# The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 13/Critique of Dogmatic Theology/Part 1

FIRST PART OF THE DOGMATIC THEOLOGY
I.
The Introduction consists of the exposition of (1) the aim, (2) the subject, (3) the origin of the Orthodox Christian dogmas, (4) the division of the dogmas, (5) the character of the plan and method, (6) a sketch of the history of the science of dogmatic theology.
Though the Introduction does not speak of the subject, it cannot be omitted, because it defines in advance what will be expounded in the whole book and how it will be expounded.
“1. The Orthodox dogmatic theology, taken in the sense of a science, has to expound the Christian dogmas in a systematic order with the greatest fulness, clearness, and thoroughness possible, and, of course, only in the spirit of the Orthodox Church.
“2. Under the name of Christian dogmas are understood the revealed truths which are transmitted to men by the church as incontestable and invariable rules of the saving faith.”
Farther on it explains that revealed truths are called the truths which are found in tradition and in the Scriptures. Tradition and the Scriptures are recognized as truths because the church recognizes them as such, and the church is recognized as a truth because it recognizes these, Tradition and the Scriptures.
“3. From the conception given about the Christian ​dogmas it appears that they have all a divine origin. Consequently, no one has the right either to multiply or diminish their number, or to change and transform them in any manner whatsoever: as many as were revealed by God in the beginning, so many must there remain of them for all time, as long as Christianity shall exist.”
Revealed in the very beginning. It does not say what is meant by “revealed in the very beginning.” In the beginning of the world, or in the beginning of Christianity? In either case, when was that beginning? It says that the dogmas did not appear one after another, but all at once, in the beginning, but when that beginning was, it does not say, neither here, nor anywhere else in the whole book. It goes on:
“But, although they remain invariable in their revelation, both as to their number and their essence, the dogmas of the church have none the less to be disclosed, and are disclosed, in the church to the believers. Ever since men have begun to make these dogmas, which were handed down through revelation, their own, and to draw them into the circle of their ideas, these sacred truths began inevitably to be modified in the concepts of various entities (the same happens with any truth when it becomes the possession of man),—inevitably there had to appear, and did appear, various opinions, various misconceptions in regard to the dogmas, even various mutilations of the dogmas, or heresies, intentional and unintentional. In order to guard the believers against all that, to show them what and how they should believe on the basis of the revelation, the church has from the very beginning offered to them, by tradition from the holy apostles themselves, short models of faith, or symbols.”
The dogmas are invariable in number and essence, and were revealed in the beginning, and, at the same time, they have to be disclosed. That is incomprehensible, ​and still more incomprehensible is this, that before it said simply “in the beginning,” and we assumed, with the Theology, that it was from the beginning of everything; but now the beginning is referred to the beginning of Christianity. Besides, these words give us the very meaning which the author has denied in the beginning. There it said, in the beginning everything was revealed, and here it says that the dogmas are disclosed by the church, and toward the end it says that the church has from the very beginning (of something) offered, not the church offered from the beginning, by tradition from the holy apostles, short models of faith, or symbols, that is, there appears an internal contradiction. It is evident that by the word “dogma” two mutually excluding ideas are understood. According to the definition of the Theology, a dogma is a truth as taught by the church. According to this definition dogmas may be disclosed, as the author, indeed, says they are, that is, they may appear, be modified, become more complicated, as has happened in reality. But the author, having evidently given an inexact definition to the word “dogma,” by saying that it is a teaching of the truth, instead of saying a teaching of that which is regarded as the truth, or even by saying simply that the dogma is a truth of faith, has given to the dogma still another meaning which excludes the first, and so has been drawn into a contradiction. But the author needs this contradiction. He wants to understand by dogma the truth in itself, the absolute truth, and a truth as expressed by certain words. This contradiction is necessary in order that, teaching what the church regards as truth, it shall be possible to assert that what it teaches is the absolute truth. This false reasoning is important not only because it inevitably leads to contradiction and excludes all possibility of a rational exposition, but also because it involuntarily rouses