18. The Truth of God

 

 

I. The first kind of truth to be considered is metaphysical truth, or truth of essence, or truth of nature. We assert this of a being when we say that it is true to its nature; and we mean thereby that it possesses all the qualities that belong to its nature, and that it is a full and complete member of its class. This kind of truth God possesses eminently, as having all the perfections proper to the Infinite God. He possesses spirituality, immortality, eternity, omnipotence, independence. All that we can conceive of good qualities and perfections He has in an infinite degree. All that His infinite intelligence can conceive in the way of perfection He possesses. He is true to Himself as God. Further, God not only has, but He is this perfect transcendent truth. For all that is in Him is Himself. There is no division in Him of qualities as distinct from His being. The infinity and the goodness of God are God Himself: and so the truth of God is God. You should be like God as possessing all the truth of your being, all the perfection and virtue which God has decreed to be proper to human nature. If you are sensual, worldly, proud, you are not true to the ideal of perfect man as it exists in God and is manifested in Jesus Christ. Adore the truth of God and cultivate it in yourself.

II. A second kind of truth is attributed to God as being the only solid and perfect reality, the only necessary and abiding substance. Compared with His reality, man and all creatures are mere nothingness. “All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and all are counted to Him as nothing and vanity” (Isa. xl. 19). Vanity is that which has no substance, which cannot be grasped, does not satisfy, does not sustain, produces no fruit. Such is the whole of creation. It proceeds in some incomprehensible way out of nothingness, it is supported by the breath of God, without Him it would sink back into nonentity. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the grass. The grass is withered and the flower thereof is fallen away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter i. 24, 25). And again, life “is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away” (James iv. 15). Adore God as the sole reality that abides. Do not be so shortsighted as to spend all your energies and set all your hopes on shadows unsubstantial and transient. “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lies?” (Ps. iv. 3).

III. There is a third kind of truth or rather truthfulness. It is a quality of the intelligence, and consists in ideas being conformable to realities. God sees all truth in Himself, and all creatures as they really are, without any deception. This knowledge is His truth; it is the perfect correspondence of subject with object; and He is Himself this truth. Further, His words to us correspond to the ideas of the divine mind; they convey truth to us far more certainly than any words of men, any evidence of our senses, any conclusions or any prejudged opinions of our minds. These words of God are not merely true, they are the truth; and though heaven and earth pass away, they will never pass away. So perfect is this veracity of God that the Apostle comparing us with Him says, “God is true and every man a liar” (Rom. iii. 4). Worship God as the Supreme Truth. In homage to Him cultivate truth in all its forms. Let no doubts or sophisms turn you from the most absolute reliance on the word of God; be careful not to overlay it with your own false ideas and attribute divine veracity to them. Strive for true views of all things; and confess the truth without timidity or compromise.

17. The Ideas of God

 

I. By the ideas of God theologians mean those models, as it were, in the mind of God, according to which creatures were made. There is nothing outside God which He can copy or reproduce in creation; but He made all things as manifestations or expressions of His perfections. Each thing, therefore, is in some sense a likeness of something in God. The divine ideas, then, are the Divine Essence considered as the infinite reality which is shadowed forth imperfectly in finite creatures. St. Paul indicates this when he writes: “The world was framed by the Word of God, that from invisible things visible things might be made” (Heb. xi. 3). Some beings imitate God simply in that they exist; others in that they have life; others as having sense; and others again as being intelligent, spiritual, free, immortal, supernatural. Creatures represent variously God’s wisdom, strength, ingenuity, providence, fatherly-love, beauty. Everything proceeding from the hand of God is good; everything should remind us of God, teach us something about Him, and lead us to love Him. Strive to recognize the hand of God in all that happens, and believe that all is good for you though it seem to be evil; even if it be really evil God will bring forth good from it.

II. We may also understand by the ideas of God the reflection, as it were, of each thing separately in the divine mind; comparing God’s knowledge of things to the images or impressions formed in our senses by outward substances, and then conveyed to our brain. Every creature of God is, in a sense, reflected in God as in a mirror. As God is immutable, and acquires nothing anew but has always possessed it, these ideas or reflections have been in Him from all eternity. Not only did God see in Himself what we and all things were to be, but He saw all as if actually existing. When we are admitted to the sight of God we shall, in seeing His divine mind and participating in His ideas, see these reflections of all things in Him; and thus, without investigation or study, but by a mere glance, we shall possess our knowledge in God. Your image too has been impressed on the consciousness of God from all eternity, as an object of His Providence and His love. Therefore He says by the prophet: “Behold I have graven thee in My hands” (Isa. xlix. 16): and again, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. xxxi. 3). In return keep the reflection of God’s image always vivid in your mind.

