God, Trinity and Creation
God, Trinity and Creation
This domain examines the one God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the classical divine attributes, creation ex nihilo, providence, the human person as imago Dei, and the entry of sin. The exam rewards precise Trinitarian grammar and a clear account of how creation and evil can coexist.
Core rules
- Nicaea (325) and Constantinople I (381) confess one God in three Persons, consubstantial, coeternal and coequal. The divine essence is one; the Persons are distinct by their relations of origin.
- Divine attributes include simplicity, aseity, immutability, omniscience, omnipotence and perfect goodness. Our language about God is analogical, not univocal (CCC 40-43).
- Creation is ex nihilo, free, good and ordered to God's glory (2 Macc 7:28; CCC 296-297). Providence sustains creatures without erasing secondary causes.
- Humanity is body and soul, made in God's image, endowed with original holiness and justice. Original sin is a wounded state, not personal guilt for Adam's act (CCC 404-405).
Worked example
A student argues that an all-good, all-powerful God cannot exist because innocent suffering does. Reasoning: distinguish the logical problem from the evidential problem. Catholic theology rejects any evil principle and holds that God permits evil only to draw a greater good (CCC 309-314), while insisting that suffering remains a mystery, not a trivial puzzle. Free will explains much moral evil; natural evil is not automatically someone's personal sin. The cross shows God entering suffering rather than observing it. Verdict: the argument is not a decisive disproof, though it remains a real pastoral and theological question.
Traps
Modalism, Arianism, tritheism and partialism; saying the Father suffered on the cross; treating creation as a necessary emanation; Manichaean dualism; confusing original sin with personal guilt; claiming evil is a substance rather than a privation.