True Christian Religion

original: "tiandum Deos" - This is a fragment from the previous page, likely concluding a thought on the impossibility of mentioning or thinking of "gods" in the spiritual sense....mentioning gods; for this reason, even their speech at the end of every sentence terminates in a single accent. This is for no other reason than the influxInflux (Latin: influxus) is a central concept in this theology, describing the way life and truth flow from God into the human soul and the natural world, like light flowing into a room. into their souls, which dictates that God is one. Although this influx—that God is one—flows into the souls of all men, the reason why many think His Divinity is divided into several beings of the same essence is that when that Influx descends, it falls into forms that do not correspond to it. The form itself varies the influx, just as happens in all the subjects of the three kingdoms of nature. It is the same God who gives life to every beast and to every man, but the receiving form causes the beast to be a beast and the man to be a man. A similar thing happens with a man when he introduces the form of a beast into his own mind. There is a similar influx from the Sun into every tree, but it is varied according to the form of each; it is the same for the vine as it is for the thorn, but if a thorn is grafted onto a vine, the influx is inverted and proceeds according to the form of the thorn. The same happens in the subjects of the mineral kingdom: the light flowing into limestone and into a diamond is the same, but it shines through the latter and is darkened in the former. As for human minds, they vary according to their forms, which are inwardly spiritual according to their faith in God and a life led from God. Those forms become transparent and angelic through faith in one God; but conversely, they become dark and bestial through a faith in many gods, which differs little from a faith in no God.

9. III. FOR THIS REASON, THERE IS NO NATION IN THE WHOLE WORLD POSSESSING RELIGION AND SOUND REASON THAT DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE A GOD, AND THAT GOD IS ONE.

From the Divine Influx into the souls of men, mentioned just above, it follows that there is an internal dictate in every person that there is a God, and that He is one. That there are still those who deny God, who acknowledge Nature in place of God, or who worship many gods or even idols as gods, is because they have obstructed the interiors of their reason or understanding with worldly and bodily concerns. By these means, they have obliterated the primary idea of God from their infancy and have simultaneously cast Religion from their breast to their back. That Christians acknowledge one God—but in what manner—is evident from their Creedoriginal: Symbolica Confessione. This refers to the formal statements of faith, specifically the Athanasian Creed discussed below., which is as follows:

The Catholic Faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; there are three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet they are not three gods, but one God. And there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit, and they have one Divinity, equal Glory, and co-eternal Majesty; thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But because we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge each Person individually as God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say there are three Gods and three Lords.

Such is the Christian faith concerning the Unity of God; but how the Trinity of God and the Unity of God disagree with each other in that confession will be seen in the chapter on the Divine Trinity. The remaining nations in the world who possess religion and sound reason agree that God is one: all the Muslims in their empires; the Africans in many kingdoms of their continent; and also the Asians in many of theirs; and furthermore, the Jews today. The most ancient people in the Golden Age, those who possessed religion, worshipped one God whom they named Jehovah. Similarly, the Ancient people in the following age—before monarchical empires were established, when worldly and finally bodily loves began to close the higher parts of the understanding (which were previously open and then functioned like Temples and Sanctuariesoriginal: Adyta. The innermost, holiest part of a temple. for the worship of one God). But so that the Lord God might reopen those parts and thus restore the worship of one God, He established a Church among the descendants of Jacob and placed this at the head of all their religious precepts: There shall be no other God before my face, Exodus 20:3. The name Jehovah, which He named Himself anew before them, signifies the supreme and unique Being from whom is everything that is and exists in the universe. The ancient Gentiles acknowledged Jupiter as the supreme God (perhaps so named from "Jehovah"), and they also granted divinity to many others who made up his court; but the wise men in the following age, such as Plato and Aristotle, confessed that these were not Gods, but so many properties, qualities, and at-