Methods of theology: apophatic and cataphatic theology.

Cataphatic (affirmative) theology

(Greek καταφατικὴ θεολογία), in the Orthodox patristic tradition has three main meanings: the method of knowledge of God, which is based on the revelation of God in the created world; a system of revealing Christian doctrine through positive statements about God; one of the ways of knowing God.

Cataphatic theology as a method of knowledge of God is determined by the doctrine of Divine transcendence and immanence, which simultaneously determine both the very nature of this theology and the methodology of knowledge of God. This teaching, on the one hand, testifies to the ontological transcendence and inaccessibility of God, the absolute incomprehensibility of His Divine nature, which does not allow for essential relationships between God and the world He created. “The unapproachable God remains unknown to us, not because we are too weak to reach Him, but because He is unknown by nature.”

[1].
St. Gregory Palamas remarks on this matter: “He who exists above all things is not only God, but also a Supergod;
and not only above all positing, but also above all negation, the greatness of the Beyond rises, surpassing all greatness conceivable by the mind” [2]. Therefore, man on his own cannot create either a system of cataphatic theology, overcoming the boundary between created and uncreated, or a methodology of cataphatic knowledge of God. On the other hand, this teaching testifies to the closeness of God to His creation, which is a prerequisite for the creation of cataphatic theology. Such theology becomes possible due to the fact that God Himself, being a Being not only transcendental, but also immanent in the world He created, reveals Himself in it and reveals Himself to His creation. He does this absolutely freely and solely out of His mercy and love. “God,” writes St. Gregory Palamas, “in the abundance of His mercy, He comes out to us with His inalienable supernatural power from transcendence, incomprehensibility and mystery, becoming involved in the mind and invisibly visible” [3].

In the language of theology, the doctrine of the transcendence and immanence of God is expressed as the Orthodox doctrine of the Divine essence and Divine energies. According to this teaching, the revelation of God, incomprehensible in His essence, and communion with Him occur in the created world thanks to Divine energies different from the Divine essence. “If there is something that partakes of God, and the super-essential essence of God is completely non-participating, then there is something between the non-participating essence and the participating one, through which they partake of God.”

(Greg. Pal. Triad. III 2. 24).
This “something” is the forces and energies of God in which His self-revelation occurs. “Existing processes” and “beneficent industries” reveal God to the world and make Him understandable to man, which opens up the possibility of constructing an affirmative (cataphatic) theology. The method of such construction is the “analogy of names,” according to which images and names taken from the created world are used to know God. God “in unspeakable goodness,
” notes St.
John of Damascus, “ deigned to be called in accordance with what is characteristic of us, so that we would not be completely uninvolved in recognizing Him”
[4].

(Ibidem).
The author of the Areopagitik, linking together the apophatic and cataphatic methods of theology, points out that the “nameless” God is at the same time a “many-named” God. “He has many names because” because first of all He Himself pronounces His Divine names: “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3:14), “Life” (cf. John 14:6), “Light” (cf. John 8, 12), “God” (cf. Gen. 28, 13), “Truth” (cf. John 14, 6)” [5]. “God-wise”, i.e. those who philosophize about God, develop this system of Divine names, “borrowing names” from that reality that was produced by the “Cause of everything”, i.e. the Divine First Cause. As a result, such names of God appear as “Good” (cf. Mt 19:17), “God of gods” (Ps 49:1), “Wisdom” (Prov 9:1), “Word” (John 1:1 ), “Strength”, “Mind”, etc. [5]. The system of cataphatic theology, according to the Areopagitics, also includes names that are borrowed “from certain divine visions that have illuminated initiates or prophets in sacred temples or in other places
.
“sometimes human, sometimes fiery, sometimes amber forms and appearance”
appear that are given to God . “Those who have seen visions” and who have received revelations “supply” (that is, endow) God and His goodness with various “things full of mysterious meaning” [6].

The system of cataphatic theology uses another factor related to the fact that man is created in the image of God, and the world around him bears the stamp of the Divine. “All the Fathers of the Church...

- V.N. Lossky notes in this regard, “
they see in the very fact of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God an eternal co-construction, an initial consistency between the human being and the Divine being
.
Blzh. Augustine, bishop Hippo, for example, “seeks to formulate a concept of God based on our conformity to God, and tries to discover in Him what we ourselves find in our souls... This is a method of psychological analogies, applicable to the knowledge of God, to theology”
[7] .
Similar analogies can be applied when comparing the Creator and the rest of His creation. This method of cataphatic knowledge of God is already suggested by Divine Revelation itself: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament speaks of the works of His hands”
(Ps 18:2). God, therefore, reveals Himself both in creation itself and in His providential acts performed in the world He created.

The emergence of a system of cataphatic knowledge of God, according to the Areopagitics, became possible for two reasons. Firstly, the existing “stages of being” make it possible to discern in the created world the principle of hierarchy, according to which there are higher and lower hierarchical levels. In this hierarchy, the author of the Areopagitik “contemplates a whole hierarchically constructed ladder of insights along which, so to speak, the enlightening energy of the Divine descends”

[8].
Thus, insights reveal God to the world in full accordance with the hierarchical principle of being. Secondly, the system of positive knowledge about God, according to the Areopagitics, is based on the principle of the participation of all creation in God. Expressed by the ap. Paul’s idea that God is close to every person and that He can and should be sought in the world around us, since “in Him we live and move and have our being
” (Acts 17:27-28), finds a continuation in the “Areopagitica”:
“... we should sing of eternal Life, from Which life-in-itself and all life comes, and from Which the life inherent in everyone spreads into everything that is involved in life... Divine Life-in-itself revives and makes substantial;
and every life and vital movement comes from Life, every life and every beginning of every life that is superior” [9].
Elsewhere, the author of the Areopagitik notes: “And being itself, if I may say so, has the power to be from a super-essential Power”
(Ibid. 8.3). God's participation in His creation makes the latter, as it were, related to the Creator. In the being, life and movement that flows from God, man can cognize Him and thereby form a system of statements about God.

Such a system, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, is determined primarily by the natural law according to which the existing world lives and develops [10], as well as by Divine providentialism [11]. The natural law laid down in the foundation of the world, which allows “from the visible and well-ordered”

conclude about the Author of everything, and Divine providential acts that prevent world chaos and preserve cosmic order raise the human mind to cataphatic contemplation of the Creator of the Universe.

[12].
Reflecting on the symbolic content of the tabernacle of Moses, St. Gregory Palamas writes: “That tabernacle was, according to the word of the saints, Christ, the power of God and God’s hypostatic wisdom (1 Cor 1:24), immaterial and uncreated by nature
,” typified by the Mosaic tabernacle.
Having entered into divine darkness, Moses “saw and materially described not only the immaterial tabernacle, but also the very hierarchy of God’s leadership and everything connected with it, which he presented materially and variegatedly in accordance with the piety of the law.
The tabernacle and everything inside the tabernacle, the pious service and everything related to it are material symbols, the veils of the contemplations of Moses accomplished in darkness” [13].

After the Incarnation, this “super-rational knowledge”, once granted to Moses alone, belongs to “all who believe in Christ in general.”

[14].

[15], however, he gives symbolic meaning to light not as uncreated energies, since the latter are not a symbol, but a Divine reality, but as “the glory of God, which will be revealed in the future” [16].

In the Incarnation, God revealed himself as a Trinity of Divine Persons, simultaneously revealing the way of Their existence.
For example, the cataphatic system of St. John of Damascus has its origins in Christian triadology. He writes: “God is called Mind and Reason, and Spirit, and Wisdom, and Power, as the author of this and as immaterial, and as the Performer of everything and the Almighty... And each of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity is spoken of in the same way and in exactly the same way... For every Once I think about one of the Hypostases, I understand Her to be a perfect God, a perfect Essence;
When I unite and count the three Persons together, I understand Them as one perfect God. For the Divinity is not complex, but in Three perfect Persons It is one perfect, indivisible and uncomplicated” [4].

