When presenting the doctrine of God as one in essence, it is necessary to reveal the Orthodox teaching: 1) about the essence of God and ii) about the unity of God in essence.
I. Being of God
I. God in His inner being cannot be comprehended by any limited mind. What is cognizable in the essence of God is that aspect of God by which He manifests Himself in the world, reflecting here in finite forms the infinite properties of His being. Hence the teaching ο properties of the being of God actually constitutes the content of the teaching on the essence of God. On the basis of these properties alone, a person can form a certain concept of God in order to bring the incomprehensible essence of God closer to his understanding.
II. The properties of the being of God, otherwise - significant properties of God (τα ούσιώδη ιδιώματα) are those properties that belong to the very essence of God and distinguish him from all other beings; these properties general to all persons of the Holy Trinity, as having a single being. The belonging of these properties to all persons of the Holy Trinity distinguishes them from the properties of the persons of God or personal(τά προσωπικά ιδιώματα), belonging to each person of the Deity separately and distinguishing them from each other. The content of the doctrine of the essence of God is the doctrine of general to all persons of the Holy Trinity properties.
III. God is a being most perfect and according to the testimony of universal religious consciousness and according to the testimony of revelation. An all-perfect being, of course, also has an all-perfect being, that is, one that is free from the shortcomings and limitations inherent in being less perfect, limited. The most perfect "Being" can be conceived only as unconditionally spiritual, possessing self-consciousness and freedom; material being, devoid of consciousness and freedom, is lower, less perfect than spiritual being. Boundless fullness of being(infinity or infinity) and spirituality are the most general and basic features in the concept of ο God. All the other properties assimilated to God only more specifically determine either the thought of the existence of the “Being” (such as originality, eternity, etc.), or the spirituality of the Deity (for example, omniscience, holiness, goodness, etc.), are contained in these latter, as particular in general, serve as their most particular explanation. The properties of God, referring to the perfections of His being in general, are usually called ontological the properties of God, and the properties of God, as the most perfect Spirit - spiritual.
§ 16. God is "Sy". The properties of the being of God, as the "Being" of the most perfect.
I. God possesses the fullness of the most perfect being. This is directly and necessarily presupposed by the idea of the all-perfection of God, which imperiously compels us to imagine God as having real (real) being, and not being only in our thought (real being is more perfect than non-being or being in possibility, in mere representation), and, moreover, being all-perfect. Revelation especially expressively indicates the fullness of the most perfect being in God in the naming of His name Syi: Az am Siy(Iehovah or Iaveh, Ό ών). And speech: so speak son O m Israel: He sent me to you(Ex 3:14). "By this name," explains St. Gregory the Theologian, - He (God) calls Himself, talking with Moses on the mountain, because He concentrates in Himself total being which did not begin and will not stop”, “there is, as it were, some sea of essence, indefinable and infinite, extending beyond any conception of time and nature” (Sl. 38 and 45).
II. God, as an all-perfect “Being”, is alien to the shortcomings and limitations inherent in finite being. Being finite - all beings and objects of the visible world - are limited both by the beginning and cause of their being, and by the conditions of their existence: by the beginning and cause of their being, they are all dependent on an external cause or not original, but due to non-originality and subject, in addition to their will, constant modifications; according to the conditions of their manifestation, they are all dependent on the conditions of space and time. God, as the most perfect in His being, therefore, free from all these restrictions, is an original Being, independent of anyone and nothing in His being, and therefore independent of random changes or unchangeable, and together - from all conditions of time. and space, otherwise - eternal, immeasurable and omnipresent. The main properties of the being of God as an all-perfect Being, therefore, are: 1) originality, 2) immutability, 3)eternity, 4) immensity and omnipresence.
1. Identity.- This is such a property, which means that God does not originate from anything else, and does not depend on any other being for His being, but has the cause and necessary conditions of His being in Himself. How such a being, God, therefore, is a being necessary existing, i.e., such that cannot not be. For reason, this property seems so necessary in God that without it it cannot think of God. God who is not independent in being is not God. The originality of God is necessarily presupposed by the conditionality of finite being.
Az am Siy, so God Himself defines Himself as an original being, proclaiming His name to Moses at the bush. As if an explanation of these words in the New Testament are the words: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty(Apoc 1, 8). The idea of the originality of God is especially directly and strongly depicted in the words of the Savior: as the Father has a life in Himself, so Dade and Sons have a life in themselves(John 5:26). As such a being, God is depicted in Holy Scripture as giving all belly, and breath, and all(Acts 17:25; Ps 35:9-10). But no one can give him anything, no one gives instruction or advice in anything (Ex 40:13-14; Rom 11:34-35). Through St. Isaiah He says: I am; before me there was no God, and after me there will be no (43, 10).
2. Immutability.- Immutability in God is such a property, according to which He always remains the same in His essence, and in His powers and perfections, and in His determinations, not subject to any kind of change or accidental transitions from one state - better or worse to the other is worse or better. This property is inseparably connected in God with the property of His originality and is necessarily presupposed by them. Finite beings are subject to continuous variability in their being, and this is because they are not original and dependent in being on external causes and conditions. In God, therefore, no accidental modifications in being are conceivable because He is independent of anyone and nothing in being.
This is how revelation portrays God. He himself bears witness to himself: I am the Lord your God, and I will not change(Mal 3, 6). Holy writers claim that Father of Lights... there is no change or change of walls(Not a shadow of turning - Jas 1:17; cf. Heb 6:16-17). They reject in Him the variability seen both in visible nature and in man. The first thought is especially clearly expressed by the Psalmist: in the beginning, you, O Lord, founded the earth, and the works of hands at Your essence is heaven. They will perish, but you remain: and all, like a robe, they will wear out, and like a garment e shi i, and change I tsya. You are the same, and l e and yours will not be scarce(Ps 101:26-28). Rejected by revelation in God is also the variability seen in man. Not like a man, God hesitates, below, like a son of man, he changes:(Numbers 23, 19) ? Jesus Christ according to the apostle, yesterday and today, the same and forever(Heb 13:8).
Note. Regarding the immutability of God for the mind, there are some difficulties that require clarification. The most important of these difficulties are:
1) How to agree with the immutability in God, the birth of the Son in Him and the procession of the Holy Spirit? The answer to this is given by St. I. Damaskin. (Statement of Faith, 1 book. 8 ch.), and its essence can be expressed as follows: God the Father, giving birth from his own essence that is identical with Himself by nature, gives birth within His essence, and not outside, by Himself, having no need for whose assistance, begets eternally, endlessly and unceasingly, so that the Son has always been with the Father and in the Father, and therefore begets without prejudice to His immutability. Then only He would undergo a change when He would give birth to the Son in time, becoming the Father afterward and not being Him before, when He would give birth not by Himself, but with the assistance from outside, and when there would be a separation of the essence of the Son from the being of the Father. A similar reasoning is applicable to the procession of the Holy Spirit. In an original and eternal being, this birth and production are original and eternal, and therefore in no case can they serve in Him as signs of His change.
2) How to agree with the immutability of God, the incarnation of God the Word in the person of J. Christ? The answer to this bewilderment is contained in the teaching of the Church that the two natures in I. Christ, with the unity of the hypostasis, were united not only inseparably and inseparably, but also inseparably and unchangingly or immutably (the definition of faith IV Ecumenical Sob.), so that neither The Divine did not change into humanity, nor humanity into the Divine, but each of the natures retained its properties, the Divine — Its infinity, humanity — its limitations. Therefore, through the incarnation, no change in the essence of God followed; it would have happened only if the Deity, as the Monophysites taught, mixed with humanity, forming from Himself and human nature one new, mixed nature.
3) How can the immutability of God be preserved when God created the world in time? This confusion is resolved in this way. The creation of the world in relation to God is not something accidental, unexpected and unforeseen by God; the thought of the world existed in the mind of God from eternity, and, moreover, as the thought of the world, which has to be created in time: reasonable (i.e., known) from the age of God all His works (Acts 15, 18); equally eternal in God is the power of creativity. The creation of the world, therefore, is nothing else than the realization in time of the eternal and unchanging thought of God. On the other hand, God did not produce the world out of His own being, but created it through the outward creative action of His will, which produced no change in His being.
4) Doesn't God's providence in the world contradict the teaching of the immutability of God? No. It takes place according to the eternal predestination of God (Acts 15:18; Dan 13:42; Sir 23:29). From eternity, God foresaw the entire course of world events and from eternity predetermined the whole series of deeds of His providential influence on the world order. Then change would be introduced into the essence of God, something new into His life, if the actions of God's providence were not foreseen, but were an accidental act extorted from God by unforeseen circumstances.
3. Eternity.- God, as an immutable being, does not depend on the conditions of time, as a form of all changeable being, or eternal. Time is not something existing in itself; it is only a form of finite being, since in it there are constant changes in things, as a result of which they either appear or disappear, passing from one state to another, and at each definite moment are not what they were before. It is these changes that are determined in the successive finite being. before And after, beginning and end, present, past and future. If finite being did not undergo such constant changes, but would always be equally equal to itself, then there would be no measurement of the duration of being, there would be no place for time. Such is precisely the being of the unchangeable being of God. It completely and always equally owns its being, without any increase or decrease, without any continuity or change, and therefore for Him there is no beginning, no end, no past, no future, but only always the same, everlasting or eternal being. WITH negative the eternity of God, therefore, consists in the fact that for God there are no those dimensions of time that are applied to being finite (before, after, now), with positive- in that at every supposed time He is the same, always equal to Himself.
Revelation depicts the eternity of God with all separateness. Az am Siy, says God Himself. The inner dependence of God's eternity on His immutability is clearly expressed in the above-quoted words of the Psalmist: in the beginning, you, O Lord, founded the earth ... you are the same, and your years will not fail. Ο of the duration of the existence of God, adapted to our designations of time, it represents God Himself as witness: Az is the first, and Az is the age(Is 48:12; sn. 41:4; 44:6). I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end(Apoc 1, 8). I am the first and the last(- 17th century). Before me there was no God, and after me there will be no(Is 43:10). The idea of these sayings is that a person, wherever he stretches his mind with the measurements of time - to the beginning or end, he meets God everywhere, Who, therefore, is higher than the largest measurements of time: before even the mountains did not exist and the earth and the universe were created, from age to age you are(Ps 89:2). The very image of the eternal existence of God is presented by Scripture as different from the image of finite existence and elevated above the dimensions of time that we have. The psalmist says to Him: a thousand years before your eyes, O Lord, as yesterday(Ps 89:5), aap. Peter, repeating these words, adds that and one day before the Lord, as a thousand years(2 Peter 3:8).
4. Immeasurability and omnipresence.- Being above the conditions of time, God is unlimited and by no limits of space, - He immeasurable And ubiquitous. Like time, space is not something that exists independently of things, but is also a form of existence of finite things, since they are characterized by spatial definitions and relations. A certain extension (length, width, height, depth) of finite things comes from the lack of originality in them and their dependence in being on external conditions that place spatial limits or boundaries of their being. But God, as an original being and independent of anything and nothing outside or external, cannot be constrained or protected by anything outside, excluded or concluded by anything. He is a Being beyond all spatiality or measurable extension, a Being immense, unlimited and immeasurable. Considered the same in relation to the world He is an omnipresent Being, i.e. He does not reside in any one place or at one time in one, at another in another, but resides everywhere, always and entirely. In the world, both physical and moral, there is not a single place, not a single created being, and in all these beings there is not the slightest, so to speak, partial state and action of forces, where God would not be present.
Revelation at all times proclaimed the immeasurability and omnipresence of the being of God. God Himself says to Himself in the Old Testament: food heaven and earth do not I fill?(Jer 23:24). Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool: what house will you build, and what is the place of my resting place?(Ex 66:1) David confesses the omnipresence of God in these words: How can I go from Your Spirit? and from the face of Your Kamo I run? If I go up to heaven, you are there: if I go down to hell, then you are: I will still take my wings early(Will I take the wings of the dawn) and I will dwell in the last seas, and there your hand will guide me, and your right hand will hold me(Ps 138:7-10).
In the New Testament, the thought of the omnipresence of God is necessarily assumed by the teaching of the Savior that the worship of God in spirit and in truth cannot be tied to any particular place, but must be done everywhere (Jn 4:21-23). The apostle teaches that God is not far from each of us: ο We live in it, we move, and we(Acts 17:27-28) and that He over all, and through all, and in all of us(Eph 4:6).
Note. 1) How should the omnipresence of God in the world be represented? For us, confined within space, the image of God's omnipresence in the world is a mystery. However, it goes without saying that it cannot be imagined as if God is poured over the entire space of the world, like air or light, or that He penetrates everything by Himself, as if by some expansion or stretching of His being, as, for example, water penetrates floating in her sponge, or that He is in different parts of the world with different parts of His being, in larger ones more, in smaller ones less. One cannot represent God as omnipresent and only by the actions of His omniscience, omnipotence, and justice. Then one would have to think of God as being in some place, from where He would act on all parts of the world with His mind and omnipotence. The pantheistic understanding of God's omnipresence is also incorrect, in the sense that the world is only a manifestation, self-development or revelation of the Divine, so that God and the world (revelation outside the essence of God) are identical (the immanence of God in the world), and the existence of God is not allowed. (in pantheism God is an impersonal principle) outside and above the world (God's transcendence to the world). Such an understanding denies the omnipresent in the sense of the immeasurability and spatial unlimitedness of the divine nature. Preventing from the indicated kind of misconceptions about this property, the Church Fathers taught to understand it in such a way that God is not confined in any place, but not excluded from any, that “He is all in everything”, but “both outside and above everything that, therefore, He is present in the world not only by His actions and powers, but also by His very being. “You need to know,” says St. I. Damascene, - that God has no parts, all is everywhere and entirely, - not a part of which remains in a certain part, dividing like bodies, but all in all and all above all "" He Himself is a place for Himself, He fills everything and exists outside of everything” (Proceedings of Faith, I, ch. 13). According to St. Athanasius the Great, “God encompasses everything and is not contained by anything; He abides in everything by His goodness and power” (hence also by His being, for in God actions cannot be separated from His being — ούσία), “and also outside of everything by His own nature” (κατά τήν ιδίαν φύσιν; 11), i.e., that which in His very essence constitutes His nature (φύσις in the terminology of the Holy Father is not identical with ούσία) — being and life only within Himself. However, we must remember that with all attempts to comprehend the image of the omnipresence of God in the world, this attribute of God is especially incomprehensible to us. “That God is present everywhere,” says St. I. Chrysostom, we know, but we don’t comprehend how, because we know only the sensual presence and it is not given to fully understand the nature of God ”(On Heb. Bes. XII, 1).
