Intro: Dynamic character of perfection in Christ

Speaker 1 0:00

What is perfection? We're going to look at St Gregory of Nyssa in a moment. We don't have a static understanding of perfection, but we've said many times, perfection is to be in Christ, but growing, increasing, ever increasing in Christ. It's a dynamic state. You see, the most difficult questions on the level of theological discourse are the most subtle ones, where there appears to be, on the surface, great similarity. And if you follow that way, that line of thinking, you wonder why did so many of our saints think so passionately about these questions? Why were they willing to sacrifice their very lives? Were they just a little too eccentric? Was it that they were not balanced enough in their psychological well-being? That's why I said you really have to be attentive when you study the teachings of the church. You have to ask yourself the question constantly what is the practical relevance of this for me? And then, with God's help, gradually you get closer to what we need to know for our own salvation, what we need to understand first and foremost for our own salvation. So, having said all that, let's turn back to St Basil the Great. We were just going through some basic points in which to understand St Augustine. We had said when we left off St Basil last time, that for him and for the Orthodox, god's essence is known only to the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity. That's why there's no participation. We cannot even approach the essence of God and yet, paradoxically, that does not mean that we cannot approach God. Come, let us worship and fall down before Christ. Our God Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We have been invited to enter the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but that mystery, which is open to us to live and to experience through worship, is not to be approached by cogitation and we must understand this basic point that the essence of God is known and can only be known to the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity. So the three points to bear in mind with Saint Basil and the distinction that he brings to our attention in his three epistles, culminating in the second of the three, letter 234,. We've seen already that it has a long history, before as well as after Saint Basil.

Christological “excursus”: 2 natures in Christ, so 2 natural energies

Speaker 1 3:45

But what do these terms really mean? When we say essence, when we say energy, we know what they mean when it comes to Aristotle and other philosophers, but what do they mean in theology? You know, the term usia is derived from the abstract noun of the word to be ine. So are essence and energies really two different things? We've said many times that the energy of God is the natural energy of God. That means it is the energy of his nature, it's the essential energy. That means it's the energy of his essence.

Human nature of Christ possesses a created will and a created energy

Will of God revealed by what He does

Two natures and energies united in the single Hypostasis of the Logos

Essence without energy doesn’t exist

Speaker 1 4:40

I made a little Christological excursus earlier. I'm going to make another one now. We all know Christologically that the Orthodox understanding of the two natures in Christ means two energies as well as two wills. Each nature in Christ has its natural energy. So the divine nature of Christ has the divine energy which is uncreated. Christ's divine nature is uncreated. It is the very same nature of God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and it has its energy, its natural energy, its proper energy, its essential energy, which is divine and uncreated. The human nature of Christ is the same. It has its proper natural human energy. He has a human created energy as well as a human created will. We've said before how do we know the will of God? We know the will of God by what he does, how he operates. And now we mentioned the communicatio idiomatum, that the two energies are united in the one hypostasis of the Son and Word of God. So the same one is willing, the same one is acting, the same one is performing a miracle, the same one is hanging on the cross. We'll come back to this. We're not going to answer all the questions now, but we'll come back to this, god willing, when we look at the Christological question.

Speaker 1 7:01

But why did I say, why did I make this particular reference? It was in order to emphasize first of all that, as St Gregory Palamas will say many centuries later, an essence without an energy doesn't exist. Energy doesn't exist. An essence without an energy is something that's not alive, because energy means life. Take a look at how Saint John Damascene, in his amazing exposition of the Orthodox faith, how he gives us that clarity. Energy is life. His life becomes our life. That's energy. That's because we are united with the living God. So every essence or nature has its natural, proper energy, its own life.

8:35 Christ “homoousios” - Compatibility of Christology & Trinitarian theology

Speaker 1 8:07

The divine nature of Christ has its divine energy and you're going to see this now on the Trinitarian plane unfolded for you by the Cappadocian Fathers and Saint John Chrysostom in response to Eunomius and company. But remember that you see the compatibility of Orthodox theology. You don't have to change hats when you go from Trinitarian theology to Christology, you say Christ has a divine nature, he's homousios with God the Father. Of course he has a divine nature. That's the divine essence, miausia Omoousios the same One and the same essence. That essence is living, it's alive, it is the supreme life.

Essence and Energies - two aspects of the same God

Speaker 1 9:09

So what we say about Christ, why would that be any different on the Trinitarian level? If the divine nature of Christ has its own divine energy, then the divine nature of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit has to have its own divine energy, because it's the same essence that we're talking about. It's the divinity of Christ, it's the divinity of God the Father, it's the divinity of the Holy Spirit. So that's why I want to emphasize that we're talking about life, something alive, and we need to be aware of that. The Christological and the Trinitarian agree. So the essence and energies are two aspects of the same God. Imagine, if you will, the two sides of a coin or the two sides of the moon. There's a side of the moon that we never get to see. It always remains beyond us, unapproachable. There's that side of the moon which we do see. The moon is one.

God both knowable and unknowable

Names of energies in Oration VI, On the Beatitudes, Gregory of Nyssa

Speaker 1 10:41

So coming into contact with God in his energetic aspect doesn't mean that we're not coming into contact with God, that we're coming into contact with God, that we're coming into contact with some power that is somehow distinct from and separate to God himself. It is God himself, but it's that aspect of God himself in which we have been called to participate, share in and indeed increase in. What the Fathers really are trying to say is that God is both knowable and unknowable. Going back to looking at the mystery through the Old Testament passages, the New Testament, that there is that experience of God that we can have, that God is well known but at the same time remains hidden. He is unknown in his transcendence and he's known in our personal experience of him and in our personal experience of him, he is known in a direct and unmediated way. In other words, st Basil simply wishes to safeguard both the otherness and the nearness of God. God is very close to us, remember, in his energies, very far in his essence, essence or nature, but very near, very near in his energies.

