Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

The calculator is faster than a human, but God would not have to do the calculation. He knows the answer before you ask the question because he knows what you are going to ask before you do.

God doesn't "think" at all. He knows. There is no moment of discovery or arrival at a conclusion for God.

Your question was about "a creator god". I merely used the analogy I have for any creator thing - man as creator of machines that do some work.
If man can create something superior to himself, why not a god?

Because God is infinite. Infinite +1 is simply infinity, and if such a being could be created by the merely infinite being, then the being known as infinity +1 would be God. Is this really useful?

Hmmm...hard to imagine how the greater thing is brought into being by the lesser.

Can your "creator god" create another creator god or two? Two creator gods would be greater than just one, yes?
That's one way.

Actually, with a bit of tweaking, you may be close to understanding the Trinity - to some degree, anyway. This requires some explanation, so hopefully, my post will be permitted. All that follows is material from Catholic Answers.

The Trinity is one of the most difficult realities to comprehend but it might be a helpful start to recognize the distinction between a “being” and a “person.”

God is one Being (the one and only divine Being). This divine Being exists as three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). This is unusual to us because each human being is only one person and it might seem that every being has to be one person: one being = one person.

But that’s simply not always the case. For example, a dog is a being but is not a person. A tree is a being but is not a person. In these cases, one being = zero persons. On the other hand, an angel is a being and is a person. In their case, angelic beings are similar to human beings: one being = one person.

Once you recognize that not every being is always exactly one person, it might be easier to grasp God’s unique reality, the Trinity: one Being = three Persons.

In Catholic theology, we understand the persons of the Blessed Trinity subsisting within the inner life of God to be truly distinct relationally, but not as a matter of essence, or nature. Each of the three persons in the godhead possesses the same eternal and infinite divine nature; thus, they are the one, true God in essence or nature, not “three Gods.” Yet, they are truly distinct in their relations to each other.

In order to understand the concept of person in God, we have to understand its foundation in the processions and relations within the inner life of God. And the Council of Florence, AD 1338-1445, can help us in this regard.

The Council’s definitions concerning the Trinity are really as easy as one, two, three… four. It taught there is one nature in God, and that there are two processions, three persons, and four relations that constitute the Blessed Trinity. The Son “proceeds” from the Father, and the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” These are the two processions in God. And these are foundational to the four relations that constitute the three persons in God. These are those four eternal relations in God:

1. The Father actively and eternally generates the Son, constituting the person of God, the Father.

2. The Son is passively generated of the Father, which constitutes the person of the Son.

3. The Father and the Son actively spirate the Holy Spirit in the one relation within the inner life of God that does not constitute a person. It does not do so because the Father and Son are already constituted as persons in relation to each other in the first two relations. This is why CCC 240 teaches, “[The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity] is Son only in relation to his Father.”

4. The Holy Spirit is passively spirated of the Father and the Son, constituting the person of the Holy Spirit.

We should take note of the distinction between the "generative" procession that consititutes the Son, and the "spirative" procession that constitutes the Holy Spirit. As St. Thomas Aquinas explains, and Scripture reveals, the Son is uniquely "begotten" of the Father (cf. John 3:16; 1:18). He is also said to proceed from the Father as "the Word" in John 1:1. This "generative" procession is one of "begetting," but not in the same way a dog "begets" a dog, or a human being "begets" a human being. This is an intellectual "begetting," and fittingly so, as a "word" proceeds from the knower while, at the same time remaining in the knower. Thus, this procession or begetting of the Son occurs within the inner life of God. There are not "two beings" involved; rather, two persons relationally distinct, while ever-remaining one in being.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but not in a generative sense; rather, in a spiration. "Spiration" comes from the Latin word for "spirit" or "breath." Jesus "breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit..." (John 20:22). Scripture reveals the Holy Spirit as pertaining to "God's love [that] has been poured into our hearts" in Romans 5:5, and as flowing out of and identified with the reciprocating love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father (John 15:26; Rev. 22:1-2). Thus, the Holy Spirit's procession is not intellecual and generative, but has its origin in God's will and in the ultimate act of the will, which is love.

As an infinite act of love between the Father and Son, this "act" is so perfect and infinite that "it" becomes (not in time, of course, but eternally) a "He" in the third person of the Blessed Trinity. This revelation of God's love personified is the foundation from which Scripture could reveal to us that "God is love" (I John 4:8).

God is not revealed to "be" love in any other religion in the world other than Christianity because in order for there to be love, there must be a beloved. From all eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have poured themselves out into each other in an infinite act of love, which we, as Christians, are called to experience through faith and the sacraments by which we are lifted up into that very love of God itself (Romans 5:1-5).

It is the love of God that binds us, heals us, and makes us children of God (I John 4:7; Matt. 5:44-45). Thus, how fitting it is that the Holy Spirit is depicted in Revelation 22:1-2, as a river of life flowing out from the Father and the Son and bringing life to all by way of bringing life to the very "tree of life" that is the source of eternal life in the the Book of Revelation (Rev. 22:19).

I'll work on the rest of your post later...

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Still waiting on a proper answer to my question, Randy...

My apologies. I forgot to logoff before going to work; I haven't actually been online all day.

What was your question?

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Because it is true. 

Prove it (and no sophistic drivel about the value of faith and the emptiness of empiricism or whatever crap your kooky theologians and creepy clerics are floating these days) 

That's one of my other threads.