The history of mankind has more than one thousand years. The whole life path of the average individual is filled with a search for the meaning of being. Everyone, from the cook to the professor, once thinks about whether God really is what will happen to the body at the end of the life path where the soul is, whether it exists.
Starting from the puberty period, a growing person seeks his place in the world, rethinks the laws of morality, carefully instilled by his parents, and casts doubt on generally accepted norms of behavior. In the process of these searches, boys and girls try to understand themselves and their destiny, find their individuality and temper character. That is why the spirit of protest, rebellion and acts contrary to those associated with adolescents.
Human civilization also survived its teens, wars and revolutions, dark ancient cults with bloody sacrifices, religious ups and downs, disputes and splits. And in that period, people sought God, his traces in the fates of entire nations. Thus philosophy was born, and after it, Christian theology.
This is not to say that today people are not fighting or the search for truth has ceased. The inquiring minds of our contemporaries are still looking for the answer to the question of whether there really is a God. But during its development, human civilization has accumulated experience, memory. In the history of Christianity there were many ascetics, commentators, saints and reverends. Many of them left written works, now called church tradition.
In addition to treatises of ascetics and the Gospel, there are a huge number of stories about personal experience, miracles and phenomena. It is safe to say that in the twenty-first century, people have reached a new level of knowledge of God. We are still far from an absolute understanding, but the first steps have already been taken. Anyone hungry for truth will find it.
What is theology
This is a study of God and his properties. What is theology? This is another name for theology. On the one hand, the Lord is unknowable by human reason. We can judge this by the statement of Jesus Christ that only the Son can know the Father. Theologians conclude from this quote that the capabilities of the human brain are too limited to understand the existence of God. But the Messiah immediately gives the key to those who seek the truth. The full quote is as follows:
Everything is betrayed to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal.
That is, you can know God the Father through God the Son. This is exactly what science theology deals with - attempts to understand and interpret the essence of the Lord through the study of scripture and church tradition.
Methods of cognition
From the school course, everyone knows the ways of finding the truth. This is consent and resistance, proof and rebuttal. Theology (as a science) was also divided into two directions: denial and affirmation. Philosophers and thinkers tried to find out the truth about the existence of God by any means, sometimes falling into open heresy and nonsense. On this occasion, cathedrals of representatives of Christianity from around the world were convened. In disputes and discussions, truth was born, which was strictly fixed.
Thus, the Creed was adopted, which still serves as the main dogma of Orthodox Christians. The negative method of knowing the Lord is called "apophatic theology." This method of proof comes, as in mathematics, from the contrary. The assertion is taken that God is uncreated, that is, he was always, He does not possess those qualities that are inherent in man (creaturely creature). This way of proving the truth is not based on analogies with a known object, but on the denial of qualities not related to God. That is, He is this, because He does not possess these or those traits.
The Lord is good, because he is not a person, does not have a damaged, sinful nature. So, apophatic theology is a method of discursive knowledge of God's properties. On this path, any analogies with created (human) qualities are denied.
The second method of cognition is cataphatic theology. This method of proof describes God as the highest perfect being, possessing all conceivable qualities: absolute love, goodness, truth, and so on. Both methods of Christian theology eventually come to a common denominator - a meeting with the Creator. The Old Testament describes several such phenomena. Apophatic theology is based on each of them.
Moses meeting God
The Pharaoh of Egypt, noting that the Jewish diaspora in his possessions had grown significantly, ordered the killing of all newborn boys of the runaway people. He did not want to expel them from Egypt, because he would have lost his slaves then, but at the same time he was afraid of rebellion, since Jews, by God's covenant, were fruitful and multiplied. Then Moses appeared - the future head of the Jews, who had been walking with them in the desert for forty years.
His mother, knowing the route of the walks of Pharaoh’s daughter, put the boy in a basket and let him go along the river. The baby was found and adopted by the princess. Moses was brought up at court, but no one hid his origin from him. Yes, and external signs did not give reason to doubt his nationality.
Once Moses, already a man, noticed how an Egyptian was beating a slave - a Jew. Having interceded for the offended, he did not calculate his strength and killed the overseer. This act determined his future fate. Fearing punishment, Moses fled to Sinai and was going to live there the remaining days, but then the Lord appeared to him. It was an unusual shining bush.
Moses turned his attention to the miracle and came closer. The Lord spoke to him from a bush that burned but did not burn. It was about the Israeli people, about slavery, about the executions of Egypt. The Lord chose Moses to save the Jews from the yoke of Egypt. Since the first meeting with God, his life has changed dramatically.
The second appearance of the Lord to Moses occurred on the mountain. God gave the tablets of stone on which the commandments are written. These two meetings of Moses with the Lord symbolize two possible approaches to the study of truth. The works of St. Gregory of Nyssa testify to this for the first time.
