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Contents:
The greatness of God.
Different conception of God.
The attributes of God.
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.
The revelation of Godly perfections through Jesus Christ.
The
greatness of God
God
is the highest and most perfect Being, Creator, and Director of the world,
eternal Spirit, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. In His Being God is
beyond comprehension not only for humans, but also for the angelic
understanding: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man
can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see” (1 Tim. 6:16).
“If you wish
to speak about God,” writes St. Basil the Great, “renounce your body and
physical feelings, leave the earth, leave the sea and make the air be beneath
you. Pass over the seasons of the year, their proper order, the adornments of
the earth, stand higher than the ether,
pass through the stars, their beauty, greatness, benefit, which they offer to
the whole, good order, light, position, movement, and that, how many connections
and distance they have between them. Passing over all this with the mind, go
around the sky and, stopping above it, with one thought visualize all the beauty
there: disregarding the armies of the Angels, the leadership of the Archangels,
the glory of the Hosts (Authorities, Thrones, Principalities, Powers, Cherubims
and Seraphims, — these are the names of the angelic ranks. The Angelic,
spiritual world is much larger than our physical), the chairmanship of the
Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Powers. Passing over all these, leaving all
creation below your thoughts, raising your mind beyond the boundaries of it,
imagine in your thoughts God’s essence, immovable, infallible, unchangeable,
impassive, simple, uncomplicated, light unapproachable, power beyond words,
limitless greatness, glory radiant, kindness coveted, beauty immeasurable, which
strongly strikes the wounded soul, but cannot by its merit be portrayed by
words.”
Such
loftiness of spirit demands reflection upon God. Paradoxically, though,
notwithstanding all the limitations of his mental and spiritual powers, a person
from early childhood strives to know God. The instinctive aspiration of
human thought to a Higher Being and spiritual peace is observed among peoples of
all races, cultures and levels of development. Apparently, in the very nature of
a person there is something which, like a magnet, attracts him upwards, into an
invisible and perfect sphere. The Holy Scriptures calls this “something” in a
person “the image and likeness of God,” which the Creator included in the
foundation of our spiritual being (Gen. 1:27). Only the existence of this
kinship between the soul and its Creator can explain why people entirely devoid
of religious education, in the most unfavorable circumstances, by themselves
gradually acquire fairly true notions about God. It is also noteworthy, that God
reaches out to the person searching for him and in some mysterious way reveals
Himself to that person.
The
Holy Scriptures preserved the memory of a short, but precious period, when at
the dawn of humanity God appeared and spoke with Adam and Eve, as a Father with
His children (Genesis Chap. 2). Then, even the hint of fear before the Highest
Being did not exist in the first people, though the atheists repeatedly maintain
that religion arose as the result of some instinctive fear of primitive people
before the natural elements. On the contrary, according to the book of Genesis,
man’s first cognizance of the Creator was full of trust and bliss.
It was precisely the fall from grace due to sin that deprived people of the
feeling of closeness and goodness of God.
Different conceptions of God
After
the fall of Adam and Eve from grace, the majority of their descendants began to
draw farther and farther away from God, become wilder, fall into superstition
and indulge in vices. Gradually the development of idolatry began. Nevertheless,
the instinctive striving towards God remained in man. The entire history of
ancient humanity attests to the fact that man, as distinct from animals, can
never confine himself only to the fulfillment of his physical demands. His
thoughts subconsciously are drawn upwards, to the other world, to the Creator. A
person thirsts to know how and why the world around him arose. Is there a higher
reason for his earthly existence and what awaits him beyond the threshold of
death? Is there another, more perfect world or worlds? Is there a higher,
absolute justice — reward for goodness and punishment for wrongdoing? Observing
the greatness, harmony and beauty of the world, a person comes to the
conclusion, that there must exist an Organizer of everything. His moral
feeling suggests to him that there is also one righteous Lawgiver, Who will
grant to each their just deserts. Thus, under the influence of internal and
external motives, religious feeling gradually arises in a person — the need to
know his Creator and draw nearer to Him.
For
this reason there never existed a people completely devoid of any sense of God.
“Look at the face of the earth” — writes Plutarch (1st century AD), — you will
find cities without fortifications, without sciences, without leaders, you will
see people without permanent homes, without knowledge of the use of money,
without the concept of fine arts, but you will not find one human society
without faith in a God.”