2) If God is omnipresent, then how to understand those passages of Holy Scripture that speak of His special presence, for example, in heaven (Ps 113:24), in the temple (1 Kings 9:3), in man (2 Cor. 6:16), or His appearances to people in certain places? The answer to this perplexity may be the following. God is present throughout the world; there is no place where He is not. If, however, places of the special presence of God are indicated, then this is said either in relation to our limitedness, or because in some places there is a special manifestation of the presence of God, in accordance with the acceptability of creatures (see Catih. 1 part; Pr. Confessions 15).
3) Is God present in that which is contrary to His perfections in the world, for example, where gloomy villainous plans are committed, passions and vices are at work, etc.? One cannot think that the evil will, as it were, builds secret corners that would exclude the presence of God. And with the most villainous plans, God is present as the Preserver, Judge and Retributor. If God withdrew His all-preserving and all-containing power from any being and its power, they would immediately collapse and turn into nothing. In the Psalmist we read: if I go down to hell, you are there; hell is a place where physical and moral evil is revealed in the strongest way and where, however, God is present. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine a single place, action or state in the physical or moral world, where God would not be present. The holiness of God through presence, even in vicious actions, is not in the least clouded, just as, for example, the light does not lose its purity in the least when it passes through a polluted environment.
§ 17. Spirituality of the being of God.
God is the purest and most perfect personal Spirit. Revelation rejects both grossly sensual pagan ideas about the Deity and the concept of Him as some kind of impersonal infinite principle, force, soul of the world, or some absolute, but not personal, not self-conscious mind, as in pantheistic teachings.
I. The truth about the spirituality of the Deity has been preached from the very beginning in Old Testament. Without calling God anywhere directly the Spirit, the Old Testament revelation, nevertheless, assimilates to God everything that is included in the concept of the Spirit. Thus, God is depicted in the Old Testament as a Being possessing the highest consciousness, reason and will, with all their many different properties. He assimilates: omniscience, wisdom, holiness, goodness, justice and other properties of spiritual and personal existence. Moses calls Him twice God of spirits and all flesh(Numbers 16, 22; 27, 16), and about antediluvian mankind, God Himself says: not have my spirit to abide in these men forever, for they are flesh(Gen 6:3).
True, with the images of God by the infinite Spirit, in the Old Testament, the properties of the bodily nature of man are often assimilated to God. So, He is often depicted as having a head, face, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, legs, heart, the states and actions characteristic of the human body are attributed to Him, for example, breathing, voice, touch, sight, smell, taste, etc. .p. (so-called. anthropomorphisms). But such images do not contradict the teaching of the Old Testament about God as the highest Spirit. The anthropomorphic depiction of properties and life in God by no means introduces into the Old Testament teaching dogmatic anthropomorphism, similar to the anthropomorphism of pagan legends about the Deity. In the Old Testament religion, it does not consist in thought, but in language, not in the very essence of the matter (i.e., not in God’s assimilation of the actual belonging of the body and its members), but only in a special form or image of representation, and therefore does not prejudice the frank truth. The very images from beginning to end, far removed from the mythological legends about the gods of the peoples of that era, are such that everywhere they can be easily explained in a sense worthy of the most perfect being of God. But that they were to be understood in this last sense, this is revealed from the teaching of the Old Testament about the life of God, infinitely exalted above the life of the world, from the denial in God of the existence of bodily organs similar to members human body(Job 10, 4-5; Ps 120, 4; Is 40, 28), and even more so from the fact that it expressly forbids making images and worshiping an idol, or any visible likeness of God (Ex 20, 4-5; Deut 5:8-9 is the second commandment). The reasons for such images of the Deity, in addition to the fact that imagery is a natural property of Hebrew speech, lie in the fact that people clothed with flesh cannot understand and express their thoughts on spiritual objects without the use of images, types and symbols. All the more necessary was anthropomorphism for such a people as the Jews, in order to instill in them the sublime concept of God as Spirit.
Note.- From the anthropomorphic images of God in Scripture, images of the so-called. anthropopathic; these are images of God with spiritual states characteristic of man, the assimilation of, for example, joy, sadness, anger, fun, repentance, etc. Although these are also figurative expressions, they have a different meaning than anthropomorphisms. Anthropomorphisms are only signs of other concepts, spiritual, while anthropopathies are not signs, but in the proper sense of the state of the Divine Spirit, only special, consistent with the infinite nature of God, and alien to the sinfulness that is inherent in the states of the human spirit. In addition to the inability of human language to express the thought of the properties of the Infinite Spirit without the use of human-like expressions, anthropopathic images have the deepest basis for themselves in the fact that man is the image of God, and according to Christian teaching, the Word Itself was flesh.
II. In the New Testament, the teaching of the spirituality of the Deity, as proposed for those who have grown in faith, is already revealed without the previous anthropomorphisms. Here God is directly called Spirit. The Savior in a conversation with the Samaritan woman said: Spirit (There is) God (Πνεύμα ό Θεός); and those who bow before Him, in spirit and in truth O um bow(John 4:24). The name of God by the Spirit is Πνεύμα, and spirit- according to the Savior Himself, - have no flesh and bones(Luke 24:39) shows that God is a simple, immaterial being. Pointing to the nearness of the time when His worship will be ubiquitous (v. 21), the Savior thus expresses that God is a Spirit unlimited in space, omnipresent, generally infinite. Ap. Paul says: The Lord Spirit is, but the Spirit of the Lord, my freedom(2 Cor 3:17). By connecting with the idea of the Spirit of thought ο freedom, it is shown that God, according to the apostle, is a personal, free-reasoning being. The same idea of God is taught in the New Testament when He is called Father of spirits(Heb 12:9), reason, love, and other properties are assimilated to Him, which can belong only to a spiritually rational personal being.
III. The Church, following the teaching of revelation, has always recognized the spirituality of the Deity. The teachers of the church of the first centuries, beginning with the apologists, were already resolutely arming themselves against the crudely sensual pagan and late Jewish ideas about God, which were trying to invade the milieu of Christian society. With even greater certainty, the church's belief in the spirituality of the Deity was expressed about the appearance in the 4th century. anthropomorphic heresies(otherwise Avdian). Anthropomorphites argued that God should be represented only as similar to man in everything, not excluding the body with all its organs and members. The basis for such a thought they thought to see in the Holy Scriptures, namely: in the narrative of Moses ο the creation of man according to image of God(Gen 1, 26), which, as they believed, is not only in the soul, but also in the body, and even more so in the images of God with the members and properties of the human body. The Church Fathers strongly condemned such a crude conception of God and no less unreasonable understanding of Scripture. The image of God, they admonished the erring, must be believed not in the body of a person, but in his soul, but in relation to the human-like expressions of Scripture ο God, they explained the reasons for their use, and at the same time offered the very explanation of them. At the same time, they showed that the teaching of the anthropomorphites was itself full of inconsistencies. They made this obvious by comparing the corporeality of God assumed by the heretics with other properties of God, assimilated by Him in revelation and recognized by the anthropomorphites themselves, such as: infinity, omnipresent, immutability, indestructibility, eternity, all-perfection, etc.
IV. The teaching about God as an all-perfect personal Spirit is the only true one from the point of view of normal, sound thinking. The very concept of the all-perfection of God requires us to think in His personal spirit. Guided by the innate idea of God, people of all times, at whatever stage of development they are, usually represent God as something higher and more perfect than which nothing can be. As an all-perfect being, God can only be thought of as having all the perfections that are observed in the world, of course, to the most infinite degree, for God is the beginning and cause of everything that exists and lives in the universe, and the universe, as His creation, is the manifestation of His perfections. The highest creation in the visible world is man as a rational, personal and self-conscious being; while material beings, having no consciousness and rationality, already occupy a lower place in the ladder of being. Therefore, in ascending to the cause of the world, we must necessarily recognize that this cause could only be a supreme mind, and therefore a personal God. An unintelligent, blind force cannot produce intelligence; consciousness cannot come from the unconscious. On the other hand, if we exclude from the concept of ο God the idea of ο Him, as ο the most perfect Spirit, then there remains an unworthy of God idea of ο Him, as ο a force, although omnipotent, but unreasonable, blind, purely physical, superior to which would be a man endowed with reason. .
The same conclusion leads the mind to consider the properties of world existence in general. The lawfulness of world phenomena, harmony and rationality in the composition and process of the development of the universe necessarily presuppose in the Being that formed the world a clear consciousness of both the entire world order and all the means and methods necessary to achieve the goal of world development.
Finally, it is impossible not to see confirmation of the truth about the spirituality of the Deity in the fact that the Deity in all religions is conceived as a personal being, although not everywhere the ideas of the divine person are equally perfect. Such a conception, common to all peoples, of God as a personal being, cannot, of course, be considered only a self-delusion of man, a conception that has no basis in truth.
§ 18. Properties of the being of God as Spirit.
The concept of the spiritual perfections of God can be formed on the basis of observation of the nature of the human spirit, created in the image of God. The essential properties that characterize the spiritual-personal being in finite rational-free beings are: reason, will and feeling. From these same sides, of course, in accordance with the infinity of the nature of God, God can also be considered as the most perfect Spirit, especially since from the same sides He, as the Spirit, is depicted in revelation. Accordingly, the properties of God, as a spiritual being, can be subdivided into the properties of a) the mind of God, b) the will of God, and c) the feeling or feeling of God.
a) The mind of God and its attributes
God has perfect intelligence. Revelation calls Him god of minds(1 Samuel 2:3), states that His mind is without number(Ps 146:5), that is, that His mind is immeasurable. He is also in relation to created beings the beginning of all understanding and knowledge (Proverbs 2:6; cf. Jas 1:5). The mind of God is not, of course, one faculty of understanding, but is the very understanding or knowledge. In God depth of wisdom and reason, i.e. knowledge (Rom 11:33).
The rationality of our spirit is expressed in the fact that it cognizes itself and the reality that is outside of it, and, acquiring knowledge of this reality, reasonably uses its knowledge to achieve its rational goals, which is usually called wisdom. The human mind, therefore, is characterized by: conducting And wisdom. The same properties are assimilated by revelation and the mind of God, only, of course, in perfection.
1. Omniscience of God; his items.- By the property of God's omniscience is meant not only that God knows everything, but also that He knows everything in the most perfect way.
1) The first and essential subject of God's knowledge is being of God. God knows Himself in the most perfect way. The Son of God taught no one knows the Son but the Father: no one knows the Father, only the Son(Mt 11:27). Here, clearly, we are talking about ο divine knowledge within the very essence of God, or ο self-awareness divine. The apostle expresses the same thought thus: No one knows God, but the Spirit of God. For the spirit tests everything, and the depths of God(1 Cor 2:10-11).
Self-consciousness of God, in comparison with human, d O one must imagine, of course, as much higher as the essence of the infinite Spirit is higher than the finite spirit. Man does not know himself not only in his essence, he does not know the forces expressing it in all its depth and fullness. This is because his life is growing, his powers are more and more revealed. As it develops, so does self-awareness. Man's self-consciousness is thus neither complete nor always equally equal. Such is not the knowledge of God about Himself. The properties of the divine nature are not subject to the limitations of time, and consequently, His knowledge of His essence. His self-consciousness must always be equal, perfect and complete from age to age.
2) Assimilated to God by revelation and the most complete knowledge at all times ο His deeds. The works of God that were revealed outside were completed in time. But the conduct of His affairs belongs to God from eternity. He knows everything before their existence(Dan 13:42; Sir 23:29); reasonable (γνωστά) from time immemorial the essence of God is all his works(Acts 15, 18), i.e. they are not accidental, not somehow unforeseen, inadvertently accomplished and are being accomplished, but all have happened and are happening according to the foreknowledge of God and are contemplated by Him in the images (ideas) of His mind before they appear, like For example, just as an artist, before his work appears, contemplates its image in his own spirit.
3) Finally, God perfectly knows everything external, real and possible, necessary and accidental, past, present and future.
a) God knows everything that really exists, that He created. He knows the order of the physical world: He himself oversees the whole under heaven, knowing, even on the earth, create everything, the weight of the winds and the measure of water(Job 28:24-25), the ordinance given to the rain, and the way appointed for thunderous lightning (v. 26), counts the multitude of stars, and names them all(Ps 146:4) all the birds of the air know(Ps 49:11). He also knows the order of the moral world: ( in every place the eyes of the Lord look, evil and good(Proverbs 15:3). The needs, desires, secret prayers of a person are known to Him: God exclaims the Psalmist, All my desire is before You, and my sighing is not hidden from You.(Ps 37:10). Pain is the God of our heart, and all the news(1 Jn 3:20).
b) God knows everything that has passed in the world He created. This is clearly shown by Holy Scripture when it says that God at a certain time will judge the universe in truth(Acts 17:31) when He in the light will bring the secret darkness, and announce the councils of the heart(1 Cor 4:5) and will reward anyone according to his deeds(Rom 2:6).
c) Embraces the knowledge of God and all the future, not only necessary, but also everything accidental, therefore, free, not only good, but also evil.
God knows everything necessary future. He From time immemorial, in His ideas, He Himself foresaw and provided for the laws of being and the whole order of world life; therefore He cannot be ignorant of all this even after the arrangement of the world in time.
But not only necessary, but everything the future is random He knows both in the physical world and in the moral world. IN physical world no freedom; in it everything stands in connection with necessary causes, why in fact there is no such pure case where something would happen without any reason; this or that phenomenon seems accidental to us because its causes are hidden from us (sudden, for example, wind directions, the path of lightning, accidental falls of some bodies, etc.). But the knowledge of God embraces all these reasons unknown to us, and therefore all unexpected, seemingly accidental, circumstances are foreseen. Fire, hail, snow, naked(fog), spirit of byren, according to the Psalmist, are doing His word(Ps 148:8). The punitive lightnings that seem to accidentally strike a person are actually arrows that God's wrath scatters on the wicked (Ps 17:15; Prem 5:21).
