John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God

Not even in heaven does any created power know God in His essence.

A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr

A third, and final, post covering the chapter of quotes from John Chrysostom.

God’s Incomprehensible Nature

I know many things but I do not know how to explain them.  I know that God is everywhere and I know that He is everywhere in His whole being.  But I do not know how He is everywhere.  I know that He is eternal and has no beginning.  But I do not know how.  My reason fails to grasp how it is possible for an essence to exist when that essence has received its existence neither from itself or from another.  I know that He begot a Son.  But I do not know how.  I know that the Spirit is from Him.  But I do not know how the Spirit is from Him.

I would say that pretty much captures it all, the futility of trying to describe God in any words and reason that humans can conjure or understand.

The distance between the essence of God and that of a human is so great that no words can express it, nor is the mind capable of measuring it.

All that we are required to know is that God exists; we are not asked to be busybodies and be inquisitive about His essence.

This idea of God’s essence (as contrasted with His energies) appears to have roots to the earliest Church.  It is certainly a concept that has helped me understand how it is possible for me to grow like Christ, or for St. Athanasius to say that God became man so that man could become God.  Not in His essence or being (which we cannot comprehend, let alone become) – “I AM” – but in his energies, His actions (which we are commanded to live).

God made all these powers with such ease that no words can explain it.  The mere act of God’s will was enough to make them all.  An act of will does not make us tired.  Neither did creating so many and such mighty powers weary God.

God rested on the seventh day, but not because He was tired from all of the heavy labor of Creation.  I recall reading or hearing somewhere at least one idea of just why He rested or what it meant that He rested, but right now I don’t remember what was said.

The Limits of Our Reason

When God reveals something, we must accept His words on faith; we must not be arrogant and busy ourselves making investigations into what He has said.

It is an unpardonable thing to be so curious as to question how God’s revelations can be true.  Rather it is our duty to accept on faith whatever God says.

Whenever God makes a revelation, there is no need to stir up the workings of one’s reason nor to propose to oneself either a sequence of events, or a necessity rooted in nature, or any such thing.

We are, after all, speaking of God.  We can comprehend little of Him other than what has been revealed, through His Word, through Hid creation, through His actions.

Sola Fide?

As for ourselves, let us not think that faith alone is enough for our salvation.  We must also feel concern for our own conduct and give an example of the most perfect life.  In this way we shall have made ready for ourselves a profitable benefit from two sources, from faith and from good works.

I am coming to grasp that the Protestants and the Orthodox mean two very different things by the word salvation.  For the Protestants it is justification, avoiding hell, a get out of jail free card.  For the Orthodox, it is more: to grow more like Christ.  Perhaps stated too simplistically, but something like this.

Just what are we saved from?  Certainly, eternal damnation.  But what are we saved for?  Merely to avoid hell, or also to live the life we were meant to live from the time of Creation?  I am still a babe in my understanding, and may be far off.  But I think there is something more to learn of this issue and this distinction.

Love

Christ said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples.”  By what?  Tell me. … “…if you have love for one another.”

Without it [love] nothing will be able to save a man even if he possesses faith, understanding, knowledge of mysteries, martyrdom itself, or any other gift.

Nothing is more forceful or effective than treatment which is gentle and kind.

Charity

You must not think of giving alms to the poor as an expense but as a source of income.  It is not an outlay of money but a profitable business.  For you get back more than you give.  You give bread and get back eternal life.  You give a coat and get back a garment of immortality.  You give your house to be shared, and you get back a heavenly Kingdom.

I am not very comfortable with this, as it reads as if our giving alms is a trade – we give something in order to gain something.  Yet, when considering the next sentence for some context or completeness in Chrysostom’s thought, there is wisdom in the whole.

The spirit of almsgiving is not shown by the measure of what has been given but by the willingness of those who give.

The almsgiving only returns a reward if given in the right spirit, a spirit of willingness.  Jesus does teach us to store treasures in heaven, and contrasts this with storing treasures on earth.  Yes, more than material wealth, but certainly including material wealth.

Prayer

Christ taught by example, spending whole long nights in the desert praying.  He did this to teach and admonish us that, whenever we are going to converse with God, we must flee from the noise, the confusion, and the crowds.

It remains difficult for me to focus when in prayer.

Prayer is a mighty weapon, an unfailing treasure, a wealth which is never expended, a harbor that is always calm, a foundation for tranquility.  Prayer is the root and source and mother of ten thousand blessings.  It is more powerful than the empire itself.

Perhaps the mightiest weapon.  We are commanded to love God.  This demands that we speak with Him regularly.

Yet, we have our reasons to not pray, or at least not very often or regularly:

But what are the cold-hearted words offered by many people as an excuse for not praying?  “I lack the confidence to speak freely to God,” they say.  “I am filled with shame and cannot open my mouth.”  Your pious caution was spawned by Satan.  Your words are a cloak for your own careless indifference.  It is the devil who wishes to lock the doors which give you access to God.

As for the following, I find it most difficult to pray when I feel most distant from God.  But this is when I need prayer the most.  And, perhaps, when I pray little, it is why I find myself feeling most distant.

Even if you carry the burden of ten thousand sins on your conscience, you will still find great freedom to approach and speak to God, as long as you are convinced that you are the least of all people.

Therefore, I exhort, I entreat, and I beg you never to stop confessing your faults to God. … Open your conscience before God, show Him your wounds, and beg Him for medication to heal them.  Do not point them out to someone who will reproach you but to One who will cure you. 

…if you share with your Master the sufferings you feel in your soul, it is much surer that you will receive comfort and consolation in abundance.

Surely prayer is a harbor for those caught in a storm; it is an anchor for those tossed by the waves; it is a staff for those who stumble.

Humility

It is no humility to think that you are a sinner when you really are a sinner.  But whenever someone is conscious of having done many great deeds but does not imagine that he is something great in himself, that is true humility.

It is very difficult to be humble always, but especially when we feel we have done a good, and also when we feel we are right, or justified.

Although you wear a body around you, although you are entangled with flesh, reflect on the fact that you have been deemed worthy to join with the spiritual powers above to praise in song the common Master of all.

Other

[In trying to understand Scripture:] I warn you and advise you not to go merely to what is written but to search out the meaning of what is said.  If a person should busy himself simply with words, if he should search for nothing more that what has been written, he will fall into many errors.

I keep returning to the first eleven chapters of Genesis as an example of this difficulty.  Did God intend to give us a science and history opening to His revelation, or is there some other meaning behind these chapters?

What we must say is that we know that the soul is in our bodies but that we do not know how it is there.

Biographies / Sources

John Chrysostom (347 – 407) was a preacher.  His epithet means “golden-tongued,” so he must have been an excellent preacher.  He served in Antioch and Constantinople, in the latter as its bishop.  He boldly denounced the wayward morals of the imperial court, earning the hostility of the queen, and, thereafter, exile.

He would produce many commentaries on Scripture, as well as write on the responsibilities and tensions in the life of the clergy.

These quotes are taken from a series of homilies delivered by Chrysostom from about 386 to 398.

All but one of the homilies aim at refuting the Anomoeans, heretics who revived the most radical tenets of Arius and blatantly claimed that man knows God in the very same way that God knows himself. Chrysostom's refutations and instructions to the faithful are based on the Scriptures rather than on human reasoning.

More on Anomoeanism:

In 4th-century Christianity, the Anomoeans, and known also as Heterousians, Aetians, or Eunomians, were a sect that held to a form of Arianism, that Jesus Christ was not of the same nature (consubstantial) as God the Father nor was He of like or similar nature to God (homoiousian), as maintained by the semi-Arians.