The Nature of God
True belief and worship begins with a correct understanding of God
Our doctrine of the nature of God is not an invention of the Orthodox Church, but it was divinely revealed to the Church by God through Holy Scripture and the Holy Councils. All attempts at describing an Infinite, Uncreated Being that transcends space, time, matter, and energy is limited and, therefore, deficient. The Church treads with great caution and trembling, lest we subtract anything from Him. Equally insufficient are attempts at describing what God is not. In his Triads, St. Gregory Palamas stresses: “For God is not only beyond knowledge, but also beyond unknowing.” In other words, we can’t fully know what God is or what God isn’t.
The Old Testament declares there is only One God. In Deuteronomy 6:4, God says through Moses: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” This is known as the Shema, which is recited twice daily in Jewish prayer, and forms one of the central doctrines of Judaism. The Jews did not seek to explain God; they accepted God as the Source of all things. They were clear that God is one Being, and rejected all pagan notions of a plurality of gods. As Isaiah exclaimed: “I am the LORD, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me.” (Isaiah 45:5). The Jews’ notion of God include: He is incorporeal (i.e. no form or shape); He is omnipresent (i.e. present everywhere at all times); He is omniscient (i.e. knows all things past, present, and future, including our thoughts); He is omnipotent (i.e. all-powerful); He is eternal (i.e. no beginning; no end); and He is holy and perfect.
Pre-Talmudic Jews (before the destruction of the second Jerusalem Temple) accepted belief in a Trinitarian nature of One God in several Powers. The Old Testament scriptures make reference to the ONE GOD as: YHWH, the Angel of YHWH, and the Spirit of the Lord. Jacob wrestled with a Divine Being who blessed him and changed his name to Israel (Genesis 32:24-31). The Old Testament passages clearly equate the Angel of the Lord with God but distinct from YHWH: In Genesis 16:10, the Angel of the Lord tells Hagar that He will multiply her descendants exceedingly. Is this a mere angel? In verse 13 she replies: “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” equating the Angel of the Lord with God. In Exodus 3:2 the Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a flame of fire in the midst of a bush. In verse 4 it says that God called Moses out of the midst of the bush, and refers to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph (verse 6). God identifies Himself as “I Am,” the One Who Is. Jesus similarly refers to Himself as the Eternally Existing One in John 8:58 when He says: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” The Jewish disciples of Jesus were monotheists, yet upon seeing Him calm the wind and the sea had no hesitation in worshipping Him as God, saying, “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:33). To be the Son of God means to have the same nature as God. Jesus confounds the Pharisees of His day when quoting a passage in Psalm 110 referring to Him: “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” (Matthew 22:41-46) King David had drawn the distinction between The Lord God and the Lord Son of God. There are also Old Testament references to the Holy Spirit as God found in Genesis 1:2, Numbers 24:2, Judges 3:10, Isaiah 63, and 1 Samuel 10:10. A verse that encapsulates the Three Persons of the Trinity in the Old Testament is Isaiah 48. God addresses Israel and declares in verse 16: “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.” There are three distinct, yet undivided divine powers referenced here.
The New Testament, building on the Hebrew scriptures, established God’s Oneness in essence, eternally distinguished in Three Divine Personal Realities. The Eternal Father, whose mighty essence is beyond the reach of all angelic powers and physical creatures is made known to us through the Incarnate Word and His Holy Spirit. Christ is ascribed a divine identity, expressed as: “The Resurrection,” “The Truth,” “The Bread of Life,” “The Son of God,” etc. Moreover, Christ’s divine authority manifests itself by His ability to heal, cast out demons, walk on water, and forgive sins. The Old Testament Prophet Isaiah prophesied the following concerning Christ’s divinity: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
The Holy Trinity is further affirmed by theophanies (or eternal manifestations of God) as: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An example is at the baptism of Christ, when the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, and the voice as of the Father was heard in approval of His Son. Eventually, this led to the Gentiles’ (i.e. Greeks) ontological challenge to the Church’s monotheism, which rose to a fever pitch by the 4th century. In light of the widespread heretical controversy emanating from Arius, a priest from Alexandria in Egypt, who taught that Christ was created and that He and the Holy Spirit were less than fully divine, the Church was compelled to hold the Holy Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, formulating its doctrine concerning the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Church explained that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were each a hypostasis, or subsistence, of God. While distinguishable, they are not separate. Although every analogy breaks down when applied to God, it’s like analogizing that fire, heat and light are subsistence of a flame, and none of these characteristics can be separated or detached from the flame. Meanwhile, the oneness of God, as a single Being, consists in His one essence or substance. Christ is the Logos (The Word become flesh), eternally the mind, peace and power of God, always in full harmony with the Father’s will. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father, giving life to the world and carrying out the Father’s will as Comforter.
The Holy Trinity
Fr. Vassilios Papavassiliou presents a thought-provoking lesson on The Trinity and The Incarnation.