Next, Rev. John resorts to the “analogy of names”, using it to reveal the cataphatic triadology:

“When I think about the relationship of the Hypostases among themselves, I understand that the Father is the essential Sun, the Source of goodness, the Abyss of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity; The source that gives birth and produces the good hidden in Him. So, He is the Mind, the Abyss of the mind, the Parent of the Word and through the Word the Producer of the Spirit, which reveals Him; The Father has no other word, wisdom, power, desire, except the Son, Who is the only Power of the Father, predetermining the creation of all things, as a perfect Hypostasis, born from a perfect Hypostasis as He Himself, Who is the Son, knows and is called. The Holy Spirit is the power of the Father, revealing the hidden things of the Divine.” The Father is the "Source and Cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit"; The Son is “Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Radiance, Image of the Father”; The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of the Father, as proceeding from the Father”

[4].

[17], simultaneously revealing both the mystery of the Holy Trinity and
“the mystery of creation, providence and judgment”
[18].
Christology in St. The maxim occupies a central place in the system of cataphatic theology, since it is in Christ that the true knowledge of God is revealed (cf.: “No one has ever seen God; He has revealed the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”
- John 1:18).

With the help of cataphatic theology, virtually all systems of Christian doctrine, all Christian dogma and all doctrinal documents of the Church, starting with the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, were compiled.

Along with apophatic theology, cataphatic theology in the patristic tradition also acts as a path to the knowledge of God. It consists of two components: the knowledge of God from the world He created and from the Revelation of God about Himself.

There is numerous evidence that the truth about God is really present in creation, which is revealed by the Holy Scriptures: “... His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been visible from the creation of the world through the consideration of creation...”

(Rom 1:20). “Consideration of creations” is a process of the so-called. natural knowledge of God. It is based on the ability of the human mind to find “traces” of God in the world He created. Such knowledge is available to everyone; it does not depend on Divine Revelation. Him, as stated by the ap. Paul, even pagans can have it. It is mainly intellectual in nature, although there is also sensory perception in it. Within the framework of cataphatic theology, it must undoubtedly be present, as evidenced by the call of St. Paul to seek God in the world around him, although the axiological status of such knowledge is not decisive, because true knowledge of God is not the accumulation of information about Him, but union with Him.

The knowledge of God from Revelation represents the next stage of cataphatic knowledge of God, at which a person learns that God is Who Is (Exodus 3:14), the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. John 14:6), Love (cf. 1 John 4 , 8), Light (cf. John 8, 12), etc. However, revealing Himself in this way, God remains absolutely transcendental to His creation. Even having united with man in the Incarnation, He remained hidden by God. Therefore, all the names of God, borrowed from Revelation, and even those with which God Himself calls Himself, although they are means of cataphatics and bring people closer to God, nevertheless cannot reveal to them the Divine nature. In the created world there are no such concepts, names and definitions with the help of which one could comprehend the nature of God. Therefore, cataphatic ideas about God are not an end in themselves. They are only a means leading to spiritual contemplation and speculation. Accordingly, cataphatic theology itself should not be confined within the framework of intellectualism, for God is always known “in personal communication” [19], and not in the process of discursive thinking.

Between the cataphatic path of knowledge of God and the apophatic path there is not a dialectical opposition, but an antinomic unity. Both paths are never used independently of each other in the Orthodox tradition. The autonomous use of each of them is fraught with danger to the very essence and content of theology. When they are used in unity with each other, then cataphatic theology saves apophatic theology from the danger of theological agnosticism, and apophatic theology saves cataphatic theology from the danger of objectification of God and anthropomorphism, so that the true concept of God remains constant and intact [20].

Literature

Epifanovich S. L. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology. K., 1915. M., 19962;
Egan H. Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticisms // Theological Studies. 1978. Vol. 39. N 3. P. 399-426;
Hossfeld F.-L. Du sollst dir kein Bild machen: Die Funktion des alttestamentlichen Bilderverbots // Trierer theol. Zschr. 1989. Bd. 98. N 2. S. 81-94;
Lossky V.N. Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic theology. M., 1991;
Matsoukas NA Teologia dogmatica e simbolica ortodossa. R., 1996;
Meyendorff I., prot. Life and works of St. Gregory Palamas. St. Petersburg, 1997;
Μαρτζέλος Γ. Δ. Κατάφαση και απόφαση κατά την Ορθόδοξη Πατερική Παράδοσην // Εισηγήσεις μ 2003/2003. Θεσσαλονίκη, 2003. Σ. 273-288.

CATAFATIC (AFFIRMATIVE) THEOLOGY

[Greek καταφατικὴ θεολογία], in Orthodox. the patristic tradition has 3 main meanings: the method of knowledge of God, which is based on the revelation of God in the created world; system of revealing Christ. creeds through positive statements about God; one of the ways of knowing God.

K.b. as a method of knowledge of God is determined by the doctrine of Divine transcendence and immanence, which simultaneously determine both the very nature of this theology and the methodology of knowledge of God. This teaching, on the one hand, testifies to the ontological transcendence and inaccessibility of God, the absolute incomprehensibility of His Divine nature, which does not allow for essential relationships between God and the world He created. “The unapproachable God remains unknown to us, not because we are too weak to reach Him, but because He is unknown by nature” (Meyendorff 1997, p. 279). St. Gregory Palamas remarks on this matter: “He who exists above all things is not only God, but also a Supergod; and not only above all positing, but also above all negation, the greatness of the Beyond rises, surpassing all greatness conceivable by the mind” (Greg. Pal. Triad. II 3. 8). Therefore, man on his own cannot create either a system of K. b., overcoming the boundary between created and uncreated, or a methodology of cataphatic knowledge of God. On the other hand, this teaching testifies to the closeness of God to His creation, which is a prerequisite for the creation of K. b. Such theology becomes possible due to the fact that God Himself, being a Being not only transcendental, but also immanent in the world He created, reveals Himself in it and reveals Himself to His creation. He does this absolutely freely and solely out of His mercy and love. “God,” writes St. Gregory Palamas, - in the abundance of His mercy to us, His inalienable supernatural power comes out of the beyond, incomprehensibility and mystery, becoming involved in the mind and invisibly visible” (Ibid. I 3. 10).

In the language of theology, the doctrine of the transcendence and immanence of God is expressed as Orthodox. the doctrine of the Divine essence and Divine energies. According to this teaching, the revelation of God, incomprehensible in His essence, and communion with Him occur in the created world thanks to Divine energies different from the Divine essence. “If there is something that partakes of God, and the super-essential essence of God is completely non-participating, then it means that there is something between the non-participating essence and the participating one, through which they partake of God” (Ibid. III 2.24). This “something” is the forces and energies of God, in which His self-revelation occurs. “Existing processes” and “beneficent industries” reveal God to the world and make Him understandable to man, which opens up the possibility of constructing an affirmative (cataphatic) theology. The method of such construction is the “analogy of names”, according to which images and names taken from the created world are used to know God. God “in unspeakable goodness,” notes St. John of Damascus, deigned to be called in accordance with what is characteristic of us, so that we would not be completely uninvolved in recognizing Him” (Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. I 12).

