The Makings of a Course on God One and Three

Faith

Two Levels of Experience: The experience of sensible perception (All of the above).

There is a second level of experience. John Paul II made a simple presentation of this in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope:”

               

 “The fact that human knowledge is primarily a sensory knowledge surprises no one.”[1] But the human person has two experiences in every empirical sensation. He experiences the external object through the five senses. And he experiences himself experiencing the external object through the five senses. There are two realities being experienced in every sensation, the thing and the self.[2]

            “We know, in fact, that man not only knows colors, tones, and forms; he also knows objects globally – for example, not only all the parts that comprise the object ‘man’ but also man in himself (yes, man as a person).He knows, therefore, extrasensory truths, or, in other words, the transempirical. In addition, it is not possible to affirm that when something is transempirical it ceases to be empirical (i.e., the experience of the self as enfleshed “I” in the moral act is empirical).[3]

“It is therefore possible to speak from a solid foundation about human experience, moral experience, or religious experience.[4] And if it is possible to speak of such experiences, it is difficult to deny that, in the realm of human experience, one also finds good and evil, truth and beauty, and God. God Himself certainly is not an object of human empiricism; the Sacred Scripture, in its own way, emphasizes this: ‘No one has ever seen God’ (cf. Jn. 1, 18). If God is a knowable object … he is such on the basis of man’s experience both of the visible world and of his interior world. This is the point of departure for Immanuel Kant’s study of ethical experience in which he abandons the old approach found in the writings of the Bible and of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Man recognizes himself as an ethical being, capable of acting according to criteria of good and evil, and not only those of profit and pleasure. He also recognizes himself as a religious being, capable of putting himself in contact with God.”[5]

            Since our knowledge begins in the senses, and since “no one at any time has seen God” (Jn. 1, 18), and since “no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” Mt. 11, 27), we can know the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three Persons in one God only through the revelation of the Son, Jesus Christ.

            But the revelation of Jesus Christ is not merely words and deeds He said and performed. He Himself in His Person is the revelation of the Father. He revealed that God is a Trinity of Persons: “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10, 30); “Philip, he who sees me, sees also the Father” (Jn. 14, 9). But to actually re-cognize Him is another question.

The Question of Faith:

Simon re-cognized Him and became “Peter” confessing: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16, 16). But how did he do it if “no knows the Son except the Father?” He had to let himself be drawn by the Father[6] in prayer. That is by the experience of praying and going out of self, instead of an initial conceptual knowing taking place, the way of knowing is a consciousness that accompanies the experience. To know experientially is not the scientific mode of knowing, but belongs to philosophical phenomenology. The act of faith is this conscious way of knowing, the prime act that it accompanies is prayer. Note that Part Four of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is “Christian Prayer,” which is the act that engenders the other three parts. And note that Pope Francis is emphasizing that the faith is not “ideology” nor reducible to conceptualization: “In ideology there is no Jesus [no Person]: his tenderness, love, meekness. And ideologies are always rigid,” the Pope said. “In every sense: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of ideology, they have lost the faith: they are no more a disciple of Jesus[7], they are a disciple of this attitude of thought, of this…”[8] And for this reason Jesus says to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge’. The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these closed the door with so many requirements.”

Atheism: (As conceptual ideology [but not praxis])

2013-05-22

As an act of conversion away from self, the atheist, who follows his conscience as dictated (“commanded”) by his being an image of God (Whom he does not know yet), does what his conscience dictates to be the good,[9] begins to experience the Person of Christ as Trinitarian Relation. Consider Pope Francis’ homily from May 22, 2013 Paraphrased from News.va: Wednesday’s Gospel speaks to us about the disciples who prevented a person from outside their group from doing good. “They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.”

And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”: "The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.”

“Instead,” the Pope continued, “the Lord has created us in His image and likeness, and has given us this commandment in the depths of our heart: do good and do not do evil”:

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
“Doing good” the Pope explained, is not a matter of faith: “It is a duty, it is an identity card that our Father has given to all of us, because He has made us in His image and likeness. And He does good, always.”

