Orthodox Christianity Vol II, Chp 8: God in the Works of the Church Fathers pp.111-129

The Incomprehensibility of God, Unity and Trinity, and The Trinity: Formation of Dogma

The Eastern Church Fathers approached the Living God through prayer, purification and the revelation of the God in the Old Testament as the Holy Trinity in the New Testament. There are a handful of important eras in which they worked: the apostolic teachings and apologists of the 1st – 3rd c., the Trinitarian disputes in the 4th c., the Latin disputes in the 11th c. and the “procession” of the Holy Spirit, the essence and energies dispute between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria in the 14th. At the heart all of these disputes and teachings was the revelation of faith that God is One and God is Triune in Persons. The Eastern Church Fathers drew out and contemplated this truth deeply. The first section of this chapter covers the “incomprehensibility” of the Holy Trinity. This key truth can be traced from the Old Testament into the New Testament and contemplated by the Eastern Church Fathers. Although we can now understand the threefold nature of a person (soul, body, intellect/nous), the Trinity is a mystical union that can only be revealed by God Himself. 

 

St. John Chrysostom writes that “the root of all evil” grew out of the teaching that God is easily understandable, and that we can reach God through rational theology as well as philosophical reasoning, inquiry and argumentation. According to the tradition of the Church, we can experience and pray to God, but that does not imply that we can grasp for the knowledge of God on our own terms and for ourselves. The Enlightenment in Europe had this very notion of God’s comprehensibility or that an individual illumination was possible. Since human reason was already a light, as some argued, this intellectual light was capable of reaching and achieving a kind of mystical knowledge and self-enlightenment through various forms of rationality. Before the “torches of philosophy” searched for rationalistic enlightenment in Europe, St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria argued over these similar issues. 

 

In the 4th c., the Trinitarian formulations occasioned more technical terminology in the East, but they were not required without a need, according to Metropolitan Hilarion. He explains that the early Christians primarily defined themselves by holy communion in the Eucharist rather than identifying themselves according to certain works of theology. The Trinitarian wording, however, became a great help because the Church wanted to distinguish itself from counterfeit Christianity and show true Christianity, mostly since the Holy Trinity is a part of the Church’s mysteries and teachings, such as baptism, chrismation, catechesis and the Creed, liturgical prayers and doxology. The Church Fathers, then, had to untangle the theological mess made by others who say that they are Christians and representing the Church. Before 1054 AD, the Eastern Church Fathers knew about the filioque in Rome. Some of the strong reactions against the Latin teaching of the “procession of the Holy Spirit” may have been due to the fact that the East had already hammered out the terms in councils and disputes dogmatically. On the one hand, western Christians claim that the filioque defended against Arianism, and on the other hand, eastern Christians tended to see the addition as unnecessary and leading to inconsistent teachings. These issues have a very practical application for Orthodox Christians. The teachings of the Eastern Church Fathers show us how to approach and speak about the Holy Trinity so that we might also be purified, pray truthfully and commune with the Living God.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 7: God in the New Testament

The “Living God” in the Old Testament does not differ essentially from the “Son of the Living God” in the New Testament. Our experience and understanding through the revelation of Jesus Christ and through the knowledge of faith and personal experience has changed our minds. The previous chapter started with the names of God and the history of the people of Israel. The Israelites were named as a people after Jacob wrestled with an unknown angelic body, which turned out to be God. Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name” and he received no answer. But in a twist of events, the God of the Old Testament bestowed a new name on him, namely, Israel. These stories and real experiences are also personal. But the tension continues to this day between the Creator and created because we keep trying to reveal a hidden God and God keeps revealing who we really are ourselves. We use words and names to try to describe him and know him and reveal him to ourselves, but it’s never enough to say even what we can manage to say about Him. Metropolitan Hilarion starts with God’s revelation to us with all of the same themes of the Old Testament brought to light for us all. A further confirmation that God is Living is witnessed by the Son of God becoming man, dying, and returning from the grave because He is ever living. 

 

A gradual deeper understanding of God developed as an image of a Father instead of as a master-servant relationship. The Old Testament seems to attribute man-like characteristics to God such as judging, jealous, angry, regretful, war-like, and also merciful and tenderly loving like a spouse or parent. Although those descriptors do not absolutely give us God’s essence or name Him, the Word of God became a man in the New Testament, and He lived among us. That starting point also gives us the deeper revelation of God as a Triunity of Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, the fact that Jesus Christ is both God and Man and we say that the name of the “Son of God” is divine does not mean that we now know God’s essence. But the knowledge of God through faith tells us that Jesus Christ is divine and alive; He is the cornerstone of Christianity that causes great minds and nations to trip and totter. Jesus’ name is powerful and works wonders. Just as the Old Testament Israelites were prohibited from misusing the name of God, likewise in the end those who do not believe in Jesus Christ and suffer for His name we will be prohibited from entering the promised land too. And still the perfect unity of the Son of God and God the Father and the Holy Spirit is a unity we can strive to imitate, even though we are hidden from the essence of the Trinity. The hiddenness and namelessness of God does not leave us in the realm of nominalism or irreverence. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that the apostles preached and endured everything difficult, even to death, because of Jesus’ name; we are baptized into life through the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The mysterious ending on the idea of divine names and humankind’s attempt at finding who God is by name is hinted at in Revelation. St. John the Theologian tells us that Jesus’ name will triumph in the battle against the Accuser, the Anti-Christ. The Lamb will also be at the center of the kingdom of God where all the saints will have new names written on them while they all “sing out his name” in victory.