Catechesis · Inquirer
God as Mystery
Catechesis · Inquirer
God as Mystery
The Orthodox answer is: yes and no — and the distinction between the two is one of the most important things in all of theology. We can know God truly. We cannot know God complete…
Question
Can we know God?
The Orthodox answer is: yes and no — and the distinction between the two is one of the most important things in all of theology. We can know God truly. We cannot know God completely. These two things are not in contradiction.
God is not hidden because He is unwilling to be found. He is inexhaustible. The more you know of Him, the more there is to know. This is not a frustration — it is the nature of an encounter with an infinite Person.
The teaching
Apophatic and cataphatic — two paths to one God
The Orthodox Church speaks about God in two ways. The *cataphatic* way says what God is — He is good, He is love, He is all-knowing. The *apophatic* way says what God is not — He is not limited, not changeable, not comprehensible by any creature.
Both are true. Neither is complete alone. The Church never abandons cataphatic theology — that would be silence when speech is needed. But it never lets cataphatic theology become a cage that reduces God to a human concept. The apophatic tradition keeps theology honest and keeps God God.
It is better to be silent about God than to speak of Him. If you must speak, speak by negation. For if you say what He is, you have set a limit to the limitless.
Gregory is not saying we should not pray or worship or confess. He is saying that every true statement about God points beyond itself. The icon is not the prototype. The name is not the Person. God always exceeds what we say of Him.
St. Gregory the Theologian
Oration 28 · c. 380 AD
Holy Scripture
"Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
1 Corinthians 13:12
"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is."
1 John 3:2
Essence and Energies
How God is truly known without being exhausted
God gives Himself genuinely in prayer, in the sacraments, in Scripture, in the face of another person. These are not substitutes for God. They are real encounters with Him. But none of them exhausts who He is. The Church holds both truths together: real knowledge, real mystery.