suspicion in regard to the consequent exposition. According ​to the definition of the church, a dogma is a revealed divine truth, taught by the church for the sake of the saving faith. I am a man of God. In revealing this truth, God has revealed it to me, too. I am in search of the saving faith, and what I say to myself, billions of people have said. Then, teach it to me! The truths are revealed by God (revealed to me as much as to you), so how can I help believing these truths and accepting them? This is all I want, and they are divine. So teach them to me! Don’t be afraid that I will reject them. But the church seems to be afraid that I may reject what is necessary for my salvation and wants to compel me in advance to assert that all the dogmas which it may teach me are truths. There can be no doubt that what God has revealed to men who are in search of him is truth. Give me these truths! But here, instead of the truths, I receive a bit of intentionally incorrect reasoning, the purpose of which is to assure me in advance that everything which I am going to be told is the truth. Instead of vanquishing me in favour of the truth, this reasoning has the opposite effect upon me. It is evident to me that the reasoning is irregular, and that they want to assure themselves in advance of my confidence in what they are going to tell me. But how do I know that what I am to be taught as a truth is not a lie? I know that in the Dogmatic Theology, and in the Catechism, and in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, and even in the Symbol of Faith there is, among the number of dogmas, one about the holy, infallible church, which is guided by the Holy Ghost, and which is the keeper of the dogmas. If the dogmas cannot be expounded in themselves, but only by leaning on the dogma of the church, they ought to begin with the dogma of the church. If everything is based upon it, they ought to say so and begin with it, and not place, beginning with the 1st article, as is done here, the dogma of the church at the ​foundation of everything, without mentioning it except in passing, as something well known, and not as is done in Filarét’s Catechism, Chapter III., where it says that God’s revelation is preserved in the church by means of tradition. The church is composed of all who are united by faith in tradition, and it is they who are united by tradition that keep the tradition.
Tradition is always preserved by those who believe in the tradition. That is always so. But is it right,—is it not a lie? And that care with which, without saying anything about the dogmas, they want to catch in advance my agreement to every dogma, compels me to be on guard. I do not say that I do not believe in the holiness and infallibility of the church. At the time when I began this investigation I fully believed in it, in it alone (it seemed to me that I believed). But it is necessary to know what is to be understood by the church and in any case, if everything is to be based on the dogma of the church, to begin with it, as Khomyakóv has done. But if they do not begin with the dogma of the church, but with the dogma of God, as is the case in the Symbol of Faith, in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, in the Catechism, and in all Dogmatic Theologies, they ought to expound the most essential dogmas, the truths revealed by God to men.
I am a man,—God has me, too, in view. I am searching after salvation, how then could I refuse to receive that one thing which I am searching after with all the powers of my soul! I cannot help accepting it, I certainly will accept it. If my union with the church will strengthen it, so much the better. Tell me the truths as you know them! Tell them to me at least as they are told in the Symbol of Faith which we have all learned by heart! If you are afraid that in the dimness and feebleness of my mind, in the corruption of my heart, I shall not understand them, help me (you know these ​divine truths,—you, the church, are teaching us), help my feeble understanding, but do not forget that, no matter what you may say, you will be talking to the understanding. You will be speaking the divine truths as expressed in words, but the words must again be comprehended only through reason. Elucidate these truths to my understanding; show me the futility of my objections; soften my obdurate heart with the irresistible sympathy and striving after the good and the true, which I shall find in you; and do not catch me with words, with an intentional deception, which impairs the sacredness of the subject of which you speak. I am touched by the prayer of the three hermits, of which the popular legend speaks; they prayed to God: “There are three of you, three of us, have mercy on us!” I know that their conception of God is wrong, but I am attracted to them and want to imitate them, just as one feels like laughing, looking at those who laugh, and like yawning, looking at those who yawn, because I feel with all my heart that they are searching after God and do not see the falseness of their expression; but sophisms, intentional deception, in order to catch in their trap those who are not cautious or firm in reason, repels me.
