Well... It depends on what you mean by this... Either a certain principle, a universal world law... Or a just master who punishes for sin, but rewards for righteousness... Or an experimenter who created the world and observes it , but not interfering in anything, and maybe no longer observing... It’s difficult to say, and it’s unlikely that a person is generally able to understand the essence of God. And what does omniscient Orthodoxy say?

For centuries, the religious thought of mankind, especially Christian thought, has been looking for an answer to the question of what, or rather, Who is God; it often seemed impossible to answer at all. Any attempts at positive definitions turned out to be flawed, so that many thinkers generally considered it only possible to talk not about what God is, but about what He is not. Such uncertainty with such a seemingly fundamental concept is nevertheless quite natural. What prevents us from talking about God is the approximate nature of human language (any language), the incompatibility between God and our experience, and many unsuitable models that have been preserved as cultural heritage.

Cultural stereotypes that exist in modern Russia imply that church doctrine must clearly and clearly answer the question of what God is. In fact, as is often the case with stereotypes, this is a misunderstanding. The teaching of the Church, in particular the dogmatic teaching, was forged in difficult and long disputes not in order to give a positive definition of God, but in order to protect believers from clearly erroneous directions of theological thinking (thinking about God). This is important because knowledge of the Church, in fact, is not so much knowledge about God as knowledge of Him Himself, the experience of a relationship with Him. And this is what in this experience of the Church’s relationship with God lends itself to a positive (cataphatic) formulation:

God exists and is called the nature of all things.

This means that God is the ontological basis of the world (Cosmos, Universe). At the same time, the world is not made of God. The world, including the world of Angels, is based on a certain single material substance. God is Spirit and immaterial. At the basis of God and the world there is no certain single nature from which both God and the world are made or which is inherent in both God and the world. On the contrary, God is the author of the world, and by His actions and their manner (in Greek, energies), and not by His essence, is one with the world. So, the world is one with God in the energetic sense, but different from Him in essence. The nature, basis, character of existence and the very possibility of the world is God. And what is this nature, what is God?

God is love.

And there is nothing in Him except love. What kind of love is this? Love can be different: platonic, physical, for sausage, for the Motherland, and so on. And what is the love of God? This love is sacrificial. Willingness to give oneself for others. Willingness to sacrifice oneself, to give one's life for one's friends. Here is a man throwing himself in front of bullets to protect others. Alexander Matrosov loved his people so much that he rushed to the pillbox and covered the machine-gun nest with himself. God loved the world so much that He went to the cross to save it. For me and for you. For our sake man and our sake for salvation. This is the nature of Divine love.

God is the Savior.

The real history of the world and the life of every person is inevitably poisoned by death, non-existence, which is impossible for a person to accept. God created us for life, and we resist death, although we ourselves are to blame for it ( in a broad sense). God is the One who brings us back to life; on the Cross He shared our suffering and death with us in order to destroy them. To answer the question “Who is God” from the point of view of Christians, it is enough to say that God is the One who, for our sake, conquered our death and gives us participation in His life, eternal and not subject to death. God gives us His life not because we deserve it - “God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Nothing but love for us “forces” Him to do this. And in the face of this sacrificial love of Christ, what comes to the fore is not who God is, but whether we can respond to His love with a similar sacrifice.

God is Trinity.

The coming into the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, according to the word of the apostle. Paul, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9), made me think about Whom the Lord Jesus calls Father, into whose hands He commits the spirit on the Cross? If God Himself calls out “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6) - Who and to whom does this address? Similar questions arose (they could not help but arise among the apostles, Jews and, therefore, strict monotheists) on that day of Pentecost, when God the Holy Spirit dwelt in their hearts.

It is impossible to prove the threefold nature of God in philosophical categories, but it is also impossible to dispute it - it is simply an immutable fact of life, a living reality of human experience, an indisputable truth taken from observable reality. From here the fundamental doctrine for Christianity was formulated about the One God - the Trinity: from God the Father is born God the Son, from God the Father comes God the Holy Spirit. Since the Son was born of the Father, He is not created. Since the Spirit proceeds from a divine source - and the Spirit is not created, and since He is not begotten - He is not the Son. What is the difference between birth and procession, we do not know; we only know that this signifies the difference in the mode of existence of the Divine hypostases. Moreover, in the Trinity there are neither relations of subordination (the divine dignities of the hypostases are equal), nor modalism (when each hypostasis is the mode of a single personality “common to three”).