God knows and all the future is random in the moral world, all actions of human freedom. Foreknowledge of future random events is indicated in Scripture as one of the hallmarks of the true God: tell us what is to come, - says St. Isaiah in an appeal to false gods, - and uvemy, like Bosie is(Is 41:23). The existence of such a foreknowledge in the true God is proved by the numerous predictions contained in the word of God of future accidental actions of human freedom; many of them were spoken for 100, 500, 700 and even 1000 years, and were justified by events, while others are being fulfilled before our eyes, for example, the predictions of the Savior about the spread of the Gospel (Mt 24:14), the fate of Judaism (Lk 21, 24), ο the unshakable existence of the church (Mt 16:18), etc.
According to the method and characteristics, the knowledge of God outside of His existing reality is different from human knowledge and is free from all the shortcomings and limitations of the latter. Man acquires knowledge of the external world through the medium of impressions acting upon him from outside. Hence, human cognition is evolving in time. But God does not receive impressions from outside, but knows things directly by Himself and through Himself; hence the very knowledge of God is free from the limitations of time, it is always equally complete and perfect, it is a single and eternal act contemplation. Further, our knowledge of what exists far away not comprehensive. We do not have such knowledge, not only in the present, but even in the future, it cannot be hoped that we will ever know everything. The inner, hidden essence of objects will forever remain incomprehensible to us. But God also knows the very essence of objects (Jer 23:24), for all of them are the expression outside of His eternal creative ideas about them.
Divine foresight. Its possibility and agreement with the freedom of human action. That side of God's omniscience, the subject of which is the future free actions of moral beings, is called God's foreknowledge. God foresees the free actions of man, of course, not in the sense in which a prudent person can guess, expect something, or sometimes foresee something, but in the sense that he foresees and predicts them, as undoubtedly known to Him, as having undeniably taken place. . How is this possible, and is not the freedom of man constrained by the foreknowledge of God? Regarding the possibility of such foreknowledge, the following explanation was adopted by the Church Fathers: for God, the future is the present, because for Him there is no time, and the limitations - the present and the future are the limitations that belong to time; all particular moments of time, divided into present, past and future, for God constitute only the present. Therefore, the future that has to follow is as well known to Him as the present. Nor is human freedom violated by the foreknowledge of God, for knowledge is not yet a necessary determination of an action or event. “Not because something necessarily comes true,” the ancient teachers reasoned, “that God foresees, but because He foresees that it will come true” (Augustine. On the city of God. V, 9-10; Damascene. Accurate exposition of faith. II, 30). God's foreknowledge of man's free actions can be likened to our knowledge of the actions of other people, and our knowledge does not at all restrict the freedom of other people; It is not because a person acts in one way or another that we know his actions—whether we know them or not, his very actions will not change from that. Finally, if God by His foreknowledge necessarily predetermined the free actions of man, then, by the way, He would be the culprit of the evil actions of man, and such a thought, obviously, cannot be allowed.
2. The wisdom of God.— This perfection or property of the divine mind consists in the fact that God possesses the knowledge of the most perfect ends and the best, most appropriate means to achieve the ends, and the ability to apply the latter to the former, revealing all this in the works of His creation and providence. Wisdom is also human. But human wisdom, as it depends on various external causes and circumstances, is of necessity changeable, not always completely prudent and correct. Divine wisdom does not depend on anything outside or external; it is original, as the very essence of God is original, and therefore eternal and unchanging, and at the same time - all-embracing and all-perfect.
This is how revelation depicts this property of God. The actions of the wisdom of God are manifested in time, but the wisdom itself is just as original and eternal as the essence of God is original and eternal. Before the former was created, all was taken away to Him(Sir 23:29). The adoption of us by God by Jesus Christ, according to the word of the apostle, is predestined by God before the foundation of the world(Eph 1:4-5). The whole existence of the world in time is only a gradual, but true realization from eternity in the mind of God of the predestined plan of the universe and order in it. But just as there could be no imperfection in the plan created by the most perfect mind, so there could be no imperfection in its implementation. And God saw everything, make a fir tree: and behold, the goodness is great(Genesis 1:31), He Himself testified at the end of creation. The creation of the starry sky delighted the angels: when the stars were created God says to Job, praising Me with a great voice all My angels(8, 37). Holy writers unanimously express deep reverence for the Creator, looking at the wise dispensation of the world, or, what is the same, at its expediency. Bless the Lord my soul- David sings, delighted with the contemplation of the wonderful deeds of God; — O Lord my God, thou hast exalted greatly ... as thy works are exalted, O Lord: thou hast made all things in wisdom(Ps 103:1, 24). Wonderful are Your works, Lord(Ps 138:14; compare Job 9:10; 37:14, etc.) !.. God is the foundation of the earth with wisdom, O va same heaven mind, - repeats the wise son of David (Proverbs 3, 19; cf. Jer 10 12). The manifestation of the wisdom of God is seen by the sacred writers in the arrangement of all separate parts of the universe and in all its kingdoms. About the wisdom of God; revealed, for example, in the creation of the vegetable kingdom, the Savior Himself testifies that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as magnificently as each of the field lilies is dressed by the Creator (Mt 6, 28-30).
In the destinies of the moral world, as the work of the ineffable wisdom of God, Scripture points in particular to the dispensation of our redemption. We preach Christ A sleeping, says App. Paul, - a stumbling block to a Jew, but madness to a Greek: by the very same name of a Jew and a Greek of Christ, God's power and God's wisdom(1 Cor 1:23-24); we speak the wisdom of God, in a hidden mystery, God foresee before the age for our glory(1 Cor 2:7). In the method of restoration of man acquired by the wisdom of God, according to the prophet, mercy and truth are shattered, truth and peace are shattered(Ps 84:11). Equally wonderful is the plan of salvation in Christ. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and mind of God! as if you did not test His judgment, and did not investigate His way!- the apostle exclaims after considering the plan of salvation for Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 11:33).
The doctrine of the wisdom of God, contained in revelation concerning in general terms, in the works of the Holy Fathers is revealed with the greatest detail; the disclosure of that side of this property, which manifested itself in the expedient arrangement of the world, some of them are devoted to special extensive reasoning (Bes. on Shestodnev Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, I. Chrysostom, etc.). Direct contemplation of the wise structure of nature and its beauty has always been the most powerful means to the knowledge of God and to the conviction of His existence, for, says the Wise One, From the greatness of the beauty of creatures, the Creator of their being is comparatively known.(Wis 13, 5). Already the pagan sages (especially Socrates and Plato) in the extraordinary order and wise structure of the world saw evidence of the wisdom of the Artist of the world. With the expansion of the circle of knowledge about nature, there are even more ways and means for man to be convinced of the wisdom of the Creator.
b) The will of God and its properties.
God has the most perfect will. The Savior taught. surrender yourself to the will of God in prayer: Our Father, Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth(Mt 6:10), likewise Himself, praying for the passing of the cup from Him, said: either not my will, but yours be done(Luke 22:42).
The will of God in revelation is depicted in its essence supremely free, in its moral direction - all-holy, in strength and power - almighty, in relation to freely rational creatures - requiring holiness from them, and therefore punishing evil and rewarding good, or righteous.
1. The highest freedom of the will of God. In its essence, the will of God is the will supremely free. The freedom of the will of God consists in the fact that in its decisions and determinations it is completely independent of any extraneous (external) motives or influences, but the foundation of its life and all its actions is contained solely in itself. Such freedom can only be characteristic of an original being, such as God. Although there is also freedom in man, it never happens and cannot be so complete. On the one hand, in his actions a person is dependent on the influence of external conditions, and on the other hand, his very freedom in its definitions cannot be completely freed from wavering and struggle. God, on the other hand, is independent of anything extraneous, and therefore, His will is determined only by itself, that is, it is completely and completely free. Equally, in the freedom of the will of God there can be no struggle, no hesitation in the choice between any of the different impulses of His nature, because the divine nature is simple and one.
Such a revelation represents the will of God. Ap. Paul, speaking of God the Father, for example, says that He called(predetermined) us for adoption, Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will(Eph 1:5) what He revealed to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure(v. 9). It is clear that what is meant here is the will that exists in God from eternity, and in this will advice and decisions can arise only directly from the depths of its being and independently of anything outside and external that could have any influence on it (Rom 11 , 34). The same thought is expressed by the Psalmist thus: Our God is in heaven and on earth, all, whatever you want, create(Ps 113:11).
Highly free, and not forced by anything, revelation represents all the actions of God in the ordering of the world. He everything acts according to the advice of His will(Eph 1:11) in matters of industry both in the material world and in the moral world: and according to His will He creates in the power of heaven and in the earthly village(Dan 4:32; cf. Job 23:13). As he distributes gifts of grace to people, the apostle says: but all this works one and the same Spirit, dividing by power, to whomever he wants(1 Cor 12:11).
2. The holiness of the will of God.- According to its moral state, the will of God is the will all-holy. The holiness of the will of God consists in the fact that in its aspirations it is determined and guided by ideas and thoughts about the one highest good, and these aspirations of it always coincide with their very fulfillment, and do not remain only good desires. Therefore, God is pure from sin and cannot sin by loving the good in creatures and hating evil.
In revelation, God Himself is depicted as saying to Himself: be holy, for I am holy(Lev. 19, 2; 1 Pet 1, 16), and the angels - praising the Lord with a song: holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: fill all the earth with his glory(Isaiah 6:3; sn. Apoc 15:4). According to New Testament revelation: God is light, and there is not a single darkness in Him.(Jn 1:5). He even not tempted by evil(James 1:13). Therefore, in creatures He hates evil and loves good: the abomination of the Lord is the way of depravity: pleasing to him are you blameless in your ways(Proverbs 11, 20). Apparently, the holiness of God was revealed on earth in the face of the incarnate only-begotten Son of God.
Such a state of God's freedom, that she can will and do only good and cannot do evil, is a manifestation of the purest freedom. This is because it is not some external force or fate, and not any law outside of God that compels God to be holy, but He Himself, solely on the advice of His will, desires and does good; willing and doing good is a requirement of His all-perfect nature. For human will such a state of freedom is an ideal to which a person can only gradually and piecemeal approach with the assistance of the grace of God.
God is not the culprit l A.“As an all-holy being, God cannot not only create, but also desire the existence of evil. In reality, evil exists in the physical world, and especially in the moral world. Is this consistent with the holiness of an almighty God? In response to this bewilderment, the Church Fathers explained the following: evil in the proper and strict sense should be considered sin, violation of the freedom of the human will of God; what we call physical evil (crop failures, fires, storms, earthquakes and other disasters observed on earth) is not evil in itself; it is so only for sinful people; although it is really from God, it is sent to correct people and excite them to good, and therefore it is good. But sins, the result of which is physical evil, all come from the abuse of the freedom of rational creatures, which God created good and, having bestowed on them, no longer takes away, allowing its abuse, since it actually conditions moral good. From this point of view, it is easy to explain, and the fathers of the church really were explainable, all those passages of Scripture that at first glance can show in God as if something inconsistent with His holiness.
1. Thus, there are expressions in Scripture in which God appears as if the author of hardening in evil, for example, the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh (Ex 4, 21; 10, 1, etc.), or the heart of the Israelites (Deut 29, 4; Ex 6 , 9). Since, according to the testimony of the same word of God, the hardening of Pharaoh depended on himself, and the Israelites themselves did not follow the law, then the expressions; God hardened the heart of Pharaoh or the Israelites mean only that God allowed the hardening of human freedom, and not that He Himself produced this hardening. This is also the meaning of similar expressions found in the New Testament, for example: God shut them all into opposition (Rom 11:32), God gave them the spirit of insensibility, eyes not to see and ears not to hear (Rom 11:8).
2. Sometimes God is presented in the Scriptures as if disposing to one or another evil deed, for example, it is said: ο God's inclination of David to a vain number of the people (2 Samuel 24, 1), ο God's will to deceive Ahab with a lying spirit (1 Kings 22 , 20-23), for the cohabitation of St. Hosea with an indecent wife (Hos 1, 2; 3, 1). But the former is elsewhere attributed to an evil spirit (1 Chronicles 21:1). A vision is presented of Ahab, not any actual story; his blindness, due to the deviation from the light of God into the darkness of superstition, is portrayed as the execution of the truth of God. What is said about Hosea is a symbolic representation of the criminal passion of the Israelite people for the gods of the pagans.
4. In some places of Holy Scripture, the temptation of people, for example, Abraham, is attributed to God, and thus God is presented as the author of sin. But in such cases one must keep in mind what kind of temptation is attributed to God. Temptation is the bringing of a being into a state in which its innermost properties would be revealed in action. Temptation is possible in two ways: 1) temptation in evil, or excitation to action of evil inclinations hidden in a person, and 2) temptation in good, or direction given to the principle of good acting in him in an open struggle against evil or against obstacles in good, in order to achieve victory and glory. The first is not from God (James 1:13), but is a consequence of abandonment by God (2 Chronicles 32:31): it comes from our flesh, from the world, from other people, and from the devil. The second kind of temptation is from God, and, to the extent of spiritual strength, are sent for the good of man. Such a temptation David asked for himself (Ps 25:2). J. Christ himself was tempted in all sorts of ways (Heb 4:15). The temptation of Abraham in Isaac was of the same kind.
3. The omnipotence of the will of God.— The omnipotence of the will of God consists in the fact that God brings into fulfillment everything that pleases Him without any difficulty or obstacle, so that no external force can restrain or hamper His actions.
Holy Scripture very often speaks of the omnipotence of God. It calls God by the Lord of forces(Ps 23:10) God of forces Who has no equal in strength (- 88, 9), united strong(1 Tim 6:15), Almighty(Παντοκράτωρ - Jer 32:18-19; 2 Cor 6:18, etc.), who every verb fails(Luke 1:37). Nothing is impossible for Him(Job 42:2; Mt 19:26). He can raise children from a stone to Abraham(Matthew 3:9). In preparing Abraham for the commandment and promise that is to come, God says to Himself: I am God almighty(El Schaddai - Gen 17:1). Outside, the omnipotence of the will of God was first revealed in the creative work of everything that God was pleased to create: all, Christmas tree in awe Lord create(Ps 113:11), and created everything with one word: That speech, and bysh, That commanded, and created(Ps 32:9). Then it is constantly revealed in the deeds of the never interrupted domineering providence of God in creatures, and especially in extraordinary actions performed for special purposes, what are the miracles: blessed be the Lord God of Israel, do wonders alone(Ps 71:18; 76:14, etc.). In particular, in the field of moral order, by the omnipotence of God, without violating the freedom of people, the final and complete triumph of good over evil will be achieved, so that the Lord of the spiritual and moral kingdom put all enemies under his feet(1 Corinthians 15:25).