In
view of the lack of detailed writings about the life and beliefs of the most
ancient peoples it is difficult to determine how their religious ideas arose and
developed. Nevertheless, a series of scholars in the area of comparative
religions maintain that the original religion of many ancient peoples was belief
in one God (monotheism); while the deification of natural forces and
different gods (polytheism) arose among these peoples later (see the book of
Prof. Wilhelm Schmidt, the many-tomed work “Der Ursprung der Gottesidee”). The
first chapters of the book of Genesis familiarize us with the way polytheism
began to develop among “the sons of man” as a result of their moral coarsening — at the same time that the “sons of God” (the
descendants of Seth) retained their faith in one God. It must be explained, by
the way, that in polytheistic religions one Great God usually stood out among
the other less important deities. For this reason, notwithstanding all the
imperfections of the heathen religions, their admission of the existence of a
Higher Deity infers that people are religious by nature. Atheism is an
unnatural, pathological state of a human soul. It comes from a sinful lifestyle
and becomes entrenched with years by way of inculcation of atheistic ideas.
In
Greece, where polytheism began to displace monotheism about 600 years BC, we see
a healthy resistance by the thinking people of that time — the philosophers. The
first of them, Xenophon (570-466 BC) rose up against those who deified animals
and their legendary heroes. He said: “Among gods and people there exists one
Most High God, Who does not resemble them either mentally, or externally. He is
all sight, all thought, all hearing. He eternally and immovably resides in one
place... With His thought He governs all without difficulty.” Heraclitus speaks
of the eternal Logos, from Whom everything received its existence. By Logos he
means Godly Wisdom. (The teachings about Logos were developed by Philo in the
first century AD). Anaxagoras (500-427 BC) calls God the purest Reason,
omniscient and omnipotent. This Reason, by being an omnipresent and omnipotent
spiritual Essence, brings everything to order. He created the world from
original chaos. Socrates (469-399 BC) recognized that there is one God. This God is the moral
beginning in the world and “Providence,” i.e. He concerns Himself with the world
and with people. Plato (428-347 BC), battling with heathen superstitions,
demanded that any trace of imperfection, jealousy or variability from the
concept of Deity be barred: “God, and not man, is the highest measure of all.”
For Plato God — “Demiurg” — is the builder of all, the Artist of universe. He is
the eternal Spirit, changing the appearance of matter in accordance with His
thought. There exists an eternal, real world of ideas, which is inherent to true
reality, and at the head of this kingdom of ideas soars the Idea of Good, or
God, the Builder of the universe (Composition “Timei”). Plato argued that the
human soul is eternal. Aristotle (384-322 BC) sees in God a universal moving
beginning above the world, “the immovable First Mover,” the source of movement
in the universe. He is the eternal all-perfect essence, “thought of thoughts,”
free from any materiality, living in the most intensive intellectual activity of
self-contemplation. “Reality of thought is life, and God is that reality.” In
accordance with Aristotle the whole world yearns toward God, as to a Being,
beloved as the result of His perfection. The writer of the 3rd century BC Aratus
of Cilicia even rose to the idea of the image of God in man, saying “we are of
His lineage” (A similar thought was expressed by his contemporary stoic Cleanth).
It can be presumed that under the influence of the philosophers, insisting on
the existence of one most wise Being over the world, that the Athenians raised
an altar to the “Unknown God,” mentioned by the Apostle Paul at the beginning of
his famous sermon in Athens (Acts 17:23).
In
this way, the notions of some philosophers about God were true and profound. The
eminent thinkers themselves understood that there could only be one true God.
He is all thought and possesses the highest wisdom. He is the eternal,
transcendental Absolute, the first Reason of any activity and movement in the
world. Some philosophers ascended to the idea of God as the “Demiurg” — the
builder of the universe. But they lacked the precise notion about God as the
Creator making the world from nothing, which we find in the Bible. The main
shortcoming of their philosophical ideas about God, is that their God is “cold,”
that is, removed from the earth and as if secluded in His internal
self-contemplative life. The reason for such a withdrawn notion of God is due to
the philosophers’ lack of personal spiritual practice: they did not experience
live association with the all-good God, who comes to a person during focused and
warm prayers (nevertheless, many holy fathers highly esteemed the ancient
philosophers and even called them “Christians before Christ.” The main
contribution of the ancient Greek philosophers is that they worked out
religious-moral concepts, created the necessary terminology, which helped the
early Christian apologetics and Church fathers set forth and defend Christian
truths).