How to understand the Trinity? The natural way is through the analogy with man, since he is the image of God. Let's consider.
We all know what the spirit of the era is (the spirit of the early Renaissance, for example, or the spirit of the NTR era), although it is not easy to express in a few words. We understand what the spirit of a work of art is. Such is the spirit of a person - something elusive, but definitely emanating from this personality. At the same time, the spirit of a person’s actions can be correctly understood only in the context of the main, final goal in a person’s life, which is determined by his mind (this is how the spirit of a monk who is interested only in soteriological issues differs from a speculator who has made profit the goal of his life). By understanding the spirit of a particular person, we can understand his actions. Further.
The human mind gives birth to thoughts. It is clear that there are no thoughts without the mind that gives birth to them, and a mind without thoughts is not a mind. At the same time, thoughts are not the mind, and the mind is not thoughts. The human spirit, which does not exist in isolation from the goal-setting mind, is not the mind. Mind, thoughts (logos) and spirit, while remaining different realities, constitute the whole person.
This triad is the closest available analogy to the Divine Father, Son (Logos, Word) and Holy Spirit. The divine hypostases are irreducible to one another, exist inseparably and reveal the One God.

The ordinary Western Christian does not understand the trinity. He believes in God in general, believes in the man Jesus, who brought deliverance from sins, and in the Holy Spirit, who is “the source of joy and happiness,” but he does not understand why three hypostases are needed.

Three Persons (Father, Son and Spirit) are not three Gods, and this is not a contradiction, but a paradox, similar to the independence of the speed of light from the speed of a light source with equality of inertial frames of reference or the corpuscular-wave nature of electromagnetic radiation: logically incomprehensible, but in reality observed and confirmed by experimental verification. We don’t know how to explain this, we can only build analogies of varying degrees of strength and quality, but the fact remains a fact. This is where another important fact about God follows:

God is One.

Actually, this does not need comments or explanations; nevertheless, the uniqueness of God was by no means obvious to humanity, and is not obvious to many to this day. God's revelation that He is one and there is no other is the cornerstone of the entire biblical tradition. If you question it, not only Christianity will cease to exist, but also monotheism in general (Judaism, Islam).

Thus, except for the One God, the Creator of heaven and earth, everything else (and everyone else) is created. Among other things, it follows that everything that people consider to be deities, the whole gigantic mythology of polytheism, is at best a delusion. Sometimes this misconception is conscientious, but this does not change the essence of the matter. That is why Christianity cannot be “integrated” into syncretic religious systems; it cannot be “combined” with anything. Such exclusivity has often caused and continues to cause irritation.

God is a person.

The ancients did not know the concept of “personality” in our modern understanding of the word; it was created and comprehended, in essence, only by Christians.

The Greeks at that time used the term prosopon, guise; they thought of personality as a mask put on some faceless substance common to all people. The Romans, on the contrary, used the word persona, person; they primarily meant a unit responsible before the law. Therefore, St. the fathers had to find the word hypostasis, hypostasis, almost devoid of content in the Greek language of the first millennium, and use it in order to get rid of the inadequate words of their contemporary language.

In our time, we call the single and indivisible immaterial essence of a person a person, and each of us can, if not understand, then at least feel what a person is through our own example, because every person is a person, and in this he is like God. A personality is one who has consciousness and will, reason and creative ability, and much more, that is, the owner of these qualities. I am me, as God Himself once told Moses. For modern man, it is important to remember that personality is not limited to rationality alone; It’s not for nothing that the ancients often called it the soul or heart. Personality, moreover, is not “tightly tied” to a specific material carrier (for example, the brain) and is not substantial, that is, it does not consist of anything.

We think of the personality of God in the likeness of our personality, realizing that in fact God is one Person, existing in three hypostases, each of which has a personal character.

God is incomprehensible.

The Being of God is unique, therefore we cannot know him by comparison, by analogy. In addition, we do not have the necessary tools for knowledge of God, for God is transcendental to the world. In addition, God is an infinite being, while the cognizing human mind is limited, and therefore is not able to grasp the immensity.
Aperinoetos, incomprehensible to the mind, incomprehensible and ineffable - this is how Christians call God in the prayer of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. No matter how deeply we penetrate into the mystery of God, we will never be able to claim that we understand everything about Him; God Himself reveals Himself to people not in discursive definitions, not in words and “stories,” but in the living person of Jesus Christ.
In fact, many Christian thinkers implicitly believe that man (in his current sinful state, alienated from God) cannot learn anything about Him except through the Revelation of God Himself. A more radical point of view argues that initially, in God’s plan for man, it is possible for us to know God, and not to know about God. We can say that we cannot speak about God in the third person - “He”, but only in the first person - “You”.
Closely related to the incomprehensibility of God is another key fact of biblical Revelation:

God is different.

