Edexcel GCSE Religious Studies B

The Trinity

Catholics believe in one God who exists as three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine is called the Trinity, and the Nicene Creed, which is said at Mass on Sundays, states it: the Son is "begotten, not made" and is one in being with the Father, and the Holy Spirit is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. The three Persons are not three gods, and they are not three roles played by one God in turn. Each is fully God, they share one divine nature, and they are distinct in their relationships to one another.

The oneness of God matters because it keeps Catholic belief within monotheism, the belief that there is only one God, which Christianity shares with Judaism and Islam. Each Person is also associated with a particular emphasis. God the Father is the creator and the source of all that exists, and Jesus called him "Abba", an intimate word for father. God the Son became human in Jesus Christ and saved humanity. God the Holy Spirit is the presence and power of God at work in the world and in the Church, and Catholics believe the Spirit is given in baptism and confirmation and inspires the Church.

The belief shows up in the way a Catholic prays and worships. The sign of the cross is made "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". Baptism is carried out with the same words, and the Gloria and the Glory Be, which Catholics say often, praise all three Persons. Catholics see the love between the Persons as a model for the love Christians should have for one another.

Biblical and historical background

The New Testament never uses the word Trinity, but Catholics find the three Persons together in several places. At the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13–17), Jesus comes out of the water, the Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice from heaven calls him the beloved Son. The Son, the Spirit and the Father are all present at once, and Catholics take this as a revelation of God's inner life. Jesus's command to baptise "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19) is used in the same way.

The doctrine was worked out over the first centuries of the Church. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE met to deal with Arius, who taught that the Son was a created being and not equal to the Father. The council declared that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, and wrote this into the creed. The First Council of Constantinople in 381 CE confirmed the teaching about the Son and added the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the creed said at Mass is based on its wording, which is why it is usually called the Nicene (or Niceno-Constantinopolitan) Creed. Later the Western Church added the phrase that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son", a change the Orthodox Churches do not accept.

Creation and humanity

The Genesis account

Catholics read the creation stories in Genesis 1–3 as part of the Bible's teaching about God, the world and human beings. In the first account God creates by speaking, over six days, and calls what he has made good, then rests on the seventh day. The second account has God shaping the first man from the earth, planting a garden and making the woman. The third account describes the Fall, in which Adam and Eve disobey God and bring sin and death into the world.

Christians understand these chapters in different ways. A literal reading, held by many creationists and some evangelical Christians, takes the six days as ordinary days and Adam and Eve as historical individuals. A metaphorical reading takes the stories as religious truth told in a symbolic form, which says why the world exists and what God and people are like without describing how the universe actually developed. The Catholic Church does not require anyone to read Genesis literally, and it accepts that the Bible's purpose is to teach about God and salvation and not to give a scientific account.

Whichever way it is read, the account tells Catholics what God is like. God is the Creator, who made everything out of nothing, and so is all-powerful, or omnipotent, since a word is enough to bring the universe into being. God is benevolent, because he looks at creation and sees that it is good, and creates out of love and not need. God is eternal, since he exists before the world and is not part of it, which is why Catholics say he exists outside time.

Humanity in the image of God

Genesis 1:26–27 says humans are created in the image of God. Catholics take this to mean that people share something of God's nature, such as reason, free will, the ability to love and a moral sense, and that every person therefore has a dignity that cannot be taken away. This is the basis of the Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life and on equality.

The same chapters raise the question of how humans should treat the rest of creation. Genesis 1:28 gives humans dominion over living things, and some Christians have read this as permission to use the earth as they wish. Genesis 2:15, where Adam is put in the garden to work it and take care of it, is behind the idea of stewardship, which Catholics stress: humans look after the world on God's behalf and will be answerable to him for how they have done so. For Catholics today this means a duty to protect the environment and to share the earth's resources fairly.

