God As Unknowable

[Deb]

Wow Apotheoun! Thank you for those posts. You have enlightened me and given me something to think about. Some things are a bit beyond me at this stage in my conversion journey. So much to learn and things like working for a living keep getting in my way.

[reyb]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1581179' date='Jun 24 2008, 12:44 AM']No, divine love is not the divine essence; instead, it is a divine energy. The divine essence is beyond anything that man can conceive, and so it is not reducible to any one of God's energies (i.e., His love, mercy, justice, glory, light, goodness, etc.). As St. Gregory of Nyssa said in the quotation I provided earlier in this thread, ". . . if we consider the cause of our life, that He came to create man not from necessity, but from the free decision of his goodness, we say that we have contemplated God by this way, that we have apprehended his goodness – so again, not his essence, but his goodness." God's energies reveal His providential love and guidance, but God is beyond any one of His energies, while being wholly present in them all.[/quote]

Do you mean, God's energy is not God himself? Just like God's power and wisdom is not God himself?

[reyb]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1581132' date='Jun 24 2008, 12:08 AM']In the Byzantine tradition salvation is divinization ([i]theosis[/i]), for as St. Athanasios said, "[b]God became man, so that man might become God."[/b][/quote]
[indent]Do you believe this tradition?[/indent]

[reyb]

[quote name='Deb' post='1580809' date='Jun 23 2008, 08:33 PM']I don't think that is what I am talking about at all. I certainly don't believe that because [b]we have the Holy Spirit active within us, that it makes us Gods or Godlike. What I mean is that once we die and we are drawn up to God in heaven. We will then be so bound up in the power and supreme Love of God, that we shall become one with him. [/b][/quote]

[indent]Same thing here. Do you really believe this idea? Or this is what you are hoping when you pass in this world?[/indent]

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='reyb' post='1581386' date='Jun 24 2008, 08:25 AM']Do you mean, God's energy is not God himself? Just like God's power and wisdom is not God himself?[/quote]
No, the energy of God is God, i.e., it is God as He exists outside of His ineffable essence, for it is God as He manifests Himself in the world as grace.

Thus, salvation ultimately involves a real participation by man in the uncreated divine energy, which makes him a partaker of the divine nature (cf. 2nd Peter 1:4), and which gives him a share in the uncreated life and glory of the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='reyb' post='1581427' date='Jun 24 2008, 10:02 AM']Do you believe this tradition?[/quote]
Yes, as I explained in a post a few years ago:

[size=3][quote][b]Theosis Involves No Essential Change in either God or Man[/b]

The Fathers of the Church are insistent that deified man's participation in the divine nature does not mean that he participates in either the divine essence (ousia), which is and remains wholly incommunicable and incomprehensible, nor in the personal (hypostatic) reality of any one of the three divine persons, because personality is not something that can be communicated or imparted from one person to another. The divine essence, and the personal subsistent (hypostatic) reality of the three divine persons, are utterly transcendent and incommunicable properties of God. So man is not absorbed by an essential participation in the divine nature, nor are human persons added to the Trinity; instead, through the process of deification (theosis) man participates in the uncreated divine energies (energeiai) which flow out from the divine essence as a gift to humanity from the three divine persons. In other words, by a completely unmerited gift of grace, man is elevated to a participation in the divine nature through the uncreated divine energies (energeiai), and this involves no essential change, nor personal (hypostatic) addition, to either God or man; instead, it entails an abiding communion (koinonia) of life and love between the Holy Trinity and humanity.[/quote][/size]

Edited June 24, 2008 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[i]The following is taken from [u]The Handbook of Spiritual Counsel[/u], by St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain:[/i]


When the mind rises through the creatures to the Creator and discerns that the reasons in the creatures have similitude with their Creator, the positive or cataphatic theology is used to name God positively – wise, good, creator, light, sun, air, fire, and all of the beings as their Cause. But when the mind rises in the Spirit and supernaturally to the Creator and envisions the spiritual reality that God is unlike all the creatures and incomparably beyond them, then the mind uses the apophatic and transcendent theology to name God apophatically and transcendently as more-than-wise, more-than-good. Thus God is not a sun, nor light, nor fire, nor air, nor anything else from among the created beings.

