This void which is created in man who seeks saving truth is filled by the Church. The Christian does not seek man-made truth; rational truth, an idea or some cosmic Mind, called God.
He seeks truth which transcends human limits and all of creation. Moreover, he seeks God who can enter into personal communion with him, into a communion of love, i.e. he seeks God who is a person.
For the Christian, the knowledge of God has a different significance. It is not simply an object of rational approaching or an impersonal delving into a Principle of the Universe which excludes every personal relationship. Christian knowledge of God is an event of personal communion between God and man, a communion related to man's entire existence and not relegated simply to his rational faculty.
"Knowledge" therefore, according to the Christian concept, is not the product of rational activity, separated from love; indeed in the Holy Scriptures the term is used to express the consummation of interpersonal communion within marriage (Gen. 4,1). Such a communion does not abrogate man's person within some sort of "cosmic" principle; rather it protects it! Through this communion mortal man transcends the condition of creatureliness, that is, his createdness, and participates in the life of the uncreated and eternal God.
Man, however, cannot realize this transcendence through his own abilities and potential, which out of necessity are limited to the realm of created reality. Man's very nature is an insurmountable hindrance which makes his passing over or "ascent" to, and approaching God impossible. An ontological abyss, i.e. an impassable chasm related to God's and man's essence, separates man from God. Man cannot transcend this abyss.
But that which man cannot do, God does out of love for His creature: He "descends" or rather "condescends" i.e. He adapts to man's condition, transcends the abyss, reveals Himself to His creature and offers him the possibility of a real communion of love and life.
Christian knowledge of truth, i.e. eternal life, is and remains the great gift of our affectionate Heavenly Father. It is not the result of our human endeavours. That which God offers us is not conditioned by our strivings. It is the fruit of God's freedom and love. This gift is offered freely and ought to be accepted always with gratitude. No one can force the donor to offer his gifts.
Moreover, God does not violate man's will. He lets him make his own free choice. He allows him to respond with his love to God's love or to reject that love. Such a choice does not belong to man's rational domain, i.e. a rational turning towards God on man's part is not enough. Man must participate in totality. What is needed is tangible proof of man's holistic turning toward God that includes his struggle for spiritual catharsis, the carrying out of God's commandment. Without this basic presupposition it is impossible to find God:
"For perverse thoughts separate men from God, and when his power is tested, it convicts the foolish; because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin. For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit, and will rise and depart from foolish thoughts, and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness." (Wisdom of Solomon 1,3-5).
The free exercise of the divine virtues leads man away from autonomy. It functions within the realm of God's love. Man, through his obedience and through the carrying out of God's commandments humbles his body and his mind, recognizing that by himself he can neither embark nor continue upon the path of the true knowledge of God. His entire life becomes a cry unto God. God then condescends and offers to man the grace of the knowledge of Himself. Man becomes a partaker in this grace, which is God's gift, and which is called uncreated divine energy. Of course grace is not identical with God's essence. God' essence remains unapproachable and incomprehensible for man. Grace however, springs from God' essence which is its source. Hence it is not created but uncreated. This is why God's condescension signifies for man true knowledge of God, eternal life and salvation. This is the Christian concept concerning the knowledge of God.
For the faithful to reach this saving knowledge it is necessary that he "bow his head", that he submit in love to the merciful Lord. It is for this reason that the priest-celebrant of the divine services, after the command "bow your heads unto the Lord", prays:
"O Lord our God, Who didst bow the heavens and come down for the salvation of the race of men, look upon Thy servants and upon Thine inheritance. For unto Thee, the fearful and man-befriending Judge, have Thy servants inclined their heads and bowed their necks, looking for succour not from men, but abiding Thy mercy and awaiting Thy salvation..."
With the Christian concept of truth and its "knowledge", man's life acquires a deeper, a true meaning and eternal destiny. It sufficeth that man consider the "knowledge" of God as the most precious treasure in his life, and that he seek it out properly. Then will God's grace touch him and desire for God will become so great that nothing can stand between him and God or separate him from God's love:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." (Romans 8, 35-39).
This is the path that the holy martyrs of our Church followed; Thus the hymn of the Church states:
"Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor persecution, nor whip, nor anger of beasts, nor sword, nor fire, can threaten you, all-laudable Martyrs, with separation from God; for you have escaped nature in disdaining death by your yearning for Him and struggling as if in bodies foreign to you...".
The problem of where the truth lies has occupied mankind down through the ages; it is a problem that is always contemporary and of its very nature leads man to seek an answer. The Philosophers, especially the ancient Greeks, posed the question: "What is the truth?" and most men have searched for it rationally. Some said that truth is an Idea, a "principle of all things", the "prime mover unmoved" and called it God.