The Incarnation

Catholics believe that Jesus is the Son of God who became a human being. The doctrine of the Incarnation (from the Latin for "in flesh") says Jesus is both fully God and fully human, not half of each, and that he is the eternal Word of God. The prologue of John's Gospel (John 1:1–18) is the main scriptural source: the Word was in the beginning with God and was God, and the Word "was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

The belief matters because Catholics hold that only someone who is both God and man can bring humans back into a relationship with God. It also gives Catholics a reason to see the physical world and the human body as good, since God chose to enter them, and it underlies the sacramental life of the Church, in which material things such as water, bread and oil carry God's grace.

The Paschal Mystery

The Paschal Mystery is the name Catholics give to the saving events of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, which are celebrated every year at Easter and remembered at every Mass. Jesus died on the cross, was buried and rose again on the third day. Luke 24 describes the empty tomb, the appearance to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who recognise him when he breaks bread, and then the ascension, when Jesus is taken up into heaven (Luke 24:50–51) after telling his followers to wait for the Spirit.

Catholics call these events redemptive. Through sin, people were cut off from God, and the death of Jesus was a sacrifice that paid the price and reconciled humanity with God (this is sometimes called the atonement). The resurrection shows that sin and death have been defeated and gives Christians hope of their own resurrection. The ascension shows Jesus's victory and means that his human nature now shares in God's glory. For Catholics today these events are present in the Mass, where the sacrifice of Jesus is made present again, and they give meaning to suffering.

Salvation and grace

Salvation means being saved from sin and its consequences and brought into friendship with God, ending in eternal life. Catholics teach that Jesus won this for all people. In John 3:10–21, Jesus tells Nicodemus that a person must be born again of water and spirit, that "God so loved the world" that he gave his Son so that those who believe in him may have eternal life, and that people who do evil prefer darkness to the light. In Acts 4:8–12, Peter tells the leaders in Jerusalem that there is salvation in no one else, because there is no other name under heaven by which people must be saved.

Grace is God's free and undeserved gift of his own life and help. Nobody can earn it. Catholics believe it is given first in baptism, which washes away original sin, and is strengthened through the other sacraments. For Catholics, salvation depends on grace, but a person has to respond to it with faith and with good actions, and so the Catholic view is that faith and works go together. Many Protestants, following Martin Luther, emphasise that people are saved by grace through faith alone, and that works are the result of salvation and not a part of it. This difference is a long-standing point of disagreement between the Churches.

For Catholic practice, these beliefs explain why the sacraments are central, why Catholics try to live moral lives and do good works such as helping the poor, and why Catholics pray for the grace to resist sin.

Life after death

Catholics believe that death is not the end. At death the soul is separated from the body and faces a particular judgement, in which a person's life is assessed by God. There are three possible outcomes.

• Heaven is eternal life in the presence of God, a state of complete happiness. Those who die in God's friendship and are fully purified go there.
• Purgatory is a state of purification for people who die in God's friendship but are not yet fully ready for heaven. Catholics see it as temporary, and pray for the dead in it, especially at Mass. It is not a second chance.
• Hell is eternal separation from God. Catholics teach that it is the result of a person freely choosing to turn away from God in a serious sin and not repenting, and it is not something God inflicts by choice.

At the end of time Christ will return and there will be a general or final judgement. The dead will be raised, so that body and soul are reunited, and Catholics believe the risen body will be transformed. John 11:17–27 gives the story of Lazarus, where Jesus says "I am the resurrection and the life", and 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 compares the body to a tent that will be replaced by a building from God and says everyone must appear before the judgement seat of Christ.

Christians do not all agree. Protestants generally reject purgatory, because they do not find it in the Bible and believe that salvation by faith is complete, so that those who are saved go straight to heaven. Orthodox Christians pray for the dead and believe in a period of purification, but do not use the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Some Christians, especially in more liberal traditions, understand heaven and hell as states and not as places, or doubt that anyone is permanently lost, and some think of resurrection as a spiritual transformation and not as a physical rising of the body.

Belief in life after death is important to Catholics because it gives meaning to this life, shapes how they act since their choices have eternal consequences, and gives comfort in bereavement.