Reflections of the Trinity in Creation
To the best of our ability we can imagine the "time" before God created
the universe from nothing. Before there were ever such things as "space" or
"matter" the Lord existed...and He existed from eternity; there was never a
"time" when God did not exist. But the Lord does not HAVE existence as
created things do. More precisely, God IS existence. It is a good exercise
for all to ponder on the fact that there never was a "time" in which God
did not exist. It is a spiritually profitable exercise for meditation, but
the MYSTERY cannot be solved or fully comprehended by the finite, created
human mind, as so many mysteries of the Faith are.
The Lord willed that the universe be created - and it was. From the Divine
Mind all things were designed perfectly, and instantly came into existence:
the universe with its space, material elements and time. It is a pleasant
thought to think that the tree, the animal or insect we see, was designed
just as we see it by God.
It was for man that God created the whole universe. Out of all created
living things it was man who was especially created in God's image; it was
to man alone who was created with a spiritual soul giving him the
capability of knowing Our Creator and loving Him. Included with this, man
was given a free-will to serve God in this life and to be happy with Him
forever in the next.
The first man and woman, whom we know as Adam and Eve, were created in a
state of perfection, and God revealed to them a knowledge of divine things
above any Saint, theologian or mystic we can think of. In short, Adam and
Eve knew the Divine Truths, the meaning of life, and their religious duties
of worship. Unfortunately after "the fall of man", original sin came into
the world, and man lost his innocence and preternatural gifts. Life then
became a struggle against sin. Many descendants of Adam, as we all know,
eventually fell away from their religion and separated themselves. From
these were formed the pagan "religions" we have in the world today. They
lost and denied the Truths of Revelation given to Adam. They often retained
only some form of the truths which God had written in the human heart -
that GOD EXISTS, MURDER IS WRONG, etc. However, the fact that such false
religions still hold a few truths does not make them any more legitimate
since they are full of error, deny many truths, and are an original
deviation from the true religion intended and given by God.
One of the prime Truths of religion that was lost to a great extent was
the mystery of the Holy Trinity - the truth that God is ONE in substance
but is also THREE in persons. From the effects of nature, and the reason
given to man that there is "God", those who sinned and fell away from the
true religion started to look where God was not, and they worshipped idols
and began to believe in a plurality of gods. This is "polytheism". Long
centuries before the Christian era, men of Israel had to battle, as a
divine mission, for monotheism (that there is one God) because the pagans
who surrounded them were many. In Old Testament days, the explicit teaching
of the division of God into "persons" would have created confusion and
would have been held by many to be a denial of the oneness of God
(monotheism). For this reason, and for the fact that the Jewish people had
their share of the grossness of mind prevailing in the ancient world, the
mystery of the Trinity was enveloped in the obscurity of symbolism.
We see in the very first chapter of the Old Testament the implied teaching
of the Holy Trinity. God speaks with the plural:
"And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness." (Gen 1:26)
Likewise, the plurality in the one God is revealed in the third chapter:
"And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil..."
(Gen 3:22)
Shortly after Catholicism replaced Judaism as the Lord's religion on earth,
the Jews who refused to follow their own Messiah Jesus Christ began early
in the second century A.D. to adopt a prayer from Deuteronomy as a sort of
battle cry in opposition to the dogma of the Holy Trinity. The Jewish
Talmud opens with this prayer they call the "Shema", and the devout Jew
recites it frequently:
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one." (Deut 6:4)
"Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Ehod."
It is interesting to note, however, that the noun "Elohenu" in this prayer
is the plural form of "Eloah" (God), which, translated literally, means
"Gods"!
