God is a sea of being, immeasurable and limitless.
Saint Gregory the Theologian
In this chapter we address the question,
How do you know God? We will start by explaining why you can’t
know God in His totality as He is “unknowable.” But, we will
show you how you can know God by experience, your own and that
which is recorded in the Holy Scriptures. We will caution you
to beware of relying on your own mind to give you the truth about
God and thinking that you know too much about God. We will address
how you avoid self-delusion.
What can we learn from Scriptures? We
can learn some of the attributes of God. We will point out how Scripture
tells us that God is Spirit, Eternal, Good, Omniscient, All-Righteous,
Omnipresent, Unchangeable and Unity.
One of the important doctrines of Christianity is
the Holy Trinity. What is this doctrine and how did the early Church
Fathers explain it? We will give you some of their answers. You must
remember that you cannot define God because He is infinite. Therefore,
a doctrine like the Holy Trinity is not within our total rational
comprehension. It is a way to set boundaries that keep us from making
an error about the nature of God. In the early Church it was formulated
to counteract heresies where the teaching of the Apostles was being
distorted. This was done through the Church Councils, which have
served to keep the truth about God pure and unchanged from the time
of the Apostles.
But, what are the practical uses of the Doctrine
of the Trinity in our everyday lives? We will discuss how it can
help you learn about your human relationships and your relationship
to God.
Finally, we will give you a brief introduction to
one of the controversies that was involved in the split of the Church
between East and West about 1,000 years ago - the “filioque”.
Next
Return to Introduction Page
Living
the Orthodox Life