"Today is [the feast of] Santa Rita, Patron Saint of impossible things – but this seems impossible: let us ask of her this grace, this grace that all, all, all people would do good and that we would encounter one another in this work, which is a work of creation, like the creation of the Father. A work of the family, because we are all children of God, all of us, all of us! And God loves us, all of us! May Santa Rita grant us this grace, which seems almost impossible. Amen.”

God Revealed

Reality

 “Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life.”[10]

                The Conclusion of Ratzinger’s habilitation thesis on faith (1955): “Here, `revelation’ is always a concept denoting an act. The word refers to the act in which God shows himself, not to the objectified result of this act. And because this is so, the receiving subject is always also a part of the concept of `revelation.’ Where there is no one to perceive `revelation,’ no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. By definition, revelation requires a someone who apprehends it. These insights, gained through my reading of Bonaventure, were later on very important for me at the time of the conciliar discussion on revelation, Scripture, and tradition. Because, if Bonaventure is right, then revelation precedes Scripture and becomes deposited in Scripture but is not simply identical with it. This in turn means that revelation is always something greater than what is merely written down. And this again means that there can be no such thing as pure sola scriptura (`by Scripture alone’), because an essential element of Scripture is the Church as understanding subject, and with this the fundamental sense of tradition is already given.”^[11]

Again: 1) Revelation is the Person of the Word [the Son: Philip, he who sees me sees also the Father” (Jn. 14, 9); 2) we “know” that Person only by becoming Him.

“Revelation always and only becomes a reality where there is faith. The nonbeliever remains under the veil of which Paul speaks [2 Cor. 3, 15-16: “Yes, down to this very day when Moses is read, the veil covers their hearts, but when they turn in repentance to God, the veil shall be taken away.” Notice that faith is always an act of conversion away from the self {prayer} leaving the inner space into the relational “I” of Christ]. He can read Scripture and know what is in it, can even understand at a purely intellectual level, what is meant and how what is said hangs together –and yet he has not shared in the revelation. Rather, revelation has only arrived where, in addition to the material assertions witnessing to it, its inner reality has itself become effective after the manner of faith. Consequently, the person who receives it also is a part of the revelation to a certain degree, for without him it does not exist. You cannot put revelation in your pocket like a book you carry around with you. It is a living reality that requires a living person as the locus of its presence.”[12]

Source of Confusion: We confuse the way we know by faith with the way we know by reason. We experience reason to know through concepts or ideas. These “concepts or ideas” are abstractions of the existing subjects that render them “objects.” We see something. We form a mental likeness of the thing, and we assume that Revelation gives us “supernatural” or religious likenesses of God in the same way.

Vatican II underwent a radical development in speaking of faith. Instead of asking the question, “What should men believe?, What is the real meaning of this or that truth of faith?, and so on, … [it asked] the more complex question: ‘What does it mean to be a believer, a Catholic and a member of the Church?’”

That is, it asked what it meant to be a subject believing? It asked what it meant to be an existing subject believing rather than merely an abstract truth that is believed.[13]

John Paul II in dialogue with Andre Frossard in the book, “Be Not Afraid:”[14]

            “Perhaps we should first come to an understanding about the very term ‘definition’ [of faith]… Personally I would not discount the old catechism definition which I learned at primary school: faith is ‘to admit as truth what God has revealed and what the Church gives us to believe.’ However, I will  not send you back to the catechism, for this definition, as it stands, can incur the criticism that it does not attach sufficient importance to the person, the subject that experiences faith, even though the very phrase ‘admit as truth’ clearly implies the existence of the subject. It also indicates the cognitive character of faith in its reference to the truth that motivates it…. [Going to Vat. II’s Dei Verbum #5] We read further on in the same text: ‘To God who reveals himself we must bring the obedience of faith by which man entrusts himself entirely, free, to God, bringing to him who reveals the complete submissions of his intelligence and heart and giving with all his will full assent to the Revelation which he has made.’ Thus faith is man’s reply to the Revelation by which God ‘communicates himself.’ The constitution Dei Verbum expresses perfectly the essentially personal character of faith.