The main merit in the development of the theology of the Divine Names belongs to the Cappadocian Fathers, the author of the Areopagitik, as well as St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John of Damascus and St. Gregory Palamas. When constructing this theology, almost all of them begin their reasoning by involving such fundamental concepts as “essence”, “being”, “life”, “truth”, etc. Thus, St. John of Damascus, referring to the Areopagitica, writes: “God is the cause and beginning of everything; the essence of what exists; the life of that which lives; the mind of that which is reasonable; the mind of what we have mind” (Ibidem). The author of the Areopagitik, linking together the apophatic and cataphatic methods of theology (see Apophatic Theology), points out that the “nameless” God is at the same time a “many-named” God. “He has many names because” because first of all He Himself utters His Divine names: “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3:14), “Life” (cf. John 14:6), “Light” (cf. John 8.12), “God” (cf. Gen. 28.13), “Truth” (cf. John 14.6)” (Areop. DN. 1.6). “God-wise”, i.e. those who philosophize about God, develop this system of Divine names, “borrowing names” from that reality that was produced by the “Cause of everything”, i.e. the Divine First Cause. As a result, such names of God appear as “Good” (cf. Mt 19:17), “God of gods” (Ps 49:1), “Wisdom” (Prov 9:1), “Word” (John 1:1). ), “Strength”, “Mind”, etc. (Ibidem). The system of K. b., according to the Areopagitics, also includes names that are borrowed “from certain divine visions that illuminated initiates or prophets in sacred temples or other places.” This is how the “human, sometimes fiery, sometimes amber forms and appearance given to God” appear. “Those who have seen visions” and who have received revelations “supply” (that is, endow) God and His goodness with various “things full of mysterious meaning” (Ibid. 1.8).

In the system of K. b. another factor is used, related to the fact that man is created in the image of God, and the world around him bears the stamp of the Divine. “All the fathers of the Church...” notes V.N. Lossky in this regard, “see in the very fact of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God an eternal co-construction, an initial harmony between the human being and the Divine being.” Blzh. Augustine, bishop Gipponsky, for example, “seeks to form a concept of God based on our conformity to God, and tries to discover in Him what we ourselves find in our souls... This is a method of psychological analogies, applicable to the knowledge of God, to theology” (Lossky. 1991. P. 87). Similar analogies can be applied when comparing the Creator and the rest of His creation. This method of cataphatic knowledge of God is already suggested by Divine Revelation itself: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament speaks of the works of His hands” (Ps 18:2). God, therefore, reveals Himself both in creation itself and in His providential acts performed in the world He created.

The emergence of a system of cataphatic knowledge of God, according to the Areopagitics, became possible for 2 reasons. Firstly, the existing “stages of being” make it possible to discern in the created world the principle of hierarchy, in accordance with which there are higher and lower hierarchical levels. In this hierarchy, the author of the Areopagitik “contemplates a whole hierarchically constructed ladder of insights along which, so to speak, the enlightening energy of the Divine descends” (Epifanovich 1996, p. 36). Thus, insights reveal God to the world in full accordance with the hierarchical principle of being. Secondly, the system of positive knowledge about God, according to the Areopagitics, is based on the principle of the participation of all creation in God. Expressed by the ap. Paul’s idea that God is close to every person and that He can and should be sought in the world around us, since “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28), is continued in the “Areopagitica”: “... we should sing of eternal Life, from Which life-in-itself and all life comes, and from Which the life inherent in everyone spreads into everything that is involved in life... Divine Life-in-itself revives and makes substantial; and all life and vital movement come from Life, all life and every beginning of all life that is superior” (Areop. DN. 6. 1). In another place, the author of the Areopagitik notes: “And being itself, if I may say so, has the power to be from the super-essential Power” (Ibid. 8.3). God's participation in His creation makes the latter, as it were, related to the Creator. In the being, life and movement that flows from God, man can cognize Him and thereby form a system of statements about God.

Such a system, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, is determined primarily by natural law, according to which the existing world lives and develops (Greg. Nazianz. Or. 28.6), as well as by Divine providentialism (Ibid. 14.33). The natural law laid down at the foundation of the world, which allows one to infer “from what is visible and well-ordered” about the Author of everything, and the Divine providential acts that prevent world chaos and preserve cosmic order, elevate the human mind to cataphatic contemplation of the Creator of the Universe.

The system of cataphatic knowledge about God developed gradually. In Old Testament times, its formation took place mainly through prototypes and symbols, although even then a select few (for example, Moses) “could see the Divine light in its reality without symbolic intermediaries” (Meyendorff 1997, p. 265). Reflecting on the symbolic content of the tabernacle of Moses, St. Gregory Palamas writes: “That tabernacle was, according to the word of the saints, Christ, the power of God and God’s hypostatic wisdom (1 Cor 1.24), immaterial and uncreated by nature,” symbolically designated through the Mosaic tabernacle. Having entered into divine darkness, Moses “saw and materially described not only the immaterial tabernacle, but also the very hierarchy of God’s leadership and everything connected with it, which he presented materially and variegatedly in accordance with the piety of the law. The tabernacle and everything inside the tabernacle, the pious service and everything related to it are material symbols, the veils of the contemplations of Moses accomplished in darkness” (Greg. Pal. Triad. II 3.55). After the Incarnation, this “super-rational knowledge”, once granted to Moses alone, belongs to “all who believe in Christ in general” (Ibid. II 3.66).

With the Incarnation of God, all Old Testament prototypes and symbols that had a messianic meaning became a thing of the past. So, according to St. Gregory Palamas, in the Transfiguration there was not a symbolic, but a real, energetic appearance of Christ in glory. And although, following St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas “agrees in a special sense to apply the term “symbol” to the Tabor light” (Meyendorff. 1997. P. 266), however, he attaches symbolic meaning to light not as uncreated energies, since the latter are not a symbol, but Divine reality, but as “to the glory of God, which will be revealed in the future” (Greg. Pal. Antirrh. 5. 8. 34 // ΓΠΣ. 1970. Τ. 3. Σ. 313).

In the Incarnation, God revealed himself as a Trinity of Divine Persons, simultaneously revealing the way of Their existence. For example, cataphatic system prp. John of Damascus has his origin in Christ. triadology. “God,” he writes, “is called Mind and Reason, and Spirit, and Wisdom, and Power, as the author of this and as immaterial, and as the Performer of everything and the Almighty... And each of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity is spoken of in the same way and in exactly the same way ... For every time I think about one of the Hypostases, I understand Her as a perfect God, a perfect Essence; When I unite and count the three Persons together, I understand Them as one perfect God. For the Divinity is not complex, but in Three perfect Persons It is one perfect, indivisible and uncomplicated” (Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. I 12). Next, Rev. John resorts to the “analogy of names,” using it to reveal the cataphatic triadology: “When I think about the relationship of the Hypostases among themselves, I understand that the Father is the essential Sun, the Source of goodness, the Abyss of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity; The source that gives birth and produces the good hidden in Him. So, He is the Mind, the Abyss of the mind, the Parent of the Word and through the Word the Producer of the Spirit, which reveals Him; The Father has no other word, wisdom, power, desire, except the Son, Who is the only Power of the Father, predetermining the creation of all things, as a perfect Hypostasis, born from a perfect Hypostasis as He Himself, Who is the Son, knows and is called. The Holy Spirit is the power of the Father, revealing the hidden things of the Divine.” The Father is the "Source and Cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit"; The Son is “Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Radiance, Image of the Father”; The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of the Father, as proceeding from the Father” (Ibidem).

In the context of the Incarnation of God, St. also builds his cataphasis. Maxim the Confessor. Therefore, the Divine Logos is at the center of his theological system. According to Rev. Maxim, the Logos revealed himself in His creative act and in the Incarnation “with His energies, or ideas” (Epifanovich. 1996. P. 57), simultaneously revealing both the mystery of the Holy Trinity and “the mystery of creation, providence and judgment” (Ibid. P. 58). Christology in St. Maxima ranks in the K. b. system. central place, because it is in Christ that the true knowledge of God is revealed (cf.: “No one has ever seen God; the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” - John 1.18).

With the help of K. b. Virtually all systems of Christ were compiled. creeds, all christ. dogmatics and all doctrinal documents of the Church, starting with the Nicene-Constantinople Creed.