God is not part of creation, and creation is not part of God; they are fundamentally alien to each other. Therefore, perhaps, God is incomprehensible to us, because His nature is different from ours and the entire created world. Moreover, it is not obvious that reasoning about the nature of God would be correct... St. the fathers therefore preferred to talk not about nature (Greek physis), but about essence (Greek ousia). The otherness and transcendence of God is what makes the answer to the question “What is God” so long and complex.
When Moses asked God about His name, the Lord gave him the answer “I am who I am.” God is the One who exists, who is unchangeable and who lives regardless of the passage of time. Only God exists unconditionally; everything else was created by Him and exists because such is His will.
It should be noted here that the conditionality of the existence of the created world, which distinguishes it from God, does not mean the predetermination of the course of events in world history. God has given freedom to some of the creatures He created (humans in particular) and takes responsibility for their freedom. Moreover, unconditional existence implies beginninglessness and infinity; according to St. Basil the Great, the other nature of the creature and the Creator means that the creature has a beginning, therefore, will have an end and, in addition, is characterized by variability. Finally, it is important to note that God lives outside of time. In the past, present and future and at all times at once He is the same.

God is the Creator.

Since we somehow experience (feel, experience, realize, etc.) our existence, being, and at the same time believe that only God exists unconditionally (without beginning and without cause), we know about God that He is the Creator. Despite the enormous efforts of science, we are not very close to understanding how He does this; nevertheless, the fact is clear: to the question “Who is God,” we can say that God is the One who freely (without external cause) creates the world out of nothing.

The answer to the question of what God is depends primarily on the adherents of which religious and philosophical worldviews it will be asked. For adepts (followers) of monotheistic religions, the most widespread of which are Christianity, Islam and Judaism, this is, first of all, the Creator of the world and the personification of the Absolute in all its manifestations. For them, one God is the fundamental principle and beginning of all things in the world. Being eternal and unchanging, He is at the same time beginningless, infinite and comprehensible to the human mind only within the limits that He Himself sets.

What is God in the understanding of the pagans?

Each individual person’s idea of ​​God depends not only on the characteristics of the culture and religion of his people, but to a large extent on personal qualities, among which the key ones are spiritual maturity and level of education. It is not enough to just give yourself an answer to the key question “is there a God”; it is also important to have at least some clear idea of ​​what meaning is put into this concept. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand the ways and forms of His influence on the world.

Adherents of polytheism (polytheism), or, as they are commonly called in Christian theology, pagans, believe in several gods at once, each of which, as a rule, is capable of influencing only one aspect of human life.

In the pre-Christian period in Rus', both the highest gods, which included Perun, Mokosh, Dazhdbog, Svarog, Veles and a number of others, and the patron spirits of the clan were revered. There was also a cult of dead ancestors ─ ancestors. The various rituals performed in their honor were aimed, first of all, at ensuring earthly well-being, bringing success, wealth, many children, and also protecting them from the influence of evil spirits, natural disasters and enemy invasions. Belief in God, or rather, in a whole pantheon of gods, was an important component of their lives for pagans. This approach to the perception of deity was characteristic of almost all peoples of the world at the early stage of their development.

Understanding of God in Orthodoxy

Within the framework of Orthodoxy ─ a religious denomination covering the majority of the inhabitants of Russia ─ God is perceived as an incorporeal and invisible Spirit. On the pages of the Old Testament there is evidence that it is not possible for a person to see God and remain alive. Just as the rays of the sun, warming everything earthly, are capable of blinding those who dare to raise their gaze to the shining disk, so the great holiness of the Divine is inaccessible to human contemplation.

God is omnipotent and omniscient. He knows about everything in the world, and even the most secret thought cannot hide from him. At the same time, the power of the Lord is so limitless that it allows Him to do everything for which His holy will is. God, in the Orthodox understanding, is the creator and exponent of all the good that exists in the world, and therefore, when speaking about him, it is customary to use the expression “all-good.”

God is one in three Persons

The main dogma of Orthodoxy is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It contains the statement that the one God has three hypostases (persons), bearing the following names: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. They are not connected to each other, but at the same time they are not separate. This seemingly complex combination can be understood using the example of the sun.

