Adoration of God

[Mordocai]

Here’s a question:
We worship God alone. Are His attributes seperate from Him?
Meaning, is worship of His mercy for example possible?
God IS mercy, so to say “I worship your mercy, Lord” is it right or wrong?

What does Catholic dogma say? I’m sure a council has covered something like this.
Maybe there’s an anathema statement somewhere that says something like “If anyone says it is permissible to give adoration to God’s attributes and not to God alone, let him be anathema”
but then again, is God distinct from His attributes?
We’ll focus primarily on His mercy.
This seems like a complicated theological question!
what say you?

 

[Mordocai]

Found this at the Catholic encyclopdeia

“The Divine will of course, like the Divine intellect, is really identical with the Divine Essence but according to our finite modes of thought we are obliged to speak of them as if they were distinct and, just as the Divine intellect cannot be dependent on created objects for its knowledge of them, neither can the Divine will be so dependent for its volition.”

newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm#IID

Since God is really indivisible, to say something like “I adore You O God” would be equivelent to saying “I adore Your mercy, Your power, Your Will” etc?

Really want to understand this.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Here’s a question:
We worship God alone. Are His attributes seperate from Him?
Meaning, is worship of His mercy for example possible?
God IS mercy, so to say “I worship your mercy, Lord” is it right or wrong?

What does Catholic dogma say? I’m sure a council has covered something like this.
Maybe there’s an anathema statement somewhere that says something like “If anyone says it is permissible to give adoration to God’s attributes and not to God alone, let him be anathema”
but then again, is God distinct from His attributes?
We’ll focus primarily on His mercy.
This seems like a complicated theological question!
what say you?

1. God is metaphysically simple, so there can be no real distinction between God & His attributes, nor between them. We think of them as multiple, because our intellects cannot (or not usually) apprehend God intelligibly without “taking Him to bits”, as it were: our intellects do to our apprehension of God what the spectrum does to light.​

I’m not sure about this, but I think it is possible for the intellect to apprehend God intelligibly if one receives the grace of ecstasy. St. John of the Cross & Saint Teresa of Avila are the people to read on that

1. Devotion to the Divine Mercy is an example of devotion to God by way of one of His attributes; Father Faber mentions several such devotions to distinct Divine attributes in “All for Jesus”, which is available here:

• www.trinstore.com/ecom_2/item_view.cfm?inventoryid=43
• www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/335/
• sophiainstitute.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SIP&Product_Code=13X
  Online text, in a variety of formats, here:
• archive.org/details/a579609100fabeuoft

 

[Mordocai]

So then it is “safe” to give worship to His Divine Mercy?

 

[Ghosty]

So then it is “safe” to give worship to His Divine Mercy?

Yes, because his Mercy isn’t a component of God, but is Him, is the Trinity Itself. It’s giving worship to a real thing that is God Himself. The important thing is to never lose sight of this fact: God can not be broken down into components, but all the “components” of God are very real and One. Just like the Trinity Itself.

Peace and God bless!