Along with the apophatic theology of K. b. in the patristic tradition it also acts as a path to knowledge of God. It consists of 2 components: the knowledge of God from the world He created and from the Revelation of God about Himself.

There is numerous evidence that the truth about God is really present in creation, which is revealed by St. Scripture: “... His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been visible from the creation of the world through the consideration of creation...” (Rom 1:20). “Consideration of creations” is a process of the so-called. natural knowledge of God. It is based on the ability of the human mind to find “traces” of God in the world He created. Such knowledge is available to everyone; it does not depend on Divine Revelation. Him, as stated by the ap. Paul, even pagans can have it. It is mainly intellectual in nature, although there is also sensory perception in it. Within the framework of K. b. it must undoubtedly be present, as evidenced by the call of St. Paul to seek God in the world around him, although the axiological status of such knowledge is not decisive, because true knowledge of God is not the accumulation of information about Him, but union with Him.

The knowledge of God from Revelation represents the next stage of cataphatic knowledge of God, at which a person learns that God exists (Exodus 3.14), the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. John 14.6), Love (cf. 1 John 4 8), Light (cf. John 8:12), etc. However, revealing Himself in this way, God remains absolutely transcendental to His creation. Even having united with man in the Incarnation, He remained hidden by God. Therefore, all the names of God, borrowed from Revelation, and even those with which God Himself calls Himself, although they are means of cataphatics and bring people closer to God, nevertheless cannot reveal to them the Divine nature. In the created world there are no such concepts, names and definitions with the help of which one could comprehend the nature of God. Therefore, cataphatic ideas about God are not an end in themselves. They are only a means leading to spiritual contemplation and speculation. Accordingly, K. itself. should not be confined within the framework of intellectualism, for God is always known “in personal communication” (Lossky 1991, p. 204), and not in the process of discursive thinking.

Between the cataphatic path of knowledge of God and the apophatic path there is not a dialectical opposition, but an antinomic unity. Both this and other paths are never used in Orthodoxy. traditions independently of each other. The autonomous use of each of them is fraught with danger to the very essence and content of theology. When they are used in unity with each other, then K. b. saves apophatic theology from the danger of theological agnosticism, and apophatic theology saves K. b. from the danger of objectification of God and anthropomorphism, so that the true concept of God remains constant and intact (see: Μαρτζέλος. 2003).

Lit.: Epifanovich S. L. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology. K., 1915. M., 19962; Egan H. Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticisms // Theological Studies. 1978. Vol. 39. N 3. P. 399-426; Hossfeld F.-L. Du sollst dir kein Bild machen: Die Funktion des alttestamentlichen Bilderverbots // Trierer theol. Zschr. 1989. Bd. 98. N 2. S. 81-94; Lossky V.N. Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic theology. M., 1991; Matsoukas NA Teologia dogmatica e simbolica ortodossa. R., 1996; Meyendorff I., prot. Life and works of St. Gregory Palamas. St. Petersburg, 1997; Μαρτζέλος Γ. Δ. Κατάφαση και απόφαση κατά την Ορθόδοξη Πατερική Παράδοσην // Εισηγήσεις μ 2003/2003. Θεσσαλονίκη, 2003. Σ. 273-288.

M. S. Ivanov

PART TWO. ABOUT GOD IN HIMSELF SECTION I. BEING, ESSENCE AND PROPERTIES OF GOD

The question of the reliability of our ideas about God is not only a theoretical question, it is also a question of faith (trust) - on the one hand, trust in the Holy Scriptures and, on the other, in the spiritual experience of the Church, the experience of the saints. Holy Scripture clearly says that the properties and names of God are not just some fictions that arise in our minds, but that there is some objective reality behind them.

Moreover, our reason and religious experience require us to recognize that Divine simplicity is not an indifferent and meaningless whole. Rather, on the contrary, they testify that God, being the most perfect Being, must contain within Himself the fullness of all qualities and perfections in their highest and infinite form.

If we admit that in God there is no real difference between a single essence and numerous properties, then, taking into account the fundamental impossibility of knowing the Divine essence, we will have to admit that we generally cannot have any objective and reliable knowledge about God, all our ideas about Him turn out to be only only a form of finite thinking about a transcendent Being, which does not contain anything corresponding to the Divine Being itself. This position undoubtedly has destructive consequences for theology as a science, which in this case is deprived of its objective basis. After all, if all the names and concepts through which we express our knowledge of God are only rational ideas conditioned by our emotions that arise in a person in the process of religious life, then theology actually turns into just a way of systematizing religious experience, regardless of the question of its reliability.

It is obvious that the solution to the second of these questions is impossible without a clear answer to the first of them.

For a better understanding of how the Eastern Fathers resolved the question of the relationship of the Divine properties to God Himself, it is first advisable to consider how this problem was solved in the Latin West. Blazh. Augustine was one of the first to try to explain how in God there is in internal unity that which we think of in a fragmented and plural form. By blessed Augustine, in God, “(what is thought) in relation to properties, the same must be thought in relation to substance. Therefore, it cannot be said that God is called spirit in relation to substance, and good - in relation to properties; He is called the same and others in relation to substance... For God, to be is the same as to be strong, or to be wise, and that would whether you spoke of His simple plurality or plural simplicity, this will designate His substance... That is why we say the same thing whether we call God eternal, or immortal, or incorruptible, or unchangeable. So, when we say about God that He is a Being possessing life and intelligence, then we also express that He is wise”235.

According to blessed Augustine, “in God, as an absolutely simple and primary Being, the essence must be identical with its properties, actions and manifestations...”236.

“A distinctive feature in the teaching of Blessed. Augustine on the knowledge of the Being of God stands in connection with the fact that in his system there is no place for the idea of a real difference between the essence of God and its powers. The powers of God are the same as the essence of God... His essence is identical with His properties... If the essence of God is identical with His properties, then it does not rise above them as an absolutely indefinable being... Consequently, it can be as cognizable as cognizable and its properties"237.

The Eastern Fathers, unlike the blessed one. Augustine, did not proceed from the philosophical idea of an absolutely simple Divine essence, but primarily from the data of Divine Revelation, in which God reveals Himself as the Trinity. Therefore, in the East, God was not identified with His essence, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, God is “above essence”238. In polemics with Eunomius, the Great Cappadocians developed the doctrine of the unknowability of the Divine essence and the possibility of knowing God by His actions (energies). The Cappadocians believed that from an examination of the various Divine actions in the world it should be concluded that they must have an objective basis in God239, that “the basis for them is in God Himself, in His various manifestations, actions, and relationships with us”240. Such foundations are Divine properties, which among the Cappadocians are often called Divine powers or abilities. These forces (properties) are named according to the corresponding energies241. Many forces correspond to many names with the help of which a person expresses his knowledge of God242. In accordance with His powers, God is called wise, omnipotent, good, blessed, Savior, Judge, etc.243 However, none of these names shows “the Divine nature itself, but ... something related to nature”244. Holy Basil the Great wrote: “We have studied the difference in actions; but through this understanding of actions we are still in no way able to cognize the very nature of the Acting One... something else is an essence, the expression of which has not yet been found.”245.

Holy Gregory the Theologian states: God is known “not by reasoning what is in Himself, but by reasoning what is around Him”246. According to the Eastern Fathers, every cataphatic property “does not mean anything essential, but shows... something accompanying His nature (τί τῶν παρεπομένων τῇ φύσει) or His action... Goodness, righteousness, holiness and the like accompany nature, and do not express the essence itself "247. These properties do not constitute the essence of God and taken together: “These powers... do not constitute... together... the existence of God: He is their creator, and does not Himself consist of them; for what exists with God is not His essence, but He Himself is the essence of everything that is with Him.”248

Thus, in the theology of the Eastern Fathers, a clear distinction is made between the unknowable essence and the inherent forces (properties) accompanying it. Forces will follow essence, and energies, in turn, will follow forces249. At the same time, energy as a part of the force, manifested in action, is accessible to human knowledge, but the forces themselves are only partially knowable and are, as it were, darkness for the soul250.