Indeed, what is before us is the exposition of revealed truths about God, about man, about salvation. The men know that and, instead of expounding what they know, they make a series of false deductions, by which they want to convince us that everything which they are going to say about God, about man, about salvation, will be expressed in such a way that it cannot be expressed in any other way, and that it is impossible not to believe everything they are going to tell me.
Maybe you are going to expound to me a revealed truth, but the method which you use in making the exposition is the same that is applied in the exposition of an intentional lie. Let us zealously look at the truths themselves,—what they consist in, and how they are expressed.
II.
In the Symbol of Faith, in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, in Filarét’s Catechism, in the Dogmatic Theology, the first dogma is the dogma about God. The general title of the first part is: “Of God in himself, and of his general relation to the world and to man (θεολογία ἁπλῆ, that is, simple theology).” That is the title of the first part. The second part will be: “About God the Saviour and about his special relation to the human race (θεολογία οἰκονομική, theology of house-management).”
If I know anything about God, if I have had any conception about him, these two titles of the two parts destroy all my knowledge of God. I cannot connect my conception about God with a conception about a God for whom there exist two different relations to man,—one, general,—the other, special. The concept “special” attached to God destroys my conception about God. If God is the God whom I have comprehended, he can have no special relation to man. But, perhaps, I do not understand the words right, or my conceptions are incorrect. Farther on I read about God: “Division I. Of God in himself.” Now I am waiting for the expression of the truth about God, revealed by God to men for their salvation and known to the church. But, before getting an exposition of this revealed truth, I meet with Art. 9, which speaks of the degree of our cognition of God according to the doctrine of the church. This article, like the Introduction, does not speak of the subject itself, but in the same way prepares me to understand what is going to be expounded:
​“The Orthodox Church begins all its doctrine about God in the Symbol of Faith with the words, ‘I believe,’ and the first dogma which it wishes to impart consists in the following: God is incomprehensible to the human intellect; men can know him only in part, as much as he has been pleased to reveal himself for their faith and piety. An irrefutable truth.” (p. 66.)
To those who are not used to this kind of an exposition I must explain (for I myself did not comprehend it for a long time) that by irrefutable truth is to be understood, not that God is incomprehensible, but that he is comprehensible, but comprehensible only in part. In that does the truth lie. This truth, it goes on to say:
“Is clearly expounded in Holy Scripture and is disclosed in detail in the writings of the holy fathers and teachers of the church, on the basis even of common The Holy Books preach on the one hand that (a) God dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see (3 Tim. vi. 16); that (b) not only for men, but also for all his creatures his being is unknown, his judgments unsearchable, and his ways past finding out (Rom. xi. 33—34; John i. 18; 1 John iv. 12; Sirach xvii. 3—4), and that (c) God alone knows God: for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God (1 Cor. ii. 11), and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son (Matt. xi. 27).” (p. 67.)
On the other hand the Holy Books announce to us that the Invisible and Incomprehensible One was pleased to appear to men, and that God is inaccessible to reason, but that his existence is comprehensible. Here are the truths:
“(a) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God​head (Rom. i. 20; Psalm xix. 1—4; Wis. of Sol. xiii. 1—5), and still more (b), in the supernatural revelation, when he at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son (Heb. i. 1-2; Wis. of Sol. ix. 16—19), and when this only-begotten Son of God, appearing on earth in the flesh (1. Tim. iii. 16), gave us light and understanding that we might know the true God (1 John v. 20), and then preached his teaching through the apostles, having sent down upon them the spirit of truth, which searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God (John xiv. 16—18, 1 Cor. ii. 10). Finally the Holy Books assert that although thus the Son of God, being in the bosom of the Father, hath declared to us God, no man hath seen him (John i. 18).” (p. 68.)