Three distinctions in God: Hypostasis, Essence, Energy / Energies

Unified action of the Holy Trinity: “From Father, Through Son, In Spirit”

Gregory the Theologian, 1st Theological Oration (27,3), To the Eunomians

Speaker 1 12:35

Now, I'll just mention this as a footnote because in the sixth oration on the Beatitudes of St Gregory of Nyssa, some say that St Gregory is making a distinction here between God and his created energies, that sometimes the Fathers are referring to created effects of God. Well, that's not actually the case, because what you have to be careful about especially here, st Gregory says he who is invisible by nature becomes visible by his energies being seen in those things that surround him, and he goes on in that vein. But to cut a long story short, you have to make a distinction between the energies of God and the names of the energies of God. The names of the energies of God? Yes, they are created. They are created. Language, language is created. So the energies themselves mean uncreated action, the uncreated action of God, because they are the action of God himself. So we have three distinctions in God, according to St Basil the Great. First, we have hypostasis, we have the three divine hypostases, then we have the essence of God, the divine essence, the mia usia, which is holy and totally present in each of the three divine hypostases. That makes them consubstantial with one another. And then we have the distinction of energy. The energies of God belong to all three persons of the Holy Trinity. Remember we had said what the Holy Trinity does the action of God. The Holy Trinity is always from God, the Father, through the Son, and reaches its completion and perfection in the Holy Spirit, the unified action of the all-holy Trinity.

Importance of our own spiritual disposition

“Theoria” prerequisite for true theology

Speaker 1 15:18

Now I just want to say one or two things in reference to St Gregory the Theologian, in his first theological oration addressed to the Unomians, oration 27, paragraph 3. St Gregory says Not just anyone can philosophize about God dearly beloved. Not just anyone. The matter is not so cheap and low, and, I would add, this is neither always possible nor can it be done with simply anyone, nor indeed on any subject, but only on certain occasions and before certain persons and given certain preconditions. You know, it's also true here now, whenever we meet, it depends what is my spiritual state, what is your spiritual state? Are we praying? Are we asking God to bless us during the time that we're together, that we will gain something beneficial for our own salvation? What is our approach? What is our spiritual disposition? This is theology. Even if you study other things, you know, I think you should have the same approach, but especially with the things of God. Right? This, then, is not for just anyone, st Gregory continues, but only for those who have been tried and have advanced to theoria.

Christ is theology

Speaker 1 17:06

What is theoria? Theoria is usually translated as contemplation, but contemplation it's okay, it's a good term, but you have to understand what it means. Contemplation means vision. Theoro, eoro, it means I see. What do they see? Those who have seen Christ? You see, christ is theology.

“Purification” of soul and body: minimum requirement

Speaker 1 17:42

Theology is not an idea, not a concept. Theology is a person or, more correctly, a hypostasis Theos Logos. Who is God? The Word Theologia, the word Theologia comes from Theos Logos, yes, the study of the knowledge of, but in Christian theology the theos logos is theology. That's it. So it's for those who have been tried and have advanced to theoria and who, prior to these things, have been purified, purified of the passions.

Importance of personal experience of the Saints

Gregory the Theologian, 2nd Theological Oration (28,3), On Theology

Speaker 1 18:31

And then St Gregory steps back a little bit and says, or who are at the very least now purifying their soul and body to metriotaton at the very least, body to metriotaton at the very least. So at least you're in the process of being cleansed, of being purified, of cultivating the virtue of being sanctified, of becoming like Christ. That's the purpose of the church, that's the purpose of the Christian life. So this is St Gregory the Theologian. And I want to read one more passage from St Gregory the Theologian because, again and in a more explicit way, he dares to refer to his own experience, and I think that's important to understand that the saints are very humble and they don't promote themselves, but their theology is based not only on Holy Scripture, the writings of tradition, other saints, the liturgical life of the church, but their own experience as well.

Speaker 1 19:46

What is this that has happened to me? O friends and initiates and fellow lovers of the truth, I was running to lay hold of God, and thus I went up into the mount, drew aside the curtain of the cloud and entered away from matter and material things, and, as far as I could, I withdrew within myself. And then, when I looked up, I scarcely saw the back parts of God, although I was sheltered by the Rock, the Word that was made flesh for us. And when I looked a little closer, I saw not the first and unmingled nature known to itself, to the Trinity, I mean not that which abideth within the first veil and is hidden by the cherubim, but only that which at last even reaches to us, last even reaches to us, and that is, as far as I can learn.

Speaker 1 21:14

He says, the majesty, literally the magnificence, megaliodis, the greatness or, as the divine David calls it, the glory which is manifested among the creatures which it has produced and governs. Actually, the word for glory is megalobrebia, it's not doxa, it's an exalted status or position. We could translate it as the grandeur, the grandeur of God, the glory of God. In that sense it's correct, for these are the back parts of God which are after him as tokens of himself. This is from the second theological oration, oration 28,. Also paragraph 3, peri theologias on theology.

Appeal

Speaker 1 22:17

So I wanted to read those rather personal passages from St Gregory the theologian so that again you see that it's about experience, the experience of God, and this is what the saints are interested in. So now we come to St Gregory of Nyssa. What I'm going to do is refer you to an excerpt from the life of Moses, the second part, part two of his life of Moses. Please see part two of our conclusion. Please subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. Click on the notification bell and on the join button below our video and become a friend or reader of the Mount Tabor Academy. Support our drive to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.