The
views of the philosophers presented here about the Higher Being are interesting
also in that they show the limits in the knowledge of God that a person
can attain through his own natural efforts (more perfect views about God among
the philosophers of the middle ages and the present are borrowed from
Christianity).
We
find much purer and complete knowledge of God in the Holy Scriptures. Here we
discover that about God which He Himself revealed about Himself to the people
seeking Him — the righteous of the Old and New Testaments. Here is not the fruit
of abstract reflections, the guesses within one’s power, but direct
enlightenment from above, perceived by the saints as active spiritual
experience. The saints wrote about God that which the Spirit of God revealed to
their spirit. For this reason in the Holy Scriptures, as well as in the works of
the Christian saints, there are no conjectures or contradictions, but there is
complete agreement.
The
attributes of God
The
Holy Scriptures give us an elevated and unified portrayal of God. It teaches
that God is One. He is the highest, overall and individual Being; God is Spirit — eternal, all-good, omniscient,
all-righteous, almighty, omnipresent, invariable, all-satisfied, all-blessed.
Not having need of anything, the almighty
God in His goodness created the entire visible and invisible world, including us
humans, from nothing. Before the creation of the world nothing existed, neither
space nor time. The one and the other originated
together with the world. God, as a loving Father, concerns Himself with the
world as a whole and about each being He created — even the very smallest.
Through His mysterious paths He leads each person to eternal salvation, however,
without forcing him, but enlightening him and helping him to realize his good
intentions.
Let us
now consider more carefully several godly characteristics revealed in the Holy
Scriptures and in the Holy Fathers of the Church. God reveals himself to humans
as a Being that is completely separate from the physical world, specifically —
as a Spirit. “God is a Spirit,” say the Scriptures, — “Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (John 4:24; 2 Cor. 3:17). In other
words, God is not involved with materiality or corporeality, which is possessed
by people and even by angels, revealing in themselves only the “image” of the
spirituality of God. God is the highest, purest and most perfect Spirit.
God revealed himself to the prophet Moses, as “I Am” (Jehovah) as a pure,
spiritual, highest Existence. True, sometimes we find in the Scriptures such
places, which symbolically assign to God members, similar to human ones — ears,
eyes, arms and other so called “anthropomorphisms” — likening to humans. Such
expressions are used for clarity and are found most often in the poetical parts
of the Holy Scriptures. By them the Scriptures have in mind the corresponding
spiritual properties of God, for example: ears and eyes point to His
omniscience, the hand and muscle — to His omnipotence, the heart — to His love.
No
matter how customary it is to the contemporary consciousness to imagine God as a
pure Spirit, still the widespread pantheism in our time (“God is
everything and everything is God” — the idea, that some unconscious and
impersonal deity is spread throughout nature. Buddhism and several eastern
religions are based on the idea of pantheism) contradict this truth. For this
reason even now in the “Rite of Orthodoxy,” performed in the first Sunday of
Great Lent, we hear “To those who say, that God is not Spirit, but body —
anathema.”
God is
eternal. The Existence of God is beyond time, for time is simply a form
of existence that is final and variable. (Time is regarded as the “fourth”
dimension in relativity physics. In accordance to modern cosmology, space and
time are not infinite entities. They appeared by the will of God and they may
disappear or may become something completely different than what they are
now.) For God there is no past, no present, but there is only the present.
“Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the
work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea, all of them
shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they
shall be changed: but Thou are the same, and Thy years shall have no end”
(Ps. 102:25-27). Several of the holy Fathers point out the difference between
the concepts of “eternity” and “immortality.” Eternity is vitality, having
neither beginning nor end. “The concept of eternity can only be applied to the
one Godly essence without beginning, in whom everything is always the same and
in the same state. The concept of immortality can be applied to that, which is
brought to existence and does not die, for instance: angels and human
souls...Eternity in the true sense applies only to godly essence” (St. Isidore
Pelusiote). In this sense more expressive is “pre-eternal God.”
God is
all-good, that is, He is infinitely kind. The Scriptures witness: “The
Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (Ps.
