FOURTH ARTICLE: WHETHER WE CAN SAY THAT GOD THE FATHER IS ALONE

Reply. We cannot say that the Father is alone categorematically because the Father is not solitary; but syncategorematically we can say, for instance, that in God the Father alone enunciates or begets.

When the Church proclaims, "Thou only, O Jesus Christ, art most high," she does not wish to say that the Son alone is most high but that the Son alone is most high with the Holy Ghost in the glory of the Father.[332] When Jesus said that no one knows the Son except the Father, He did not wish to say that the Son and Holy Ghost do not know the Son, because the persons are not excluded unless there is relative opposition, as when we say, the Father alone begets.

In this brief examination of the correct mode of speaking about the Trinity, we see how amazing it is that human language with all its limitations and inadequacies is able to develop such precision in enunciating a mystery that is in itself ineffable.