But this "God", the God of the philosophers, cannot redeem. He touches only man's rational faculty, and not man as a whole; no one can come into personal communion with him since he is not a person, but something impersonal; an universal Mind that acts blindly, or is so distant and so transcendental that he has no interest in man or in the world.
There can be no doubt that anyone with a good disposition, upon observing creation and using his human potential, can discover evidence of God's existence. However, he will discover only the concept of God, but not God Himself, salvific truth.
Others, down through the ages, have created world idols and a multitude of deities. They established "divine" laws and rules and created systems of worship of human provenance. All these, however, are simply expressions of man himself; they do not transcend the created realm, created reality; they do not, in other words, reveal the one true God Who transcends the created world.
Again, still others believe that man is by nature God. It remains simply for him to understand "his true self; nothing need change save his stance vis-a-vis his God-self, rejecting any thought that might differentiate him from his own divinity and recognize the existence of a God outside and beyond him.
In the final analysis, such an approach to God cannot satisfy man. It leads to an infinite loneliness which is contrary to human nature. By nature, man seeks warmth, love, communion with others and not only with himself; Without these things, he cannot exist. That is why he continuously seeks them. He is not satisfied with man-made concepts concerning God. He desires to rise above created reality, above creation and seek the meaning of life in communion with the uncreated and eternal God.
This void which is created in man who seeks saving truth is filled by the Church. The Christian does not seek man-made truth; rational truth, an idea or some cosmic Mind, called God.
He seeks truth which transcends human limits and all of creation. Moreover, he seeks God who can enter into personal communion with him, into a communion of love, i.e. he seeks God who is a person.
For the Christian, the knowledge of God has a different significance. It is not simply an object of rational approaching or an impersonal delving into a Principle of the Universe which excludes every personal relationship. Christian knowledge of God is an event of personal communion between God and man, a communion related to man's entire existence and not relegated simply to his rational faculty.
"Knowledge" therefore, according to the Christian concept, is not the product of rational activity, separated from love; indeed in the Holy Scriptures the term is used to express the consummation of interpersonal communion within marriage (Gen. 4,1). Such a communion does not abrogate man's person within some sort of "cosmic" principle; rather it protects it! Through this communion mortal man transcends the condition of creatureliness, that is, his createdness, and participates in the life of the uncreated and eternal God.
Man, however, cannot realize this transcendence through his own abilities and potential, which out of necessity are limited to the realm of created reality. Man's very nature is an insurmountable hindrance which makes his passing over or "ascent" to, and approaching God impossible. An ontological abyss, i.e. an impassable chasm related to God's and man's essence, separates man from God. Man cannot transcend this abyss.
But that which man cannot do, God does out of love for His creature: He "descends" or rather "condescends" i.e. He adapts to man's condition, transcends the abyss, reveals Himself to His creature and offers him the possibility of a real communion of love and life.
Christian knowledge of truth, i.e. eternal life, is and remains the great gift of our affectionate Heavenly Father. It is not the result of our human endeavours. That which God offers us is not conditioned by our strivings. It is the fruit of God's freedom and love. This gift is offered freely and ought to be accepted always with gratitude. No one can force the donor to offer his gifts.
Moreover, God does not violate man's will. He lets him make his own free choice. He allows him to respond with his love to God's love or to reject that love. Such a choice does not belong to man's rational domain, i.e. a rational turning towards God on man's part is not enough. Man must participate in totality. What is needed is tangible proof of man's holistic turning toward God that includes his struggle for spiritual catharsis, the carrying out of God's commandment. Without this basic presupposition it is impossible to find God:
"For perverse thoughts separate men from God, and when his power is tested, it convicts the foolish; because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin. For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit, and will rise and depart from foolish thoughts, and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness." (Wisdom of Solomon 1,3-5).
The free exercise of the divine virtues leads man away from autonomy. It functions within the realm of God's love. Man, through his obedience and through the carrying out of God's commandments humbles his body and his mind, recognizing that by himself he can neither embark nor continue upon the path of the true knowledge of God. His entire life becomes a cry unto God. God then condescends and offers to man the grace of the knowledge of Himself. Man becomes a partaker in this grace, which is God's gift, and which is called uncreated divine energy. Of course grace is not identical with God's essence. God' essence remains unapproachable and incomprehensible for man. Grace however, springs from God' essence which is its source. Hence it is not created but uncreated. This is why God's condescension signifies for man true knowledge of God, eternal life and salvation. This is the Christian concept concerning the knowledge of God.
For the faithful to reach this saving knowledge it is necessary that he "bow his head", that he submit in love to the merciful Lord. It is for this reason that the priest-celebrant of the divine services, after the command "bow your heads unto the Lord", prays:
"O Lord our God, Who didst bow the heavens and come down for the salvation of the race of men, look upon Thy servants and upon Thine inheritance. For unto Thee, the fearful and man-befriending Judge, have Thy servants inclined their heads and bowed their necks, looking for succour not from men, but abiding Thy mercy and awaiting Thy salvation..."