Dionysius Areopagite
From the writings of this man the origins of apophatic theology begin. In church tradition he is mentioned as a disciple of the Apostle Paul and the first Greek bishop. Dionysius wrote a number of texts that became most widespread four hundred years after his death. In the fifth century, allegations were called into question and caused a lot of controversy. However, it was precisely these works that influenced today's concepts of apophatic and cataphatic theology.
Dionysius lived in Athens, where he received a classical education for Greece of those years. According to ancient scriptures, he witnessed a solar eclipse during the execution of Jesus Christ, and he also attended the funeral of the Virgin Mary. Because he continued the work of the Apostle Paul, he was thrown into prison. Dionysius suffered a martyrdom. At the time of his death, a miracle was revealed: the headless body of the saint stood up, took his head in his hands and went. After six kilometers, the procession ended, the holy chapter was handed over to the pious woman. The body was buried where it fell. Today in this place stands the church of Saint-Denis.
Areopagitics
Around the authorship of Dionysius, serious battles are still unfolding. Some theologians give powerful arguments, considering Areopagitics a fake. Others do not doubt the ownership of the works of Dionysius and also provide evidence. Be that as it may, all theologians unequivocally agree with the benefits of the Areopagitics, their influence on the development of philosophy and theology.
In the fifth century, fifteen treatises were published. Subsequently, it turned out that three of them were erroneously attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Five treatises were recognized. The fate of seven more works is unclear, since no more references to them were found. Today, theology is based on treatises:
- About divine names.
- About mystical theology.
- About the heavenly hierarchy.
- About the church hierarchy.
- Ten letters to different people.
Famous Christian philosophers Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas amended the description of angelic ranks. The church hierarchy is built on the model of heaven. The work "On Mystical Theology" underlies apophatic theology. God correlates with his creation as a kind of absolute. Man appears to be a relative and variable unit in relation to the Creator.
Since God is “in darkness”, as He speaks of Himself in the Bible (“ and covered himself with darkness” (2 Kings 22:12, Psalm 17:12), “ Moses went into darkness where God is” (Exodus. 20:18), he cannot know His creation. Here apophatic theology comes to the rescue. So that the philosopher’s thought could be understood by ordinary people, Dionysius gives an example of a sculptor, who cuts off everything superfluous from a piece of rock and shows the world a statue.
This method of knowledge of God is sometimes called negative theology. This does not mean that reasoning carries something bad. The word negative is here understood as negation. He who wants to know the truth can exclude everything that is not inherent in God.
About divine names
This treatise brings together two methods of knowing the truth. First, the author lists the names of God described in the writings of Hierotheus of Athens, Ephraim the Syrian and other theologians. It is precisely this method that underlies cataphatic theology. However, the author (unlike the Neoplatonists) does not doubt the absolute transcendence of the Creator. The main message of the treatise is that God is revealed only through grace, only to those to whom He Himself decides. Neoplatonism preaches knowledge through catharsis, that is, cleansing from sins and the pursuit of holiness.
Dionysius in his writings refutes Neoplatonic truths, saying that it is impossible to know God in this way. In other words, cleansing from sins is not necessary for God, but for man, and therefore cannot serve the only right way.
Later, a conclusion was made that brought the two philosophers together. He says that God is revealed through grace, but with the counter efforts of man. The seeker of truth must be an ascetic. You need to cut off all unnecessary from your life, from yourself. This will help to contain the full understanding of the existence of God. A man must turn into an empty vessel. When the world surrounds us with its temptations, values ​​and opportunities, is there time for the search for truth?
When all superfluous is cut off, the work of thought begins. To do this, people go to monasteries, where the whole dispensation is aimed at saving the soul and thinking about the eternal. Saints of previous centuries for purification and repentance left in the desert. In solitude and prayer, they acquired the Holy Spirit and, under His influence, wrote their works. This topic is fully disclosed in the apophatic purification of philosophical concepts in theology.
Evidence of God's Being
The basic Christian truths are systematized and accepted by the whole Church. Dogmas do not appear from nowhere, each of them is repeatedly tested and compared with biblical texts and sacred tradition. Dogmatic theology is based on axioms.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity stirred the inexperienced minds of the first Christians. In the fourth century, in lengthy debates, it was established that God is one, but has three hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Some claimed that Jesus Christ is the creation of God the Father. Others have denied this, citing examples and quotes from Scripture. Spiridon of Trimyphus put an end to the debate. The saint took a tile in his hand and said: here it is one, but it is made of clay, water and burned in fire, that is, it has three forms. As soon as he said these words, the tile in his hands fell apart into the listed components. This miracle amazed the audience so much that the tripartiteness, but no one tried to refute the unity of God.