III. There is one thing that has no counterpart idea in the mind of God, which derives nothing from Him, and reflects nothing from out of the great total of reality and good which exists in Him. That thing is sin. In sin, therefore, there is no particle of good; it is the privation of good and the contradictoriness of God, as nothingness is the contradiction and the destruction of existence. It is essentially evil of its own nature; it is the supreme evil as being the opposite of supreme good; and it is the only real evil, since everything else is from God. God indeed sees, and knows, and has for ever known our acts of sin; after sin He still bears with the sinner patiently, is mindful of him, loves him, and invites him to penance. But the state of the sinner is an abomination to God, and destructive of God in its tendency, and actually exterminates God from that soul; and this, of course, cannot become an idea, i.e. an actuality, in God Himself. Thus the sinner’s state and the supernatural state, i.e. heaven, i.e. God, are absolutely incompatible. Keep sin, therefore, out of your mind and your heart. Remember it only for contrition and atonement. No consequences but evil ones can follow from essential evil, however plausible its appearance.

16. The Science of God

I. Science or knowledge is one of the great attributes of intellectual beings. It is the assimilation of truth by the mind, and so is a most noble function. It supplies the materials for our action, it guides us as to the use of them, it causes an intense pleasure, and is transformed into great power. Naturally we have a great avidity for it. A power so noble must also exist in God, and in an infinite degree. His knowledge must be perfect. It is complete, embracing all things; it is intuitive, not gained by study or process of argument; it is not subject to obscurity or error; it is never excessive, or a source of danger as with us. “The Lord is a God of all knowledge” (1 Kings ii. 3). The Psalmist asks, “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? Or He that formed the eye, doth He not consider?” (Ps. xciii. 9). The order of the world, its preservation, its progress, testify to the supreme science possessed by God. He is also the author and fount of our knowledge. He is the truth which is manifested partially in this world, and which we gather up laboriously and appropriate to our purposes. God has placed it in our way and guided us to it, and intends it to be a means of leading us upward to Him. Deep knowledge commands our respect when found in a man: how much more admiration and worship do we not owe to God in regard to this perfection! Rejoice also in the happiness that He derives from it.

II. Consider the extent and abundance of God’s knowledge. First it embraces infinity as knowing the Divine Essence with all its perfections and all its internal activity; it sees all God’s possibilities of external activity in the way of angels, men, worlds, universes. Next, the knowledge of God embraces all things actually to be created, and all the actions of His goodness, justice and mercy towards them. This is classed as a different kind of knowledge, because it is the knowledge that creates those beings or produces that action. Further, God knows, as Our Lord shows in the Gospels, what would have happened under any difference of circumstances, and all the series of consequences following from all combinations of events, even to the end of the world. God knows our most secret thoughts even better than we ourselves, for He is not blinded by our self-deception. He holds, too, the awful secret of our destinies; and as all things are present at once to Him, He sees now some of us as rejoicing in heaven and some as blaspheming in hell. This last is the one thing not caused by God’s knowledge. Your fate is in your own hands, and God knows how you will dispose it. All other things depend on God’s previous knowledge of them as causing them. But if you be lost, God’s knowledge depends on your action and is caused by it. Live always as being in the presence of God. Let all your acts be such that you will not be ashamed of God’s knowing them.

III. Consider the advantageous consequences of God’s knowledge. With regard to Himself, His knowledge of His Divine Nature constitutes His eternal happiness. With regard to us, God’s knowledge is the cause of our existence and of all that we possess. He knew us and chose us before the foundation of the world (1 Peter i. 2), and His knowledge guided the operations of His power, His benevolence, His generosity towards us. How happy are we to be ruled by One so eminent in all knowledge, who uses it for our greatest advantage. We are safe in His hands. He will never deal with us unwisely, will never forget us or neglect us, will never be mistaken, or fail to understand those circumstances which make every man’s case a peculiar one. Never question the wisdom of God’s knowledge. Be contented with all that proceeds from Him, for He knows what is best.

15. The Names of God

I. God is ineffable. He cannot be described. Considering the name as being the summing up and the picture of a person and his qualities and peculiarities, we may say that God cannot be named. If our intellect cannot grasp His essence, still less can feeble words express it. Even the transcendent ideas that find expression only in those nobler languages which we call the arts, are still too much “of the earth earthly” to suggest to us a fraction of the wonders and delights contained in the Creator’s smallest attribute. Even this earth will never be adequately described, although it is but the footprint of the Almighty. Hence it was said, “Why askest thou My name, which is wonderful?” (Jud. xiii. 18). And again, “I am the Lord that appeared … by the name of God Almighty; and My name Adonai I did not show them” (Ex. vi. 3). The name of God was not pronounced or even known by the Israelites: it was represented by four letters which we pronounce Jehovah. No word can express God’s nature but the uncreated Word of God Himself, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Never presume to measure the perfections of God by the ideas of men. You cannot judge of His ways, His designs, the wisdom of His decrees, the methods by which He carries them out. To attempt this is the same as attributing a human character to God and a human name.