Its disk, shining in the sky, as well as the light emitted by it, and the heat that warms the earth, are essentially three independent realities, but at the same time, they are all unmerged and inseparable components of a single celestial body. Like the sun giving warmth, God the Father gives birth to God the Son. Just as light comes from the sun, so God the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father. Thus, prayer to God is always addressed to all His three hypostases at the same time.

Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross

Another important dogma of Orthodoxy is the doctrine of the sacrifice made on the cross by the Son of God, sent by the Heavenly Father to atone for the original sin once committed by Adam and Eve. Having incarnated into man and united in Himself all his properties, except sin, Jesus Christ, by His death and subsequent resurrection, opened the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven to all adepts (followers) of the Church He created on earth.

According to the Gospel teaching, true faith in God is impossible without the love for one’s neighbor bequeathed by the Savior and without sacrifice. Orthodoxy is a religion of love. The words of Jesus Christ addressed to His disciples: “Love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34), became the main commandment, expressing the greatest humanism contained in the teaching given to people by the Son of God.

Search for truth

Having created man in His image and likeness, the Lord endowed him with reason, one of the properties of which is the ability to critically comprehend everything that happens in the world. That is why for many, the path to religious life begins with the question: “Is there a God?”, and the subsequent path to the salvation of the soul largely depends on how convincing the answer to it is received.

Christianity, like any other religion, is based primarily on blind faith in the dogmas that it preaches. However, over the two thousand years that have passed since the events described in the Gospel, inquisitive minds have not stopped searching for evidence of the existence of God. Many church leaders who lived in different eras and belonged to different Christian denominations, such as Malebranche and Anselm of Canterbury, as well as outstanding philosophers Aristotle, Plato, Leibniz and Descartes, devoted their works to this issue that worries people.

Statements of Thomas Aquinas

In the 13th century, the outstanding Italian theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) tried to answer the question “what is God” and prove the indisputability of His existence. In his reasoning, he relied on the law of cause and effect, considering God as the cause of everything on earth. He formulated the evidence he derived for the existence of God in five points, which he included in a major work called “Summa Theology.” Briefly, they contain the following statements:

1. Since everything in this world is in motion, there must be something that gave this process the initial impetus. It can only be God.
2. Since nothing in the world can produce itself, but is always a derivative of something, we have to admit the existence of a certain primary source, which became the initial link in the subsequent chain of emergence of more and more new realities. This primary source of everything in the world is God.
3. Each thing can have both real existence and remain in unrealized potential. In other words, it may be born, or it may not. The only force that translates it from potentiality into reality should be recognized as God.
4. Since the degree of perfection of a thing can only be assessed in comparison with something superior to it, it is logical to assume the existence of a certain absolute that stands above everything in the world. Only God can be such a height of perfection.
5. And finally, the existence of God is indicated by the expediency of everything that happens in the world. Since humanity is moving along the path of progress, it means that there must be some force that not only determines the right direction of movement, but also creates the necessary prerequisites for the implementation of this process.

The proof that wasn't there

However, along with religious philosophers who tried to find arguments to substantiate the idea of ​​the existence of God, there were always those who pointed out the impossibility of a scientifically based answer to the question of what God is. Prominent among them is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

Contrary to the assertion of Woland, the hero of Bulgakov’s immortal novel “The Master and Margarita,” Kant did not refute the five proofs of the existence of God that he allegedly constructed and did not invent a sixth, this time absolutely irrefutable. On the contrary, all his life he never tired of repeating that in terms of proving the existence of God, no theoretical construction can have any serious scientific justification. At the same time, he considered faith in God useful and even necessary in moral terms, since he recognized the depth and significance of the Christian commandments.

As a result of this approach to the fundamentals of doctrine, the German philosopher was subjected to severe attacks from representatives of the church. It is even known that some of them, in order to express their contempt for the scientist, called his pet dogs after him.

An interesting detail: the legend that Kant, contrary to his views, created the so-called moral proof of the existence of God ─ exactly the one that Woland spoke about on the bench at the Patriarch's Ponds ─ was born by the clerics themselves, who wanted to take revenge on their fierce one in a similar way after death to the enemy.

Religion as the restoration of man's connection with God

At the end of the conversation, it would be appropriate to dwell on the issue of the emergence of religion. By the way, this word itself comes from the Latin verb religare, which means “to reunite.” In this case, we mean restoring the connection with God that was broken as a result of original sin.

Among historians, there are three main points of view regarding the emergence of religion. The first of them is called “religious”. Its supporters are of the opinion that man was created by God and, before his fall, had direct communication with Him. Then it was broken, and now for a person only prayer to God is the only opportunity to turn to his Creator, who reveals Himself through prophets, angels and various miracles.

