Selections from Seminary

In reading all these responses to specific theological problems, we all too easily lose our way trying to understand how much of God we will know and how the whole process works. St. Gregory the Theologian brings us back to the right path: “What God is in nature and essence, ... In my opinion it will be discovered when that within us which is godlike and divine, I mean our mind (νοῦν) and reason (λόγον), shall have mingled with its Like, and the image shall have ascended to the Archetype, of which it has now the desire.” In other words, he is saying, ‘I think we will find that out some day’. However, immediately following those words, he warns that this way of thinking, “as it seems to me, is altogether philosophical speculation ” (Καὶ τοῦτο εἶναί μοι δοκεῖ τὸ πάνυ φιλοσοφούμενον, ἐπιγνώσεσθαί ποτε ἡμᾶς, ὅςον ἐγνώσμευα). The Cappadocians, when speaking affirmatively of the life in Christ and knowing him, see no disconnection in their teaching from that of the Gospels, the Apostles, or ...

St. Basil follows and is followed by fathers of the Church responding with all the same ideas to these dangerous misinterpretations of the faith. We can see themes of right doctrine carried throughout all these storms which fell upon Christ’s faithful, from the Apostles, through the Cappadocians, and beyond. St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria starts his explanation back at the creation of man, explaining the “further gift” given to man, that is, more than the irrational beasts, “making them according to his own image, giving them a share of the power of his own Word, so that...they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life which is really that of the holy ones in paradise.” This focus on the image stamped in man is carried throughout, up to St. John Chrysostom: What then was the tabernacle in which He dwelt? Hear the Prophet say; I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen.  It was fallen indeed, our nature had fallen an incurable fall, and needed o...

Out of necessity, St. Basil the Great responds to the Eunomian teaching primarily to negate the fallacies. Meaning, in those responses, and those of the other Cappadocian fathers after him, they are stating more of why those teachings are problematic and less setting forth a full and affirmative understanding of the knowledge of God. St. Basil, himself, mentions the need for a “more accurate” approach to combat Eunomius: “Now marveling at the beautiful things is not difficult, but attaining an accurate comprehension of the things at which one marvels is hard and nearly impossible.” In Basil’s homily on the first two verses of the Gospel of John, he boils down his argument to what the people would need to hear to avoid confusion about such teachings. He points out how St. John’s statement, He was with God in beginning , places “he was” in perfect apposition to “in beginning”, leaving no room for misunderstanding. However, when speaking directly against Eunomius, that is, back in the lan...

What do we know about God? How intimately can we know God? The fathers of the Church had no inclination to speak on these topics of their own volition, until questionable teachings began to arise which threatened the very foundation of life in Christ. We do not need to know the relationship between the persons of the Trinity simply to know the proper title when addressing our prayers to God; our life in Christ is little more than having another human friend if we are not in Christ, and he, in the Father. In the early parts of the fourth century, the Arian teaching threatened the Church. Arius, and those in line with his thought, taught that the Word of God, since he was begotten, was not eternal with the Father. In the years following the First Ecumenical Council, the Arian teaching grew more radical, and in doing so, more obviously problematic. These “neo-Arians” held to “anomoianism”, that is, that not only is the Son and Word not of the same essential being as the Father, but that h...

I recently stumbled on these words from St. Gregory the Theologian, bishop of Nazianzus in the 4th century. This comes from a homily on the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19. "Their laws are unequal and irregular. Why did they restrain the woman but indulge the man? A woman who practices evil against her husband's bed is guilty of adultery, and for this the penalties of the law are very severe; but a husband committing fornication against his wife, has he no account to give? I do not accept this legislation nor do I approve this custom. They who made the law were men, and their legislation is hard on women. This is not how God acts. He says, "Honor thy father and thy mother," the first time there is a commandment to which a promise is joined: "that it may be well with thee". See the equality of the legislation. There is one Maker of man and woman; one and the same debt is owed by children to both their parents." (Jurgens translation)