Part1:The Profession of Faith (26 - 1065)
Section2:The Profession of the Christian Faith (185 -
1065)
Chapter1:I Believe in God the Father (198 - 421)
Article1:"I believe in God the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth" (199 - 421)
Paragraph2:The Father (232 - 267)
II. THE REVELATION OF GOD AS
TRINITY
The Father revealed by the
Son
238 Many religions invoke God as "Father". The
deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is
called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world. Even more, God is Father
because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born son".
God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is "the
Father of the poor", of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving
protection.
239 By calling God
"Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first
origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time
goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can
also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God's immanence,
the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on
the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of
God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible
and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to
recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is
neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and
motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is
Father.
240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an
unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father
in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his
Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father
except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
241 For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to
be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the
glory of God and the very stamp of his nature".
242 Following
this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council
at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one
only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381,
kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the
only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light,
true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the
Father".
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