Religious compromise

The second point of view is “intermediate”. It is a kind of compromise. Relying on modern scientific knowledge and sentiments prevailing in society, its supporters at the same time adhere to the main religious postulate about the creation of the world and man by God. According to them, after the Fall, man completely broke off communication with his Creator and, as a result, was forced to re-look for the path to Him. It is this process that they call religion.

Materialist Point of View

And finally, the third point of view is “evolutionary”. Those who adhere to it insist that religious ideas arise at a certain stage in the development of society and are a consequence of people’s inability to find rational explanations for natural phenomena.

Perceiving them as the rational actions of certain beings more powerful than himself, man created a pantheon of gods in his imagination, attributed to them his own emotions and actions, thereby projecting into his fictional world the features of the society in which he was located. Accordingly, with the development of society, religious ideas became more complex and colored in new ways, progressing from primitive forms to more complex ones.

Who God the Father is is still a topic of discussion among theologians around the world. He is considered the Creator of the world and man, the Absolute and at the same time the triune in the Holy Trinity. These dogmas, together with an understanding of the essence of the Universe, deserve more detailed attention and analysis.

God the Father - who is he?

People knew about the existence of one God the Father long before the Nativity of Christ; an example of this is the Indian “Upanishads”, which were created one and a half thousand years BC. e. It says that in the beginning there was nothing but the Great Brahman. The peoples of Africa mention Olorun, who transformed the watery Chaos into heaven and earth, and on the 5th day created people. In many ancient cultures there is the image of “the highest mind - God the Father,” but in Christianity there is a main difference - God is triune. To put this concept into the minds of those who worshiped pagan deities, the trinity appeared: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

God the Father in Christianity is the first hypostasis. He is revered as the Creator of the world and man. The theologians of Greece called God the Father the basis of the integrity of the Trinity, who is known through His Son. Much later, philosophers called Him the original definition of the highest idea, God the Father Absolute - the fundamental principle of the world and the beginning of existence. Among the names of God the Father:

1. Hosts - Lord of Hosts, mentioned in the Old Testament and in the psalms.
2. Yahweh. Described in the story of Moses.

What does God the Father look like?

What does God, the Father of Jesus, look like? There is still no answer to this question. The Bible mentions that God spoke to people in the form of a burning bush and a pillar of fire, but no one can ever see Him with their own eyes. He sends angels in his place, because man cannot see Him and survive. Philosophers and theologians are sure: God the Father exists outside of time, therefore he cannot change.

Since God the Father never showed himself to people, the Council of the Hundred Heads in 1551 imposed a ban on His images. The only acceptable canon was the image of Andrei Rublev “Trinity”. But today there is also a “God the Father” icon, created much later, where the Lord is depicted as a gray-haired Elder. It can be seen in many churches: at the very top of the iconostasis and on the domes.

How did God the Father appear?

Another question that also has no clear answer: “Where did God the Father come from?” There was only one option: God always existed as the Creator of the Universe. Therefore, theologians and philosophers give two explanations for this position:

1. God could not appear because the concept of time did not exist then. He created it, along with space.
2. To understand where God came from, you need to think beyond the Universe, beyond time and space. Man is not yet capable of this.

God the Father in Orthodoxy

In the Old Testament there is no reference to God from people “Father,” and not because they have not heard about the Holy Trinity. It’s just that the situation in relation to the Lord was different; after Adam’s sin, people were expelled from paradise, and they went over to the camp of God’s enemies. God the Father in the Old Testament is described as a formidable force, punishing people for disobedience. In the New Testament, He is already the Father of all who believe in Him. The unity of the two texts is that in both, the same God speaks and acts for the salvation of humanity.

God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ

With the advent of the New Testament, God the Father in Christianity is already mentioned in reconciliation with people through His Son Jesus Christ. This Testament says that the Son of God was the forerunner of the adoption of people by the Lord. And now believers receive a blessing not from the first hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity, but from God the Father, since Christ atoned for the sins of humanity on the cross. It is written in the sacred books that God is the Father of Jesus Christ, who, during the baptism of Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, appeared in the form and commanded people to obey His Son.

Trying to explain the essence of faith in the Holy Trinity, theologians set out the following postulates:

1. All three Persons of God have the same Divine dignity, on equal terms. Since God in His being is one, then the properties of God are inherent in all three hypostases.
2. The only difference is that God the Father does not come from anyone, but the Son of the Lord was born from God the Father eternally, the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father.