103:8). “God is Love” (1 John 4:16). The goodness of God extends not to
some limited region of the earth, like the characteristic love of limited
beings, but to the whole world with all the beings found therein. He
lovingly cares about the lives and needs of each creature, no matter how small
or insignificant they may appear to us. “If we were asked,” says St. Gregory the
Theologian, “by someone: whom do you honor and to whom do you bow? The answer is
ready: We honor love.” God grants His creations as many blessings as each one
can accept by their nature and condition, and inasmuch as it corresponds to the
general harmony of the earth. God extends His especial goodness to humans. “God
is like a mother bird, which, seeing its fledgling fallen from the nest, herself
flies out of it, in order to lift it, and when she sees him in danger of being
swallowed by some kind of snake, with mournful cries circles it and all the
other fledglings, not being capable of being indifferent to the death of one of
them” (Clement of Alexandria) “God loves us more than a father, mother or
friend, or anyone else, can love, and even more than we can love ourselves,
because God cares more about our salvation than even about His own glory,
evidence of which serves that He sent His Only-Begotten Son into the world for
suffering and death (in human flesh) only for the sake of opening for us the
path of salvation and eternal life” (John Chrysostom). If a person often does
not understand the full force of the goodness of God, then this occurs because
he focuses his own thoughts and desires too much on earthly welfare; but God’s
industry combines the gifts of temporary, earthly blessings with the appeal to
acquire eternal goods for ourselves, for our souls.
God is
omniscient. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). “Thine eyes did see my substance,” —
wrote King David (Ps. 139:16). The omniscience of God is simultaneously vision
and direct knowledge of everything, existing and possible, the present, past and
future. The foreseeing of the future itself is in fact spiritual vision, because
for God the future is the present. God’s foresight does not encroach upon the
free will of his creatures, the same as the freedom of our near ones is not
violated by the fact that we see their actions. The foresight of God regarding
the evil in the world and the actions of free beings is as though crowned by the
foreseen salvation of the world, when “God may be all in all” (1 Cor.
15:28).
The
wisdom of God is another facet of His omniscience. “Great is our Lord,
and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (Ps. 147:5). The
holy fathers of the Church, following the word of God, with deep reverence
always pointed to the greatness of the Wisdom of God in the arrangement of the
visible world, dedicating to this subject whole works, for example, discussions
on the six days, that is on the process of the world’s creation. (Basil the
Great, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa). “One herb or one blade of grass is
enough to occupy all your thought with the examination of the art, with which it
is produced” (Basil the Great).
God is
all-righteous. Righteousness is understood in the word of God and in its
usual lingual usage by two meanings: a) as holiness and b) as fairness, or
justice. Holiness consists not only in the absence of evil or sin, holiness is
the presence of higher spiritual values, united with cleanliness from sin.
Holiness is comparable to light, and Godly holiness — as purest light. God is
“One Holy” by essence, by His nature. He is the Source of holiness for angels
and people. The Justice of God is another side of the all-righteousness of God.
“He shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the
people in uprightness” (Ps. 9:8). “Who will render to every man according
to his deeds, For there is no respect of persons with God” (Rom. 2:6 and
11).
How
can God’s love be coordinated with God’s truth, with strict judgment for sins
and punishment of the guilty one? Many of the Church fathers spoke out on this
question. They compare the anger of God to the anger of a father, who, in order
to bring a disobedient son to his senses, turns to fatherly punitive measures,
while at the same time he himself sorrows, grieving about the irrationality of
the son, and at the same time feeling compassion for him for the distress he has
caused him. For this reason God’s truth is always mercy, and mercy is truth,
according to the statement: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness
and peace have kissed each other” (Ps. 85:10).
Holiness and God’s truth are closely connected. God calls everyone to eternal
life in His Kingdom. But nothing unclean can enter into the Kingdom of God. For
this reason the Lord purifies us by punishments, as acts of corrections, because
of His love for us. For a trial of fairness
awaits us, a fearful trial for us. How can we enter a kingdom of holiness and
light — and how would we feel there, being unclean, dark and not having within
ourselves holiness and no favorable spiritual or
moral value?
God is
omnipotent. “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood
fast” (Ps. 33:9) — so expresses himself the Psalmist about the omnipotence
of God. God is the Creator and the Provider of the world. He is the Almighty.
“The God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things” (Ps. 72:18). If,
then, God tolerates evil and evildoers in the world, it is not because He cannot
destroy evil, but because, He granted freedom to spiritual beings and directs
them, so that they by their own personal desire would reject evil and turn to
goodness. (In regard to casuistic questions regarding what God “cannot” do, one
must answer that the omnipotence of God extends to everything that is desirous
to His thoughts, His goodness, His will).
