“It is,” they said.
So I replied, “Then the Father and the Son have nothing in common,
and neither of them has anything in common with the Holy Spirit. There-
fore each one has his own free choice, responsibility, and power. They
share nothing, then, other than the fact that each one has a will, which he
can communicate if he wishes. Aren’t these three persons three distinct
gods? And listen to this: You have in fact defined a personas someone who
subsists on his or her own. Therefore there are three ‘subsistings’ or sub-
stances into which you have divided the divine essence, and yet you said
that the divine essence is indivisible; you said there was one undivided
essence. Furthermore you attribute to each substance or person character-
istics that are not in the others and could not be shared with them: giving
spiritual credit or blame, mediating, and putting into effect. What other
conclusion is possible except that the three persons are three gods?”
At my saying this, they drew back and said, “We will discuss these
points among ourselves, and after our discussion we will give you our
response.”
[ 4 ] A wise person was standing nearby. On hearing all this, the wise
person said to them, “I do not wish to sift such a sublime topic with such
a fine mesh. Setting subtleties aside, I see in a clear light that there are
three gods in the ideas of your thought. If you publicized your views
before the whole world it would cause you shame, because you would be
labeled either insane or stupid. Therefore saying that there is one God
helps you avoid losing respect.”
The three scholars, however, held on to their opinion and paid no
attention. As they went away they were muttering terms borrowed from
metaphysics. This alerted me that metaphysics was the oracle they
planned to consult in giving their response.The Underlying Divine Reality or Jehovah
18 First I will discuss the underlying divine reality, and afterward the divine
essence. These two might seem to be one and the same thing, but under-
lying reality is even more universal than essence. Essence presupposes an
underlying reality and arises from it. The underlying reality of God, the
underlying divine reality, cannot be described. It is beyond the reach of
any idea in human thought. Everything human thought can conceive of
is created and finite; it cannot conceive of what was not created and is
infinite. Therefore it cannot conceive of the underlying divine reality.