With the Christian concept of truth and its "knowledge", man's life acquires a deeper, a true meaning and eternal destiny. It sufficeth that man consider the "knowledge" of God as the most precious treasure in his life, and that he seek it out properly. Then will God's grace touch him and desire for God will become so great that nothing can stand between him and God or separate him from God's love:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." (Romans 8, 35-39).
This is the path that the holy martyrs of our Church followed; Thus the hymn of the Church states:
"Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor persecution, nor whip, nor anger of beasts, nor sword, nor fire, can threaten you, all-laudable Martyrs, with separation from God; for you have escaped nature in disdaining death by your yearning for Him and struggling as if in bodies foreign to you...".
In the first chapter of
Genesis after creating heaven and earth God creates light to overcome
darkness. This was before the sun or any of the stars, so what is this
light and what is its significance for us today?
Saint Paul gives us the answer in his Second Letter to the Corinthians 4:6-15
"Brethren, it is the God
who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," (Gen 1:3) who has shone in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Christ."
Paul is referring to the
uncreated light we first see in the Creation story. He shows us that
this is a mystical light that also shines in our hearts to enlighten us
about the truth of Christ. It is a light of knowledge, the greatest
knowledge of all. It is the light that illumines those who have given
us the Scripture and the writings of the Prophets and Church Fathers. It
is the light that overcomes darkness or our ignorance of the Creator.
St Basil the Great says, "It
made darkness vanish, dispelled gloom, illuminated the world, and gave
to all beings at the same a time sweet and gracious aspect." Saint John
the Evangelist says, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was
with God... He was the true Light, which enlightened everyone coming
into the world." (Jn 1:1; 1:9)
St. John Chrysostom adds, "...this
visible light, produced by the command of the Lord, removed the
darkness from our vision, in like manner the light coming to our minds
dissipated the darkness of error, and led those in error to the truth."
Paul continues,
"But we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God
and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So
death is at work in us, but life in you."Since
we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and
so I spoke," we too believed, and so we speak, knowing that He who
raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with
you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace
extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the
glory of God."
This light of Truth we
receive in our Baptism and is nurtured through the sacrament of Holy
Communion must be treasured as Paul says. We must remember to Glorify
God for all we receive from Him. Through this inner light it is Christ
who lives in us so we can live in Him. God has created all we know and
inherent in this creation is His "light".
Through the Orthodox way of
life we are purified, prepared, so that we can know this "Light" which
gives us the full truth and a faith that is unshakable.
Saint Paul says, "Let us walk becomingly as the light of day suggests." (Rom 13:13)
Let us not engage in actions that are proper to the dark or ignorance.
In the first chapter of
Genesis after creating heaven and earth God creates light to overcome
darkness. This was before the sun or any of the stars, so what is this
light and what is its significance for us today?
Saint Paul gives us the answer in his Second Letter to the Corinthians 4:6-15
"Brethren, it is the God
who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," (Gen 1:3) who has shone in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Christ."
Paul is referring to the
uncreated light we first see in the Creation story. He shows us that
this is a mystical light that also shines in our hearts to enlighten us
about the truth of Christ. It is a light of knowledge, the greatest
knowledge of all. It is the light that illumines those who have given
us the Scripture and the writings of the Prophets and Church Fathers. It
is the light that overcomes darkness or our ignorance of the Creator.
St Basil the Great says, "It
made darkness vanish, dispelled gloom, illuminated the world, and gave
to all beings at the same a time sweet and gracious aspect." Saint John
the Evangelist says, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was
with God... He was the true Light, which enlightened everyone coming
into the world." (Jn 1:1; 1:9)
St. John Chrysostom adds, "...this
visible light, produced by the command of the Lord, removed the
darkness from our vision, in like manner the light coming to our minds
dissipated the darkness of error, and led those in error to the truth."
Paul continues,
"But we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God
and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So
death is at work in us, but life in you."Since
we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and
so I spoke," we too believed, and so we speak, knowing that He who
raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with
you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace
extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the
glory of God."
This light of Truth we
receive in our Baptism and is nurtured through the sacrament of Holy
Communion must be treasured as Paul says. We must remember to Glorify
God for all we receive from Him. Through this inner light it is Christ
who lives in us so we can live in Him. God has created all we know and
inherent in this creation is His "light".
Through the Orthodox way of
life we are purified, prepared, so that we can know this "Light" which
gives us the full truth and a faith that is unshakable.
Saint Paul says, "Let us walk becomingly as the light of day suggests." (Rom 13:13)
Let us not engage in actions that are proper to the dark or ignorance.