By meditating upon the created beings as mirrors, we contemplate the Creator and we praise Him and call Him by name. St. Maximos said that "God being the cause of all according to the cataphatic theology can be called and is in a divine sense all these names, but according to the apophatic theology He is none of these transcendently." In agreement with this, St. Dionysios also said: "God is praised by all the created beings according to their analogy for He is their cause. But again, there is the most divine knowledge of God which is known through unknowing according to the union with God that is transcendent and beyond intellectual understanding." There is a paradoxical dimension whereby we can say that God is both [i]in[/i] everything and [i]everything[/i] and yet is essentially [i]in[/i] nothing and [i]nothing[/i]; and by the same token, God is known to all by all things, and yet He remains essentially unknown, for He is not truly known by anything nor by anyone.

[. . .]

Briefly then, let me also add that, as you know, God is communicable in His energies and perfections but incommunicable in His essence, as well as in the infinite nature of His divine perfections.

[Laudate_Dominum]

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[Laudate_Dominum]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9lFe504i2s[/media]

[Sarah147]

[quote name='kdewolf2' timestamp='1213545510' post='1571738']
I guess the underlying thought here, is that if God is truly infinite, he could never enter into human knowledge or experience; we could only know or experience a "simulacrum" or a finite representation of God, which would still fall infinitely short of God himself, and would therefore be essentially an idol.
[/quote]

He could never? Just look at the Saints who have had visions of God, ecstasies, mystical contemplation; gifts of miracles, wisdom, etc. St. Faustina regularly talked directly with Jesus, as in her diary book. St. Gemma was visited often by Jesus and Mother Mary. St. Francis of Assisi is said to be the Saint closest to being like Jesus. Nothing "idol" about any of this. God is all powerful and can do as He pleases, even giving us and the Saints, grace to know Him and meet/experience Him in various ways. Just look at how we receive the complete Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ Jesus in Holy Communion. It would seem impossible to know Heaven, Purgatory and Hell here, but Saint Faustina was transported to each while alive on earth.

Through faith, reason and special graces, we sure are limited in how much of God we can know and experience, but as we grow in our relationship with Jesus, we can expand and He can grace us to experience and know Him more. It's all God's doing and grace; we just open ourselves up to Him. God is not unknowable; God is a personal God, come down to us in Christ Jesus, recorded in the Bible.

I very much agree with the quote at the bottom of my post. Spiritually, we can see God all over the place, including in the joy, love, and humility of a little innocent child or a Holy person. In the beauty of creation: flowers, trees, classical and Church music, poetry, etc. In the kind acts of people, the laughter and humor of a friend, a hug, a smile, support of a loved one, etc. We can see all sides of God in various areas: science, weather, etc. All that is good is of God.


[quote name='Deb' timestamp='1214189925' post='1579889']
I see God everywhere. I see him in others. I see him in Mass. I feel him all the time. God is present in every living thing. He breathes within me. He lifts me up. He holds me. He touches me from the inside out. He transforms me. He is joy. He is peace. He is truly all that is of light. To me, he is the most visible, real, part of my existence. Everything in my life before him and not of him is the illusion.

In our humanity, we could never handle the full sight or indwelling of God. We are not capable of withstanding that. One little touch is enough to know his power and that is not even explainable.
[/quote]

Edited August 28, 2010 by JoyfulLife

[Sarah147]

I wanted to add some more to my above post, but the time limit ended.

We know God through His many attributes: truth, goodness, intelligence, wisdom, justice, holiness; all the fruits and virtues; eternal, all-good, all-knowing, all-present, and almighty. Mainly we know God as loving, compassionate, merciful and forgiving. We humans were made in the image of God, and our souls are empty without God, and yearning to know and love God. Given this, it really shows we are more capable of knowing and experiencing God than you think; it's mainly the very spiritual and Holy people that know and experience God to a large degree; many average Christians just aren't serious enough to reach such a level.


Generally, I think it would do you good to look at God less from the "figure out" and intellectual stand-point, and to look more at God as Pure Spirit -- the Father. And as spiritual LOVE. In our openness and faithfulness, and God's grace, we can grow and grow in love, very intertwined with mystical contemplation. Everything is about love. Becoming a Saint isn't even trying to become that, but about loving more and more, to the fullest. Just look at the degree of love and contemplation of the Saints. Experiencing and knowing love, you experience and know God -- the Infinite. The Saints reach mystical marriage, complete union with God, ready for Heaven. God makes the way for us finite creatures to be filled with the Infinite God. In the end degrees of Sainthood, they receive "personal insights into the Truth that are given as a gift and not as the fruit of theological study or meditation; and private revelations and locutions."




As a side note, I just came across the Baltimore Catechism online, which is awesome. [url="http://www.catholicity.com/baltimore-catechism/"]http://www.catholici...more-catechism/[/url]

Edited August 28, 2010 by JoyfulLife