Who is Jesus?/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 1
I. GOD IS ONE
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CAN there be any doubt that God is one? Only in degraded forms of religion do we ever find men worshiping more than one God. Plato and Aristotle confessed that the many deities of the Greeks were only so many properties, qualities, and attributes of the one God. Reason revolts against the thought of more than one God, confirming itself by the unity of nature and the obviousness of this unity in the entire created universe. For, since the universe acts together as one great whole, as a cosmos not a chaos, it is evident that there is only one creating and directing force at the head of such a unified system.
Is it necessary in this our day to argue for the existence of only one God? Do not all men admit it? They admit it as a general proposition in theory, but their theologies have not always been in accord either with reason or Scriptures in this regard. But it is indispensable for my purpose that this point shall be clear beyond all question. To that end I shall put forth a familiar statement of the case, which should put the matter forever beyond controversy. It is necessary that every mind shall give assent to the fact of the impossibility of there being more than one God.
Every one admits that in the very nature of the case God is infinite. It is an attribute which the adherents of all religions accord Him. They cannot avoid it, for it requires an infinite being to create and rule an immeasurable universe; it requires an infinite being to be without beginning or ending in point of time; it requires an infinite being to possess and be the source of all love, all wisdom, and all power. We attribute all these things to God. We cannot conceive of two definite Divine beings existing from eternity to eternity in the form of two creators and two rulers of the universe. Such a thought is as monstrous to the reason as it is foreign to the Bible. Nor can we conceive of two who are infinite in love, wisdom, and power, for infinity is indivisible, The moment that we speak of two infinites we are speaking of the impossible. The very quality of infinity implies that the one who possesses it is unbounded as to place, as to time, and as to quality. He is omni-present, eternal, and complete or comprehensive. To say that there are two infinites is to attempt to bound the boundless, to limit the limitless. Two infinites cannot exist together, for each would limit the other, and hence neither would be infinite.
God must be one because He is everywhere-present, always-existing, all-loving, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, uncreated, absolute, complete, unconditioned, infinite, hence indivisible. The moment He ceases to be any of these things He ceases to be God, and hence becomes a finite being.
The Athanasian creed says:
There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreate, infinite, eternal, omnipotent, God, Lord; so likewise is the Son, and so likewise is the Holy Spirit.
Also, the Father was made and created of none, the Son was born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both. Thus there is one Father, one Son, and one Holy Spirit, and in this Trinity all the three persons are together eternal, and are altogether equal.
From these words it is impossible for any one to think otherwise than that there are three Gods. And this is shown to be the thought of the makers of this creed, for it is added: "As we are obliged by the Christian verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, yet we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three Gods or three Lords." This cannot be understood in any other sense than that we may acknowledge three Gods and three Lords, but we may not name them such; or that we may think of three Gods and Lords, but we must not speak of them.
Is not this polytheism, pure and simple? Is it not, therefore, necessary to argue to prove that God is one? I am aware that people of our day will reject the Athanasian creed when it is brought before them in this way. Each individual clergyman, for example, when confronted by such contradictory statements as it contains, such obviously impossible things, will either say that it is beyond our understanding, yet true because the fathers of the Church have hitherto accepted it, but that he himself believes in only one God.
There are many things difficult for us to comprehend, especially in the realm of the infinite, but we certainly are not required to believe that the infinite is divisible, for we immediately see that it cannot, in the very nature of the case, be true. God is one, complete and indivisible. There cannot exist three Gods and three Lords, thus three Infinites. Any creed which so states is untrue, it makes no difference what sanctity it has acquired from long acceptance.
If asked, not only will every clergyman of today, but also every Christian, declare most solemnly that he personally believes in only one God. If that is the case, why are such creeds still permitted to exist as nominal fundamentals of the Christian Church?
It is not necessary, perhaps, to add the testimony of Scripture to refute such confusing, contradictory, and rationally impossible statements, yet it is worth while to recall that both in the New Testament and the Old we find it written:
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." (Deut. 6:4; also Mark 12:29.)
And again: "I am Jehovah, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." (Isa. 45:5.)
And again: "Am not I Jehovah? and there is no God else beside Me." (Isa. 45:21.)
This is obviously an absolute, complete, and indivisible being who is speaking.
And again in Isaiah: "Thus saith Jehovah, the king of Israel, I am the First and I am the Last, and beside Me there is no God." (Isa. 44:6.)
And in Zechariah: "In that day Jehovah shall be king over all the earth; in that day Jehovah shall be one and His name one." (14:9.)
The Bible certainly clinches the matter, and for those who have hitherto accepted such creeds its authority is final.