Last update:
29.April.2016, 21:19

God can and must be known. This is a testimony of Orthodoxy. God reveals Himself to His creatures who are capable of knowing Him and who find their true life in this knowledge. God reveals Himself. He does not make up any of the information He communicates about Himself, or some of the information that He communicates about Himself. He reveals Himself to those whom He created in His image and likeness for the specific purpose of knowing Him. All is in Him and for bliss in this infinitely increasing knowledge in eternity.

The divine image and likeness of God, in which people - men and women - are created, according to Orthodox doctrine, is the eternal and uncreated Image and Word of God, called in the Holy Scriptures the Only Begotten Son of God. The Son of God exists with God in complete unity of essence, action and life together with the Holy Spirit of God. We have already encountered this statement in the above words of St. Athanasius. The "Image of God" is the Divine Person. He is the Son and Word of the Father, who exists with Him “from the beginning,” the One in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created, and by whom “all things stand” (Col. 1:17). This is the faith of the Church, confirmed in the Holy Scriptures and witnessed by the saints of the Old and New Testaments: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of His mouth all their power” (Ps. 33:6).

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being. In Him was life, and life was the light of men” (John 1:1-3).

“...in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. This being the radiance of glory and the image of His hypostasis, holding all things by the word of His power...” (Heb. 1:2-3).

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the first begotten of all creation; for by Him all things were created, that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:15-17).

According to the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church, God is not knowable by reason. God cannot be comprehended through the efforts of the mind and logical deductions, although by such means people can be convinced that God must exist. Rather, God is known through faith, repentance, purity of heart and poverty of spirit, love and reverence. In other words, God is known by those who are open to His self-manifestation and self-revelation, who are ready to bear fruit - to recognize His power and action in the world with their lives, whose recognition is always expressed in praise and thanksgiving to God. “He who has acquired pure prayer is a theologian,” says a frequently used saying of the holy fathers. “And the theologian is the one who has pure prayer.” As St. John Climacus wrote, “the perfection of purity is the beginning of theology.”

“The perfection of purity is the beginning of theology. He who has completely united his feelings with God secretly learns His words from Him. But when this union with God has not yet been completed, then it is difficult to talk about God. The Word, co-present with the Father, creates perfect purity, putting death to death by His coming; and when she is killed, the student of theology receives enlightenment. The Word of the Lord, given from the Lord, is pure and endures forever; he who does not know God speaks about Him by guesswork. Purity made his disciple a theologian, who himself affirmed the dogmas of the Holy Trinity” (John Climacus).

Men know God when they preserve the original purity of their nature as spiritual beings, sealed with the uncreated Word and image of the Father, inspired by His Divine Spirit. Or rather, they come to know God when they remove the veil of sin and rediscover their original purity through the good action of God in them and to them through His Divine Word and Spirit. When people live "according to nature" without distorting or perverting their being as a reflection of their Creator, the knowledge of God is their natural action and their most appropriate possession. St. Gregory of Nyssa writes about it this way: “The Divine nature, as it is in itself, according to Its essence, exceeds any rational knowledge, and we cannot approach It or reach It with our reasoning. Man has never shown the ability to comprehend the incomprehensible; and could never invent such a way of thinking as to cognize the incomprehensible... it is clear that the Lord does not deceive when He promises that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8)... The Lord does not say that it is good to know something about God, rather, it is good to have God within you: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. I don’t think that He meant by this that a person who cleanses his soul’s eyes will immediately enjoy the vision of God... this teaches us that a person who cleanses his heart from all earthly attachments and every passionate movement will see the image of the Divine nature in himself. to myself...

All of you are mortal...do not despair that you will never be able to fully achieve the knowledge of God as you could. For even at creation, God gave perfection to your nature... therefore, you must, with your virtuous life, wash away the dirt that has stuck to your heart, so that divine beauty will shine in you again...

When your mind is cleansed from all malice, free from passions, cleansed from all stains, then you will be blessed, because your eye will be pure. Then, being purified, you will be able to comprehend what is not visible to those who are not purified... And what is this vision? This is purity, holiness, simplicity and other shining reflections of God's nature; for only in them is God visible.”

What St. Gregory of Nyssa says here is the traditional teaching of the holy fathers of the Church and is in agreement with what the Apostle Paul wrote at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth untruth. For what can be known about God is obvious to them, because God has revealed it to them. For His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead from the creation of the world, are visible through the consideration of creation, so that they are irresistible. But how, having come to know God, they did not glorify Him as God and did not give thanks, but became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened... And because they did not care to have God in their minds, God gave them over to a corrupt mind - to do indecent things.” (Rom. 1, 18-21, 28).

