Good morning, Father Angelo, and a blessed Sunday to you. 

I greet you with affection, thanking you for all you do for us through the Amici Domenicani website and for having answered my previous question. 

Father Angelo, I would like to know what the doctrine of the Catholic Church says about the Generation of the Word of God. 

In generating the Son, His Word, does God the Father bestow His substance upon Him totally? In generating the Son, does the Father give Him the entirety of the substance He possesses—that is, does He give Him All and Totally? 

Thank you and have a blessed Sunday, Father Angelo.

The Priest’s Answer 

Dear friend, 

1. Yes, the Father communicates Himself totally to the Son. He gives Him everything. 

If He did not give Him everything, the Son would be inferior to the Father. Consequently, He would not be God. 

Yet, in the Creed, we profess that the only-begotten Son of God, the Word, is “God from God…  of one Being with the Father”.

2. Jesus said: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jn 14:10) “The Father and I are one.” Jn (10:30) “so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (Jn 10:38).

3. Besides, how could God not know Himself fully? Indeed, the Word is the Thought of God, the knowledge that God has of Himself. For this reason, the Word is as great as God Himself.

4. What is said of the Father regarding the Trinity—namely, that “tantus est Pater quanta tota Trinitas” (the Father is of the same magnitude as the whole Trinity) (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I, 30, 1, ad 4) —must likewise be said of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. This perfect and mutual interpenetration among the three Divine Persons is called Perichoresis in Greek and circuminsessio in Latin. In English: circuminsession.

5. In the Quicumque symbol of Athanasius (in the past all priests were obliged to recite it every Sunday) it is professed:

“What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated.

The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.

The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal.

And yet there are not three eternal beings. There is but one eternal being.”

6. The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the doctrine of the three Divine Persons as follows: ‘The Trinity is One. 

We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”. The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.” […] 

“Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature”  (CCC 253).

7. Again, the Athanasian Creed states that the Trinity is One. We do not confess three gods, but one God alone in three Persons: ‘the consubstantial Trinity.’ The Divine Persons do not share the one divinity among themselves, but each of them is God in His entirety: The Father is all that the Son is, the Son all that the Father is, the Holy Spirit all that the Father and the Son are, that is, one single God according to nature. Each of the three Persons is that reality—namely, the divine substance, essence, or nature. 

Wishing you may enjoy as much as possible the life of the Most Holy Trinity, I bless you

Father Angelo

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