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#218666 - 01/04/07 02:14 PM
Re: Apophatic Theology and 1 John 3:1-5
[Re: Athanasius The L]
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Apotheoun
Member
Registered: 03/25/05
Posts: 1466
Loc: SF Bay Area, CA
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But there is of course one God. And since God's energies aren't Him, but something else, then to be united to His energies would not be union with him but with these uncreated energies.
God's energies are indeed God. I'll use the example of love. We know that God is love because Holy Scripture tells us so (1 John 4:8,16). But we do not say that God's essence is love, because God is indeed love, but is also more than love. Following the teachings of the Church Fathers, we maintain that we cannot define God in terms of God's essence. We know of God's love because we experience it, but we cannot use love-or any other divine attribute-to name God's essence. So these are our alternatives:1) there was once when God's love did not exist; if we say this, we admit to change in God, which contradicts both Holy Scripture (James 1:17) and the teaching of the Church, 2) God, in His essence, is love, which the Eastern Fathers reject, because God is indeed love, but is more than love, and because God's essence is unknowable, or 3) the distinction of God's essence and God's uncreated energies, which was taught by St. Basil the Great and has remained a part of the Eastern Christian understanding of God ever since. Ryan
Excellent post.
God bless,
Todd
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#218675 - 01/04/07 02:52 PM
Re: Apophatic Theology and 1 John 3:1-5
[Re: Apotheoun]
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Dr. Eric
Catholic Gyoza
Member
Registered: 11/17/05
Posts: 4009
Loc: First Rome
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How do we see Him as He is? If we cannot know Him?
Forgive my western mindset, please. 
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#286207 - 04/13/08 10:19 PM
Re: Apophatic Theology and 1 John 3:1-5
[Re: Dr. Eric]
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lm
Member
Registered: 08/29/05
Posts: 778
Loc: usa
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"Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth not us, because it knew not him. Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is. And every one that hath this hope in him, sanctifieth himself, as he also is holy. Whosoever committeth sin committeth also iniquity; and sin is iniquity. And you know that he appeared to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin."
How can this passage be reconciled with the notion that God is unknowable?
I was reading the section on sacred images of the Pope's book, On the Spirit of the Liturgy, he notes that apophatic theology taken to an extreme is akin to iconoclasm. Iconoclasm was rejected because the Word became flesh.
Apophatic theology, taken to to an extreme, holds that nothing can be known about God from the created order. This is contrary to Romans chapter 1 as well as 1 John 3:1-5. Apophatic theology taken to an extreme, denies man's natural knowledge which lead to a true, though perhaps limited knowledge of God. To claim that such knowledge is not possible, and all learning of natural theology must be rejected, is indeed similar to the position that icons must be destroyed. Both iconoclasm and the rejection of metaphysics lead man away from that knowledge which begins in man's sense experience and can lead him to humbly adore the One whom he one day desires to see face to face.
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#286451 - 04/16/08 05:52 AM
Re: Apophatic Theology and 1 John 3:1-5
[Re: Dr. Eric]
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Ray Kaliss
Member
Registered: 11/22/04
Posts: 483
Loc: Meriden, CT
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because we shall see him as he is.
How can this passage be reconciled with the notion that God is unknowable?
1) Some of us see with our eyes - some of us see through our eyes. This begs the question - which am I?
2) If you see me - you see the father. Since Christ's human body was entirely human ... it would seem that Jesus was not talking about seeing his body - nor seeing with our physical eyes.
3) Jesus made this comparison: If the eyes are whole then the entire body is filled with light. As if the eyes are like windows which let the light into the body. And so this comparison makes seeing be a kind of right-knowledge. In other words - enlightenment - which does not take place either in the body nor in the psychological mind of thoughts and reasoning.
3) When he appears we will see him as he is. The translator here could have used better words if he had realized what Jesus was talking about and if he had realized that both Jesus and Paul were not talking about a physical appearance (seeing with the eyes) but an enlightenment - an opening of the 'eyes' to see (understand) what already is there. Already is.
Since the line says "and we shall be like him" then Paul is referring to how Providence shapes us into his own image (Let us make man into our image). Therefore Paul is speaking about what we call Providence or Logos. Because we do not become like God in our physical nature but in our hearts. We become like God when we do what God does. When our wills (his and our) are like.
And so what Paul is saying is that when God give us the enlightenment that Jesus is Providence - we will understand how it is that God makes us like to himself. And this agrees with John the apostles who writes that the Word (logos) is God and no-thing comes to be without that Logos which is here and surrounds us at all times - "I am convinced that nothing of heaven nor earth can separate us from God" ... because Providence is everywhere.
This Word and Logos (we now call Providence) is - according to John - the spiritualized and resurrected body of Christ.
4) We have faith in that which we do not see (understand). When we do see (understand) faith is no longer needed because now we have certain and direct knowledge.
And so this 'seeing' that Jesus and Paul are talking about is not with the eyes and has nothing to do with the physical body nor even the psychological mind of thoughts and reason - but it is rather and enlightenment to the understanding which leave and impression upon the mind.
This is why Mary, Joseph, Peter, the good Temple priest, and the baby John the baptist still in the womb (those people who knew that Jesus was also the son of God) were all enlightened to that knowledge. Mary by the visitation, Joesph by his dream, Peter by an act of enlightenment ("Who do men say that I am") and the good priest by a dream that he would know the Christ before his death.
And so this appearance of Jesus should not be thought of as his coming to us in any type of physical body - but rather us having our eyes (understanding) opened.
So it seems to me.
Peace to all churches and to men of good conscience.
-ray
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