I beg the reader to observe the inexactness of the text. The actual text (John i. 18) runs like this: No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him, but nowhere does it say, “being in the bosom of the Father hath declared to us God.”
“For now we see the Invisible One as with a glass in divining, and now we know the Incomprehensible One only in part (1 Cor. xiii. 12).”
I beg the reader to observe the incorrectness of this text, too. In the text cited it does not say: “Now we know the Incomprehensible One only in part.” It does not say “in part,” nor is there a word said about the “Incomprehensible One,” and even nothing is said about knowing God, but about love and human knowledge in general. Look at the whole chapter! All this chapter speaks only of human knowledge, which is imperfect, and, evidently, there is no purpose even there of speaking about the knowledge of God.
“Now we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. v. 7).” (p. 68.)
​For we walk by faith, not by sight, that is, we live. Here again nothing is said about the knowledge of God in part, but about living by faith. All these texts are adduced in order to prove that God is incomprehensible and comprehensible only in part. Again we find here an intentional mixing up of ideas. The author purposely mixes up two ideas: the comprehensibility of the existence of God and the comprehensibility of God himself. When we speak of the beginning of everything, of God, we evidently recognize and comprehend his existence. But when we speak of God’s essence, we obviously cannot comprehend that. Why then prove that he is comprehensible in part? If nothing in the world is completely comprehensible to us, then it is evident that God, the beginning of all beginnings, is absolutely incomprehensible. Why prove it? and why prove it in such a strange manner, by adducing incorrect words from John, which prove that no man has ever seen God, and inexact words from Paul, which refer to something quite different, to the proof of the comprehensibility of God in part?
These strange texts and the strange proofs arise from this, that the word “comprehensibility” is used here and elsewhere in a double sense: in its natural sense of understanding and in the sense of knowledge taken on trust. If the author had understood comprehensibility as comprehensibility, he would not have tried to prove that we comprehend God in part, but would have admitted at once that we cannot comprehend him; but he understands here by the word “comprehensibility” knowledge taken on faith, purposely mixing up this conception with the conception of the recognition of the existence of God. And so it turns out with him that we can comprehend God in part. When he adduces the text about our comprehending God through his creations, he has in mind the recognition of God’s existence; but when he quotes the text that “God spoke to the fathers through ​the prophets” and then “through the Son,” he has in mind the knowledge which is taken on faith, as we shall see later on. For the same reason he quotes Paul’s text, that “we walk by faith,” as a proof of comprehensibility, by which he means the knowledge taken on faith. By comprehensibility the author does not understand a more or less firm conviction of the existence of God, but a greater or lesser quantity of knowledge about God, though entirely incomprehensible, taken on faith. Farther on he says:
“The holy fathers and the teachers of the church have disclosed this truth in detail, especially in reference to the heretical opinions which have arisen in regard to it.”
The heretical opinions consist, in the author’s opinion, in this, that God is entirely comprehensible and absolutely incomprehensible; but the truth, in the author’s opinion, consists in this, that God is incomprehensible, and at the same time comprehensible in part. Although the word “in part” is not at all used in what the author is talking about, and has not even external authority; although the word, in the sense in which it is used here, is not even used in Holy Scripture, the author insists that God is comprehensible in part, meaning by it that he is known in part. How can something comprehensible be known fully or in part? There is an exposition of two opinions of what is supposed to be extreme heresy: of those who maintained that God was absolutely comprehensible, and of others who maintained that God was absolutely incomprehensible, and both opinions are rejected and an argument is adduced in favour of comprehensibility and incomprehensibility. In reality, it is clear that neither opinion, about the absolute comprehensibility and the absolute incomprehensibility, has ever been expressed, or ever could be expressed. In all these seeming arguments pro and con we find this expressed, that God, by the very fact that he is mentioned, that he is thought and spoken of, ​is recognized as existing. But, at the same time, since the conception of God cannot be anything but a conception of the beginning of everything conceived by reason, it is evident that God, as the beginning of everything, cannot be comprehended by reason. Only by following along the path of rational thinking can God be found at the extreme limit of reason, but the moment this conception is reached, reason ceases to comprehend. It is this that is expressed in all the passages which are quoted from Holy Scripture and from the holy fathers, seemingly for and against the comprehensibility of God.