St. Gregory the Great affirms distinctly that:
"the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament possessed a precise
knowledge of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and an explicit faith in
it, though they very prudently refrained from proclaiming it to the
people." (In Ezeq. lib. 2 hom. 16)
St. Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologica" wrote:
"Just as, before Christ, the mystery of Christ was believed explicitly by
the learned, but implicitly and under a veil, so to speak, by the simple,
so too was it with the mystery of the Trinity. And consequently, when once
grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith in the mystery of
the Trinity: and all who are born again in Christ, have this bestowed on
them by the invocation of the Trinity, according to Mt. 28:19: "Going
therefore teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." (Part 2-2 Q.2 A.8)
This explicit teaching of the dogma of the Holy Trinity can easily be found
in a simple catechism:
"there is but one God....In God there are three Divine persons, really
distinct, and equal in all things - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
(Baltimore Catechism No. 3)
The Church teaches that mankind is capable of reasoning to the fact that
God "exists" based on the sensible effects of nature which signify that
there must be a "First Cause". But because the Mystery of the Trinity
concerns the very essence of Almighty God, we could not determine this
without it having been revealed directly by God. St. Thomas Aquinas also
speaks on this point:
"from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be
known; nor therefore can His essence be seen. But because they are His
effects and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to
know of God "whether He exists,"...." (Part 1 Q.12 A.12)
Although man could not logically deduce that God is a "Trinity of
Persons", it is reasonable to consider that the created universe has been
endowed with some reflection of God's triune essence upon being given
existence, as would an artists personality reflect in his painted
creations. The number 3 appears to take a significant part in the fabric of
nature and the lives of men.
---------------------------
THREEFOLD INTERRELATION OF:
space (distance)
time
velocity (movement)
Each is dependent upon the other two for existence. Each, in fact, is
defined by a relationship of the other two. There can be no TIME with SPACE
or MOVEMENT, and there can be no SPACE without TIME and MOVEMENT. In
mathematical terms it is expressed as a formula which signifies that what
is on the left side is EQUAL to, or IS, the result of the relationship on
the right.
distance distance
time = -------- velocity = -------- distance = time X velocity
velocity time
------------------------------
THREEFOLD DIMENSIONS OF SPACE:
length
width
height
Space is created in three dimensions. Imagine a person all his life who
has only been shown a piece of paper from one dimension - its edge (or
width)? This person obviously would not really know "a piece of paper" as
an entity until he sees it from its three dimensions. In this sense, the
one entity depends on these three factors.
---------------------------
THREEFOLD STATES OF MATTER:
solid
liquid
gas
As the schoolboy learns in science, all created substances can attain
one of these three states depending upon the temperature. If the
temperature is cold enough, oxygen can be made into liquid and then into a
solid. If the heat is great enough gold can be converted to a liquid and
then into a gas.
---------------------------
THREEFOLD DIVISION OF TIME:
past
present
future
---------------------------
THREEFOLD DIVISION OF COLOR:
red
green
blue
These are called the primary colors because from them all others colors
can be made.
---------------------------------
THREE BASIC COMPONENTS OF MATTER:
proton
neutron
electron
It has been determined that all created elements are composed of ATOMS
which in turn are primarily composed of a different number of these three
particles. Depending upon the number will determine what the element is.
-----------------------------------
THREE STAGES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE:
purgative
illuminative
unitive
---------------------
THREE TYPES OF TRUTH:
ontological
logical
moral
-----------------------------
THREEFOLD POWERS OF THE SOUL:
will
memory
understanding
-----------------------------
THREEFOLD FAMILY UNIT:
father
mother
child
------------------------
NUMBER 3 and THE CIRCLE:
It has been determined that the diameter of any given circle is of such a
length that when placed on the circumference of that circle, just a little
over 3 of these lengths can be placed side-by-side around that
circumference. In mathematics this number is called "pi" whose value is
3.1415....they have never determined to how many places the decimal could
extend in theory. No matter what size of a circle we choose, just a little
over three of its diameters can be placed on the circumference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Occurrence of the number 3 with lesser importance, but not without some
interest are:
1) The earth is the 3rd planet from the sun
2) Speed of light calculated at 3 x 1,000,000,000 m/s. It is said nothing
can exceed this speed.
3) 3 divided into 1 = .333333333333333333333333333....to infinity!
4) Christ rose on the 3rd day.
5) Christ died when He was 33 years old.
More can likely be discovered.
-------------------------------------------
(c) 1997 The Catholic Dispatch