Note. Against the idea of the omnipotence of God were made in ancient time, some objections and perplexities are sometimes expressed even now. They say: since God cannot sin, allow lies, die, make the mortal immortal, the past - the present, so that 2x2 be together and 4 and 10, etc., then He is not omnipotent. The answer to such reasoning can be the following. The omnipotence of God does not consist in doing whatever we please, but in the fact that God can carry out everything that pleases His will: if His will does not want much that is contrary to His most perfect nature and His most perfect mind , then this does not show her weakness and impotence, but, on the contrary, her strength and power. In general, regarding these and similar objections, it should be noted that the omnipotence of God is not of a physical, but of a moral nature. To demand from God the activity to which He is provoked by the above objections, would mean to demand that He lose His omnipotence and cease to be the highest rational being that He is.
4. The truth of God.- The divine will, being holy in itself, also requires holiness from rational creatures, and therefore gives them a moral law that leads those who fulfill it to holiness, and, as an omnipotent one, rewards for its fulfillment, and punishes for violation. This property of the divine will is the highest truth or justice. The truth of God's will, therefore, manifests itself in two actions: in truth, which gives the law of holiness (legislative truth), and in truth, which rewards moral beings - to each according to his deserts (requited truth or justice). Both these acts of the will of God are pointed out by the apostle when he says to God that He One is the Lawgiver and Judge, able to save and destroy(James 4:12).
The will of God—all-holy—requires holiness from people as well. God spoke through Moses: be holy, for I am holy(Lev 19:2); The Savior of the World also taught: be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect(Mt 5:48; sn. 1 Pet 1:15). Demanding holiness from reasonably free beings, God gave people a moral law, following which they could really become like God. This law is twofold - internal, natural, inscribed in the very nature of man (Rom 2, 14-15), and the law is external, positive or revealed, dividing into Old Testament and New Testament.
God is also a righteous Judge who repays for the fulfillment or violation of the law given by Him. Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord(Deut 32:35; Rom 12:19; Heb 10:30). Do not be flattered: God cannot be mocked. Even more a man sows, the same and O reaps: as you sow into your flesh, from the flesh O reaps corruption; but sow in the spirit, from the spirit O reaps eternal life(Gal 6:7-8). He established such a law for all eternity that truth and good already naturally entail relative bliss, and evil and vice - torment and evil.
But with the advent of sin, and in general as a result of abuses of the freedom of rational beings, this judgment of the truth of God alone became insufficient. The necessity was revealed on the part of the all-holy God for special actions of His providence (the use of positive rewards and punishments) to limit evil and triumph of good. Revelation testifies that God really showed and shows His justice in the special actions of His Providence. So, as soon as the angels sinned, their God no mercy, but bound by the captives of darkness, betrayed to the court of the tormented to observe(2 Pet 2, 4; Jude 6 st.), - the forefathers sinned, and also were subjected to the righteous condemnation of God (Gen. 3 ch.). The further history of mankind confirms the justice of God by pointing to its many actions, presenting examples of punishment for wickedness and reward for the fulfillment of His holy will, both for entire nations and all of humanity, and for individuals, such as, for example, the Flood, the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, confusion tongues and the dispersion of tribes, etc. The actions of God's justice in the history of the God-chosen people of Israel from its beginning to the present day are especially clearly and strikingly visible.
God is also just in relation to individuals: the eyes of the Lord(turned) on the righteous, and his ears in their prayer; face of the Lord against those who do evil, that I will take them out of the earth(1 Peter 3:12). Every one, if he does good, he will receive this from the Lord, if he is a slave, if he is free(Eph 6:8; sn. Ps 5:12-13; 23:4-5, etc.). Courts of the righteous Them are blessed(Proverbs 3:33), and vice versa, the curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked(Proverbs 3:33; sn. 15:25). Ha the wicked abide the wrath of God(Jn 3:36; Rom 1:18; 12:19; Eph 5:6; Ps 77:31, etc.). In relation to the lawless, according to the figurative expression of Scripture, God eats our fire(Heb 12:29; Deut 4:24).
As special, extraordinary manifestations of God's justice, revelation points to the mystery of redemption and the future world judgment. In the work of redemption God knowing no sin(I. Christ) do sin for us(made for us a sin offering; 2 Corinthians 5:21), into the manifestation of His righteousness, for releasing first former sins (Rom 3:25), and the day of the universal judgment of God will be day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God in which God will reward anyone according to his deeds(Rom 2:6). Then he will accept anyone, even with the body he has done, either good or evil(2 Corinthians 5:10).
The agreement of God's justice with the phenomenon that the righteous often suffer, while sinners prosper. Against the justice of God, from ancient times, the triumph of moral evil in the person of prosperous sinners is pointed out, while virtue is humiliated in the person of the suffering and persecuted righteous. And now, under the blows of seemingly undeserved disasters, there are frequent cases of grumbling against God and even falling away from faith in Him to unbelief. But in the light of the divinely revealed teaching and the lessons given by the experiences of life, the objection raised against the justice of God will lose its force if, in judging the indicated phenomenon, the following is kept in mind. 1) There is no full retribution on earth; therefore the righteous may often suffer, and the wicked prosper. 2) The calamities to which the righteous are subjected, and the apparent prosperity of sinners often depend on people, on their injustice and partiality, in general, on the operation of their free will. But just as God does not restrict the freedom of his creatures at all, he does not want to restrict it in this case either. 3) Good people, despite the hardships of their outward position, enjoy the most precious inner blessings: spiritual peace, joys and consolations from God (Rom 14:17), but sinners. with external well-being, they have a source of torment for themselves in their very passions and iniquities (Wis 11, 17), which have a disastrous effect on their soul and body. 4) When God allows the suffering of the righteous and even sends them down on the pious people, He acts in righteousness, for there is no righteous person on earth who has not sinned in some way (1 Jn 1, 8; Proverbs 20, 9); He does this with a good purpose, in order to cleanse them from all sinful filth through disasters (Wisdom 3, 6; 1 Pet 1, 6-7). establish in good (Rom 5, 3-5; 2 Cor 4, 16), and, having punished temporarily here, exalt their future glory (Wis 3, 4-5; 2 Cor 8, 17); on the other hand, He also allows the well-being of sinners in righteousness, for even sinners sometimes have a lot of good in themselves; at the same time, they are prompted to repentance by the fact that God, pouring out goodness on them, does not punish for sin (Rom. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). The main thing is, 5) God's justice in relation to people should not limit the limits of their real life, which for them is only a time of exploits and education for eternity: there is another life in which the truth of God will reward everyone according to their merits, when the righteous will forever be blessed and sinners will suffer eternal punishment.
c) The feeling or feeling of God. Its properties
Revelation indicates in many cases the existence in God of a faculty corresponding in our spiritual nature to the faculty of feeling (or our heart with its functions, that is, feelings). So, ο God says He finds people according to your own heart(Acts 13, 22) that He in some cases rejoices with all his heart (Jer 32:41), and in others his heart is filled pity(Hos 11:8) that He loves truth and hates iniquity(Ps 44:8; Proverbs 11:20; Heb 1:9).
The essential properties of our sentient spirit are, on the one hand, the desire and love for one's own good and the feeling of joy or bliss from the possession of this good, and on the other hand, the attraction for the good of others or love for others. Both are assimilated by revelation to God, of course, to the highest degree. The essential properties of God in terms of His feeling, therefore, include: 1) the blessedness of God and 2) infinite goodness or love for creatures.
1. The blessedness of God. This property in God is a necessary consequence of all His other properties and perfections. In God is all the fullness of being and life, original being, and life, representing the most perfect unity. This, in fact, is the supreme good. Hence, God in Himself has everything necessary for complete bliss; love for the good in Him, therefore, invariably coincides with its very possession, and in consequence of this, from eternity, an unchanging all-bliss. It is clear that such a fullness of bliss cannot be characteristic of a person; a person, although he has an irresistible attraction to the true good, but not in himself, but outside him, there are conditions necessary to satisfy this need; he is often unable to overcome obstacles to achieving the good; hence the feeling of goodness or bliss is inevitably weakened to a greater or lesser extent and obscured in him by unpleasant feelings arising from the feeling of deprivation of goodness or its incompleteness.
Holy Scripture assigns this property to God when it calls Him blessed(1 Tim 1:11; 6:15) indicates that fullness of joy before the face His, bliss in the right hand His per century(Ps 15:11) that He does not require anything(Acts 17:26), i.e., possesses blessedness independently of anyone and nothing, that even the righteous will find blessedness in the sight of God: blessed are the pure in heart, like God at they see(Mt 5:8).
2. The infinite goodness or love of God for creatures.- This property or perfection of God consists in the fact that God grants to His creatures as many blessings and perfections as are necessary for their blessedness and as much as each of them can accept according to their nature and condition.
Goodness, according to the teaching of revelation, constitutes, as it were, the very essence of God. "If we had," he says Gregory the Theologian, - who asked: what do we honor and what do we worship? - the answer is ready: we honor love. For, according to the saying of the Holy Spirit (1 John 14:8, 16), God our love s There is"(Cl. 23). It was this inexpressible love or goodness that prompted God to create a world with rationally moral beings capable of loving Him and finding blessedness in Him (Eph 1:5, 9; John 14:23; Mt 25:34). All providential actions of God in the world are the manifestation of His goodness. All the ways of the Lord's mercy(Ps 24:10). The Lord is good to all, and His bounties are on all e leh him(Ps 144:9). No matter how small and insignificant the creature is, the goodness of God not only does not abhor it, but lovingly takes care of its life and needs. Are there two birds(sparrow) are valued by a single assar, says the Lord, and not one of them falls to the ground without your Father(Mt 10:29; sn. Wisdom 11:25-27).
In particular, God has shown and is showing His goodness in relation to man. In the Old Testament, God speaking to Israel says: food will the woman forget her child, hedgehog not have mercy on the offspring of her womb? Even if the wife forgets these, but I will not forget you(Is 49:15). and in the New Testament the Savior says: do not call your father on earth: for there is only one your Father, Who is in heaven(Mt 23:9). He paternally listens to all our prayers (Mt 7:9-11), takes care of all our needs, not excluding the bad ones among us, as His sun shines on the evil and the good, and rains on the righteous and the unrighteous(Mt 5:45; sn. Acts 17:25), and generally sends down every gift is good and every gift is perfect(James 1:17). But the highest manifestation and evidence of the infinite goodness of God towards us, the word of God represents the work of our redemption accomplished by the only begotten Son of God: so love God the world, as if he gave His only begotten Son to eat, but everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life(John 3:16).
So immensely great and inexpressible is the goodness of God in relation to created beings! This is not the same as the love for others that is possible in limited beings. In human love, no matter how disinterested it may be, there is hidden the need to increase one's own good by increasing the good of others; the goodness of God pours out gifts to creatures, not in order to increase their own good, for God is all-blessed, but in order to make them participants in blessedness. And the goodness of God extends not to some limited part of the world, which is the property of love of limited beings, but to the whole world, with all beings in it. The mercy of man- says the son of Sirahs, - on his sincere, but the mercy of the Lord on all flesh (18, 12).
Compatibility in God with the goodness of justice. The infinite goodness of God, pouring out an immeasurable multitude of blessings on rationally free beings, seems to some irreconcilable with the justice of God, which severely punishes sin. Some of the ancient heretics (the Gnostics, especially Marcion, the Manicheans, later the Paulicians and the Bogomils), finding it impossible for the properties of love and justice to exist in a single God, even allowed the existence of two gods: the supreme god, the good one, who manifests himself as a loving and merciful father (of the New Testament) , and the god subordinate to him - evil, revealing himself as a formidable and punishing judge (of the Old Testament). But even in modern Christian society, many express visible sympathy for the idea of God only as a God of love and a readiness to exclude the property of justice from the concept of ο Him. Such ideas about God cannot but be recognized as one-sided. Of course God love s There is but His love is just love, just as His truth is truth animated by love: love without truth would not be true love (it would be mere sensitivity and complacency), likewise, truth without love would not be true truth (it would turn into coldness or callousness would be close to cruelty). Revelation does not separate truth and love in God, but depicts God as both a loving father and a just judge, assigning both of these properties to God and each separately (see above) and together, calling Him forgiving and punishing(Ps 98, 8; sn. 24, 8-10; 84, 11; 114, 5; 144, 7, 17; Sir 16, 13; Jer 3, 11-12, etc.), keeping mercy in thousands of generations, forgiving guilt and crime and sin, but without punishment, punishing the guilt of the fathers in children and in the children of children up to the third and fourth kind (Ex 34, 6-7; sn. Numbers 14, 18-19).
In accordance with the teachings of revelation, the ancient teachers also explained that the true God must be conceived together as both good and just. The goodness or love of God for people, they argued, has as its goal their blessedness, but at its core it is love for the moral good that is revealed in people, in the possession of which only their blessedness is possible. The truth of God, when it rewards goodness with bliss, is the same love for people. But even when she "at the present time of the longsuffering of God" deprives the sinner of certain blessings and directly punishes him for evil, is good, for the main goal of God's earthly punishments is that, regardless of their intelligible example for all others, the sinner himself should be encouraged to sin no more and completely correct. God loves him, punishes him, punishes as loving father, for the good of the punished (Proverbs 3, 11-12; sn. Heb 12, 5-8). Hence, the very punishments of God the church fathers compared with the medical benefits of doctors, sometimes heavy (cauterization, cutting off parts of the body), but proceeding in doctors from a feeling of condolence to the sick and a desire to help him. Justice of this kind (real) is thus aimed at our own good (is δικαιοσύνη σωτήριος), and therefore, as Tertullian said, “is kind of goodness", serves "a hedge and a lamp for goodness", or, according to the definition of the Russian hierarch (Metr. Philaret), there is "clothing and expression of love". But the justice of God, which has to be manifested in day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God(justice in the proper sense - δικαιοσύνη δικαστη), when it rewards with eternal bliss, then, of course, it will be love, but when it deprives stubborn and hardened sinners of bliss, it is not due to a lack of goodness or love in God, but due to the inability of unrepentant sinners themselves accept the gifts of His love, because they themselves will proudly reject them. And there is nothing incompatible with God's goodness in this; in relation to conditional being, the goodness of God is revealed as conditional or conditioned by the faith and love of people (John 14:21-23; sn. 15:10; Ps 102:11, 13 and 18).
§ 19. The relationship of attributes attributed to the essence of God and His very essence.