                “In the words ‘man entrusts himself to God by the obedience of faith,’ one must see, if only indirectly, the thought that faith, as response to the revelation by which God ‘gives himself to man,’ implies through its internal dynamism a reciprocal gift on the part of man, who in a way ‘also gives himself to God.’ This gift of oneself is the profoundest and most personal structure of faith….”

                “In the act of faith, man does not respond to God with the gift of a bit of himself, but with the gift of his whole person…

“I have already drawn your attention to the difference between the catechism formula, `accepting as true all that God reveals,’ and surrender to God. In the first definition faith is primarily intellectual, in so far as it is the welcoming and assimilation of revealed fact. On the other hand, when the Constitution Dei Verbum tells us that man entrusts himself to God `by obedience of faith,’ we are confronted with the whole ontological and existential dimension and, so to speak, the drama of existence proper to man.

“In faith man discovers the relativity of his being in comparison with an absolute I and the contingent character of his own existence. To believe is to entrust this human I, in all its transcendence and all its transcendent greatness, but also with its limits, its fragility and its mortal condition, to Someone who announces himself as the beginning and the end, transcending all that is created and contingent, but who also reveals himself at the same time as a Person who invites us to companionship, participation and communion. An absolute person – or better, a personal Absolute.

               

“The surrender to God through faith (through the obedience of faith) penetrates to the very depths of human existence, to the very heart of personal existence. This is how we should understand this `commitment,’ which you mentioned in your question and which presents itself as the solution to the very problem of existence or to the personal drama of human existence. It is much more than a purely intellectual theism and goes deeper and further than the act of `accepting as true what God has revealed.’”^[15]

Benedict XVI, Francis: Lumen Fidei #19:  “In accepting the gift of faith, believers become a new creation; they receive a new being: as God’s children, they are now ‘sons in the Son.’ The phrase ‘Abba, Father,’ so characteristic of Jesus’ own experience, now becomes the core of the Christian experience (cf. Rom. 8, 15). The life of faith, as a filial existence, is the acknowledgment of a primordial and radical gift which upholds our lives.”

Me: In a word, we experience God as One and Three insofar as we experience ourselves going out of ourselves to say “Yes” (as Our Lady) to Jesus Christ, the Word of God and Son of the Father. That is, we become “other Christs, Christ Himself” by this evacuating the inner space of ourselves. We defeat being “self-referential” (Pope Francis) by being obedient to the vocation of the moment, in the small thing (our Father). We know God by becoming God: “Only God knows God.”[16]  We know the divine Person Who is pure relationality, by becoming relational. How is that done? See Ratzinger’s Thesis III of his “Behold the Pierced One” (Ignatius [1986] 25-27).

Benedict XVI remarked in his keynote address to the Aparecida Conference in 2007 in Brazil (the protagonist of which was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio):

                          Go to p. 5 and re-read “Reality.”

                                                “The first basic point to affirm, then, is the following: only those who recognize God know reality and are able to respond to it adequately and in a truly human manner. The truth of this thesis becomes evident in the face of the collapse of all the systems that marginalize God.
                                       “Yet here a further question immediately arises: who knows God? How can we know him? We cannot enter here into a complex discussion of this fundamental issue. For a Christian, the nucleus of the reply is simple: only God knows God, only his Son who is God from God, true God, knows him. And he "who is nearest to the Father’s heart has made him known" (John 1:18). Hence the unique and irreplaceable importance of Christ for us, for humanity. If we do not know God in and with Christ, all of reality is transformed into an indecipherable enigma; there is no way, and without a way, there is neither life nor truth.

God is the foundational reality, not a God who is merely imagined or hypothetical, but God with a human face; he is God-with-us, the God who loves even to the Cross. When the disciple arrives at an understanding of this love of Christ "to the end", he cannot fail to respond to this love with a similar love: "I will follow you wherever you go" (Luke 9:57).

