{"id":5360,"date":"2017-06-04T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5360"},"modified":"2017-05-30T12:36:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T16:36:43","slug":"learning-our-faith-from-the-greek-fathers-of-the-church-20170604","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5360","title":{"rendered":"Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20170604"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gregory insists that there must be true theological boundaries when we think about God and these must include inherent limitations of human thought and speech about God. Any real discussion of the Trinity must begin with the humble acknowledgement of true human reason\u2019s inability to conceive and describe God\u2019s nature adequately: \u201cIt is difficult to conceive God, but to define him in words is an impossibility\u201d he says. In his opinion, it is impossible to express Who God is and even more impossible to conceive Him. All we can really say is Who God IS not, indicating that He is without limitations or any sort of inabilities. St.\u00a0Gregory writes:<\/p>\n

For that which may be conceived may perhaps be made clear by language, if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly, to anyone who is not quite deprived of his hearing, or lazy in understanding. But to comprehend the whole of so great a subject as this is quite impossible and impracticable, not merely to the utterly careless and ignorant, but even to those who are highly exalted, and who love God.<\/p>\n

These limitations apply to \u201cevery created nature; seeing that the darkness of this world and the thick covering of the flesh is an obstacle to the full understanding.\u201d Gregory is not denying the existence of God, but he insists that the knowledge of God\u2019s essence, the nature of God, is sharply limited because God\u2019s nature is by definition \u201cincomprehensible and illimitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

If so, what can be said? Are we left entirely in a wordless vacuum? No. Gregory insists. Both \u201cour very eyes and the law of nature\u201d clearly communicate to us the reality of God\u2019s existence and \u201cthat he is the efficient and maintaining cause of all things.\u201d As we gaze upon \u201cvisible objects,\u201d we see their \u201cbeautiful stability and progress, immovably moving and revolving if I may so say.\u201d Natural law in term manifests itself.<\/p>\n

The difficulty that knowledge of God poses, Gregory states, is that the \u201capproximations\u201d of reason will always fall short of the glory of the subject it is trying to encompass, understand and explain. Yet there are certain things we can know about God, even if our knowledge is largely a series of negations. For example, Gregory comments, we can know that God does not have a body. If God did, how could God possible be \u201cinfinite and limitless, formless, intangible and invisible\u201d.
\nThink about this!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gregory insists that there must be true theological boundaries when we think about God and these must include inherent limitations of human thought and speech about God. Any real discussion of the Trinity must begin with the humble acknowledgement of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning-our-faith-form-the-church-fathers","category-st-gregory-of-nyssa-learning-our-faith-form-the-church-fathers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5361,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions\/5361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}