The concept of ο God, as a general conclusion from the doctrine of ο the properties of God
I. From the above teaching on the properties of God, it can be seen that the concept of ο them is formed by us on the basis of the perfections of God contemplated in the works of creation and providence and His revealed word, and the properties themselves are only external reflections of Him in the world. Hence the question arises: in what relation are the attributes of God that we know to be related to His very essence? They have subject meaning, i.e., the essence of the real properties of God, essentially and really existing in God Himself, or they are nothing more than as soon as forms our ultimate thinkingο An infinite being that does not contain anything corresponding to His very essence? .
Revelation teaches that in the world, though to a slight degree, like a mirror A scrap in divination(1 Cor 13, 12), but really, and not illusory, what exists in God is displayed - His inherent power and divinity(Rom 1:19-20). Further, there are many places in it, in which God Himself, speaking on His behalf, assimilates to Himself various properties, for example: I am Sy, I am holy, I am the Lord your God, and I do not change etc. I. Christ called Him spirit, attributed to Him self-existing, love, knowledge and other properties. To think that the words of God are empty words, containing nothing really belonging to His nature, would be strange and unworthy of God. If God is truly There is, then, of course, He is such as He revealed Himself to people in His word. According to the teaching of revelation, therefore, the properties assimilated by God must be recognized as having not an illusory, but an objective meaning, only in God Himself, of course, existing in a higher and incomparably more perfect form than what they are in the world.
From the point of view of sound thinking, recognizing God as the Creator of the world, the properties assimilated to the essence of God also cannot be represented only as products of our personal thought. If the world is a creation of God, then it is also an expression of His perfections. The action always reflects the properties of the cause that produces it. Consequently, the properties of God, cognizable through the medium of the world, cannot but have objective significance. True, the world is not the full expression of the perfections of God; the effect is always smaller and lower than its cause. But from this it follows only that God is above the world and His qualities and perfections, which He reflects in the world, must be attributed to Him in estrangement from all finiteness and imperfections, and that, besides what God reveals, there is much in Himself that He alone is aware of and from others are hidden, but not that these reflections do not express anything of His being.
II. If the properties of God, cognizable through the medium of the world and from the word of God, express something inherent in God in Himself, and, moreover, in such a way that each of them contains something real and corresponding to its highest object, then if we compose on the basis of the knowledge of these properties the concept ο God, it will also contain something corresponding to the essence of God. The totality of the above properties of the being of God leads to such a concept of God: God is an infinite personal Spirit, possessing the most perfect being and life: in His being, He is original, immutable, eternal, immeasurable and omnipresent, according to His spiritual properties, while possessing the most perfect mind, He is omniscient, all-wise, all-free, all-holy, all-powerful, all-righteous, all-blessed, all-good. This concept, of course, is not a definition of the very essence of God, which is incomprehensible, and therefore, in the strict sense, and indefinable; in comparison with the fullness of the perfections hidden in the boundless being of God, it is even very meager and dark, but under the conditions of earthly life it sufficiently brings the incomprehensible to our understanding. being of God, or that which is God Himself in Himself.
II. The unity of the being of God.
§ 20. The unity of God as a distinguishing mark
true concept of God. History of dogma.
I. God is one in His essence. This truth necessarily follows from the very concept of God, as a being infinite in all respects and all-perfect. The highest and most perfect of all beings, only one is possible. If there were others equal to Him, then It would cease to be the highest and most perfect of all, that is, it would cease to be God. The One God and the Infinite Being are essentially identical concepts.
Therefore, the Church has always recognized the dogma of the unity of God, as necessarily contained in the true concept of God, as one of the main and fundamental dogmas. In the Nicene-Tsaregrad symbol, as in the ancient ones, this dogma immediately follows the word "I believe". AND Christian church always and rightly looked at it as the first distinctive dogma of an open religion from all natural religions that preached polytheism, or ditheism.
II. The history of the dogma about the unity of God in its most important moments is as follows. In the early days of human history, faith in the one God was the property of the entire human race; all people served Him alone and worshiped Him alone. Among the first people, she was the fruit of the direct revelation of God in a primordial innocent state. By tradition, it passed from them to the next generations and was preserved for a more or less long time in all mankind, but it was not preserved forever. The immersion of people in sensual life, the clouding of the mind and heart under the influence of passions and wickedness, not without the participation and prince of the power of the air, led to the fact that they understanding God, not as if glorifying or giving thanks to God, but ... changing the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and birds, and quadrupeds, and reptiles(Rom 1, 21, 23). So appeared in the human race, - they believe, before the time of the calling of Abraham (Josh 24: 2), - polytheism (polytheism) or paganism, i.e., the deification of the creature instead of the Creator, which has taken on the most diverse forms. The best of the pagan sages recognized the folly of pagan polytheism and rose to the point of thinking about the unity of God; some of them even ridiculed the belief in many gods, especially at the end of the history of pre-Christian mankind. But philosophy was not able to restore faith in the one God in primitive purity; it could only destroy popular beliefs in many gods. Some of the pagan sages thought to purify the popular beliefs by accepting two main principles - good and evil, such as, for example, Ormuzd and Ahriman in the religion of Zoroaster. And polytheism or ditheism was in pre-Christian times the religion of almost all mankind for several millennia. Pure and undamaged faith in the one God was preserved only in the Old Testament Church, arranged by God in the offspring of Abraham. In the times of the New Testament, the truth of the unity of God was not accepted by everyone and kept in its pure form. In addition to paganism, which was strong in its antiquity, the opponents of this dogma were those of the heretics whose teachings were based on dualism. These were, above all others, the heretics known by the name gnostics(II century). All of them, although they recognized a single supreme God, they also admitted many lower gods, or aeons, which emanated from Him, and in matter they saw an independent, independent of God, beginning of sensual, material life and evil; not by myself supreme god, and one of the aeons is represented by them and the maker (dimiurge) of the visible world. With the fall of Gnosticism came Manicheans(III-IV centuries), who pursued dualism even more consistently and more fully than most of the Gnostics. In later centuries, the opponents of the dogma ο the unity of God were Paulicians(appeared in the 7th century), recognized by some as a branch of Manichaeism, then - the so-called. euhiti or Massalians(XI-XII centuries) and Bogomils(X-XIII centuries). The false teaching of the Bogomils from Bulgaria, where this heresy appeared, as a result of close relations between the Russian Church and the Bulgarian Church, also penetrated into Russia. Dualism is now the property of a few relatively obscure sects.
§ 21. Teaching of revelation about the unity of God. The Falsity of Polytheism and Bitheism.
I. The truth of the unity of God is proclaimed both in the revelation of the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament religion, the doctrine of the unity of God constitutes a dogma that primarily distinguishes this religion from the religion of all other ancient peoples. To believe in the one Creator God, to serve Him alone, not to regard the pagan gods as real gods and not to worship them, was the main duty of the ancient Jew, which Moses, the prophets and other God-enlightened men constantly and persistently reminded the God-chosen people. The first commandment of the Mosaic Law was the commandment to worship the one God: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of work. Let there be no bosi inii for you, unless Mene(Ex 20:2-3). The Lord your God, this God exists, and is there not Him(Deut 4:35:39; 32:39). Saying goodbye to the people before death, the Old Testament legislator in these words inspired to keep this commandment firmly and forever: Hear Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. And let these words be ... in your heart and in your soul. And yes punish them with s we are yours, and say ο them sit in the house at, and id s th way, and lie A and east I. And I will bind a sign on your hand, and let them be immovable before your eyes(a bandage over your eyes). And yes write me on pr A zeh(on jambs) xp A your mines ... Yes, not x O follow other gods, pagan gods(Deut 6:4-9:14).
In connection with the truth expressed in this commandment, there are all other important truths of the Old Testament, for example, the messianic idea, the idea of a covenant between God and the people, etc. This same truth, i.e., the unity of God, lay at the foundation of the state, social and church order of life: the Jewish people were Jehovah's society and no one could become a member of this society without believing in Jehovah; the king in it was to be Jehovah (theocracy); for all the people there was only one temple (originally one tabernacle), and in it only Jehovah was served.
Note. In affirming the unity of God, in Fr. In the books of the Old Testament, the name of God is often found in the plural - Elohim (singular number - Eloah, from ul - to be strong, strong), He is also called the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Ex 3, 6, 15), the God of Israel (5 , 1), the God of the Jews (4, 22), a God greater than all gods (18, 11), the God of gods and the Lord of lords (Deut 10, 17), it is said ο Him: who is like Thee in gods, Lord (Ex 15, 11 ), and under. There is no contradiction between such expressions of the Old Testament Scripture ο God and the clear teaching of the same Scripture ο the unity of God.
So, as regards the name Elohim, this name does not contain the thought of the plurality of divine beings. If this name were ever associated with an idea reminiscent of polytheism, then the writers of sacred books, strict zealots of the law of Moses, would forbid or destroy its use to express the thought of the one true God. Meanwhile, in fact, it was the most commonly used name of God, and is even used where the truth of the unity of God is affirmed with deliberate force, for example, in the words: so that you know that Jehovah is God (Elohim), and there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4, 36; sn. 10, 17, etc.), or: and God (Elohim) said to Moses: I am the One (Ex 3, 14). Ending plural this name is only a peculiar linguistic form; according to the studies of Hebraist philologists, in relation to the true God, it was used not to denote the idea of plurality in a quantitative sense, but to denote the Deity in general (in the same sense as Deitas, θειότης, Gottheit, Deity) and, in the closest way, to express inexhaustible fullness and the plurality of the properties of the Deity (i.e., in the sense: God is one, but He has innumerable forces), as well as to denote the highest greatness of the Being called by this name. Sometimes this name is used in the Old Testament when the predicate is in the singular (only in those cases where Elohim refers to God in His true meaning). Such a peculiar use of this name gives grounds for the assumption that this name indicated unity in the life of the Deity with a multitude of forces in God and with the boundless fullness of His life. For those who were more initiated into the mysteries of faith, by this peculiarity, it could also reveal something deeper, more mysterious in the knowledge of the Deity, pointing to the mystery of the Holy Trinity (especially Genesis 1, 1, 26; 3, 22; 11, 7).
The names of Jehovah as the God of the ancestors of the Jewish people, the God of Israel. Jewish, in general, the images of Him as the Lord, Provider and Savior, mainly of the people of Israel, also do not contain the idea that Jehovah has one, not unconditionally, but conditionally, there is a God of the people, having dominion only over Israel, and other peoples have special rulers. These names indicate only the special relationship of Jehovah to the people of Israel and the people of God to Jehovah as a result of the economy of human salvation, according to which God chose and separated the Jewish people from among all peoples and united them with Himself by the union of a special covenant. Since Israel, out of all the tongues of the earth, according to God's good pleasure to them, was a part of the Lord and His people (Deut 32: 9), His son and firstborn (Ex 4: 22), Israel, for its part, could call Jehovah its part, God in particular by their own, by their closeness to Him and the power of the covenant.
Finally, with regard to the comparisons of the true God with the pagan gods found in the Bible, as well as such expressions in which the pagan gods are presented as if living beings (for example, Ex 12, 12; Ps 95, 4, etc.), then when the sacred writers called pagan gods were called gods in relation to the accepted word usage; how else could they call το, which everyone called gods? The images of these gods in places, as real beings, are only personifications characteristic of a poetic, living image. But what is the holy the writers did not actually represent them as real gods, this is clear from their depictions of the vanity and insignificance of the pagan gods and the entire pagan cult.
The New Testament revelation, teaching to believe in the trinity of the Deity, also first of all affirms the truth of the unity of God. Savior, to the lawyer's question: which is the first of all commandments? answered: above all commandments: Hear Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one(Mk 12:28-29; sn. Deut 6:4). In His prayer to God the Father, He said: This is the eternal life, that they may know Thee the one true God Which the pagan polytheists did not know. (John 17:3).
The apostles, naturally, proclaimed the unity of God whenever it was necessary for them to convert polytheist pagans to Christ. The Apostle of tongues in Lystra (Acts 14, 8-18), the Areopagus of Athens (17, 22-31), Ephesus (19, 26), denounced polytheism and taught faith in one God, showed that the God he preached is the Creator of heaven and earth cares about everything, and therefore He alone is the true God. On various occasions the same truth was repeated by the apostles and the new converts. The same Apostle of Tongues wrote to the Corinthians on the question of the eating of those sacrificed to idols: the idol is nothing in the world, as no one is God, only one. Even more, and the essence of the verbs is Bozi many, or in heaven, or on earth: as if they are Bozi, and the Lord is many; but we have one God the Father, and all is from Him, and we are with Him(1 Cor 8, 4-6; sn. Rom 3, 29-30: Eph 4, 6, etc.).
II. The representatives of the ancient universal Church, impelled by the delusions of polytheism and ditheism, had the need to defend the truth of the unity of God also by means of rational considerations. Refuting false teachings, they, On the one side, presented positive evidence that the true God must be conceivable as one, and with another- subjected to analysis the teachings contrary to this dogma - polytheism and bitheism, showing their internal inconsistency.
The true God must be represented as one. This is revealed, the ancient teachers explained, primarily from the concepts of God. God is the most perfect being, and the concept of unity is inseparable from the concept of the highest perfection. “God is an infinite and all-filling being, and there is only one such being. ( Irenaeus. Prot. heresy. II, 1; Tertul. Prot. Mark. 1-3; Damascus. Precise izl. V. I, 5). Leads to the same conclusion observation of the world. The world is one; in his life a constant order and harmony are seen; everything is directed in it to a certain goal. The creation of such a world and its management can only be the action of a single mind. If creation and industry were the work of many, then in the event of their discordant action, disorder would occur, and there could be no agreement in them. "Many beginnings are beginninglessness," says St. Athanasius(Word in Gen. 35-39).
Subjecting to analysis the very teachings of the pagans about the existence of many or only two gods - good and evil, the fathers and teachers of the church explained the following.
Pagan polytheism there is one criminal deviation from the ancient universal faith in the one God, which was the fruit of the ignorance and moral depravity of people, and it is so superstitious and absurd that the pagan writers, poets and philosophers themselves ridicule it, confessing at the same time the unity of God (the statement of the apologists, Also Clement Al. in Strom. V, 14 Augustine- in the city of God. IV, 13, etc.). It in itself contains inconsistencies. “If God is not one, then there is no God,” Tertullian said with power and justice, and according to St. Athanasius, just as “many beginnings are beginninglessness,” so “polytheism is godlessness” (Sk. in pagan 38). Many gods are impossible. If we allow many gods, we must certainly assume that they either differ from each other in some way (for example, in goodness, strength, wisdom, in time, place, etc.), or they do not differ. If they differ, one will not have anything that belongs to the other; therefore, it will no longer be the most perfect Being, it will not be God. and if they have in common all those properties that pertain to being and essence, and they have no difference, then there is no reason why they should be distinguished; then it would be more accurate to say that there is one God, and not many ( Damascus. Precise izl. faith, i, 5).