Those who are pure in heart see God everywhere: in themselves, in others, in everyone and in everything. They know that “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands” (Ps. 18:1). They know that the heavens and earth are filled with His glory (cf. Isa. 6:3). They are capable of observation and faith, of faith and knowledge (see John 6:68-69). Only a madman can say in his heart that there is no God in his heart. And this is because “they became corrupt and committed heinous crimes.” He is not “seeking God.” He "evaded". He doesn't "call out to God." He does not “understand” (Ps. 53:1-4). The psalmist's description of this madman and the reasons for his madness was summed up in the patristic church tradition with the statement that the cause of any human ignorance (ignorance of God) is an arbitrary rejection of God, rooted in proud narcissism.

God is completely incomprehensible in His being, incomprehensible in His essence and unknowable. As if dressed in the impregnable darkness of incomprehensibility. Not only are attempts to depict God in His being unthinkable, but also any definitions cannot embrace and express the essence of God; it is inaccessible to human consciousness, it is the impregnable darkness of the essence of God.

Theology itself can only be apophatic, that is, composed in negative terms: Incomprehensible, Inaccessible, Unknowable. Saint Gregory Palamas, in his defense of the Orthodox teaching about the uncreated light of Tabor, teaches us to immutably distinguish between the divine, completely unknowable essence and the Divinity in His action addressed to the created world, in His providential care for every creature. Palamas teaches to distinguish between the being of God and His divine energies-forces, radiations of grace that sustain the world.

The providential Divine action in the world is accessible to consciousness, cognizable, God addressed to the world, God extending His care, His love, His never-ending care to the world. This is wisdom that arranges everything, the light of the world that enlightens everything, the love of God that fills everything, this is the revelation of God - the manifestation of God to the world. And the world is designed by God in such a way as to perceive and accommodate this divine action, to take on this royal seal, to become entirely the royal property. The ultimate meaning and purpose of everything created is to become God's property.

Monk Gregory (Circle)

According to St. Maximus the Confessor, the “original sin” of people, which, willingly or unwillingly, infects us all is “self-love.” Egocentrism enslaves its owner to mental and physical passions and plunges him into madness, darkness and death. A person becomes blind due to his reluctance to see, believe and bliss in what is given to him - first of all, the words and actions of God, and God Himself in His Word and Spirit, who are in the world. This is precisely what Christ denounced, citing the words of Isaiah, who said regarding those who do not know God that they have eyes, but will not see; ears, but will not hear; and intelligence - but they do not want to understand (Is. 6:9-10).

We must see this clearly and understand it well. The knowledge of God is given to those who want it, to those who seek it with all their hearts, to those who desire it most and who want nothing more than that. This is God's promise. He who seeks will find. There are many reasons why people refuse to seek Him and are unwilling to gain Him; all of them, one way or another, are driven by proud selfishness, which can also be called impurity of heart. As the Holy Scriptures, witnessed by the saints, say, the unclean in heart are blind, because they prefer their wisdom to the wisdom of God and their own ways to the ways of the Lord. Some of them, as the Apostle Paul says, have a “zeal for God,” but remain blind because they prefer their own truth to that which comes from God (see Rom. 10:2). They are the ones who victimize others through the publicity of their madness, which manifests itself in entire corrupt cultures and civilizations, confusion and chaos.

The reduction of the human being to something else, and to something infinitely less than a creation created in the image and likeness of God, intended to be the repository of wisdom, knowledge and Divine dignity itself, is the greatest tragedy. The human person is created to be “God by grace.” This is Christian experience and testimony. But the thirst for self-satisfaction through self-affirmation contrary to reality ended in the separation of human individuals from the source of their existence, which is God, and thus hopelessly enslaved them to the “elements of this age” (Col. 2:8), whose image disappears. Today there are many theories about the human personality that make it everything but the image of God; ranging from the insignificant moments of some mythical historical-evolutionary process or material-economic dialectic to the passive victims of biological, social, economic, psychological or sexual forces, whose tyranny, compared with the gods they supposedly destroyed, is incomparably more ruthless and cruel. And even some Christian theologians give their scientific sanction to the enslaving power of the self-sufficient and self-explanatory nature of “nature,” only thereby increasing its destructive damage.