God is
omnipresent. “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I
flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my
bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and
Thy right hand shall hold me” (Ps. 139:7-10). God is not subject to any
limitations of space, but penetrates everything. In addition, God, as a simple
Being (indivisible), is present everywhere not only by some part of Himself, or
not only with His power, but with His whole being, while at the same time not
merging with that, in which He is present. “God penetrates all, not combining
with anything, but nothing penetrates Him” (John of Damascus).
God is
unchangeable. “The Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). God is perfection, and each change
is a sign of imperfection, and therefore is unthinkable in a perfect Being. One
cannot say about God that any sort of process of growth, change of appearance,
evolution, progress or anything of the kind occurs in Him. But the
invariableness of God is not some immobility or withdrawing within Himself.
Notwithstanding His invariability, His Being is life, full of power and
activity. God Himself in Himself is life, and life is His existence.
God is
self sufficient and all-blessed. These two words have similar
meaning. The former cannot be understood as “satisfied with oneself.” Rather, it
signifies the fullness of possession,
complete blessedness, the fullness of all good things. “As though He needed
any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts
17:25). In this way, God Himself appears the Source of all life, every blessing;
from Him all creatures draw their satisfaction.
The
Apostle Paul twice calls God “blessed” (“According to the glorious gospel of
the blessed God” — 1 Tim. 1:11; “Which in His times He shall shew, who is
the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” — 1
Tim. 6:15). The word “All-blessed” should not be understood that God, having
everything within Himself, is indifferent to the sufferings in the world He
created; but that all beings draw their bliss from Him and in Him. God does not
suffer, but he is merciful. “Christ suffers as a mortal” (Easter Canon) — not in
His Divinity, but in His humanity. God the source of bliss, in Him is the
fullness of joy, sweetness, gladness for those who love Him, as is said in the
psalm: “In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are
pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
It
should be noted that the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers of the Church
speak primarily of the attributes of God, not of the actual essence of God. The
Holy fathers rarely and only indirectly spoke of the nature of God, explaining,
that the essence of God is “one, simple, uncomplicated.” But this simplicity,
this lack of complexity, is not an indifferent or empty whole, but it includes
within itself the fullness of His attributes. “God is a sea of essence,
immeasurable and limitless” (St. Gregory the Theologian). “God is the fullness
of all qualities and perfection in its highest and endless form” (St. Basil the
Great). “God is simple and uncomplicated. He is all feeling, all spirit, all
thought, all mind, all source of all blessings” (Irenaeus of Lyons).
Speaking of the attributes of God, the Holy Fathers point out that their
multitude, in view of the simplicity of the Being, is the result of our
inability to find a single way to observe the Divine. In God, one characteristic
is the facet of another. God is righteous; this means that He is omniscient,
omnipotent, good and blessed. The multiple simplicity of God is similar to the
light of the sun, revealing itself in various colors of the rainbow.
In
enumerating the characteristics of God, the Holy Fathers and the prayers of the
church services predominantly use expressions compiled grammatically in the
negative form, that is, with the particles “not” or the prefix “un-.” One must
remember, though, that this negative form points to the “denial of limitations,”
for example: not unknowing — means knowing. In this fashion, it contains the
confirmation of the limitlessness of His perfections.
Besides that, our thoughts about God speak 1) either of His contrast to the
world (for example: God is Without Beginning, while the world has a
beginning; Eternal, while the world exists in time); 2) or of the actions
of God in the world and the relationship of the Creator to this creations
(Maker, Provider, Merciful, Righteous Judge).
While
pointing out the characteristics of God, we thus do not give a definition to the
understanding of God. Such a definition is, in essence, impossible, because in
any definition there is an indication of limits, and, therefore, an indication
of boundaries, of incompleteness. There are no boundaries to God, and therefore
there cannot be a definition of comprehension of God: “For even understanding is
a form of limitation” (St. Gregory the Theologian).
The
mystery of the Holy Trinity
The
concepts of the unity and the highest characteristics of God do not themselves
exhaust the fullness of the Christian teachings about God. The Christian faith
lets us in on the deepest mystery of the inner life of God. It presents
God one in essence and as a Trinity in Persons. The concept of “Person,” is
close to the notions of “individuality,” “consciousness,” personality. Since God
in His essence is one, then all of God’s characteristics — His immortality,
omnipotence, omnipresence, and others — belong in equal measure to all Three
Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. In other words, the Son of God and the
Holy Spirit are eternal and omnipotent, as is God the Father.
