normally as many friends and out later and rationality.
SPEAKER_02This the the um the composition of the New Testament and the texts of the New Testament. And is there room for um composition not being exclusively one single person named Matthew? Is there possibility for the church to canonize? When I say canonize, meaning make official, make give the approval, this is revelation. Is there room? So, for example, in the Old Testament, um, you know, is there room for believing that Moses didn't write all five books, you know, the first five books of the Old Testament? Yes, of course, there's room for different theories, what we call it, different theories of authorship. See what I'm saying? So I would say the the broad topic is um, is there room in the church's tradition for different theories of authorship for the text of the New Testament? So for example, easy one. We used to say a reading from the letter of Saint Paul to the Hebrews, you might notice a reading from the a reading from the letter to the Hebrews. So the authorship of the letter to the Hebrews is not in the church's tradition only to be ascribed to St. Paul. Some could propose that theory, some could propose a different theory. Um I've read the theory, which I find very interesting, that, for example, that the letter to the Hebrews is um either one extended homily or a combination of homilies. Because when you read it, it's like, yeah, this is something you would say at Mass. It's so Eucharistic, it's so much about Jesus' priesthood, things like that. But my point being simply to answer your question broadly, the authorship of the texts of the New Testament, there are different theories. Very similar to what I said earlier today, that one passage, there could be different interpretations which are all legitimate, even though they're different. I don't think they'd ever be contradictory because they have to be saying opposite things, right? So um, so I I wouldn't know the details on what's the latest scholarship in the Gospel of Matthew, and if this particular passage is in every manuscript, certain manuscripts, things like that. That's part of what makes scripture study so interesting. You know, next week, you see in the news sometimes, found another manuscript, another copy of whatever passage or a little piece of a passage which is shedding light on um these authorship questions. Yeah. Maybe I've just seen too many Christopher Nilman movies as well, but of the concept of time and that just maybe even you know Mary gave her eyewitness testimony to Luke about the sentence in the Annunciation.
SPEAKER_04But she did that after receiving the Holy Spirit from Pentecost. So maybe her experience of that and what she communicated later had a greater revelation to it than what she experienced as a 14, 15-year-old girl at the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I would offer this. I think this helps me the most because you look at the different gospels and they describe some of the same events a little bit differently. And it can seem like wait, it's contradictory, they're they're not agreeing. I would offer this, I think this analogy is the best for um handling the tension between we want a videotape of what happened, right? But also understand the way faith is transmitted, and that is, I think, the analogy of a painting, right? Someone could paint your face, or three different painters could paint your face, you're the it's the same person, but the way they shade this and shade that is going to come out a little different based on just their manner of painting. I think the gospels are best understood that way. They're portraits of a of a reality, but just because of different details are emphasized or shaded, things like that, I think that's younger. Younger. Why not? Why not?
unknownYeah. Quick comment on that. And that's uh the last one. Like the first nine three, the last one. They're saying that every word. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's how you're right. But that's that that's pretty much uh where the scholars are right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And again, broadly, also, this helps you, I think, especially when we look at scripture, it's great, it's a really interesting topic. Remember that the New Testament, the written New Testament, comes after the experience of Jesus and the preaching of Jesus, which is to say, and the preaching of the apostles, right? So Jesus teaches and preaches, apostles receive teaching and preaching, they, filled with the Spirit, teach and preach. And then somebody starts writing some of it down, right? So the point being that, to use this example, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew is telling us the truth that Jesus wants to hand on, whether it came from one single person or another team member helped. Do you see what I'm saying? The point is, it's what Jesus wants us to know. That's the point. And he works through human instruments, whether it was Paul writing to the Hebrews, or somebody that was with Paul, or somebody we don't even know their name. And it's the bishop of the church, again, with the authority of the Holy Spirit acting in them, which says, yep, yep, yep, these 27 books accurately hand on what we already knew. See what I'm saying? Their faith tells them what scriptures are authentic, not the other way around. Right? So the faith of the church existed before the New Testament of the Church existed. So it's the faith of the church, a living faith in real people led by bishops and the Holy Father and the Pope, right? By the Holy Spirit giving authentic approval. This is, yes, this matches what we've always believed. This matches what we've always believed. Oh, this doesn't. It's got a lot of truth, but it doesn't completely represent what we've been taught from generations before us.
SPEAKER_04We're so blessed to have that authority on that because there are many denominations who their pastors decide not to even preach those parts of the Bible. Right. And they might claim to be preaching verse by verse through scripture, but they'll stick into that part. They'll be like, well, this wasn't in the earliest manuscripts, and they don't they won't preach on it, or they won't enter, they don't give it the same credibility as the rest of the canon.
SPEAKER_02Right. So we're really and that's another principle, right? Is that we read scripture as a whole. So there should be a unity of the scriptures and the teachings and the beliefs that come from that. I was gonna say one more thing. Ah no, no, it's okay. It's okay, I forgot. It's okay. It's not that important for God. So I think we did get to the main thing here today, which was God reveals himself first as one God. And as pointed out, to cleanse us or help us not go the polytheistic way, we needed several thousand years of there's one God. There's one God. Okay. Once that's established, now there's the fullness of time and the revelation of the Trinity. We saw a passage that fully revealed that and name that, most especially Matthew 28, 19, saying it for the fifth time today. You're gonna memorize that passage. Go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, the Holy Spirit. Um pretty evangelical friends. You know, you know, Matthew 28, 19 by heart. Okay. Um, and then we've had a great conversation about um just who the whole who the Trinity is, and most especially, I think, the Holy Spirit. That can be the most mysterious person of the Trinity. And that's where we'll pick up next time. What do you see where it says the language of the Trinity explain the Trinity? So if I were you and you wanted to read ahead, I would read pages 63 through. I'm not sure we'll get to 69, but we might. We'll say it that way for the next class. 63 to 66 for sure, and maybe 63 to 69. Last thing I want to say is an analogy that I find very helpful for the Trinity. You can pray with us today. It's a candle. A candle has a physical flame. You might think of the Father, the creator of all things, right? The candle has a visible light. Jesus is the light of the world. The candle gives off heat, an invisible energy, an invisible warmth. The Holy Spirit, right? The consoler who strengthens us, who lives within us. So just a very simple, I teach this to children, but I think it works for adults too. Um that the mysterious oneness, God, one, one God, three persons. There's actually a three-in-one in a candle. And it's, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Just a quick kind of answer uh what you were talking about before, just the the kind of the way that St. Thomas writes about the filioque, which is just the preceding, the co-proceding, co-spirating from uh father and son to generate the Holy Spirit, is basically the the father and so is the son. Sorry. Yeah, why is that, but that's the significant how stories about it, and I think it's also been discussed in how the way rendered on the country. But that's the way that's the way to think about why they are, how they are, and like in the case of thinking about like incarnation in Mary. Well, God's God in his divine nature is the second person of the Trinity, right? That still doesn't change the fact that he goes to the Holy Spirit anyway. But the spirit, in terms of their metaphobial relationship, still it's like him being generated in physical form still is the endelial one. And that's kind of the way it's like the wing of the word.
unknownRight, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Love hearing you theology. Jerry, quick on before we pray. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why would he be here when we discuss the Trinity? What's that?
unknownTo pose for great pigs.
SPEAKER_02Um I know why. Levi's been here the whole time, here in this whole class, and he understands nothing. Kind of like us trying to understand the Trinity.
SPEAKER_06There it is.
SPEAKER_02Glory 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. Have a great Sunday. Good hanging with you all. See you next Sunday at 10 o'clock.