From the profound, sincere statements of the apostles and the fathers of the church, which prove only the incomprehensibility of God, is deduced, in a mere external manner, the comprehensibility of God. It is the dialectic problem of the Theology to prove that God cannot be comprehended altogether, but that he can be comprehended “in part.” Not only is the reasoning purposely twisted, but in these pages I for the first time came across a direct mutilation, not only of the meaning, but also of the words of Holy Scripture. The real text of John i. 18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” is rendered by different words. From the famous 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which treats on love, one verse is quoted in a mutilated form in order to prove the thesis.
Then follow quotations from the holy fathers: “The Divinity will be limited if it is comprehended by reason, for conception is a form of limitation,” says one of those whom the Theology counts among the advocates of incomprehensibility.
“What I call incomprehensible is not that God exists, but what he is. Do not use our sincerity as a cause for atheism,” says Gregory the Divine, whom the Theology counts among the advocates of comprehensibility.
​From all this the author concludes that God can be comprehended “in part,” meaning by the word. “comprehend” to receive the knowledge of him on faith, and proceeds to the exposition of the dogmas which will be a revelation of how God is to be comprehended in part. Like the Introduction, this Art. 9 does not expound the subject at all, but prepares us for the exposition of what follows. The purpose of this article consists apparently in preparing the reader to renounce his conception of God as God, as incomprehensible by his essence of the beginning of everything, and in preventing his daring to deny that information about God which will be imparted to him as truths based on tradition. This article concludes with a quotation from St. John Damascene, which expresses the idea of the whole:
“The Deity is unspeakable and incomprehensible, for no man knoweth the Father, but the Son, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father (Matt. xi. 27). Even so the Spirit of God knoweth the things of God, just as the spirit of man knoweth the things of a man (1 Cor. ii. 11). Outside of the first blessed being no one has known God, unless God has revealed himself to him,—no one, not only of men, but even of the primordial forces, of the Cherubim and the Seraphim. However, God has not left us in complete ignorance of himself, for the knowledge of God's existence God himself has implanted in the nature of each. And creation itself, its keeping and management, proclaim the Deity (Wis. of Sol. xiii. 5). Besides, at first through the law and the prophets, then through his only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, God has communicated to us the knowledge of himself, in so far as we are able to comprehend him.”
(p. 73.) In this conclusion, which expresses the idea of the whole, the internal contradiction is very startling. In the first part it says that nobody can comprehend God, nobody knows ​his ways and purposes, and here, in the second part, it says: “Still, God has not left us in ignorance, but through the prophets, his Son, and the apostles has let us know about himself, in so far as we are able to comprehend him.” But we have just said that we cannot comprehend God, and here we suddenly assert that we know that he did not wish to leave us in ignorance, that we know the means which he has used for the purpose of attaining his end, that we know the real prophets and the real Son and the real apostles, whom he has sent to instruct us. It turns out that after we have recognized his incomprehensibility, we have suddenly discovered all the details of his purposes, his means. We judge of him as of a master who wants to inform his labourers of something. One or the other: either he is incomprehensible, and then we cannot know his purposes and actions, or he is entirely comprehensible, if we know his prophets and know that these prophets are not false, but real. And so it turns out:
“For this reason everything transmitted to us by the law, the prophets, the apostles, and the evangelists we accept, acknowledge, and respect, and we search after nothing else. Thus God, being omniscient and solicitous of the advantage of all men, has revealed everything which is useful for us to know, and has kept from us what we cannot grasp. Let us be satisfied with this and hold on to it, without removing the eternal landmarks or transgressing the divine Tradition (Prov. xxii. 28).” (p. 74.)