The
Truth of the Tri-oneness of God (Trinity) represents the distinguishing
attribute of Christianity. Not only do natural religions not know this truth,
but there is no clear, direct revelation of it in the God-revealed Old Testament
teachings. There are merely rudiments, graphic, concealed indications, which can
only be understood fully in the light of the New Testament, revealing the
teaching of the triune God with complete clarity. Such, for example, are the Old
Testament sayings, witnessing to the plurality of Persons in the Deity: “Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26); “Behold, the
man is become as one of us” (Gen. 3:22); “Go to, let us go down, and
there confound their language” (Gen. 11:7). Here God appropriates to Himself
the plural tense. There is another Biblical example, when in the narration about
God three appear as one. When, for example, God appears to Abraham in the form
of three wanderers (angels). Abraham, in speaking with them, uses the singular
tense (Gen. 18:1-3). This appearance of God to Abraham serves as the subject for
the famous Rublev icon of the Holy Trinity.
The
teaching about the Trinity is the foundation on which the Christian faith is
built. All the pleasing, redeeming truths of Christianity about salvation,
consecration, bliss of a person can be accepted only on the condition that we
believe in the Three-hypostatic God, since all these great blessings are given
to us through the mutual and joint activity of the Divine Persons. “The outline
of our teachings is one, ” teaches St. Gregory the Theologian, “and it is short.
It is as a sign on a pillar, understandable to all: These people — are true
worshippers of the Trinity.” The great importance and central meaning of the
dogma of the Most Holy Trinity explains the care with which the Church always
guarded it, that vigilance and that intense effort of thought, with which it
defended its faith from various heretics and tried to give it the most accurate
definition (1 John 5:7-8).
“One in
essence, God is Trinity in Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Trinity one in essence and indivisible.” In these few words is expressed the
core of the Christian teachings
of the Most Holy Trinity. But notwithstanding such apparent conciseness,
simplicity, the dogma of the Trinity contains one of the deepest, most
incomprehensible, mysterious secrets of the Revelation of God. No matter how we
exert our mind, we are completely powerless to imagine how three independent
Divine Persons (not powers, not attributes or phenomenon) completely equal in
Godly dignity can comprise one, indivisible Being.
The
Holy Fathers of the Church approached this unencompassable deep, elevated truth
many times with their God-enlightened thoughts. In their attempts to somehow
clarify it, to bring it closer to the comprehension of our limited mind, they
used different comparisons, taken either from phenomena in surrounding nature,
or from the spiritual structure of a person. For example: 1) sun, light and
warmth (from here: “Light from Light” in the Creed); 2) an underground spring, a
spring, and stream; 3) roots, trunk and branches; 4) mind, feelings and will.
The Holy Equal-to the Apostles Cyril, the enlightener of the Slavs (in 869 AD,
in a discussion with Muslims about the Most Holy Trinity), pointing to the sun,
said: “See, in the sky there stands a shining circle, and from it light is born
and warmth is emitted. God the Father, like the solar disk, is without beginning
or end. From Him, the Son of God is born, like light from the sun, and as warmth
goes from the sun together with rays of light, proceeds the Holy Spirit. Each
can distinguish separately the solar disk, and light, and warmth, but the sun is
one in the sky. So is the Holy Trinity: three Persons in Him, but one and
indivisible God.”
All
these and other comparisons, easing somewhat the assimilation of the mystery of
the Trinity, appear, however, only the weakest hints at the nature of the
Highest Being. They leave a sense of inadequacy, disparity with the high subject
for which they are used for clarification. They cannot remove that cloak of
incomprehensibility, mystery, from the teachings about the Triune God, in which
this teaching is enveloped for the mind of a person.
One
instructive story is preserved regarding this about the famous western teacher
of the Church — the blessed Augustine. Immersed once in thought about the
mystery of the Trinity and constructing a plan for a composition on this theme,
he departed for the shore of the sea. There he saw how a boy, playing in the
sand, was digging a hole. Approaching the boy, Augustine asked him: “What are
you doing?” — “I want to pour the sea into this hole,” answered the boy,
smiling. Then Augustine understood: “Am I not doing the same thing as this boy,
trying to comprehend the sea of the infinity of God with my intellect?”
