God is that which is intelligible in itself, that which exists through the power of its own essence, that which is good by its very nature. And this implies, the Creed insists, that the God in whom we believe is one. The unity of God is, of course, an elemental biblical claim: “Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” says the great 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑎 prayer in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, and monotheism, it is fair to say, is 𝑡ℎ𝑒 distinctive mark of Jewish faith.
The opening verses of the book of Genesis, the account of the creation of all things, mentions a whole series of finite things—sun, moon, planets, stars, animals, mountains, etc.—that in various cultures in the ancient world were worshipped as divinities. In insisting that they are creatures, the author of Genesis effectively dethrones them, placing all of them in a subordinate relation to the one God.
Joseph Ratzinger has observed that the 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑎 and this opening article of the Creed have in common a spiritual implication of enormous significance. To say that there is only one God or that one believes in 𝑢𝑛𝑢𝑚 𝐷𝑒𝑢𝑚 is to disempower any false claimant to ultimacy in one’s life. To say that God is the only God is to say, necessarily, that no country, no political party, no human person, no movement, no ideology is of ultimate importance.
God, though certainly distinct from the world, is not lacking in any perfection that the world possesses. As Robert Sokolowski puts it, God plus the world is not greater than God alone, and “after creation there are more beings but not more perfection of 𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒 {being}.” In point of fact, this unique manner of God’s being is precisely what permits God to involve himself in the universe in a noninvasive and finally life-enhancing way.
When the gods of ancient mythology enter the world, they always do so destructively, something in the worldly order giving way in order for them to appear. But there is none of this in regard to the true God, whose relationship with creation is beautifully expressed in the biblical image of the burning bush.
The closer God comes to a creature, the more that creature is enhanced and rendered splendid.
-Bishop Robert Barron, 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝐵𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 -𝑈𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑒 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑.