Recognition of the plurality of powers (properties) in God did not mean at all for the saints. fathers of introducing any complexity into the Divine being. Unlike Bla. Augustine, Eastern authors did not consider cataphatic properties as attributes of the Divine essence, the absolute unity of which with the essence must be rationally justified in the name of the concept of Divine simplicity.

Holy Gregory Palamas wrote: “God... is able to make wise and makes wise, using this ability... but He does not have wisdom as a quality (ὡς ποιότητα), but only as energy”251. Thus, for St. Gregory, the properties of God are not abstract concepts related to the Divine essence, but the dynamic abilities of God to manifest Himself externally in one way or another, characterizing God as a freely rational Being, but not defining His essence252. This understanding of the Divine properties also occurred among the Cappadocians. Holy Gregory of Nyssa explained that from a work of art we do not learn the essence of the author, but only get an idea of his talent, skill, and knowledge253. However, it is obvious that these ideas are characteristics of the artist as a person, but do not convey knowledge about his essence, since they are not part of its definition.

St. the fathers were convinced that the recognition of the plurality of properties in God does not contradict the unity of God and does not introduce any division into the Divine being. According to Sschmch. Irenaeus of Lyons, God “is all feeling, all spirit, all thought, all mind, all hearing, all eye, all light and all source of all good”254. After more than a thousand years, he is holy. Gregory Palamas explains this idea in more detail: “Grace is not a part of God, and Wisdom is another, and Greatness or Providence is another part, but He is entirely Goodness, entirely Wisdom, entirely Providence, and entirely Greatness; for being one, He is not divided, but the whole possesses as a property of each of these energies and reveals Himself entirely, being present and acting in each in a single, simple and indivisible manner.

Rev. had similar thoughts. John of Damascus: “The Divinity is simple and has one simple and good action... Divine radiance and action, being one, simple and inseparable, remains simple even when it diversifies in the types of benefits imparted to individual beings...”256

In other words, God is not divided according to the number of abilities (powers) inherent in Him, but is completely present in each of His abilities and in each energy. Commenting on the above words of St. Gregory Palamas, Protopres. John Meyendorff says that by manifesting Himself outwardly according to different abilities, God “in His omnipotence and free condescension, actually imposes on Himself a really different mode of existence.”

257.

Holy Gregory of Nyssa, to explain the relationship between God and His abilities, cited as an analogy the human mind, which has various abilities, but at the same time remains one and indivisible258.

This analogy, which is undoubtedly successful, is still, like all analogies, relative. Thus, in relation to a person, we can say that the human mind is inherent, for example, with the ability to understand. However, it can hardly be argued that understanding is mind. In relation to God, both statements are equally fair. We can say that God has intelligence, wisdom, love, and at the same time He is

Reason, all of it
is
Wisdom, all of it
is
Love. According to St. Gregory Palamas, “every Divine power and every Divine energy is God Himself”259.

Thus, the teaching of the Eastern Fathers about the relationship of the cataphatic properties of God to God Himself can be reduced to the following basic provisions:

. The divine properties and names with the help of which we express knowledge about God are not only our subjective ideas, they have an objective basis in God Himself;

. The Divine properties, partly accessible to human knowledge, differ both from the most inaccessible and unknowable Divine essence, and from each other;

. Divine names, denoting Divine powers (abilities), characterize God as a freely intelligent Being, but do not define His essence;

. God is wholly present in each of His abilities (powers) and in each of His actions, therefore, despite the multiplicity of properties, in God there is neither complexity nor division, but only God-appropriate difference without fusion and division, which cannot be fully expressed through categories simplicity and complexity.

Orthodox theology, in accordance with Divine Revelation and the spiritual experience of ascetics of piety, proceeds from the fact that the properties of God that we name are real properties that exist in God Himself, regardless of our thoughts about Him or His revelation in the world. Of course, our ideas about God are very imperfect: We see [God] as if through a glass darkly, darkly

(1 Cor. 13:12).
Such knowledge can be likened to the idea of an object based on the contemplation of the shadow that it casts: to the extent that the shadow of an object corresponds to the object itself, to the extent that our idea of God corresponds to His essence. But although our idea is imperfect and rather conditional, nevertheless this knowledge is quite sufficient for us to communicate with God and achieve salvation. Holy Basil the Great speaks about it this way: “Many and different names, taken in each person’s own meaning, constitute a concept (about God - O.D.
), of course, very dark and meager in comparison with the whole, but sufficient for us.”260.

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The divine essence is incomprehensible to the mind. Cataphatic and apophatic methods in theology are two ways of knowing God. Apophatic theology is mystical (mysterious), while cataphatic theology ascends from human reason to God, i.e. from Divine actions in the world. The path of cataphatic theology is not opposed, but leads to an apophatic knowledge of God.

1. Apophatic theology - (Greek apophatikos - negative). According to apophatic theology, the transcendental (Latin transcendens - going beyond) God can be expressed only through negative definitions, which interprets the knowledge of God as “sacramental theology”, leading “beyond the limits of light ... the sacraments of theology tear away the darkness of the mysterious theology, which exceeds all light.”

Apophatic theology has a very long history. In Greek philosophical theology, one of the first was Xenophanes : “ There is only one God, the greatest among gods and people, not like mortals either in appearance or consciousness.”

Plato , trying not to attribute to the gods any human passions in the description of the divine principle, in the Phaedrus the “supracelestial region” is described as “colorless and formless and intangible, the truly existing essence of the soul, visible only to the royal mind.”

Aristotle comes to the form of all forms, which has as its content only itself, thinking, thinking, the first mover, constituting both the source of all movement and its subject, as universal desire and love. This form is generally the deity, depicting him as the first mover. In the tones of “apophatic theology,” Aristotle writes: “It is clear that there is an eternal, immovable, separate from the sensible and independently existing essence. But it has also been proven that this essence cannot have magnitude, but is indivisible and indivisible. For it sets in motion infinite time, and nothing limited has unlimited power. But since every magnitude must be limited or unlimited, on this basis it cannot have a limited magnitude, and an unlimited magnitude does not exist at all.”

Plotinus argues that in verbal expressions it is impossible to enclose the infinite One in concepts that, by defining It, limit it, writes: “The One is all and at the same time none of the beings.”

In the Neoplatonic tradition, Dionysius the Areopagite writes: “And the one thing that exceeds thought is incomprehensible to any thought... it surpasses every word and all knowledge and remains above any mind and essence, embracing everything that exists, uniting, combining and seizing in advance, while itself being completely incomprehensible for everything , not perceivable by feeling, imagination, judgment, name, word, touch, or knowledge.”

Philo of Alexandria represents negative theology in a rather decisive form. “Any qualitative certainty would introduce a limitation into the Divinity.” Philo calls God τό άποιον - qualityless, pure being and not having any specific attribute. Philo writes: “God is inaccessible to our knowledge, except by being; for only existence, that’s what we know about it, except existence - nothing.” “A person can know about God not what he is, but only that he is.”

Apophatics in Christian theology.

Christian theology was created by the Cappadocians, Antiochians and Alexandrians. The Cappadocians and Antiochians accepted the literal meaning of the books of Holy Scripture, and representatives of the Alexandrian school developed a tradition of allegorical interpretation of Holy Scripture.

Alexandrian school: Clement of Alexandria, the founder of the Alexandrian school, argued: “Indeed, what name should we call Him who is unborn, has no differences in itself, no definite form, no individuality, no number ... sometimes we call Him in such expressions as, As the One, Good, Spirit, Existing, Father, God, Creator, Lord, we do not use them as His name, (but) ... we resort to the help of these beautiful words only due to a difficult situation, in order to beware of other names that could to be humiliated by the Eternal.

