God is unconditional being. Whatever else God is, God is first existence. If anything exists, it must be God or a creation of God…either way God exists.
We cannot speak of God creating any part of himself, but
God does progressively reveal himself, to humanity and even to his own self. The Trinity is three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three Gods, but three divine persons, the three of which constitute the one God. The Trinity of God is a mystery—not fully understood, and incapable of full
understanding by any human.162
Godhead is undifferentiated, unexpressed, absolute and singular being. Godhead is the simple, essential, unified, core God. Godhead is the necessarily first and fundamental 162 It is sometimes said that the universe is produced from nothing. This is impossible and if fact not Catholic teaching. God produces creation using the medium of nothing, adding his own particular attributes to produce something. This core of nothing is formed into something by God’s own donated attributes. These attributes give non moral form to things: atoms, trees and so on; this is the idea of divine omnipresence, as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas. Moral attributes, such as in humans may be added at God’s option.
The idea of something being generated from nothing has no support in physics or theology. This idea is sometimes suggested in a reverse sequence of matter and anti matter producing nothing. In fact, nothing is not produced, what is produced is some sort of undetectable matter, energy or spirit. The reverse of this in which nothing produces matter and anti matter is equally impossible.
We know that God exists because anything exists. If something exists, it must be either God or a creation of God (who at his core is unconditional existence). We are either God or a creation of God, there is no other possibility.
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revelation of God. Every movement of God — every act of thought, will and love further reveals and defines God.
“When” Godhead acts in such a way as to reveal the divine Son, Godhead reveals himself to be God the Father. God makes revelation simply by thinking or willing. When God thinks of himself, his image the Son of God is revealed. 163
The Trinity is eternal, but far from static. In the Nicene creed, we read that Christ was begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. “Before”
God was revealed as the Trinity, God was revealed as undifferentiated Godhead. Even today Christ adds members to himself as the body of Christ grows.164
163 The author proposes that each religion has its terminus or fulfillment in some specific aspect of Christ. The afterlife ideal of each major religion is an attribute of Christ. Christians will find fulfillment in the human nature of Christ, who is the person of Jesus Christ. Buddhists will participate in their ideal of Nirvana which is the Godhead in Christ. Godhead is a Christian idea and term going back 2000 years, it refers to the absolute, undifferentiated (not yet personified), eternal pure being of God.
Hinduism is at heart a monotheistic religion, (and the oldest), where the one God reveals his many attributes. Muslims may find their Royal, regal God of Islam…each of these attributes of God is present in the single person of Trinitarian Christ, the God who welcomes his children to reunion.
164 This is a good point to consider the question, “Does God change?.”
God is eternal (union of cause and effect), yet God also changes. The revelation of Trinity of God, from the Godhead is one example. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit were not simply waiting behind a curtain to be revealed, the Son is really begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit really proceeds from the Father and the Son. “Before” the Trinity, God existed as the single person of the Godhead, not the three persons of the Trinity.
This is real change.
The most profound change is occurring now, as God (specifically Jesus Christ), makes union with human persons who become part of the divine nature of God, (2Pet 1:4, CCC 398). This goes beyond change of revelation, but is actual change from outside the person of God, as external beings are incorporated into God himself.
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The revelation of Godhead as the three distinct persons of the Trinity is thought to be non-optional. “When” Godhead thinks, he “first” thinks of himself, (what else, no creation yet).
In doing so, Godhead reveals the trait of intellect, beyond the trait of pure being of the Godhead. When Godhead thinks of himself, he generates the complete image of himself who is the Son of God; and Godhead is now God the Father. The Son of God is the fullest expression of God. The Son of God himself is not yet fully revealed; the human children of God are called to be yet more expression of the Son of God, as the body of Christ.
The first and non-optional act of the newly revealed God
the Father and God the Son is to love each other. The Father and the Son directing their wills toward each other generates the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may be thought of as the bond of love (commitment) between the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit is not the human soul (spirit) of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is a distinct divine person of the Trinity of God. Jesus Christ had a completely human soul including a human intellect and will. Jesus’ will was free to act within the bounds of the divine will of Christ the Trinitarian Son of God.
At Gethsemane and on the cross, the human will of Jesus,
which was a freely acting part of the divine will, could not be corrupted. All other faculties of Jesus, his body, his reason, memory, and intellect were really attacked and damaged by the sin of the apostles which he took on at the last supper,
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.”, 2Cor 5:21.
The incorruptible will of Jesus, remediated our sin into his virtue.
In example, think of two people having a common pursuit;
this might be marriage or a business perhaps. As this pursuit is cultivated it becomes a real separate entity, this third entity becomes more than words. A marriage or a corporation is 220
given a certain legal status and rights of its own. The efforts of the two people give real form to the third entity.
This example is necessarily inadequate. When God thinks
and wills however; it is as real as it gets. The love of the Father and the Son toward each other is divine, selfless, full, intense, real, and permanent. Included in these thoughts is the possibility of creation outside of God. The Holy Spirit who results is divine, independent, full, intense and permanent.
The Holy Spirit is active love, “probing even the depths of God”, (1Cor 2:10). The Holy Spirit is proactive will, breathing his graces where he will, (Jn 3:8). When Christ wills union with a person, the Holy Spirit is necessarily this will. On those perfected and ready for divine inclusion, the Holy Spirit fully animates that soul with sanctifying graces. On those who are not yet fully perfected, these graces will not yet be fully incorporated, but that soul still participates to some degree in the three persons of the Trinity. In this way the Holy Spirit marks or seals that soul as a member of the body of Christ, (Ep 1:13).
The Holy Spirit is the acting agent of creation, sent by the Father and the Son, and is a real and complete divine person.
The Holy Spirit is the result of the mutual willing of the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is not necessarily God’s proportional will. It is possible, even likely that the Holy Spirit is God’s compete, but weighted will, with favoritism toward mercy, joy and peace.