WHAT DOES FAITH IN THIS GOD GIVE US? ANS: UNIVERSAL FAMILY – THE CHURCH, RELEASE FROM THE ISOLATION OF THE “I”

“We can ask ourselves a further question: what does faith in this God give us? The first response is: it gives us a family, the universal family of God in the Catholic Church. Faith releases us from the isolation of the "I", because it leads us to communion: the encounter with God is, in itself and as such, an encounter with our brothers and sisters, an act of convocation, of unification, of responsibility towards the other and towards others. In this sense, the preferential option for the poor is implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9).

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Catechism of the Catholic Church

"I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"

Paragraph 1. I BELIEVE IN GOD

199 "I believe in God": this first affirmation of the Apostles' Creed is also the most fundamental. the whole Creed speaks of God, and when it also speaks of man and of the world it does so in relation to God. The other articles of the Creed all depend on the first, just as the remaining Commandments make the first explicit. The other articles help us to know God better as he revealed himself progressively to men. "The faithful first profess their belief in God."²

I. "I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD"

200 These are the words with which the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed begins. The confession of God's oneness, which has its roots in the divine revelation of the Old Covenant, is inseparable from the profession of God's existence and is equally fundamental. God is unique; there is only one God: "The Christian faith confesses that God is one in nature, substance and essence."³ This “Oneness” = Uniqueness because the God of Jesus Christ is Three Persons.

201 To Israel, his chosen, God revealed himself as the only One: "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."⁴ Through the prophets, God calls Israel and all nations to turn to him, the one and only God: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.. . To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 'Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.'"⁵

202 Jesus himself affirms that God is "the one Lord" whom you must love "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength".⁶ At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is "the Lord".⁷ To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God. Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as "Lord and giver of life" introduce any division into the One God:

We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.

God “One and Three”

(“I and the Father are one” [Jn. 10,  30] / “The Father is greater than I” [Jn. 14, 28])

“It is impossible to separate the question of whether God exits [as One] from the question of who or what God is. It is completely impossible to begin by proving or disproving the existence of God and then to begin pondering who or what God actually is[17]. The contents that an image of God holds are a fundamentally decisive factor in determining whether or not knowledge can develop here. And this knowledge and these contents are so profoundly interwoven with the basic decisions of human life, which limit or open up the sphere of a man’s knowledge, that mere theory is impotent here.”[18]

The Ratzinger text on the constitutive relationality of the divine Persons is decisive:

“Father” [“Abba”]

Theological Meaning: The relation of the pure act of engendering

“The First Person does not beget the Son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, or giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving. Only as this act is it person, and therefore it is not the giver but the act of giving, ‘wave’ not ‘corpuscle’ …. In this idea of relativity in word and love, independent of the concept of substance and not to be classified among the ‘accidents,’ Christian thought discovered the kernel of the concept of person which describes something other and infinitely more than the mere idea of the ‘individual.’ Let us listen once again to St. Augustine: ‘In God there are no accidents, only substance and relation.’ Therein lies concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality. It becomes possible to surmount what we call today ‘objectifying thought;’ a new plane of being comes into view.  It is probably true to say that the task imposed on philosophy as a result of these facts is far from being completed – so much does modern thought depend on the possibilities thus disclosed, but for which it would be inconceivable.”[19]

The Point: God is “one” insofar as it is impossible to have one Person without having the Other. If the Father is the action of engendering the Son, then it would not be possible to have the Father without having the Son, nor the Son without having the Father.

“Son”

Theological Meaning: the relation of the pure act of glorifying and obeying

 “The Son as Son, and in so far as he is Son, does not proceed in any way from himself and so is completely one with the Father; since he is nothing beside him, claims no special position of his own, confronts the Father with nothing belonging only to him, retains no room for his own individuality, therefore he is completely equal to the Father. The logic is compelling: if there is nothing in which he is just he, no kind of fenced-off private ground, then he coincides with the Father, is ‘one’ with him. It is precisely this totality of interplay that the word ‘Son’ aims at expressing. To John ‘Son’ means being-from-another; thus with this word he defines the being of this man as being from another and for others, as a being that is completely open on both sides, knows no reserved area of the mere ‘I.’ When it thus becomes clear that the being of Jesus as Christ is a completely open being, a being ‘from’ and ‘towards,’ that nowhere clings to itself and nowhere stands on its own, then it is also clear at the same time that this being is pure relation (not substantiality) and, as pure relation, pure unity. This fundamental statement about Christ becomes, as we have seen, at the same time the explanation of Christian existence. To John, being a Christian means being like the Son, becoming a son; that is, not standing on one’s own and in oneself, but living completely open in the ‘from’ and ‘towards.’ In so far as the Christian is a ‘Christian,’ this is true of him. And certainly such utterances will make him aware to how small an extent he is a Christian;”[20]