When the dogma was adopted, ecumenical sentiments arose. The heresy that arises in hearts and minds to this day consists in the assertion that God is one and that religions are different. The purpose of this idea is simple - to reconcile all earthly beliefs among themselves, to bring them to a common denominator. This dangerous error is refuted by the Creator himself.
Holy Fire
In the mid-sixteenth century, priests of the Armenian church managed to bribe Sultan Murat. For this, the mayor promised not to let the Orthodox into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Patriarch Sofrony IV, who came to celebrate Easter with parishioners, saw a castle on the door. This event so upset the Orthodox that they remained standing at the door, crying and mourning for excommunication from the shrine.
The Armenian patriarch prayed day and night to the descent of the Holy Fire in Kuvuklia. Exactly one day the Lord waited for repentance from the Armenians, but did not wait. Then a ray of light hit from the sky, as it usually happens during the convergence, but did not hit Kuvukliya, but the column where the Orthodox stood. Flashes of fire spattered from the column. The worshipers, rejoicing, lit their candles.
Loud glee attracted the attention of Turkish soldiers standing on enfilades. One of them, named Anwar, saw a miracle, instantly believed and shouted: “The true faith is Orthodox, I am a Christian!” The colleagues, having laid bare the axes, rushed to Anwar in an effort to kill the former Muslim, but he managed to jump down from a ten-meter height.
Then the Lord revealed another miracle. Anwar did not crash, falling on the stones of the square. The plates in the place of his fall became wax, which greatly softened the fall of the young man. At the jump site of a desperate soldier, his tracks remained.
Muslim brothers executed Anwar and tried to destroy the traces of his fall, but the plates froze. Pilgrims can see with their own eyes a column and traces even in our time. Since then, only the Orthodox Patriarch has been praying for the convergence of fire. If supporters of the ecumenical idea of ​​the unity of God are right, then the wonders of the sixteenth century lose their meaning.
Dogmatic theology rejects these misconceptions. We can say that this science exists to refute such near-Christian deviations. Dogmas are divided into two parts: God Himself and His attitude towards creation: the world and man. Apophatic theology in Orthodoxy does not refute dogma. This is a method based on the practice of Orthodox ascetics.
Orthodox miracles
“I’ll see - I believe,” said the man. “If you believe it, you will see,” God answered.
Inexplicable events occurred in everyone's life. Many miracles are described in the lives of the saints, some are referred to by theology. What is a miracle? What is the meaning of these phenomena? The answer to these questions is of interest not only to scientists, but also to ordinary people. Christianity is the religion in which miracles happen most. Orthodoxy is a denomination where there are a huge number of saints and martyrs.
Miracles are divided into several types. There are major events such as the appearance of icons, myrrh-streaming, Holy Fire or a cloud on Mount Tabor. The second type is private miracles performed by God through the prayers of believers through Orthodox saints. The former are well-studied by science, but to this day questioned. Miracles in the destinies of people are aimed at admonishing a specific person as an impetus to correction.
Cloud on Mount Tabor
Every year, on the day of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a cloud appears over the Orthodox monastery. Believers are surrounded by a veil of fog, leaving moisture on the skin. Those who experienced a miracle on themselves, unanimously say that the cloud is alive. In 2010, meteorologists began to study this phenomenon. After making the necessary preparations, we took air samples. I must say that in the climate of those places there are no clouds, because it is too hot. The air is hot and dry. Analyzes conducted by meteorologists have confirmed this fact.
As soon as the Liturgy began, the air thickened, clouds appeared. The monastery was foggy. He covered both buildings and parishioners. The clouds resembled clots of steam, touched people and moved in the complete absence of wind. The miracle was captured on a camcorder. When viewing the material, chaotic steam movements were noticeable against a background of immovable cypresses. Air samples left no doubt. Scientists said that with such parameters, the formation of fog is impossible. Orthodox theologians associate this event with the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. It was on Mount Tabor that He appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection.
Miracle in Lanciano
In the eighth century, the Liturgy was celebrated in the Italian city. The priest preparing the Holy Gifts suddenly doubted the sacrament. Thinking, he came to the conclusion that the Eucharist is just a tribute to the Last Supper. Suddenly, the bread in the hands of the priest turned into a thin slice of flesh, and real blood splashed in the bowl. Malovers were surrounded by monks to whom he spoke of his doubts.
The shrine has been in this temple for twelve centuries. The section does not change, and the blood collected in five identical lumps. Surprisingly, each ball of blood weighs as much as all five taken together. Obvious violations of the laws of physics interested scientists. Studies have shown that blood and flesh belong to the same group as in the Shroud of Turin.