The Eternity of God and the Unity of God
Excerpt from Meditations on Christian Dogma, Volume I
For our meditation Monday post, I continue sharing from the book Meditations on Christian Dogma, Volume I by Right Reverend James Bellord, D.D. (Convent of Mercy, 1906, pages 18-21). The two mediations today are on God’s eternity and unity.
In thinking about God’s eternity, we must accept that we are limited in what our minds can perceive. We cannot even begin to fathom eternity in any concrete sense, and so, we must accept that our understanding will be extremely limited and trust that the Holy Ghost will help us to know what is good for our salvation.
The meditation on God’s unity reminds us that there is only one true, powerful, and loving God. There is also only one true religion and one true Church of God— The Catholic faith and Church. All other religions are false and opposed to God.
I hope these meditations on Christian doctrine are bringing you to a fuller understanding and appreciation for the wisdom and truth of our Catholic Faith.
Yours in Jesus and Mary.
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The Eternity of God
I. The Eternity of God is His infinite tenure of life. The life of God is nothing else but God; so, it is incomprehensible and can no more be represented in human words than the likeness of God can be painted in oils. For we can only conceive of existence as in time, and as having succession and duration, and we necessarily speak of all existence in corresponding language. Now, time and eternity are incommensurable terms. They are of analogous significance, as being the creature’s tenure of life and God’s; but they are the opposites of one another at every point. Eternity is first the simultaneous possession of life, whereas time is of successive instants. Eternity is neither past, present nor future. So, St. Denis says that God never “was”, for there is no past in His life; He never “will be” for there is no unrealized future before Him; and it is not to be said, in our sense, that He “is”, for our present is a transient moment, gone before we enjoy its possession. However, on account of our imperfect grasp of the idea of Eternity, we are obliged to speak of God as if He had a successive life, with an indefinite past at one side “He always was”; an indefinite future at the other “He always will be”; and a present like ours intermediate between the two “He is”. In picturing Eternity to our minds, we try to multiply durations till imagination ceases to grasp them; we think of God’s existence as extending backwards and backwards out of sight and forward into the future, beyond the enormous periods of created existence. And yet all this is not the first factor of a true idea of eternity. It is even misleading, for it is an attempt to picture eternity by multiplying an element which is contradictory to eternity. Mortify your curiosity. “Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability: . . . for it is not necessary for thee to see with thy eyes the things that are hid” (Ecclesiasticus 3:22-23).
II. Eternity is the possession of a life without any limits. This is involved in the first quality of simultaneousness. As there is no such thing as past or future in God’s wonderful eternity, so it is impossible and unthinkable that such an existence should ever have begun or should ever finish. Beginning and ending belong to time, and to creatures, which exist in time. We cannot reckon back the enormous periods of created existence nor calculate its duration. But we are certain that everything we see was once non-existent; and that each individual creature, whether matter or force, a planet, or its movement, is now gradually dissipating its energies and will one day sink into inactivity and death. Outside and beyond all this there is the all-pervading, immutable, supreme Existence. “The heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest. . . . Thou art always the self-same and Thy years shall not fail” (Psalms 101:26-28). Therefore, “to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).
III. God’s tenure of life, or His Eternity, is also said to be complete or perfect; it is free from all those deficiencies which belong to life considered as in time. Human life is imperfect because, being successive, there is always something that has yet to be attained or something that has been lost. While each stage of life has its duties and its pleasures, each has its disadvantages. We do not possess our life absolutely, but in dependence on another, and on equal terms with millions of others. We are immortal indeed, we are capable of going through an interminable series of successive durations, but we shall never be eternal in the same sense as God. Even the life of glory which we shall derive from Him will not be absolute, independent, complete, and perfect in the same sense as His. Still, we shall be raised one day to some sort of participation in that wonderful life, whose glory and beauty and happiness are beyond our present comprehension. Give thanks to God, and desire that happy day.
The Unity of God
I. The next great truth after the existence of God is His Unity. “Know that the Lord He is God, and there is no other besides Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35). This is a wonderful and a necessary perfection. There is a striking grandeur in the idea of a One, sole, supreme, unequalled Being. The Gentile multiplication of gods was ignoble and debased; it was destructive of the very idea of the supreme infinite God as revealed by Moses and Our Divine Lord. Sovereignty, omnipotence, infinity, perfection, independence are meaning less terms as soon as we attempt to conceive them as divided amongst a number of equal beings. Supremacy is necessarily vested in one or it does not exist. The multiplication of beings is an acknowledgment that no one of them is absolutely perfect: it is a vain attempt to make up the perfection which does not exist in any one of them. So, too, the authoritative manifestation of God in religion must be one and sole. The idea of a multiplicity of religions, all equally good, is a survival of that tendency to deterioration which expressed itself of old in polytheism. If religion is the divine system for the communication of truth and grace, it does not need to be multiplied, like the cells of an electric battery, in proportion to the increase of the circuit. Religion is a representation of God and is the exercise of His divine action. A number of them, if they are uniform, are at variance with the supreme unity of God; if they are contradictory, they cannot be the manifestation of Him who is harmony and peace. Thank God for calling you to a Church whose unity proclaims its divine origin and its all-sufficiency.
II. Reason, proceeding on the data which the visible world supplies, sufficiently indicates the Unity of God. Science shows us a surpassing unity underlying all things, and carries us back towards one great original principle of life— motion and law. Harmony and strength are marks of all the works of God; and the source of them is unity and not division. Divided power is weakness, divided authority is no authority. In the spiritual and religious sphere, even more than in nature, we should expect to find the impress of God’s Unity. If there is to be among men unity of mind and heart, of doctrine, worship and morals, there must be unity of spiritual laws and religious organization. Disorder and contradiction do not accord with the Divine Ideal. No kingdom divided against itself shall stand. One Church alone maintains the principle of unity and possesses unity in itself. Endeavour always to promote “the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
III. In relation to man individually, the unity of God demands unity of service from us. We cannot serve two masters; we must serve God alone “with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, with all our mind.” If we render partial service to the world or any creature, to our pride, our interests, or our lusts, we are putting a false god in God’s place. It is equivalent to dividing our loyalty among a number of gods or attempting to worship God simultaneously in discordant religions; it is compounding together light and darkness, truth and falsehood. Our hearts are too small to love the one great Being sufficiently— much more insufficient is their service if part of it be withdrawn and bestowed on creatures. In any pursuit we can only secure success by concentrating all our thoughts and energies upon it alone. In this respect, the children of light may well take a lesson from the children of this world. Seek God alone and always. Let one principle guide your life in all its diverse operations. Let nothing turn you from the path of consistency, from whole-hearted loyalty and affection towards God. Do not dissipate your energies on any other object; but let all the various duties of life look to God and be turned to His service.