Must God be one?

[vincent10395]

Hey Guys,
The catechism of the Catholic Church says that God “must be one.” My question is why must God be one? And what brings us to the conclusion that God is one?

Thanks, and God Bless!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hey Guys,
The catechism of the Catholic Church says that God “must be one.” My question is why must God be one? And what brings us to the conclusion that God is one?

Thanks, and God Bless!

First of all God revealed Himself as the only God in Scriptures. Secondly it is a solemn Definition of the Church that there is only one God. And from reason, how could there be more than one absolutely perfect Being? For if there were two competing beings for the title of God, then one would have something the other did not have and therefore the other could not be God.

Read the Catechism again, I’m certain you will see it explained there pretty much as I have explained it.

Linus2nd

 

[mytruepower2]

Hey Guys,
The catechism of the Catholic Church says that God “must be one.” My question is why must God be one? And what brings us to the conclusion that God is one?

Thanks, and God Bless!

**1. God’s revelation. **Since the times of Old Covenant Judaism, long before Jesus, God taught his people to drill the commandments into their children, to be certain that they never forgot what their God had asked of them. The very first of those commandments; the prime command of all the law, which every good Jew knows, to this day, by heart, is as follows.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength.”

Nuff said on that score. This truth is right at the dead center of all Christian and Judaic religion.

---

**2. Logic. **God is defined as having certain attributes, which make it impossible for there to be more than one of him. For example, being all-powerful. If there is more than one God, then which one has power over the others? If one of them has this power, then he is God and the others are not God. However, if none of them has this power, then none of them are God, and the real God must be found elsewhere.

However, in addition, the question must be raised, as Aristotle raised it; what is the First Cause of everything? There can’t be more than one First Cause, since one must precede the other. If they acted simultaneously, that makes them connected. So much so, in fact, that they might be viewed as united almost perfectly, and then we need to ask; doesn’t that sound like the trinity?

Since the concept of the trinity doesn’t threaten divine oneness, however, that’s not a good argument against it. The oneness of God is logically-sound, and logically-inescapable.

 

[Bahman]

First of all God revealed Himself as the only God in Scriptures. Secondly it is a solemn Definition of the Church that there is only one God. And from reason, how could there be more than one absolutely perfect Being? For if there were two competing beings for the title of God, then one would have something the other did not have and therefore the other could not be God.

Read the Catechism again, I’m certain you will see it explained there pretty much as I have explained it.

Linus2nd

What about two or more Gods who have exactly the same attributes?

 

[adawgj]

God has appeared in three different forms God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit. However these three are not separate, but are unified into one.

 

[mytruepower2]

God has appeared in three different forms God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit. However these three are not separate, but are unified into one.

Well, they’re not just forms. These are three distinct persons, but all draw upon the same, one divine nature.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What about two or more Gods who have exactly the same attributes?

Ah, what is the definition of " is ? " If they each had the same attributes then neither one would be god, would they? The Christian definition of God is He who is absolutely perfect, that means there could be no other with the same degree of perfection. Absolutely perfect means to have every perfection possible and to have it to an infinite degree. Obviously there could only be one such being. And of course, no other has revealed himself and made that claim.

Linus2nd

 

[Ryuji_Yamazaki]

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (John 14.28)

Hence if you don’t rejoice at the going away of Jesus you love not Jesus. But how can you rejoice at his going away without believing that the Father of Jesus is greater than Jesus?
If you don’t believe that the Father of Jesus is greater than Jesus then you don’t love Jesus.

But is the Spirit = to the Father? The Spirit, the truth itself denies it

Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. (Revelation 22.9)

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein…

 

[empther]

Aquinas speaks

newadvent.org/summa/1011.htm#article3

Secondly, this is proved from the infinity of His perfection. For it was shown above (Question 4, Article 2) that God comprehends in Himself the whole perfection of being. If then many gods existed, they would necessarily differ from each other. Something therefore would belong to one which did not belong to another. And if this were a privation, one of them would not be absolutely perfect; but if a perfection, one of them would be without it. So it is impossible for many gods to exist. Hence also the ancient philosophers, constrained as it were by truth, when they asserted an infinite principle, asserted likewise that there was only one such principle.

Or,
consider this impossible situation:
if two Gods infinitely perfect in every way existed,
how would you distinguish them from each other?
In fact, you couldn’t because they would be one.

 

[po18guy]

What about two or more Gods who have exactly the same attributes?

In an accidental universe, that is statistically impossible.

 

[Theophorus]

In an accidental universe, that is statistically impossible.

How so? My apologies but I don’t quite follow the logic of that statement.

As others have said, you can’t have two all powerful/completely perfect beings as by the very fact of having two of them, one of them would have to be less powerful/perfect and the other more so. God is the most perfect being, Being itself, and pure actuality. By the very nature of such a thing you can’t have more than one of them

 

[po18guy]

How so? My apologies but I don’t quite follow the logic of that statement.

As others have said, you can’t have two all powerful/completely perfect beings as by the very fact of having two of them, one of them would have to be less powerful/perfect and the other more so. God is the most perfect being, Being itself, and pure actuality. By the very nature of such a thing you can’t have more than one of them

The universe does not have the mark of a committee on it. As well, the chance of accidental gods accidentally creating, or combining to create a cohesive universe simultaneously is infinitesimally small.

We live in a carbon-based existence. That points to singularity of creation, does it not?