But you don't have to go this route. Orthodox Christianity, or more precisely, God and His Christ are here to give us a testimony. The opportunity for people to realize the freedom to be children of God is given to them, preserved, guaranteed and carried out by the living God, who brought people into this world, as St. Maximus the Confessor said, by His mercy, which He is by nature... if only they have eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds and hearts to understand.

The idea that God takes revenge and punishes is a widespread and deeply rooted misconception. And a false idea gives rise to corresponding consequences. How many times, I think, have you heard how people are outraged... by God. They rebel against God: “What, am I the most sinful? Why did God punish me?” Either children are born bad, or something burned out, or things go wrong. All you can hear is: “What, am I the most sinful? Here they are worse than me, and they prosper.” They reach the point of blasphemy, curses, and rejection of God. Where does all this come from? From the perverted, pagan-Jewish understanding of God. They just cannot understand and accept that He does not take revenge on anyone, that He is the greatest Doctor, Who is always ready to help everyone who has sincerely realized their sins and brought heartfelt repentance. He is above our insults. Remember, in the Apocalypse there are wonderful words: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).

Let us now listen to what the Holy Scripture says about God-Love:

He commands His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matt. V:45).

For He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked (Luke VI:39).

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

When tempted, no one should say: God is tempting me; because God is not tempted by evil and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But everyone is tempted, being drawn away and enticed by his own lust (James 1:13-14).

So that you... may... understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:18-19).

Alexey Osipov

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko and others.

Who is God from the point of view of the Christian Orthodox religion?

Dear visitor to our site, St. Philaret of Moscow in the Long Catechism speaks about this as follows:

84. IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?

God is everywhere, but heaven there is His special presence, revealed in eternal glory to the blessed spirits; also in temples there is His special presence, gracious and mysterious, reverently cognized, felt by believers and sometimes revealed 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).

Symbol Words: I believe in one (one) God the Father should be understood in the sense of relation to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, because God is one in essence, but trinitarian in persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible.

God is one in three persons. We do not comprehend this inner mystery of the Divine, but we believe in it according to the immutable testimony of the word of God: No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God(1 Cor. 2:11).

Between the Persons of the Holy Trinity difference in that God the Father is not born and does not come from another person; The Son of God is eternally born from the Father; The Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father.

God is called Almighty because He contains everything that exists in His power and in His will.

Who created God?
- Nobody created God. God created the world out of nothing - figure out how to create it out of nothing and who can do it, but the Lord has always been, it’s hard to imagine, you probably won’t be able to, and neither will I, but that’s how it is.
Where does God live?
- Everywhere and nowhere. There is no such hut on chicken legs, no such royal chambers, no such beggar's hut where the whole Lord would dwell. But there is no human heart into which He could not enter. So - everywhere and nowhere.
I was told that God was always there. How can this be, since everything has a beginning?
- Everything except God. Although not everything has a beginning: a circle, for example, has no beginning, or, for example, time - the way we see it here, has neither a beginning nor an end, many other things that you think about, you will suddenly discover that neither beginning nor end is found; When you go through Lobachevsky's geometry, you will find out that there are figures there that have neither beginning nor end. So not everything that cannot be mentally imagined is meaningless.
What does God look like?
– I’ll start answering this question from the other side. I'll tell you what God doesn't look like. God does not look like a gray-haired old man sitting on a cloud from which the sun shines or rain falls on the Earth. God does not look like the ancient pagans imagined him: like a crocodile, like a hippopotamus, like Pallas Athena, like the many-armed goddess Kali, and much, much more. God does not look like what shamans in the North and sorcerers in Polynesia think. God is not a statue, not an idol, not a block of wood. God is not even the Sun or the Moon. Let us say even more strongly - God is not our whole world. Some people look at the earth and think: “Mother is the damp earth.” They look at the starry sky and think: “God is dissolved in the world.” And this is not so, because this is God’s creation, everything was created by God, but this is not God himself. This is how the Holy Fathers teach us to talk about God. There is a Greek expression “apophatic method of theology,” that is, when we talk about God negatively, that God does not exist, so as not to confuse him with something or someone. This is stated at the beginning of the Gospel of John: “No one has ever seen God; He has revealed the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (Ch. 1:18).
We can say certain things about God that the Lord, Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of God, who is both a genuine man, like you and me, and God, has shown us. How we see him on icons, how church tradition tells about him, this is how God incarnate looks.

You can find more detailed information on the issue that interests you in the following books: “The Law of God”, “Dogmatic Theology” by Metropolitan Macarius, “Dialogues” by Archpriest. Valentin Sventsitsky.