Learning Our Faith from the Church Fathers — 20140511

The unity that exists within the Trinity, which we believe is composed of Three Distinct Divine Persons, is truly beyond human comprehension. The dialectic or debate about the one and the many in the Christian Godhead has been an enduring and fascinating theme in theology and   philosophy from the very outset. We know that other religions find it difficult to believe and therefore maintain that there is only ONE GOD, Who is Creator of all.

Philosophic reflection, in its various ways of understanding reality, became an ally of religion and mysticism and of the ways by which they represented the unity of, and union with, divinity. Our understanding of God, as articulated by the Councils of the Church, use an abundance of philosophical concepts and expressions to give us an idea of God, the Incarnated Jesus, the Mother of God and the Holy Eucharist. Without the help of philosophy, Christian religion would not have as developed an idea of God as we do.

For Christians, unlike others, all things are one in the free and loving person of the Father. Such unity is inconceivable to the human mind. Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite stated: it is a super-essential unity that joins the Three Persons into ONE GOD. All we know is that our God has interacted with us in three very distinct ways: He created us and shares His life with us; He is God’s revelation to us about human life and how to live it; and He is the source of those powers within us that make us truly human. God is our Creator. He is our Savior. He is the Giver of Life (if you pay attention to the Divine Liturgy you will find all of these God roles expressed).

Every movement of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, aims at bringing us into a living communion with Christ and with the Father, at deifying us. In spite of the serious liabilities attached to it. The terminology of deification and divinization was to impose itself upon the Father as capable of expressing the newness of the condition to which man had been restored through the Incarnation of the Son of God. The deification of man corresponds to the man-becoming of God. It deals with a mysterious exchange by which each takes on the qualities of the other. The act of God joining Himself completely to human nature through His incarnation, reveals a truth about human nature that allows us to comprehend the meaning of life. We are called, through the experiences of life, to come into ever-greater union with our Triune God. Jesus reveals, in a very concrete manner, the union that exists between God and man.

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