In the
same manner, even that great universal saint and bishop Gregory, who, for his
ability to fathom with his thoughts even the deepest mysteries of faith, is
honored by the Church with the name Theologian, wrote concerning himself, that
he speaks more often about the Trinity than he breathes, and he admits the
unsatisfactoriness of all comparisons, directed to the comprehension of the
dogma of the Trinity. “No matter what I observed with my inquisitive mind,” says
he, “no matter with what I enriched my intellect, no matter where I searched for
something resembling this, I did not find, to what Godly essence can be worthily
applied.”
So,
the teaching of the Most Holy Trinity is the deepest, most incomprehensible
mystery of faith. All efforts to make it understandable, to place it in the
usual framework of our thinking are in vain. “Here is the boundary of that” —
notes St. Athanasius the Great — “which the cherubims cover with their wings.”
However, notwithstanding all of its incomprehensibility, the teachings about the
Holy Trinity has an important moral meaning for us, and, evidently, for this
reason this mystery is revealed to people. Indeed, it uplifts the very idea of
monotheism, places it on firm ground and eliminates those important,
unconquerable difficulties, which had earlier cropped up for human thought.
Several of the thinkers of the pre-Christian antiquity, rising to the
understanding of oneness in the supreme Being, could not solve the question of
how in particular does the life and activity of this Being manifest itself by
Itself, outside of its relations to the world. And so the Deity, in their minds,
either identified itself with the world (pantheism), or appeared lifeless,
withdrawn within itself, an immobile, isolated head (deism), or became a
fearsome, inexorable fate having dominion over the world (fatalism).
Christianity in the teaching about the Holy Trinity revealed, that in the
Three-hypostatic Being, and aside from His relations to the world, there
manifests itself from the ages an infinite fullness of internal, mysterious
life. God, to quote one ancient teacher of the Church (Peter Chrisologue), is
one, but not alone. In Him there is a distinction of Persons, existing in
continuous association with each other. “God the Father is not born and does not
proceed from another Person, the Son of God is born pre-eternally of the Father,
the Holy Spirit pre-eternally proceeds from the Father. The internal, hidden
life of the Deity is in this mutual association of the Divine Persons from time
immemorial, which before Christ was hidden behind an impenetrable curtain.
Through the mystery of the Trinity, Christianity taught not only to honor God,
to revere Him, but to love Him. Through this mystery in particular it gave the
world that delightful and momentous idea, that God is limitless, perfect Love.
The strict, dry monotheism of other religious teachings (Judaism and
Mohammedanism), by not rising to the undisguised idea of Divine Trinity, cannot
for this reason rise to the true understanding of love as the ruling
characteristic of God. Love by its very
essence is unthinkable without a union, association. If God were one Person,
then in relation to whom would His Love be revealed? To the world? But the world
is not eternal. How could the Godly love be
expressed in the eternity before the world? In addition, the world is limited,
and the love of God cannot reveal itself in all of its boundlessness. The
highest love, for its fullest expression, demands as high an object. But where
is it? Only the mystery of the Triune God provides the answer to these indicated
difficulties. It reveals that the love of God has never been inactive, without
expression: The Persons of the Most Holy Trinity from eternity live one with
another in continuous contact of love. The Father loves the Son (John 5:20,
3:35), and calls Him beloved (Mt. 3:17, 17:5 et al). The Son says of Himself: “I
love the Father” (John 14:31). Deeply true are the short, but expressive
words of the blessed Augustine: “The mystery of the Christian Trinity is the
mystery of Godly love. You see the Trinity, if you see love.”
The
concept of God as Love is based the teaching about the Most Holy Trinity. All
the Christian moral teachings are founded on this teaching, the essence of which
consists of the law of love.
In
humble recognition of the impossibility of understanding the mystery of the Most
Holy Trinity, we must accept it on full faith, and accept it so that this truth
does not remain something external, detached in relation to us, but would
penetrate to the innermost recesses of our spirit, would become the property of
all our soul, become the guiding power source of our life. Such should be in
essence the acquisition of other Christian truths. For Christianity is not an
abstract theory, but a new renaissance of life!
