17 articles from the existing collection.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a foundational teaching of the Catholic Church, articulated through divine revelation and developed through centuries of theological reflection. It holds that there is one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person is fully and completely God, sharing the same divine …
Your own Protestant Bishop Ellicott says of these verses, “The words private interpretation might seem to mean that the sacred writers did not get their prophecies by private interpretation, but by divine inspiration. But this is certainly not the meaning. The real meaning is that the reader must not presume to interpret private…
It means Holy Spirit. “Ghost” is Anglo-Saxon for spirit, “spiritus” in Latin meaning a breath. Thus the word spirit is associated with human breathing as a kind of intangible impulse. Christ used the term to bring home to us that the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is the impulse of love invisible and intangible between Father …
No. Not all the sincerity in the world can be a sufficient substitute for authentic credentials in this matter. An immense power and authority over the souls of men requires solid proof that it is really possessed. Christ proved that He had it. The Catholic Church can prove that He entrusted that power to Her. Founders of other …
Catholics believe there is one God consisting of three distinct and equal divine Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – because on numerous occasions God has described Himself thus. The Old Testament gives intimations that there are more than one Person in God. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man to our image and likene…
Polytheism teaches several gods. Christianity teaches but one God. The three Divine Persons share the one Divine Nature, and are but one God. The other beings you cite are declared by the Church to be creatures, and cannot be used as an argument for the plurality of gods. If we taught that they are gods, you could rightly accuse…
No contradiction is involved in the doctrine of the Trinity. The reason why we believe it is because God says that it is true, using terms which express it as nearly as possible in human language. As God ought to know His own intimate nature, His describing it is the best of possible reasons for believing in it.
CHAPTER 9. — THE HOLY GHOST AND THE CHURCH.
He did not promise that the Holy Spirit would teach each individual separately. If every individual were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, all who read Scripture sincerely should come to the same conclusion. But they do not. The frightful chaos as to the meaning of Scripture is proof positive that the Holy Spirit has not ch…
The Holy Spirit dwells not only in the Church, preserving her from error, but also in the soul of every Christian who is in the grace of Christ. In the individual soul the Holy Spirit inspires love for God and the desire of Christian virtue, and in that sense He is called the Sanctifier of the soul. But since God cannot contradi…
CHAPTER 3. — THE BLESSED TRINITY AND INCARNATION.
No man on earth can explain fully the Trinity. The finite mind cannot fully comprehend an infinite being. Even did God condescend to explain the doctrine fully to you, you would lack the capacity necessary in order to comprehend it. It is a revealed mystery to be accepted as true merely because God teaches it. However, we can ex…
There is no sin too great to be forgiven provided one sincerely repents of it. Christ really referred to evil dispositions of soul which are so hardened that one will lack the will to repent. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not blasphemy as commonly understood, but a determined resistance to the very grace of the Holy Spiri…
The eternal Son of God, in becoming man, took a human nature from the Virgin Mary. Thus was born a being who was both God and man. As God, this Second Person of the Holy Trinity always existed, and from Him in eternity the Holy Ghost always proceeds, as from the Father also. In this sense the Holy Ghost does not give being to th…
No. That is absolutely false. Mary, saluted by an angel as full of grace, was the purest and holiest woman who ever lived on this earth. And, as a matter of fact, with sublime confidence in God, Mary refrained from explaining the event to St Joseph, leaving all to God. As St. Matthew tells us, “Behold the angel of the Lord appea…
Your only reason for attempting to derive the doctrine from Egyptian mythology is that you do not wish to admit that it is from God. The Egyptians derived their religious notions from their own every-day life. They had a multiplicity of gods, a god for every locality, each associated with some animal as a symbol Later the idea g…
No. Christ taught us this doctrine both implicitly and explicitly in giving us His revelation. And He definitely ordered His Apostles to baptize in the one Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost
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