II. But because God is ineffable and indescribable, we must not on that account abstain from naming God according to our abilities, from describing His perfections and glorifying His name. In the same way that God, although incomprehensible, may yet be known to a great extent by us; so the impossibility of a full description of Him does not prevent us from describing Him in a way that will excite much devotion and give glory to His name. “When you exalt Him put forth all your strength and be not weary, for you can never go far enough” (Eccli. xliii. 34). The fact that we cannot go far enough is the very reason why we should go as far as we can. If we cannot render God the whole of His deserts, we should at least offer Him all that is in our power. Glorify the name of God, then, as much as you can, making His perfections known to others, enlightening their ignorance about Him, leading them to practise worship and prayer, and teaching them to love Him.

III. Consider the multitude of names by which God allows us to address Him. The Jews had seventy-two names for God; and we have many more, according to the different aspects in which we regard Him. Much of our knowledge of God is negative; we know that He is free from our imperfections and limitations; so we call Him the Infinite, the Eternal, the Immortal, the Uncreated. Other names refer to God as the origin of all life and virtue and goodness. Therefore we speak of Him as the Creator, the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Almighty, the All-just, the All-merciful. Under other aspects we may address God as our life, our perfection, our joy, as perfect truth and perfect beauty. In the old times God was called the Lord of Hosts, the strong, the great, the terrible (2 Esdr. i. 5). Jesus Christ has revealed to us a different class of names. Christians think of God more frequently as their love, their highest good, their supreme desire, their felicity, their sweetness, their Spouse, and chiefly as their Father. Above all we know the name of God made man, Jesus Christ, the only “name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 12). Rehearse the different names of God, and praise Him for what is signified by each. Be grateful that He has granted you to know His name and to call upon it.

“No voice can sing, no heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,
O Saviour of mankind.”

14. The Beautific Vision of God

 

 

I. There are three factors in the vision of God as in the perception of anything else. The first is the subject which sees; i.e., the person possessing the faculty or organ of vision. God is not corporeal but spiritual: so that He is not to be perceived with the bodily eye but with the spiritual faculty or the elevated intelligence of angels and men. Therefore the Lord said to Moses, “Thou canst not see My face; for man shall not see Me and live” (Ex. xxxiii. 20). The intellect is the power of perceiving intellectual objects; and it has an aptitude and a need for exercising itself on intellectual objects, of which the first and most eminent is God. Further the mind easily acquires an incipient knowledge of God; and this, like every other faculty, is capable of indefinite development, and indicates the possibility of a transcendent degree of knowledge. There is also in man an intellectual hunger for the Infinite, and a tendency towards it, i.e., towards God. This is shown in the fact that nothing created, whether in the material or the intellectual sphere, can satisfy man’s desires and fulfil his ideal of goodness, knowledge and happiness. The natural knowledge of God as seen in the universe does not satisfy this high faculty of vision, this spiritual eye. We require a fuller vision of God here, and a still fuller vision hereafter, if we are to carry out our destiny and develope all the possibilities that are in us. Cultivate clearness of vision according to the indication of Our Lord: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. v. 8).

II. The second factor in vision is the medium, like the light which conveys the impression of the object to the eye. Something analogous to this is required to enable man to see God; according to the Scripture: “In Thy light we shall see light” (Ps. xxxv. 10). The nature of God altogether transcends that of man; they are in different spheres; man is absolutely incapable by himself of seeing God as He is. His faculties are such that they are not sensitive to the vibrations of that finer spiritual light which makes God visible. These faculties require to have some quality added to them corresponding to a new sense, so that they may perceive the rays as they come direct from God and not merely as they are reflected from creatures. This supernatural quality is called “the light of glory.” This is the “eternal light” which we implore for the souls in purgatory. Even in this life the faithful can say, “the light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us” (Ps. iv. 7). They have a light and a vision, by which they can see, and know, and understand things which for others are wrapped in impenetrable darkness. No happiness is so great as the possession of this. It is a foretaste of the vision which we shall enjoy in heaven.

III. The third factor in vision is the object present before us. Our faculties, which cry out for an infinite object to satisfy them, and that sense in us which has an aptitude for God, are proofs that God will some day be within their range. In heaven the Divine Essence will be present to us in a better way than it is present to every creature in this world. In what way that indescribable Essence will be manifested to us we cannot now conceive. This only we know that God will not be shown to us as at present, in His creatures, His images, His reflections, or in figure, but in Himself, directly, and without intermediary. So the Apostle tells us: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). How wonderful, how novel, how far beyond all expectation will be the heavenly vision when it is suddenly unveiled before us! How little we can anticipate now that revelation of glory and delight, the revelation of divine love for us, and of our capacity for loving God!

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