Origen, in his first book On Elements, emphasizes the transcendence and incomprehensibility of God: “Having refuted, as far as possible, every thought about the corporeality of God, we affirm ... that God is incomprehensible and inestimable.”

Cappadocians

Basil the Great states that “of the Names said about God, some show what is in God, and others, on the contrary, what is not in him. For in these two ways, that is, by denying what is not, and confessing what is, a kind of imprint of God is formed in us.” “The essence of God for human nature is unthinkable and completely ineffable.”

Gregory the Theologian in his “sermon on theology” says: “as I reason, it is impossible to speak, and to understand (God) is even more impossible. ..."

Gregory of Nyssa: “God cannot be embraced either by name, or by thought, or by any other comprehending power of the mind; He is above not only human, but also angelic and all worldly comprehension - ineffable, ineffable, above all meaning in words; has only one name, which serves to recognize His own nature, namely, that He alone is above every name.”

Dionysius the Areopagite in “On the Divine Names” develops the main idea in affirming the absolute transcendence and unknowability of the Divine, the mind can and should follow the apophatic path, always using glorification in theology, combining concepts with the prefixes above-, above-, super-, non-, without -, self-, self-, (super-essential being; super-divine divinity, super-good good, flaming self-deification). According to Dionysius the Areopagite, the only statement that is consistently present in statements about God and His definitions is a single, all-dividing, unconditional NOT - absolute NOT: “... God is not a soul and not a mind, .. He is not a mind, .. He is neither number nor measure, neither great nor small, neither equality nor inequality, neither likeness nor dissimilarity; He neither rests nor moves nor grants peace; has no power and is neither power nor light; does not have existence and is neither being, nor essence, nor eternity, nor truth, nor kingdom, nor wisdom, nor one, nor unity, nor deity, nor goodness, nor spirit - in the sense as we imagine it, nor sonship, neither paternity, nor anything at all that can be known by us or other (intelligent) beings. He is neither anything that does not exist, nor anything that exists, and neither the existing can know Him in His being, nor does He know the being of the existing, since for Him there are no words, no names, no knowledge; He is neither darkness nor light, nor error nor truth; in relation to Him, neither positive nor negative judgments are completely possible... (He) is beyond all that exists—infinitely.”

Maximus the Confessor believed that negative theology is the basis of positive theology. We know God only to the extent that He reveals himself to us, but the very essence of God remains incomprehensible to man: “God is everything and nothing, and above all.” Maxim reasoned as follows: all thinking presupposes multiplicity or, more precisely, duality: the thinking, which corresponds to a certain energy of thought and the essence and object of thought. But there is no room for this division in God.

The apophatic method in Christian theology was also used:

- John of Damascus, who spoke of God as the One who is above the light,

— Gregory Palamas, who distinguished between the unknowable essence and manifested energy in God,

— I.S. Eriugene, who argued that nothing that exists or does not exist can express God’s essence,

- Nicholas of Cusa, who defined God as the One who is not this and that, who is not here and there, who is, as it were, everything, but at the same time nothing of everything,

— M. Eickhart, who understood God as the pure One into which we must plunge from being into Nothingness,

— J. Boehm, who expressed God as groundlessness (Ungrund).

Kant made a fundamental criticism of rationalistic theology, because for this theology, everything is provable, everything is understandable, and, therefore, everything is immanent to reason. For Kant, God is the inaccessible, transcendent, NOT of created, human self-consciousness.

2. Cataphatic theology uses positive (affirmative) statements, designations, attributes, because considers this method justified in view of the analogy of created existence.

Anselm of Canterbury kept within the limits of Catholicism and was imbued with the conviction that faith in itself excludes all doubt, and demanded that we move from faith to knowledge. In his Monologue, Anselm proves the existence of God on the basis of the existence of goods, which must have a cause in the form of the highest good, the highest essence, the highest individual spirit, i.e. God, and expresses that all the truths of doctrine can be deduced by reason, without reference to the authority of Scripture. Here Anselm chooses a general place: “If someone .. does not believe, denies one nature, the highest ... can be convinced of (all) this with the help of reason (solaratione), even if he has an average mind.” The author rarely uses the word “God”. In his “Proslogion” Anselm ascends from human reason to God, from the logic of thinking of the mind to the proof of the existence of God and discovers one undoubted argument in favor of the existence of God, using the formula “that than which a greater cannot be imagined”: “.. something ... exists and in the mind, and in reality... exists so truly that it cannot be imagined as non-existent... Therefore, if that which a greater cannot be imagined can be imagined as non-existent, then that which a greater cannot be imagined is not that which a greater cannot be imagined introduce; contradiction. This means that something greater than which cannot be imagined exists so truly that it cannot be imagined as non-existent.”

Thomas Aquinas borrows his metaphysics almost entirely from Aristotle and says that since God is eternal, He is immovable; since in God there is no passive potentiality, God is pure actuality, pure action, therefore God never passes away, He is incorruptible. Since God is simple and one, therefore He has no complexity, therefore He is not a body. According to Thomas Aquinas, human intellect corresponds to things in their internal structure and essence. And therefore in knowledge he can become identical with things and be involved in their essence, thus, through our knowledge of creation we can come to some knowledge about God: “the statement “God exists” is not self-evident to us, but needs more to us through things known, although less obvious in nature, namely, through consequences ... there is a connection between the absolute Being and creation, which consists in the fact that both exist ... the agent must be connected with that in which he acts, moreover, at the very moment of action and through some force.” Thomas rejects the idea of directly innate knowledge of God and formulated for the human intellect five arguments for the existence of God: the first unmoved mover (“actus puras”), the first cause (“ens a se”), absolute necessity, absolute perfection, and finally, the highest reason.

History of apophatic theology

The concept of “Apophatic theology” was first used in the “Areopagitica” of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. Introducing this term into the Christian theological lexicon, St. Dionysius sought to emphasize the incommensurable superiority of the uncreated Deity over the world he created. In accordance with the teachings of Dionysius, true knowledge of God includes the “path of negations” or “knowledge of God through ignorance,” since the inexhaustible fullness of Divine life cannot be fully expressed in the language of created categories and images. As a result, the theologian must apply the method of excluding all created attributes and analogies to reveal the Divine life that surpasses created reason, and also use superlatives in the categories used (for example, “super-being”, “super-goodness”). Being above all created being, God is inaccessible not only to sensory, but also to mental knowledge.

However, despite the fact that God is unknowable by sensory perception or thought, Dionysius believes that he is knowable mystically.
This requires an ascetic path of purification, expressed in “detachment” from all things. A Christian must abstract himself from all knowledge and overcome sensory and mental images. In the process of internal concentration and “entering into oneself,” the Christian ascetic enters the sacred darkness of “ignorance” and “silence.” At the same time, his apophatic ignorance of God does not at all become an absence of knowledge. It is transformed into perfect knowledge, incommensurable with any partial knowledge. This knowledge is a direct mystical knowledge of the Divine, in which the soul of a Christian is touched by Divine grace, the Christian ascetic “feels the Divinity”, contemplates the uncreated Light. By uniting with God, a Christian achieves deification, which is the true knowledge of God, carried out without human words and concepts by the action of the Divine Himself. The method of Dionysius itself is similar to the methods of meditative knowledge that are practiced in Buddhism and a number of other religious movements of the East. "Mu" sign for negation in Japanese and Korean in cursive form."
It should be noted that we find examples of apophatic theology not only in Dionysius. The apophatic method finds its meaning in philosophical and religious systems that postulate the existence of an Absolute beginning of the world. One can find features of apophatic theology in a wide variety of theological and philosophical systems, where the transcendental Absolute plays a crucial role: in Buddhism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, etc. Apophaticism is a characteristic feature of Plato’s teaching about ideas, which Plato sharply contrasts with all their sensory similarities and reflections . Sensible things are necessarily changeable and transitory, but ideas are not subject to any change or transformation, they are completely identical and are eternal entities, always equal to themselves. Ideas about the fundamental unknowability of ultimate reality also appear in ancient Greek philosophy, in particular, the Neoplatonist Plotinus calls the One “nothing.” The peculiarity of the apophatism of the Neoplatonic tradition is that, trying to comprehend God, it rejects the properties belonging to being, not because of the absolute unknowability of God, but because the sphere of being, even at the highest levels, is necessarily plural and does not have the absolute simplicity of the One.