Against bitheists, allowing for two co-eternal, hostile to each other beginnings - good and evil (dualism), sound thought through the lips of the teachers of the church represented the following. The system of dualism is not at all necessary to explain the origin of evil, for what purpose it was invented. The appearance of moral evil in the world is a matter of created freedom, and physical evil in its essence is not evil, but is such only in relation to us and is sent or allowed by God for our own moral benefit. On the other hand, the two principles allowed by this false teaching, good and evil, are completely unthinkable and constitute one positive contradiction. As beginnings hostile to each other, the beginning of good and the beginning of evil must be represented as either equivalent or unequal: if they are equivalent, then their struggle would end in the destruction of good and evil in the world; and if, on the contrary, they were unequal, then the strongest would destroy the weakest, and then there would exist in the world either one good or one evil. - One can also assume the existence of a third, higher principle, which would determine the location of each of these two principles and protect the inviolability of their power: but then, if they are equal to him, there will be no longer two, but three gods, but if they are subordinate to him, as higher principle, then God is one and they are left to be without the right to dispose of the world ( Tertul. Prot. Mark. 1-4; Afanas. Sl. in lingual 6-7; Kiril. Jerusalem. Oglas. VI, 6; Damascus. Rev. faith, IV, 20).
What does the omnipotence of God mean?
The word "omnipotent" literally means that someone "can do anything". As with the qualities of omniscience and omnipresence, if God is infinite and has sovereign power (and we know that this is true), then He must also be omnipotent. He has all power over everything at all times and in all respects.
Job spoke of God's power in Job 42:2: "I know that everything is in your power, nothing is impossible for you, no matter what you think." He recognized the omnipotence of God in carrying out His plans. God reminded Moses that He had all the power to carry out His purposes with regard to the Israelites: “But the Lord answered Moses: “Is the hand of the Lord powerless? Well, see if My word comes true or not!”
The most convincing manifestation of God's omnipotence was at creation. God said, "Let there be..." and so it was (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, etc.). Man needs tools and materials to create, but God simply spoke, and by the power of His word, everything was created from nothing. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Psalms 32:6).
God's power is also shown in the preservation of His creation. All life on earth would perish were it not for God's constant provision of all that is needed for food, clothing, and shelter, all from renewable resources held by His power as guardian of man and animals (Psalm 35:6). The seas that cover most of the earth and over which we are powerless would have buried us if God had not set their limits (Job 38:8-11).
God's omnipotence extends to governments and leaders of nations (Daniel 2:21) as He restrains them or allows them to go their own way in accordance with His plans and purposes. His power is unlimited in relation to Satan and his demons. Satan's attacks on Job were limited to certain actions. He was limited by the unlimited power of God (Job 1:12, 2:6). Jesus reminded Pilate that he would have no authority over Him unless he was empowered by the God of all authority (John 19:11).
Being omnipotent, God can do everything. However, this does not mean that God has lost His omnipotence when the Bible says that He cannot do certain things. For example, Hebrews 6:18 says that He cannot deceive. This does not mean that He lacks the power to lie, but that He chooses not to lie in accordance with His own moral perfection. In the same way, despite His omnipotence and hatred of evil, He allows evil to happen in accordance with His good will. He uses certain evil acts to expose His purposes, such as the greatest evil that has ever happened, the murder of the perfect, holy, innocent Lamb of God for the redemption of mankind.
As God incarnate, Jesus Christ is also omnipotent. His power was manifested in His miracles—many healings, feeding the five thousand (Mark 6:30–44), calming the storm (Mark 4:37–41), and highest manifestation power, the resurrection of Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus from the dead (John 11:38–44; Mark 5:35–43) was an example of His control over life and death. Death is the ultimate reason why Jesus came—to destroy it (1 Corinthians 15:22; Hebrews 2:14) and bring sinners into a righteous relationship with God. The Lord Jesus clearly stated that he had the power to lay down His life and take it up again, a fact He allegorically expressed when speaking of the temple (John 2:19). He had the power to call twelve legions of angels to save Him during the trial if necessary (Matthew 26:53), but He humbly offered Himself in place of others (Philippians 2:1-11).
The great mystery is that this power can be used by believers who are united in God through Jesus Christ. Paul says, “Behold, it is most pleasant for me to boast of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God's power is most apparent in us when our weaknesses are greater than usual, because He can "do immeasurably more than anything we can ask or even think" (Ephesians 3:20). It is God's power that continues to keep us in a state of grace despite our sins (2 Timothy 1:12), and His power keeps us from falling (Jude 1:24). His power will be proclaimed by all the host of heaven forever and ever (Revelation 19:1). May this be our constant prayer!
This is perhaps one of the most difficult questions for Christians who have at least once tried to seriously think about what they believe in, or rather, in Whom. This question is similar to the question: How can Jesus Christ be God and man at the same time? And it directly concerns the understanding of the omnipotence of God in general.
I already have several articles on the blog on a similar topic. And now I want to summarize everything that was said earlier and provide a universal understanding of the almighty God.
This article is for Christians, since it was in discussions with Christians that I encountered a rejection of my position regarding the understanding of the omnipotence of God, and therefore the doctrines of the Trinity and the God-Man Jesus Christ.
I'll start with what God is omnipotent! Just enough to say Omnipotent and it will already be clear that we are talking about God and no one else. For only one God can be omnipotent. There cannot be several omnipotent ones, for then each would not be omnipotent, since the omnipotence of one would be limited by the omnipotence of the other.
The Bible repeatedly says that God is almighty. God Himself says this about Himself:
Abram was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him: I am God Almighty; (Gen. 17:1)
And God said to him: I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; (Gen. 35:11)
What does Almighty mean?
Almighty means all-powerful, absolutely everything.
Otherwise, it seems to me, this word cannot be understood. If we say that the almighty means that he can do everything, except for something, then it will no longer be the omnipotent, because he can no longer do everything. Everything means everything, absolutely everything.
The philosophical definition of God says: God is the personification of the Absolute. Otherwise, the Personality-Absolute. In other words, God, the Absolute in everything. Including omnipotence. God is absolutely omnipotent and there can be no exceptions.
Omnipotence is the main attribute of God, the real God. Without omnipotence, God would no longer be God. Only God can be omnipotent, therefore, not omnipotent means not God.
On the other hand, based on the same philosophical definition, we can understand that God has absolute free will, He is the Absolute. What does absolute free will mean?
Absolute free will is the ability of God to do anything, regardless of any circumstances at all, always and under any conditions.
If God is limited, at least by some circumstance independent of Him, He will no longer have absolute free will, and therefore will not be the Absolute. And again, it won't be God.
And now, of course, you will ask me: “Does absolute omnipotence mean the ability to do impossible or logically incompatible things?” After all, I said: absolutely everything. And I will answer you: “Yes, it is implied, obviously, that absolute omnipotence includes the ability to do impossible or logically contradictory things” . Because everything means everything! It was in this spirit that I answered the question: ""
Jesus Christ as a man cannot lift a stone more than 100 kilograms. But Jesus Christ, as the Creator created any stone and can lift any stone
And here is the stumbling block: many smart and thinking Christians have accused me of the illogicality and absurdity of this approach. They say that God is logical, and it is impossible to attribute such opportunities to God. Moreover, with such an approach, one can allegedly attribute any illogical absurdity to God. And what is the understanding of God only in the hands of the atheists, because this is a logically contradictory understanding, and therefore erroneous. Many go even further and say that God cannot do many things and even agree that God is not omnipotent and that there can be no omnipotence at all, since omnipotence in itself is logically contradictory (). They are forced to agree that God is still limited by the laws of logic. Otherwise, it is simply impossible to interpret their position.
But I immediately have a question for these Christians:
Is God the Creator of everything visible and invisible or not everything?
If God is the Creator of everything visible and invisible, simply the Creator of everything, that means absolutely everything, then nothing but Himself can exist on its own and outside Him and before Him and above Him. It seems to me that this is indisputable and corresponds to the basic doctrines of Christianity and the Bible.
... for his God is the Creator of all things ... (Jer. 10:16)
Is God the Creator of the laws of nature? After all, the laws of nature are not God Himself, they are His creations, like everything else. It is obvious that the Creator! He is the Creator of everything visible and invisible! Can there be uncreated laws of nature? Which are outside of God and which are above God? Which even God Himself did not create? If God is the Creator of everything, then they cannot.
for by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and by Him everything stands. (Col. 1:16,17)
Is God the Creator of the laws of logic? After all, the laws of logic are the same laws of nature, like all the others. Obviously the Creator.
for You created everything, and by Your will everything exists and was created. (Rev. 4:11)
And how can the Creator be dependent on the laws or subject to the laws that He Himself created? Either God is not dependent on the laws of logic and is not subject to them. Or we must admit that there are laws of nature, uncreated matters that exist outside of God and above God, to which even God Himself is subject!
Don't you think that such a position contradicts at least two fundamental doctrines of Christianity: the Omnipotence of God and the Creator of everything visible and invisible. If God is subject to the laws of logic, then He is neither omnipotent nor the Creator of everything.
Some people try to say that the laws of logic are just a part of God Himself. But then he will have to admit that in such a case God must have elements on which He is dependent. And this already contradicts another doctrine of Christianity, about the simplicity of the nature of God. If God consists of constituent elements, He is no longer the beginning of all things, not the First Cause, therefore, there are elements that precede Him. And again we come to some uncreated matters, and even deny the First Cause of the Creator. In fact, we get that God is no longer the Creator, but Himself in some way a creation.
On the other hand, the laws of logic are circumstances. Based on the definition of absolute free will, God is always independent of any circumstances. If God were dependent on the laws of logic, He would be dependent on some circumstances and would no longer have absolute free will, i.e. would not be absolute.
Like it or not, but trying to fit God into any laws was even more contradictory than simply presenting God as independent of any laws. From the same opera, all attempts to logically decompose the Trinity. How many attempts I have seen to explain the Trinity logically - they are all contradictory, and it is not surprising, because it is impossible to completely logically represent the Trinity! The Trinity is God independent of the laws of logic! And through the Trinity, God demonstrates to us his real omnipotence and the fact that He is the Creator of everything and the laws of logic, incl. And in the Trinity there can be one and three at the same time. And for us this is a logical contradiction, but who said that we should measure God with our laws of logic? God the Trinity is the real God precisely because through the Trinity he demonstrates his independence from the laws of nature, created by Him! And all attempts to fit the Trinity into the laws of logic are ridiculous, because these are attempts to fit the unlimited God into limited laws!
The situation is similar with the doctrine of the God-Man Jesus Christ. How can the nature of almighty God and the nature of limited man be combined in Jesus Christ? It is very simple: God is omnipotent and independent of the laws of logic; it is also impossible to fit this into the laws of logic, like the Trinity.
You just need to understand that the almighty God is independent of the laws of nature and can do anything!
And he can, if he wants, create a square circle, he can lift and not lift a stone at the same time, he can be God and a man at the same time, he can be one and many at the same time. And vice versa, the god who cannot do this, who is completely subordinate to the laws of nature, the laws of logic, is no longer a real God and not God at all, for he is not omnipotent!
If you cannot imagine a God who does not obey the laws of logic, then how do you imagine God the miracle worker? After all, the miracles that God did are also a violation of the laws of nature or their circumvention, call it what you want. The creation of everything from nothing is contrary to the laws of conservation. The creation of the entire universe in 6 days in general, I see, does not give rest to those who want to stick God into the laws of nature familiar to them. And the way Jesus Christ fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and fish does not again contradict the laws of conservation of matter? When did he turn water into wine? I myself do not know what laws of nature Christ circumvented. And the resurrection from the dead - how does this correlate with the laws of nature known to us?
But here they can quite reasonably say to me: in this way, any illogical nonsense can be attributed to God, and, moreover, following my approach, we can now say that the more contradictory, the more delusional the description of this or that “god”, the more real, the more omnipotent. It is also worth adding that following my approach, it turns out that God can sin, because the almighty God can do everything, absolutely everything.
This is not entirely true, or rather not quite so. I will start from the possibility of God to sin.
Can God sin?
Based on omnipotence - maybe. BUT! What makes someone think that having the opportunity to sin, a holy God must do it? Yes, God can (has the ability) to sin, but He never did and never will, because He is a saint!
But that’s not all, because based on my approach, we can now say: “But what prevents the almighty God from changing the very laws of good and evil, changing the very laws of understanding and meaning of things and, for example, creating a world where terrible violence against innocent children will be good?" Yes, God Almighty can do that too.
But here we come to the most important thing in understanding the omnipotence of God. After all, omnipotence not only means that God is independent of any laws, but also that God can once and for all establish such objective laws of the universe, which He will obey according to His will, moreover, He can make them absolute even for Himself. Yourself, because omnipotence means that too. Those. God once established such laws, which he not only obeys, but which He established once and for all even for Himself. Which He Himself does not allow Himself to violate or change, for their very change would be their violation. Who's to say that God can't? He's omnipotent, which means he can do that too.
Such laws, for example, include the laws of morality. God not only established them for people, but Himself does what He wants, no – God established them for everyone in general, including for Himself! He is a saint! Therefore, God will never create a world in which terrible abuse of innocent children will be considered good.
Part of the laws of logic also belongs to such laws, because one could try, without violating the laws of morality, to change the very laws of understanding and meaning of things and, again, to create such a perverted world. But even here God limited Himself.
Why am I taking this? First: from a moral sense, thanks to which we feel that the laws of morality are objective and absolute, and we feel this in such a way that it also implies that God Himself obeys them. Secondly: from the Bible, where God repeatedly establishes covenants with people and swears that he will fulfill them regardless of anything, and He swears first of all before Himself. Thirdly: I believe in a good God who does not deceive his creatures and who establishes alone moral laws for everyone and for Myself as well, which means I can trust my moral sense, the Bible and my mind, otherwise everything loses its meaning!
Now let's get back to the laws of logic, the laws of understanding and the meaning of things in general. Obviously, at least some of these laws are established by God absolutely for everyone and for Himself, similarly to the laws of morality. Therefore, we cannot attribute any nonsense to God! And we cannot say that the more delusional and perverted the description of some "god", the more omnipotent he is. This is not true at all.