Note:
Ancient-orthodox teachings about the individual characteristics of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit are distorted by the Roman Catholic church by the creation
of the teaching concerning the out-of-time, pre-eternal issuance of the Holy
Spirit from the Son also (Filioque). The first mention of this addition relates
to the 6th century in Spain. In the 9th century Pope Leo the Third, personally
approving of this teaching, forbade however the addition of the words “and the
Son” to the Nicean-Constantinople Creed, where it is said, that the Holy Spirit
“proceeds” from the Father. Nevertheless, several centuries later the words “and
the Son” were still entered in the Roman Catholic Creed. The Orthodox Church
never agreed to this addition, because the teachings about the issuance of the
Holy Spirit from the Son is absent from the Holy Scriptures, was unknown by the
early Church and appears a human fabrication. This distortion of the Christian
faith is one of the serious obstacles to the coming together of the Roman
Catholic Church with the Orthodox. Protestants inherited this teaching from the
Roman Catholic Church, from whom they separated in the 16th century.
The
revelation of godly perfections through Jesus Christ
Two
thousand years ago a great miracle occurred, a mystery of piety was revealed:
the Highest God, dwelling in unapproachable glory, in the Person of the
Only-Begotten Son of God came to our earth and became human. The Son of God hid
the glory of His Godly nature under the cover of a human body so as not to turn
people to ashes. So the invisible becomes visible, the intangible — tangible,
the unknown — becomes accessible to our knowledge.
“He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,”
said
Jesus Christ to his contemporaries (John 14:9). What Godly characteristics were
revealed to people, who saw and associated with the Son of God? They saw what is
characteristic of God — His omnipotence and omniscience. The earthly life of the
Savior was accompanied by a stream of miracles. For Him incurable diseases
did not exist. Lifeless nature immediately
obeyed His Godly word; the angels served Him with
trepidation as Sovereign; evil demons ran from Him trembling, like guilty
servants; even inexorable death and absolute hell capitulated to Him, releasing
their hostages to heaven. All the acts of His Godly omnipotence were performed
in full view of all. They left an indelible print on the history of humanity.
The awareness of the reality of their meeting the Creator was so strong in the
disciples of Christ, that all of them dedicated their lives to preaching to the
world the joyous news about the coming of God to earth. “That which was from
the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we
have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; “For the life
was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that
eternal life, which was manifested unto us,” wrote St. John the Theologian
(1 John 1:1-2).
Besides Godly omnipotence, people, by associating with Christ, saw in Him
something very valuable for themselves in a moral regard — His spiritual
qualities and holiness. An entire spectrum of His virtues was revealed to people
in the earthly life of the Savior: His sensitivity, compassion, unselfishness,
courage, patience and, in particular, — his limitless Love. The apostles
continually mention the compassion of Christ, of His pity for perishing man:
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.”
Thus “and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” — concludes
St. John the Theologian (1 John 3:16).
Feeling the strength of Christ’s Love, the Apostle Paul so describes the
characteristics of this virtue: “Charity
suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself,
is not puffed up, doth not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh
no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity
never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there
be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away”
(1 Cor. 13:4-8). So, Christ with His life and deeds showed the world the moral
perfection of God and gave us the opportunity to understand, what the image and
likeness of God in man consists of, and to what we must strive.
In
summary, God is the Highest Spiritual Being, from Whom is everything and without
Whom nothing is conceivable. He has no beginning and will never have an end,
being above any time and space. He is everywhere at once, penetrating
everything, but nothing can penetrate Him. He is the beginning, the
continuation, and life of everything existing. He is infinitely kind and, at the
same time, infinitely just. Not needing anything, He in His goodness concerns
Himself with the entire visible and invisible world and directs the life of each
person toward salvation. The path to knowing God and eternal bliss is revealed
to persons through the Only-Begotten Son of God.
Contemporary man, with his tremendous baggage of all sorts of knowledge, knows
little and thinks little about God. Everything is directed as if on purpose
towards distracting his thoughts from the most important — from God and from
eternity, denying the person active association with the Creator. From this
comes total lightlessness of bustle, continual disappointment and spiritual
gloom. It is imperative to make a willful effort, to shift the bustle to
secondary status, turn full front to God and to see His light. Then, through
association with Him, we will feel His nearness and goodness, will see His
directing right hand in our life, and will learn to revere His will. Thus God
will gradually become the most important in life to us — the source of our
strength, peace and happiness, the goal of our existence. He will become our
Father, and we — His children.