A striking example of apophatic theology in the proper sense is given by Philo of Alexandria, whose worldview contradictorily combined the Old Testament faith in the One God and the desire to express it in Greek categories. philosophy. Those who strive to cognize the Beginningless One with the help of created things go from bottom to top, as if along some heavenly staircase, by means of reflection ascending from deeds to the Creator. These people, says Philo, are similar to those who want to know the nature of the monad through the dyad. Therefore, philosophical knowledge can only lead a person to the recognition of the existence of God. God is absolutely simple and therefore incomprehensible to discourse. One can approach the understanding of what God is only by denying what He is not. Any qualitative certainty would introduce a limitation into the Divinity, and therefore Philo calls God a qualityless, pure being and not having any definite attribute.

A clearly apophatic doctrine was proclaimed in the ancient Indian Upanishads, the Absolute in them is understood as “not this, not this”: Neti neti. Buddha refused to answer some metaphysical questions - the “fourteen unanswered questions” (the existence of the soul, the nature of nirvana, etc.), which Raymond Panikkar interprets as apophaticism. According to the ancient Chinese texts of Taoism, the Tao has no name and no form.

In Judaism and Kabbalah, apophatic theology is considered a method of revealing the main aspect of God: Ein soph. When sending down the commandments to Moses, God is hidden by a thick cloud (Ex. 20:18), and one of the thirteen principles of Judaism according to Maimonides states that “He has no likeness at all.” In Jewish Kabbalah, before Isaac Luria, there was no tradition of depicting the glyph of the Tree of Life, since any depiction was believed to lead to a misunderstanding of divinity. In Kabbalah there is the concept of veils of negative existence - Non-manifestations of God, about which it is impossible to say anything or even think. The first of them is Ein - this word means “Nothing”. In addition, the word “El” - God - can also be read as “al” - denial, prohibition, “nothing”.

The Arabic-Islamic name for apophatic theology is “al-lahutu-s-salbi.” The main supporters of the negative methodology and opponents of anthropomorphic ideas about God in Islam were the Sufis.

Vladimir Solovyov resorts to apophatic theology in his work “The Concept of God (in defense of Spinoza’s philosophy).”

Apophatic (negative) and cataphatic (positive) properties of God

Lecture 3. The concept of the Creed. The doctrine of God, His essence and energies. God as Creator of the World

Today we will slowly begin to talk about what all Orthodox Christians sing about at the Divine Liturgy in the so-called. "Creed". The Creed is a prayer book that contains all the basic provisions and dogmas of the Orthodox Church. This doctrine is stated in the Creed in a brief but very precise form. It was compiled in the 4th century by the fathers of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils . It consists of twelve provisions, or members. There were other Creeds in the Ancient Church, but they were associated primarily with catechesis and baptism. With the emergence and strengthening of heresies (false teachings about God), it was necessary to draw up a more complete and dogmatically impeccable confession of faith, which could be used by the entire Universal Church.

The word "symbol" comes from the Greek verb, which means "to connect", "to hold together." Initially, the meaning of this word is this: when two Hellenes, people close to each other, were forced to part for a while, they took some small object, for example a coin, and divided it in half along a complex trajectory. And if subsequently one of them had to tell the other something important, then he called a servant, handed him half of this item and sent him to his old acquaintance. The servant, upon arriving at his destination, presented half of the “symbol”, and if it exactly matched the other half, this meant that the messenger could be trusted. Thanks to such a symbol, after many years, once familiar people or even their descendants could identify each other.

Subsequently, the word “symbol” acquired many other meanings, but all of them have something in common: there is always a moment of unification, connection in the concept of a symbol . During the Divine Liturgy, the Creed is sung by all Orthodox Christians as an expression of unity in faith, without which joint participation in the Eucharist is impossible.

Before us, on the one hand, is a series of brief, precise theological formulas and a set of vivid, well-remembered images, on the other. We can say that the Creed is closer in genre to a poetic work than to a purely theological work. It is no coincidence that during divine services in the Orthodox Church the Creed is sung. The purpose of the Creed is not only to tell us a certain amount of knowledge about God and His economy, but to elevate our mind and heart to the contemplation of God, to introduce spiritual reality. Therefore, the Creed is not just a doctrinal document, but an integral part of the prayer rule of any Christian.

The fallen world is such that there is always the danger of spiritual substitution. A wonderful example of Christian symbolism is iconography. Every Christian needs to have icons at home and pray in front of them, but if a person does not correctly understand what an icon is, who or what is depicted on the icon, then such icon veneration will not benefit his soul. The same thing can happen with the Creed. If a person reads the Symbol many times a day, but does not correctly understand what it says, then such reading can even cause irreparable harm to his soul. Therefore, our task is to delve into the very inner content of Orthodox dogma, which is contained in the Creed

Beginning of the Creed

The Creed begins with the word “I believe.” Thus, reciting the Creed is a confession of our faith. “Faith is always personal. Everyone must believe for himself; one cannot believe for another. Many people may believe the same thing because of the commonality of their experience, but the commonality of their faith and the unity of their faith must rest on personal confession. That is why in the Orthodox Church the Creed is always pronounced in the first person singular, even during the Divine Liturgy, when hundreds and even thousands of people pronounce it simultaneously. Moreover, confession of faith is necessary not only for the salvation of one’s soul, but also for the teaching and salvation of one’s neighbor.

Doctrine of the Being of God

God, when called one, is of course one not in number, but entirely, one in the sense that there is no other God.” Thus, “one” means the only one of its kind, of which there is no like. By God we understand an absolute being, self-sufficient, not dependent on anything, having no need for anything else for His existence - a being possessing all the fullness of being and perfection. God is one because He is absolute, and He is absolute because He is one. To admit the existence of any other principle of existence different from God, another principle independent of God, which would be greater than Him, equal to Him or less than Him, means thereby denying God the possession of all the fullness of being and perfection, that is in absoluteness.

The Long Catechism affirms the complete inaccessibility of the Divine essence to knowledge, the being of God is “above all knowledge, not only of men, but also of Angels.” The Greek word ousia (essence) is a feminine present participle of the verb eimi (to be) and means participation in being. It must be borne in mind that when the Divine essence is spoken of, what is meant is not the participation of God in being, like everything else, but His being as such: God does not just participate in being, He Himself is being , is the One who has being, the One , To whom existence belongs. Therefore, the patristic formula “super-essential essence” is more accurately expressed about God, pointing to the infinite superiority of the Divine over all created beings. Those. Divine existence and nature is so superior to everything else that even the following expression is appropriate: if God exists, then everything else, as it were, does not exist: in terms of independence, completeness, in terms of our limitations in all senses, we are so different from God that only His existence is true being, in this sense – truly absolute and self-sufficient.

The concept of the essence of something is derived from a set of distinctive properties inherent in all creatures of a given kind. So, in the sense of distinctive properties, the Divine essence is completely unknowable. And yet, we can have some objective knowledge about God and even try to assert something more or less definitely about God. Otherwise, all theology would be nothing more than empty talk. To justify the possibility of having objective knowledge about God, the Holy Fathers used the philosophical concept of “energy” (Greek) - action. Energy means the manifestation of essence (nature) in movement, the ability of nature to reveal its existence outside, to make it accessible to knowledge and involvement.

