E
Eucharisted
Guest
This accusation takes on many different forms:
“They worship gods beside God.”
“They worship three gods instead of God.”
“They worship God as three gods.”
Etc., etc., etc.
Each accusation is based on a false understanding of the Christian belief in God, which I would like to demonstrate.
“They worship gods beside God.”
“They worship three gods instead of God.”
“They worship God as three gods.”
Etc., etc., etc.
Each accusation is based on a false understanding of the Christian belief in God, which I would like to demonstrate.
- "gods beside God." Polytheism and monotheism are strictly incompatible. You cannot believe in one God, but also believe in other gods. Why? Because God is the only living God. I mean, even from the singularity of “God” it is proven that other gods cannot exist! We Christians believe in God. This is proven from our Scriptures, our Creed, and our worship of God. We do not take other gods beside God.
But some people believe we worship Jesus and Mary beside God. However, we do not! Christians believe that Jesus is really God Himself, so Christians worship God by worshipping Jesus. “Marian worship” is a misunderstanding of Marian veneration: Christians honor (venerate) Mary, they do not worship her. Other religions, too, engage in veneration: Muslims honor Mohammed, Jews honor the Patriarches, etc.
Other people believe we worship Jesus and the Spirit of the Lord beside God. However, we do not! And this leads to my reply to the second accusation… - "three gods instead of God." This is the oldest accusation against Christianity. It is a clear misunderstanding of the Trinity, that is, that in God there are three Persons. What is a person? Philosophically speaking, a “person” is a reality. Christians use philosophy to better understand God, so they use philosophy to understand the Trinity. But philosophy can only so far: God is One, and His Oneness is a Unity, which means, God’s Nature is His Essense, His Essense is His Reality, and His Reality is His Nature. So we can never fully understand the Persons of God, nor their relationship to One Another. Christianity could have used Realities instead of Persons for the Trinity, but that would make the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit seem like mere properties of God, and worst, it would lead to the false belief that God is somehow divided in Himself. But God is indissolvable, both One and Unity. So the term “Person” is used to show that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not properties of God but living Realities, just as God is not a creature but the living God. Granted, using “Persons” can lead to the false belief that God has three modes, selves, or manifestations - however, this heresy was corrected a long time ago.
So, how dose this tie into Jesus and the Spirit of God? Well, as I already explained, we worship Jesus as God, and so, since He is God, the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of Jesus. But we do not simply believe that Jesus is just God; we believe that Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity in the flesh. If we simply believed that Jesus is God, than we would rightly be said to worship the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. But, we believe Jesus is God Incarnate, He is the Son of the Father in the flesh. Hence, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is the Spirit of Jesus in light of Jesus’ Divinity - not in light of His humanity. So worship God - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and Jesus is God Incarnate. Now, you might be wondering, how can you say Jesus is God Incarnate, and also say the Persons are not gods? This leads to my third reply… - "God as three gods". Christians believe that God is indissovable. He is who He is. Now than, because of this, the Persons are only distinct from One Another in their relations: the Father is not the Son because He is the Father of the Son, the Son is not the Father because He is the Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son because He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. The distinction of the Persons, however, dose not divide the Persons but unites them, it makes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit one God. Just as the attributes of God do not divide God but make Him One, given that they are each God, so too the Persons of God do not divide God but make Him One, given that they are each God. When I say “they are each God,” I do not mean separate gods but God Himself: God is Love Itself, hence the Love of God is God Himself; the Holy Spirit is the Love of God, hence the Holy Spirit is God. Because the Persons are God, and because God is One, we say ‘God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit’ to highlight the Oneness and Unity of the Trinity; because the Persons are distinct from One Another in their relation to Each Other, we say, ‘God, the Father Almighty; the Son of God; and the Spirit of God’ to highlight the Persons’ relations.
Hence, we call Jesus the Son of God Incarnate, God Incarnate.