The fact is that such concepts as the Trinity (3 and 1 at the same time), the God-man (God and man) at the same time, the square circle (square and circle) at the same time, in fact, separately make sense. Separately, there can be 3 and 1. Separately, there can be God and there can be a person. Separately, there can be a square and separately there can be a circle, these are not completely illogical things. Simply, based on the logic of the material world, they are contradictory; cannot be at the same time. But individually they may well be. And here God demonstrates His omnipotence for us, showing that the laws of logic obey Him, that He is their Creator.
But the delirium of a madman remains the delirium of a madman. Or a meaningless set of characters remains a meaningless set of characters or words, for example: “yloa yf zhdy fovyfald yshagyshschv gzh yvga yfzhsha wait two zhfyschga lyaozhdolif aopvlop ydlaoa ye fa yzhlo yzh yfzha o” And sin remains sin even if God did it.
What have we come to? And we have come to almost where we started. God, it turns out, obeys at least some laws of the universe. And what, you say, why all this was to be wiser, if you came to where you started from: it turns out that God obeys the laws. Yes, but not really!
This submission does not deprive God of omnipotence and does not imply the existence of uncreated matters and laws of nature, does not deprive God of absolute free will and simplicity of God's nature.
God, in His Own good will, obeys His own laws that He created!
That is the whole point of our long reflections.
Summarize:
The omnipotence of God means the ability to do anything and complete independence from any laws or circumstances, but on the other hand, it does not mean the nonsense and sinfulness of God, since God, by His own will, obeys His own fundamental laws, which He Himself created.
Now we understand that the Trinity is not something completely illogical or delusional, as someone is trying to present, but that It is only incompatible with the logical law of “non-contradiction” of our material world, while, as it were, we can imagine the Trinity in parts, in this there is nothing crazy or meaningless. On the one hand, God demonstrates that He is the Creator of even the laws of logic and is not dependent on them, on the other hand, He voluntarily submits to at least their fundamental part. The situation is similar with the doctrine of the God-Man Jesus Christ.
God the Trinity, the God-man Jesus Christ is the real almighty God
After considering the Questions of divine foresight and will, and all that pertains to them, it remains for us to investigate the Question of God's ability. We will deal with this in six points: 1) whether there is a capacity in God; 2) whether His capacity is infinite; 3) is God omnipotent; 4) whether He is able to undo what happened; 5) whether He is able to do what He does not do, or not to do what He does; 6) whether He is able to do what He does in a more excellent way.
Section 1. Is there ability in God?
With the first [statement] the situation is as follows.
objection 1. There seems to be no ability in God. For as primary matter is related to faculty, so God, who is the first agent, is related to action. But primary matter in itself is devoid of any action whatsoever. Therefore, the first agent, God, is devoid of any ability whatsoever.
objection 2. Further, according to the Philosopher, activity is better than any ability. Thus, form is better than matter, and action is better than the ability to act (since the first is the goal of the second). But there is nothing better than what is in God, for what is in God, as was shown above (3, 3), is God. Therefore, there is no ability in God.
Objection 3. Further, ability is the beginning of action. But since there is nothing innate in God, the divine faculty [would have to be] the essence of God. However, in the essence of God there is no beginning. Therefore, there is no ability in God either.
Objection 4. Moreover, it has already been shown (14:8; 19:4) that the knowledge of God is the cause of things. But the cause and the beginning of a thing are one and the same. Therefore, one should not assimilate abilities to God, but only knowledge and will.
This is contradicted by the following. It is said [in Scripture]: “Who is strong like You, Lord, and Your truth is around You” ().
I answer: the ability is twofold, namely, the enduring, and it is not in God, and the active, which must be acquired by Him in the highest degree. After all, it is obvious that everything that is perfect and in action [is such as a result of the realization] of its ability to act, while everything [that undergoes] undergoes to the extent that it is insufficient and imperfect. Then, as was shown above (3, 2; 4, 1 and 2), the essence is pure action, simple and all-perfect, without any admixture of imperfection. Therefore, it belongs to Him in the highest degree to be an active faculty, and in no way - not suffering. On the other hand, the concept of the beginning of action is in no way opposed to [the concept of] ability to act. After all, the ability to act, as the Philosopher said, is the beginning of an impact on something else, while the ability to endure is the beginning of the perception of an impact from another. Thus, it turns out that the ability to act is inherent in God to the highest degree.
Reply to objection 1. The ability to act is not opposed to action, but [on the contrary] is based on it, for something acts to the extent of its reality; the faculty that endures is opposed to action, for every thing suffers according to its capacity. Hence: in God there is nothing in possibility, but there is only one ability to act.
Reply to objection 2. In the event that the action is separated from the ability [to act], the action is necessarily better than the ability. But the action of God is the same as His ability, since both are His divine essence (for even His existence is not separated from His essence). Therefore, there is nothing in God that is better than His ability.
Reply to objection 3. In creatures, ability is not only the beginning of the action, but also the effect. Therefore in God the idea of capacity is preserved; not, of course, because it acts as the beginning of the action, but because it, being in itself a divine essence, acts as the beginning of the effect; however, the possibility of our comprehension is such that the divine essence, which in itself eternally contains all the perfections that are conceivable in created things, can be conceived either from the point of view of action, or from the point of view of ability. Thus the idea of ability in God is preserved as the idea of the beginning of an effect.
Reply to objection 4. Ability is predicated to God not as something really different from His knowledge and will, but as something logically different; for ability implies the conception of the beginning of action, determined by will and directed by knowledge, and these three things in God are identical. Or we can also say that the knowledge (or will) of God, being an active principle, contains the concept of ability. Therefore consideration of God's knowledge and will precedes consideration of His ability, because cause precedes action and effect.
Section 2. Is God's Ability Infinite?
With the second [statement], the situation is as follows.
objection 1. It seems that God's capacity is not infinite. Indeed, according to the Philosopher, the infinite is imperfect. But God's ability is by no means imperfect. Therefore, it is not infinite.
objection 2. Further, each [effective] faculty is known through its effect, otherwise it would be ineffective. Thus, if the power of God were infinite, it could also produce an infinite effect, which is impossible.
Objection 3. Further, the Philosopher proves that if the capacity of any corporeal thing were infinite, it would give rise to timeless motion. God, however, does not generate timeless movement, but, as Augustine said, moves the spiritual creature in time, and the corporeal one in time and space. Therefore, His capacity is not infinite.
This is contradicted by the words of Ilarius that "the ability of God is immeasurable, [for] He is the only living omnipotence." But everything immeasurable is infinite. Therefore, the capacity of God is infinite.
I answer: as stated above (1), effective faculty is inherent in God insofar as actuality is inherent in Him. But His existence is infinite, for it is not limited by anything that has its being from Him, which is obvious from our reasoning about the infinity of the divine essence (7, 1). Hence it is necessary that the effective capacity of God be infinite. After all, the more perfect the form of action the agent possesses, the greater his ability to act. For example, the hotter a thing, the more capable it is of heating; and if its heat were infinite, its power of heating would also be infinite. Hence: since the divine essence through which God acts is infinite (as was proved above (7.1)), it follows that his capacity is also infinite.
Reply to objection 1. In this case, the Philosopher speaks of a material infinity, not limited by any form, which infinity belongs to quantity. But the divine essence, as has been said before (7, 1), is something quite different; and the other is, understandably, and His ability. Therefore, in this case, one should not draw a conclusion about its imperfection.
Reply to objection 2. The ability of the homonymous agent is fully manifested in the consequence. For example, the generative ability of man cannot produce anything other than man. But the ability of the non-named agent is not fully manifested in the consequence; for example, the power of the sun is by no means exhausted by the emergence of animals from rot. But it is obvious that God is not a named agent (after all, as was shown above (3, 5; 4, 3), no one shares the species or genus with Him). It follows from this that His effect will always be less than His ability. Thus it is by no means necessary that the infinite capacity of God should manifest itself in an infinite effect. And even if it [generally] did not produce any effect, still the faculty of God would remain effective, since a thing is ineffective only if it does not reach the goal for which it is determined. But the faculty of God is not determined to the effect as to [its] end, on the contrary, it is itself the end of the effect produced by it.
Reply to objection 3. The philosopher, having proved that if the body had an infinite capacity, it would generate timeless motion, [further] shows that the power of the engine is not infinite, since it moves [the heavens] infinite time. Thus, according to his opinion, it turns out that the infinite capacity of the body, if such a body existed, would set in motion outside of time, but the situation is different with the capacity of a disembodied engine. The reason for this lies in the fact that one body moving another is a homonymous agent, and therefore the entire capacity of the agent is manifested in this movement. This means that the greater the ability of the moving body, the faster the movement [communicated by it], and from this it necessarily follows that if its ability were infinite, it would move with an incomparable speed, i.e., the movement would occur outside of time . But an incorporeal mover is not a named agent, and therefore there is no need for all its ability to manifest itself in movement, and, consequently, [there is no need for] timeless movement, especially since it moves in accordance with the disposition of its will.
Section 3. Is God Almighty?
With the third [provision] the situation is as follows.
objection 1. It doesn't seem to be omnipotent. Indeed, the ability to move and endure belongs to all things, but not to God, since, as was shown above (2, 3), He is motionless. Therefore, He is not omnipotent.
Objection 3. Further, in the prayer during Mass on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, it is said about God that He manifests His omnipotence "mainly by condemning and merciful." Therefore, the greatest of the deeds available to divine power is condemnation and mercy. However, there are things that surpass condemnation and mercy, for example, the creation of another world, etc. Therefore, it is not omnipotent.
Objection 4. In addition, in the gloss on the words: “Did not the wisdom of this world turn into madness” (), it is said: “God turned the wisdom of this world into madness, showing the possibility of things that were supposed to be impossible.” It follows from this that nothing should be considered possible or impossible with respect to the lowest causes(for the wisdom of this world judges [precisely] of them), but only in relation to the divine power. But if God were omnipotent, then all things would be possible and nothing would therefore be impossible. But with the abolition of impossibility, necessity is also abolished, since that which exists by necessity cannot but exist. Thus, if God were omnipotent, there would be no need. But [precisely] this is impossible. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.
This is contrary to what is said [in Scripture]: “With God, no word will remain powerless” ().
I answer: it is well known that he is omnipotent; difficulties arise when trying to explain exactly what His omnipotence consists of (for when we say that God can do everything, it is not entirely clear what is to be understood by the word "all"). If, however, we approach the matter properly, [i.e., e. understanding that] ability refers only to things that are possible, then the words “God can do everything” will mean that God can do everything possible, and it is precisely because of this that they say about Him that He is omnipotent.
Reply to objection 1. Although, if we consider something in the past in itself, it is impossible for it not to be in the past accidentally (for example, the running of Socrates), nevertheless, if we consider something in the past as precisely the past, then the abolition of this past is impossible not only in itself, but and absolutely, because there is a contradiction here. Thus it is more impossible than the resurrection of the dead, in which there is no contradiction, since it is supposed to be impossible with respect to a certain faculty, namely, natural; for the impossibility of such things lies below the possibility of divine power.
Reply to objection 2. How [we say that] God, according to the perfection of the divine faculty, can do everything, and yet some things are not subject to His faculty, because of their impossibility of being; in the same way we speak of the immutability of the divine faculty, that whatever He could do, He can do now. But some of the things which, being undone, had the nature of the possible, now, being done, have lost the nature of the possible. So when we say that God cannot make them, what we really mean is that they themselves cannot be made.
I answer: the good of something is twofold. One [of them] refers to his essence - so, for example, being reasonable refers to the essence of a person. From the point of view of this good, He cannot make a thing better than it is in itself (although He can make another thing better than this); in fact, He cannot make the number four greater than it is, because then it will no longer be the number four, but some other number. As for adding a substantial difference to the definition, it is like adding one to the number. The other kind of good is that which is outside and above essence; so it is good for a man to be virtuous or wise. From the point of view of this kind of good, it can make a thing better than He made it. However, in the absolute sense of the word, God [always] can do something better than everything He has done so far.
Reply to objection 1. When it is said that He can do something better than He does it, then if "better" is taken in the sense of substance, the proposition is true. For He can always do something better than any particular thing; and yet, as we have just explained, the same thing can be done better in one sense, but not in another. If, however, “better” is an adverb referring to creation, then God cannot do anything better than He does, since He cannot do it on the basis of greater wisdom and goodness. If this [adverb] refers to the created, then He can make something better, since He can give the created a better measure of being from the point of view of its accidents (though not from the point of view of substance).
Reply to objection 2. Such is the nature of the son that, as he matures, he becomes equal to the father, but it is not the nature of the created that it can become better than it was created by God. Thus, the above analogy does not stand up to criticism.
Reply to objection 3. The universe, represented by the present creations, cannot be better in view of the most beautiful order bestowed by God on all things, in which [actually] the good of the universe lies. Indeed, if any of the things became better [than it is], the harmony of order would be destroyed (for example, if any of the harp strings is pulled more than it should be, the instrument will be out of tune). Nevertheless, I could create some other things or add something to the existing ones, and then a different and [perhaps] better universe would arise.
Reply to objection 4. Both the humanity of Christ, as long as it is united with the Divinity, and created happiness, as long as it is the enjoyment of God, and the Blessed Virgin, as long as she is the Mother of God, possess some infinite dignity of the infinite good that God is. Therefore, there cannot be anything that would be better than them, just as there cannot be anything that would be better than God.
An Orthodox lecture hall operates in St. Petersburg. Lectures are read by scientists from the Cathedral of the Orthodox Intelligentsia, as well as invited experts. Each lecture is followed by a round table on topical issues modernity.
Lectures start at 19:00. Meetings are held at: St. Petersburg, Kamennoostrovsky prospect 21 (metro station Petrogradskaya), in the building of the Alexander Lyceum in room 213. Admission is free.
Your attention is invited to the video and the text of the first part of the lecture of the Grand Doctor of Psychology, candidate pedagogical sciences, Priest Alexy Moroz “God (concept, properties, Divine energies, unknowability). Creation of the world and man. Appointment of a person. God-likeness. Naming the animal world.
Topic of the first part of the lecture: God (concept, properties, Divine energies, unknowability).
Other lectures about. Alexia:
God: , .
Human: , .
History of the origin of religions. Church: , .
Commandments of Moses (decalogue). Beatitudes. Church sacraments:,. , .