Divine energies are not created by God, like all other things, they pour out from His impregnable essence eternally, like light emanating from the Sun , but in their origin they are never separated from it. Therefore, participation in Divine actions is participation in God Himself. The doctrine of Divine energies was formulated in detail by St. Gregory Palamas and approved at the Councils of Constantinople in 1341, 1347 and 1351, is in full agreement with Holy Scripture. Ap. Peter says that we must become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).

In accordance with the manifold activities in which God manifests Himself outwardly, the Holy Scripture contains an indication of the various Divine names by which we express our knowledge of God. St. Gregory of Nyssa says: “We express all the concepts of the Divine nature that arise in us in the form of names.”

Apophatic (negative) and cataphatic (positive) properties of God

The method of theology, based on the denial of God of all qualities and properties inherent in created being, of everything that can be rationally known and expressed in words, is called apophatic (negative) . Accordingly, apophatic (negative) properties of God are properties obtained by denying the Divine being the limitations and shortcomings inherent in finite, created being.

However, the subject of theology can be not only the existence of God in His unapproachable essence, but also His self-discovery in actions, thanks to which we can affirm something positively about God. God is not only an absolute essence, but also a freely rational Subject, a Person who deigns to reveal himself to man.

The method of theology based on the knowledge of God through His diverse manifestations is called cataphatic (positive). The properties of God, which we know through Divine actions, are called cataphatic (positive) properties. It should be borne in mind that these properties, neither individually nor collectively, define the Divine essence. According to St. John of Damascus, the fact that we “speak affirmatively about God shows us not His nature, but what pertains to nature ”

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Apophatic and cataphatic methods not only do not deny each other, but, on the contrary, complement each other. St. Basil the Great writes: “Of the names predicated about God, some show what is in God, and others, on the contrary, what is not in Him.
For in these two ways, that is, by denying what is not, and confessing what is, a kind of impression of God is formed in us . Examples of various Divine attributes -

Apophatic (negative):

Originality - God does not come from anything or anyone else, having the necessary conditions for His existence only in Himself.

eternity - God’s dependence on the conditions of time as a form of changeable existence is denied. Concepts such as “before”, “after”, “now” and the like are not applicable to God: He did not “was” and will not “be”, but always IS

in all Its fullness at any moment of our time.

omnipresent - God is not limited by space and does not need any location, and therefore is immeasurable.

immutability is a sign and consequence of originality: God is not changeable either in his essence or in his properties;

Cataphatic (positive) names of God can be divided into two groups:

1. Names denoting positive Divine properties, i.e., eternal divine powers and the corresponding actions of God, such as:

Reasonability, omniscience and wisdom - In a person there is a certain distance between the mind itself, i.e. the ability

knowledge and understanding, and
itself
, or knowledge.
And in God the ability of understanding and understanding itself (knowledge) coincide. This is precisely what determines such a property of God as omniscience . The meaning of this property lies in the very etymology of the term: God knows everything: Himself, and also knows the world throughout its existence. Wisdom in relation to reason and omniscience is a narrower property.
In fact, it means perfect knowledge of goals and means of achieving them. Holiness as a property of God means that God in His aspirations is determined and guided by ideas about one highest good. The very word “holy” – in Hebrew V3;ādôš – literally means “set apart.” When applied to God, this term is understood as an indication of His incommensurability with anything created. But it is typical for the biblical way of thinking to attribute the property of holiness to everything that is in one way or another involved with God - to everything that comes into contact with Him. Therefore, the name of God, the word of God, the law, the temple of God, as well as people who have completely devoted themselves to serving God and doing His will are also holy.

Goodness, love and mercy - The three properties - goodness, love and mercy - are closely related to each other and, in fact, are different aspects of the same property. Love is nothing other than goodness, but in relation to personal beings. When we talk about God’s relationship to the world in general and to impersonal things, we talk about goodness, but when we talk about God’s relationship to beings with personal existence (the Persons of the Holy Trinity, people and angels), then we talk not about goodness, but about love. Mercy is a manifestation of God’s goodness and love for fallen humanity: You have mercy on everyone, because you can do everything, and you cover the sins of people for the sake of repentance (Wisdom 11:24). As a rule, mercy is understood as love of condescension towards those who do not deserve this love. In this aspect, mercy comes close to such a property of God as long-suffering (see: Rom. 2:4, 3:25–26).

Righteousness is closely related to the property of holiness. Because God is holy, He desires perfection for His creation. To achieve perfection, God gives a moral law that leads those who fulfill it to holiness (the law of conscience and the external Law). At the same time, compliance with the law is rewarded, and violation is punished. In the Holy Scriptures, the truth of God can also be understood as Divine energy, which helps a person achieve perfection. The psalmist asks God: Give me life through Your righteousness (Ps. 119:40).

Omnipotence - This property means that God brings to fruition everything that pleases Him without any difficulty or obstacle. No outside force can restrain or hinder His actions; there is nothing external that could hinder the will of God.

All-bliss or all-contentment is the Life of God, this is a harmonious unity, the activity of all the forces of God is in harmony, and none of the forces exceeds the other, for each has a sign of infinity. This is the supreme good. God does not need to strive for something better, more perfect than Himself; love for good in God coincides with its very possession, and therefore, from eternity, God is characterized by unchangeable all-bliss.

As we see, many Divine properties turn out to be some kind of facets, aspects of the same property.

2. Names that characterize God’s relationship to the world and man: Lord, Creator, Savior, Provider, etc.

Thus, in the theology of the Eastern Fathers, a clear distinction is made between the unknowable essence and the inherent forces (properties) accompanying it. Forces will follow essence, and energies, in turn, will follow forces249. At the same time, energy as a part of the force, manifested in action , is accessible to human knowledge, but the forces themselves are only partially knowable and are, as it were, darkness for the soul250.

CATAPHATHIC THEOLOGY

(from the Greek καταφατικός - affirmative) - one of two (along with
apophatic theology
) paths of knowledge of God, which leads to knowledge of the divine attributes.
Although the essence of God is inexpressible with the help of any concept, the Holy Scriptures call God existing, good, love, wisdom, etc. In the treatise of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
“On the Divine Names”, the attribution of positive attributes to God is conceptualized as a certain way of knowing God, different from the emphatic approach and at the same time inextricably linked with it - this is the knowledge of God by his various manifestations and energies. As the Fathers of the Church note, in creation, in God’s providence for the world, the boundless goodness, wisdom and power of the Divine are visible as in a mirror. This revelation of God is accessible to our minds and partly comprehensible in its mysterious content. Understanding the meaning of the existence of created beings, one can ascend to the contemplation of their Creator.

In contrast to the apophatic path leading to mystical union with God, cataphatic theology opens to the Christian’s gaze a ladder of theophany or manifestations of God in the created world. In a certain sense, both cataphatic and apophatic theology can be considered as the same path, but traversed in opposite directions: God descends to man in his energies, man ascends to him through apophatic contemplations that both reveal and hide the divine essence. The most perfect Epiphany is the incarnation of God the Word. “In the humanity of Christ, according to Dionysius, the Supreme One appeared in human essence, without ceasing to be hidden after this phenomenon, or, to put it in a more divine way, without ceasing to be hidden in this phenomenon itself” (MPG, t. 3, col. 1069 B , translated by V.N. Lossky). Moreover, partial theophanies that occur at lower levels hide God in what he is and reveal him in what he is not by nature. In cataphatic theology, the Divine names extracted by ch.o. from the Holy Scriptures, there are a number of steps that serve as support for contemplation. These are not rational concepts which we ourselves formulate and which impart to our rational faculties a positive knowledge of the divine nature, but rather images or ideas which help to direct and transform us to the contemplation of that which surpasses all understanding.

V.P. Gaidenko