Fr. Vassilios Papavassiliou @ All Saints Cathedral, Camden, London
The Nature of God - A Theological Approach
The Church and the Holy Scriptures denounce belief in “three gods in one God.” It also denounces belief in “three beings working in union, harmony, or agreement.” They teach that God is one, and that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God (not gods), and that they are one being, one entity, one essence. God has revealed Himself in three permanent ways of being (not in three beings). The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable. Anthropomorphic language in the Bible causes some to draw misconceptions about God, generating the belief that God does not merely reveal Himself with certain qualities, but actually possesses them- that He looks like a human being, dresses in white garments, speaks through a mouth, has eyes to see, ears to hear, and feet which make a noise when He walks. Some have tried to support their claim by saying that, since Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8), it follows that God has feet. The crude implications in taking these statement as disclosing the nature of God are either that God needs bodily organs, or that He has organs He does not need. Each of these errors opens the door to aberrant thoughts about God. A related confusion results from an incorrect understanding of Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Some have taken “image” to refer to a physical, rather than to a spiritual likeness. In order to understand “in His own image,” one can examine Psalms 8:5-6. Man is described as made lower than the angels but crowned “with glory and honor” (both divine qualities). He was made “to have dominion over God’s creation, with all things under this feet” - showing his position as ruler and king, like God. He was also given the ability to reason and to express a broad range of divine qualities (to communicate, invent, design, create, etc.), which are more meaningful and significant to his existence than bodily parts and shape (Father Alexander S.)
The Procession of the Holy Spirit
3 small words That split the Christian Church
Following the Arian heresy that rocked the 300 year-old Christian Church regarding the divinity of Christ, two Ecumenical Councils were convened, first in Nicea, and then in Constantinople, resulting in the Ancient Creed of the Church. This Creed affirmed the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - Three Persons in One Essence. It refers to Christ as the Only-Begotten of the Father, and refers to the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father. It attests that the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit are together worshipped and glorified. For 700 years, the Church in the East and the West upheld this doctrine. Eventually, the West inserted “and the Son” (Latin: Filioque) to the Creed, now affirming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This innovation was viewed by the East as scandalous and unacceptable, ultimately contributing to the Great Schism of 1054 A.D, between the Church of Rome and the Churches of the East. Protestantism inherited and continues to uphold the Roman concept of the Filioque. The Holy Orthodox Church contends the Filioque is a blasphemous heresy, as it corrupts the relationship of the Godhead, robbing the Father as the Source of the Godhead, and dishonoring the dignity of the Holy Spirit. Below are selected excerpts (paraphrased for modern readers) from St. Photios’ 9th century excellent exposition: Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit.
“For if the Son and the Spirit came forth from the same cause, namely, the Father (even though the Spirit is by procession whilst the Son is by begetting); and if the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, then why not simply tear up Scripture and propagate the fable that the Spirit also produces the Son, thereby treating each Person equally by allowing each to produce the other? For if each hypostasis is in the other, then of necessity each is the cause and completion of the other. For reason demands they all be equal, so that each Person (i.e hypostasis) can indistinguishably exchange the grace of being able to cause the other Persons (hypostases). But since it is claimed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from two Persons (the Father and the Son), the Spirit is considered to have a double cause, thereby obscuring the simplicity of the Most High. How, then, shall the Spirit not be blasphemed if, proceeding from the Son, He in turn has no equality by causing the Son?” (Refer to Matthew 1:18, 20) St. Photios asks: “Who of our sacred and renowned Fathers said the Spirit proceeds from the Son? Did any ecumenical synod, proclaim it? Which assembly of priests and bishops, inspired of God, affirmed this understanding of the Holy Spirit? Indeed, they subjected all who believed otherwise to the anathema for being scorners of the Holy Church; for the second of the seven Holy and Ecumenical Synods directly affirmed as dogma that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The third received it by tradition; the fourth confirmed it; the fifth supported the same doctrine; the sixth sealed it; the seventh sealed it in splendor with contests. Accordingly, in each of their luminous proclamations the godly doctrine that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and not also from the Son is boldly asserted. Would you, then, O godless herd, draw away towards unlawful teaching and dispute this teaching of the Master? For if each hypostasis is as great as the others, then the procession is common to all three hypostases by virtue of the simple, indivisible essence. And if each hypostasis is as great as the others, then all share in a common and unique simplicity, and therefore the Spirit and the Father will be caused by the Son and the Spirit in a similar manner. Then the Spirit would participate in His own procession: on one hand producer, and on the other, being produced; on one hand causing Himself, and on the other as being caused. — Another great array of blasphemies against God! And you should also consider the following argument: if the Son is begotten from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Son, why not then, accord the Spirit, Who has the same identical essence, the dignity of also proceeding from Himself to produce another hypostasis at the same time? Otherwise, you degrade Him Who is worthy of equal honor with the other two Persons.” All of these necessary logical conclusions stemming from the fallacy of the Filioque uproots the monarchy of the Father (Recall, Christ said He came to do the will of His Father, and that the works He performed are the works of His Father, and that the words He said are the words of His Father, etc.) and renders the Persons of the Holy Trinity as indistinguishable, and thus blasphemous. St. Photios continues: “But if, as this impious doctrine asserts, the Son is also a cause of the Spirit, then it must be conceded that either the Son takes over the Father's role and title (receiving the hypostatic property of being the Cause), or the Father's hypostasis is imperfect, lacking completion, and that the Son supplements the hypostasis of the Father. Since the Son is made a part of the Father, this reduces the awesome mystery of the Trinity to a mere Dyad. The final conclusion amounts to this: if the unique property of the Father is transposed into a specific property of the Son, then it is clear that the specific property of the Son is also transposed into the specific feature of the Father since they are of equal essence. We must altogether shun this impious notion. For if, according to the reasonings of the impious, the specific properties of the hypostasis are opposed and transferred to one another, then the Father — O depth of impiety! — comes under the property of being begotten and the Son will beget the Father. This ungodly doctrine can accommodate all these conclusions because they are of a similar nature to the original premise.” It becomes clear how the West changing the Creed concerning the Trinity created grave concern to the Eastern Church, and why to this day, the schism remains.