Family: , . Children: , .
Orthodox theory of personality:,.
Passions, their essence and ways to overcome:,.
Diseases and their origin. Ways to overcome:,.
The connection of sins, passions and diseases:,.
Repentance, its essence. The main sins of our time:,.
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov. "About charm":,.
Asceticism, prayer (essence and varieties). Jesus Prayer: , .
About salvation in the world: ; .
Freemasonry and globalism:,.
Lecture text
We naturally begin our series of lectures with such profound concepts as God, the Trinity, man as the image and likeness of God. Today's lecture will be divided into two parts. First, we will talk about God, and in the second part we will talk about man as the image of God and about possible likeness to God. This is very important point. If we understand who God is, if we know the One who created us, then we must understand what He wants from us. And if we know who created us and what he wants from us, then this really affects our lives, our thoughts and actions. If we do not know and do not understand this, or do not know it correctly and do not understand it correctly, then this, again, will negatively affect our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. So let's, my dears, stop at the understanding of God.
What can we know about God? A person can know about God what He Himself revealed to us about Himself: the Holy Scripture, the Holy Giving - i.e. Revelation of God. And also from personal experience. From personal experience of communion with God. This is also a very important point, important material, but it must always be compared with what God directly reveals to us about Himself. God has revealed to us about Himself that He is an incorporeal, invisible Spirit. Here is what the apostle John writes about this: “God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” John 4:24. What does it mean? This means that God has no body, nothing of which our visible world consists. Therefore, we cannot see Him. According to the classic definition of St. John of Damascus, which he gave in his Accurate Exposition of Orthodoxy: “God is without beginning, infinite, eternal, perpetual, uncreated, immutable, immutable, simple, uncomplicated, incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, unlimited, boundless, unknown, incomprehensible, good, righteous, omnipotent, almighty, all-seeing, all-provider, all-lord and judge. This teaching about God is shared by all the Holy Fathers of the Church from the 4th century to our time. Of course, there are a lot of things listed, and many of them can be confused by such a multitude of definitions, unusual words, and new information. And now we will try to sort it out and then think about how it can affect us and how it affects our whole life.
1) God beginningless . What does the beginninglessness of God mean? “The beginninglessness of God means that He does not have any higher principle or reason for His existence over Himself, but He Himself is the cause of everything. He does not need anything extraneous, is free from external coercion and influence. Indeed, it is hard for the human mind to imagine, we are used to the fact that everything has its beginning, its end. But the only one existing cause of the world around us is God, it is the Spirit who creates the whole world out of nothing, out of Himself. This is the most important attribute of God. He is omnipotent. We will talk about this a little later. Those. He is the beginning of everything. Before Him there was absolutely nothing. There was only one. This is a very important point, because there are various heresies that introduce some kind of dualism, speak of the existence of matter, from which God creates everything that exists, thus making matter primary in relation to God. No, this is not true and not correct. The beginning of everything that exists is given by God, who Himself is without beginning and is the cause of everything that exists, everything that happens.
2) God endless And boundless . “Infinity and infinity mean that God exists outside the categories of space, free from any limitation and lack. He cannot be measured, He cannot be compared or contrasted with anyone or anything. God is eternal, that is, exists outside the categories of time, for Him there is no past, present and future. He does not obey the laws of time, because He created matter, and time is a property of matter. He's out of it. He is the reason for this.
3) God eternal . That is, He exists outside the categories of time. For Him there is no past, no present, no future. The prophet David speaks of the person of God in this way: “Before the mountains were born, and You formed the earth and the universe, and from age to age You are God” Ps.89:3.
4) Scripture says that “God has constancy , immutability And immutability in the sense that "with Him there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17), He is always true to Himself: "God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change" (Numbers 23 :19). In His being, actions, attributes, He is always the same.” This is a very important moment for us. They often say: “God is angry with me”, “God will punish me”, “God has forgiven me”… These are all figurative expressions of a person who ascribes to God some of his ontological qualities that are characteristic of a person. But God does not change. It is not God who is angry or God who rejoices - God is always love. This is His property, which we will talk about later. He always loves all his creation and wishes it only good, only perfection, only prosperity, only happiness. What then changes if God does not change? The person is changing. Either we open ourselves to God with our good deeds and deeds, or we close ourselves from God, doing evil, and open ourselves to the influence of the world of fallen spirits and become the conductors of this evil will. But God Himself is always unchanged, He is always good, light and love.
5) "God simple And uncomplicated , that is, it is not divided into parts and does not consist of parts. The Trinity of Persons in God, which will be discussed in the next chapter, is not a division of the single Divine nature into parts: the nature of God remains indivisible. The concept of the perfection of the Divine excludes the possibility of dividing God into parts, since any partial being is not perfection.
6) " disembodied God is named because He is not a material substance and does not have a body, but by nature is spiritual. "God is a Spirit," Christ says to the Samaritan woman (John 4:24). "The Lord is the Spirit," repeats the Apostle Paul, "and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). God is free from all materiality: He is not somewhere, is not anywhere, but is everywhere. When the Bible speaks of the presence of God everywhere, this is again an attempt to express the subjective experience of a person who, wherever he is, meets God everywhere: “Where can I go from Your Spirit and where can I flee from Your presence? there, if I go down to hell, and there you are. If I take the wings of the dawn and move to the edge of the sea, and there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me" Ps. 138:7-10". And in the prophet Jeremiah, God himself says: “... Do I not fill heaven and earth? ..” Jer.23:24. “But subjectively, a person can feel God everywhere, or he can not feel Him anywhere - while God Himself remains generally outside the category“ somewhere ”, outside the category“ place ”” . Think for yourself - everything was created by Him, everything is in Him, therefore there is nothing outside of Him. God holds the whole Universe with His Divine energy. Everything is upheld by Him. And since everything is held by Him and contained in Him, how can there be anything outside of Him? Of course not. Therefore, when we talk about the everywhere-presence of God, we must understand that He is everywhere and always hears us, and wherever we are, He is everywhere and always hears our prayers. Therefore, at the beginning of the service, when you and I prayed before the lecture, we read the following words: “To the King of Heaven, the Comforter, the Soul of Truth, who is everywhere and fulfills everything ...”, that is, he is everywhere and fulfills everything. Even the words of the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father in Heaven” confirm the omnipresence of God, for wherever a person is: on the face of the earth, or in the sea, or in the air, the heavens surround him with the presence of God, which embrace him from all sides with their care and protection. So the apostle Paul proclaimed to the Athenians that regardless of whether we notice or not, "... He is not far from each of us: for we live and move and have our being ..." Acts 17:27.
7) "God invisible, intangible, indescribable, incomprehensible, immense, inaccessible
. No matter how much we try to investigate God, no matter how much we talk about His names and properties, He still remains elusive for the mind, because He surpasses all our thought. "It is difficult to comprehend God, but it is impossible to pronounce it," writes Plato. St. Gregory the Theologian, arguing with the Hellenic sage, says: "It is impossible to speak, but even more impossible to comprehend." To know the very essence of God is impossible not only for people, but also for the angels themselves. The holy Apostle Paul speaks of this: God "... dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see..." 1 Timothy 6:16. God is a mystery, He can never be fully known by an imperfect human mind. Indeed, if we could know God, we would be greater than Him, we could contain Him. But because we are created by Him, we cannot really understand and know the One who is our Creator. We can understand Him to that extent. Where He reveals Himself to us. We can learn something from His revelations, from the Holy Fathers, but in fact, the knowledge of God occurs at the moment of His indwelling in us. When the Holy Spirit enters a person, this Holy Spirit reveals to the person the mysteries about God. Therefore, Elder Silouan of Athos liked to repeat: "He who prays purely is the theologian." What does it mean to "pray purely"? Prayer is direct communion with God, when you do not just read the words of the prayer, but when you ascend with your soul and spirit to God and have direct communion with Him. The spirit speaks with the spirit - this is the highest degree of prayer. But it is in this state that the mysteries of God are revealed to man. But we'll talk about that a little later.
God is invisible. Nobody ever saw him. He cannot be seen. You cannot touch Him. Sometimes they say that God is in heaven, but this word is just a decoy of His hiddenness and inaccessibility. None of the people can comprehend Him, embrace Him with the mind, vision, perception.
8) God - Creator of all things
. “To create here means to create from nothing; to give existence to that which did not exist before; Or, as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom: "to bring from non-existence into existence."
The Orthodox doctrine of creation says that God alone is uncreated and exists forever, and everything else was created by Him. However, the Lord did not create everything separately and at once. First, He created the primary basis of being, and then, over time (perhaps millions of years, see 2 Peter 3.8), this basis of being, by the creative power of God, invested in it, produced all the diversity that now fills God's world. ... Yes let the earth bring forth vegetation... Let the water bring forth reptiles, the living soul... Let the earth bring forth the living soul after its kind... (Gen. 1.11, 20, 24)
Everything created by God: heaven, earth, plants, animals, and man himself is “very good” (that is, perfect, without flaw) and is destined to live by the Divine “breath of life”, partaking of His uncreated being (Gen. 1.30, 2.7). In Orthodox Christianity there is no dualism that "spirit" and "heaven" are good, and "matter" and "earth" are evil. God loves all of His creation with eternal love. By the word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the spirit of His mouth all their host. He collected, like heaps, sea waters; laid the abysses in the vaults. Let the whole earth fear the Lord, let all who live in the universe tremble before Him. For He said, and it happened; He commanded, and it appeared. (Ps. 32)
God the Father created the world by His Divine Word — “He spoke, and it was done” — and by His Divine Spirit, Who “moved over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). Already here we see the reflection of the image of the Holy Trinity, then revealed in perfection in the New Testament, when the Word of God became flesh and when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples of Christ on the day of Pentecost.” .
9) God blessings
. About the goodness of God, Christ Himself said to the rich young man: “... No one is good, but only God ...” Mat.19:17.
God loves all of his creation. He provides everything that is needed for life. Everything that we see in heaven, on earth, the Lord created for the good and benefit of people. God wished to create the world according to the abundance of his goodness. According to Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh, God does not need us, but God desires us. Pay attention to this idea. Many have such a false opinion that since we were created on earth, it means that God needs us for some reason. Since we are here, it means that He needs us. It's a delusion. God created man to share in the joy and happiness in which He himself is. This is a very important point, try to remember my dears - we are all created for happiness, for joy, for participation in that well-being in which the Lord himself abides. That's what man was created for. And not because God needed it, but because He needed man as a partner in that joy in which the Creator of everything is.
10) God omniscient
. About the omniscience of God, the holy apostle John says: “...God is greater than our heart and knows everything” 1 John 3:20. “Only God alone knows everything that was, that is, and that will be. For God there is no difference between day and night: He sees and hears everything at all times. He knows each of us and not only what we do and say, but also what we think and what we desire. Everything is equally open to Him: the past, the future, the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Just imagine: if our life unfolds gradually, as it were, frame by frame, like on a film in which individual moments of our life are recorded, this film is immediately visible to God, from beginning to end. That is, God knows what was, what is and what will be with each person. This one is confusing to some people. For many, this moment even caused a fall into some kind of heresy (Calvinism, the doctrine of predestination). It is argued that since God knows everything, it means that He predestined some to punishment and death, and predestined others to happiness and bliss, so nothing depends on a person. And among the pagans, this resulted in the form of faith in a certain fate, in fate, in predestination. If this were the case, then a person would not have any freedom, and in no way would a person as the image of God manifest itself. From the fact that God knows how the future fate of a person will develop, it does not follow that a person’s actions are predetermined in advance. A simple example. For example, knowing one of you closely, I can tell you how you will act in this or that situation. Or you yourself, knowing well one of your relatives and friends. You can say that being in a certain situation, he will act in one way or another. Will this knowledge somehow influence his actions? No way. No, because I know how he will act. So the knowledge of God about you and me does not in any way affect and does not determine our choice of good or evil. The opportunity to choose between good and evil is given to every person. A person is free and will decide for himself - what he is for, where he is and why he is.
11) God omnipotent . Concerning the omnipotence of God, the Psalmist said: “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it appeared” Ps.33:9. The Evangelist Luke says: “For with God no word will remain powerless” Luke 1:37. Nothing is impossible for God. There is nothing that He wanted and did not happen. He is absolutely omnipotent. This is a very important moment for us. A person has severe life situations, crises, it would seem, well, everything is against him and it is impossible to avoid sad consequences. But when a person begins to turn to God, cry out from the bottom of his heart, he must remember that God is omnipotent. And indeed, His omnipotence is manifested in the fact that even in hopeless situations there is a solution and a favorable end comes to all the torments of a person, whatever they may be, if he turns to God with all his heart and changes his behavior, brings repentance. Here we have an icon of the Mother of God the Quick to Hearing, and it is not at all accidental that this miraculous image (and it was copied from miraculous icon The Neva Skoroposlushnitsa, which is located in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra) was brought today, donated to our church, and the Mother of God is here with us. Many miracles take place before this icon. Why is she called "Soon-obedience" - she hears people who turn to her and helps them. And then help comes. Any help. In any situation, “…according to your faith let it be done to you” Matt. 9:29. This knowledge that God is omnipotent should strengthen us and remind us that there are no hopeless situations for a person and nothing is impossible for God.
11) God all-satisfied . The Apostle Paul teaches about this: “and does not require the service of human hands, [as if] having need of anything, Himself giving to all life and breath and everything” Acts 17:25. “A person always needs something, therefore he is often dissatisfied. Only God alone has everything and Himself does not need anything for Himself, but on the contrary, He Himself gives everything and everyone. That is why He is called all-satisfied."
The spirituality of the being of God does not contradict those passages Holy Scripture in which bodily terms are assigned. We can read that God has a heart, arms, legs... These expressions, of course, must be understood in a figurative sense of the word. Eyes and ears mean omniscience, hands - omnipotence, heart - love, etc. In the same way, the omnipresence of God is not contradicted when it is said that God is in heaven or in the temple. God is present everywhere, but heaven is a special place for the presence of God. Where God eternal in glory appears to blessed spirits, to holy angels. And on earth in temples, too, His special presence is grace-filled and mysterious, felt by believers sometimes in special signs. Jesus Christ says: "...where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them" Matt.18:20. On these words the Church of Christ is built - where people gather in the name of God to pray to Him, to thank Him, to learn more about Him. He is among them. And now we are gathered here in the name of God, because we want to know more about God in order to live according to His holy will. And here He is also invisibly present by His Holy Spirit.
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