God's cognition

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/222497833209

 

God's cognition

 

There are two humans, Chul-soo (a man) and Young-hee (a woman). Chul-soo recognizes Young-hee and has a conversation with her. For this to be possible, there must be a reality that encompasses Chul-soo and Young-hee and transcends both, that is, there must be one God who created them and is maintaining their existence even now. Without this transcendent reality, Chul-soo can't recognize Young-hee, nor can Young-hee recognize Chul-soo, even if they exist by themselves; because they can't recognize each other if there are not sound and light outside them.

 

How about God? How does the Father cognize the Son and communicate with him, and vice versa? These are two Persons having complete divinity. There are only two possibilities for these two to be able to communicate.

 

1. There is a transcendent reality that encompasses these two, transcends them, and intermediates between them for their communication.

 

But this violates the concept of God (that both of them are) who exists by himself, because it presupposes a transcendent being who created God, and who is in a higher level of existence than God.

 

2. The result of the begetting of the Son is that the Son is in the being of the Father and the Father is in the being of the Son, or that these two Persons become one divine substance (one divine being).

 

Only then can the Father and the Son cognize and communicate with each other. Likewise, if the Holy Spirit is included, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can cognize and communicate with one another only when they are Trinity (three Persons & one substance (one being)).

 

Let me give you an analogy. Suppose that the infinite space is a unique living being. If this space has a son(!), this son is the same space as the father-space, and this son-space can exist only in the dimension of space according to its inherent nature. Therefore the son-space is in the father-space, and vice versa. Both are infinite, so one fills the other completely with its being. Nevertheless the two need to be one substance, for them to cognize and communicate with each other. But this is too profound a situation! Because 'to exist in the same place' is one thing, and 'to cognize and communicate with each other' is another. There can be no ability or means to cognize and communicate with each other even if the two coexist in the same sphere.

 

Since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all divine Ones having perfect divinity, they all coexist in the same metaphysical space, or in the dimension of the existence of God. (Of course, I've said before that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of God sent into the real space. Here we say of the coexistence of the three Persons like that for convenience's sake.) This situation does not guarantee mutual cognition, prehension, and communication of the three Persons. The mutual cognition and communication of the three Persons is ensured when the Father's being (the hypostasis of the Father) is shared by the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Son's being is shred by the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's being is shared by the Father and the Son. For the three Persons to cognize one another, they must constitute 'one divine substance', and there must be 'mutual sharing of being between them'. This is the most profound secret in the world.