“Holy Spirit”

“In his intimate life, God ‘is love,’[21] the essential love shared by the three divine Persons: personal love is the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Therefore he ‘searches even the depths of God,’ as uncreated Love-Gift. It can be said that in the Holy Spirit the intimate life of the Triune God becomes totally gift, an exchange of mutual love between the divine Persons, and that through the Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift. It is the the Holy Spirit who is the personal expression of this self-giving, of this being-love. He is Person-Love. He is Person-Gift. Here we have an inexhaustible reassure of the reality and an inexpressible deepening of the concept of person in God, which only divine Revelation makes known to us.

“At the same time, the Holy Spirit, being consubstantial with the Father and the Son in divinity, is love and uncreated gift from which derives as from its source (fons vivus) all giving of gifts vis-à-vis creatures (created gift): the gift of existence to all things through creation; the gift of grace to human beings through the whole economy of salvation. As the Apostle Paul writes: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”[22]

Atheism:

Atheists are created in the image and likeness of God. If we engage with them in doing a work of getting out of self, there will be an ontological change in them from self-referentiality to giftedness, and a consciousness of God follows  thereon. In that very act, they are beginning to be  living images of the divine Persons.

Consider Pope Francis’ remarks on dealing with atheists: “[A]ll of us have this commandment at heart: Do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this [person] is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can ... The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! ... We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: We will meet one another there.”

God in “One” as “Communio:”

II. GOD REVEALS HIS NAME: “For the other.” “Not self-referential” and “to the peripheries.”

203 God revealed himself to his people Israel by making his name known to them. A name expresses a person's essence and identity and the meaning of this person's life. God has a name; he is not an anonymous force. To disclose one's name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally.

204 God revealed himself progressively and under different names to his people, but the revelation that proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants was the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush, on the threshold of the Exodus and of the covenant on Sinai.

The living God

205 God calls Moses from the midst of a bush that bums without being consumed: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."⁹ God is the God of the fathers, the One who had called and guided the patriarchs in their wanderings. He is the faithful and compassionate God who remembers them and his promises; he comes to free their descendants from slavery. He is the God who, from beyond space and time, can do this and wills to do it, the God who will put his almighty power to work for this plan.

"I Am who I Am"

Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." and he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'. . . this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."¹⁰

206 In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM HE WHO IS", "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God", his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men.”¹¹

Me: As ineffable, His name cannot be reduced to concepts or created categories. The meaning of “I AM WHO AM:” Note the historical and geographical framework of the narrative of Exodus 3, 7: “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have hear their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings (3, 7). God is the protector of his people’s rights. He protects the right of the powerless against the mighty. This is his true face, and this is the core of the Old Testament legislation that repeatedly extends God’s personal protection to the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. This is the heart  of Jesus’ preaching, too. He himself took on the defenselessness of one who was accused and condemned and died, thereby extending the protection of God to this defenselessness. His struggle to clarify the meaning of the Sabbath belongs in this context (like so much else in his life). In the Old Testament, the Sabbath is the day when creatures have freedom, the day on which man and beast, slave and master rest. It is the day on which the fraternal fellowship of all the creatures is re-established in the midst of a world where equality and freedom are absent. On the Sabbath, the creation returns for a moment to its oint of  origin. On the Sabbath, all are free, thanks to God’s own freedom. Jesus’ working on the Sabbath is not directed against the Sabbath. Rather, he is fighting to establish its original meaning, preserving it as the day of God’s freedom, sot that the hands of the casuists may not pervert it into the opposite, that is, a day of tormented petty-mindedness.