If so, we involuntarily ask ourselves: Why were these prophets and apostles true, and not those who are regarded as false? It turns out that God is incomprehensible and we are absolutely unable to know him, but that he has transmitted the knowledge of himself to men, not to all men, but to the prophets and the apostles, and this knowledge is kept in holy Tradition, and this alone we are to believe, because it alone, the church, is true, that is, those who believe in the Tradition, who observe the Tradition.
​In the Introduction we had the same. After long discussions about what a dogma was, the whole business was brought down to this, that a dogma was a truth, because it was taught by the church, and the church were the men who were united by the faith in these dogmas.
We have the same thing here: God may be comprehended in part, a little bit, and how to know him “a little bit” the church alone knows, and everything which it will tell will be a sacred truth.
In the question of the dogma we had a double definition of the dogma, as an absolute truth and as a teaching, and so the contradiction consisted in this, that the dogma was now one unchangeable truth, revealed from the very beginning, and now a teaching of the church, which was evolved by degrees.
Here, in the question of comprehensibility, by which is understood knowledge on trust, as taught by the church, the author contradicts himself. To the word “comprehensibility” a double meaning is ascribed: the meaning of comprehensibility and of knowledge taken on trust. Neither St. John Damascene, nor Filarét, nor Makári can help seeing that for the greater comprehensibility we must have a greater clearness, and the affirmation that what I am told, I am told through people who by the church are called prophets, in no way can add any comprehensibility to the mind, and that we can only comprehend “in part” what is comprehensible, and so they substitute for the concept of comprehensibility the concept of knowledge, and then they say that this knowledge has been transmitted by the prophets, and the question of comprehensibility is entirely set aside; thus, if the knowledge transmitted through the prophets makes God more incomprehensible than he has been to me before, this knowledge is still true. But, in addition to this double definition, we have here also a contradiction between the expressions of the church Tradition itself. ​Texts are quoted, and of these some deny the comprehensibility of God, and the others recognize it. It was necessary either to reject one or the other, or to harmonize them. Theology does neither the one, nor the other, nor the third, but simply enunciates that everything which is to follow on the attributes of the divisions of God according to his essence and his persons is the truth, because thus teaches the infallible church, that is, the Tradition. Thus, as in the first case, in discussing the Introduction, all the reasoning appears unnecessary, and all is brought down to this, that whatever is going to be expounded is the truth, because the church teaches it; even thus all the reasoning is unnecessary now, because the foundation of the whole doctrine is the infallible church.
But here, in addition to this repeated method, for the first time appears the teaching of the church itself, the code of that doctrine, and in it we find an absence of unity,—it contradicts itself.
In the Introduction, the foundation of everything was assumed to be the church, that is, the tradition of the men who were united through the tradition, but there I did not yet know how this tradition was expressed. Here appears the Tradition itself, that is, extracts from Holy Scripture, and these extracts contradict each other and are connected by nothing but words.
As I said in the beginning, I believed that the church was the carrier of truth. After having worked through the seventy-three pages of the Introduction and the exposition of how the church teaches about the dogmas and the incomprehensibility of God, I, to my sorrow, convinced myself that the exposition of the subject was inexact, and that into the exposition were accidentally or intentionally introduced irregular discussions about (1) the dogma being an absolute truth and at the same time the instruction in that which the church regards as truth, (2) that the announcement through the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus ​Christ of what God is is the same as the comprehensibility of God. In the discussions of either point there is not only obscurity, but even unscrupulousness. No matter what subject I may wish to expound, no matter how convinced I may be of my incontestable knowledge of the whole truth in expounding the subject, I cannot act otherwise than say, “I am going to expound this and that, and this I consider the truth, and for this reason,” but I will not say that everything which I am going to say is an incontestable truth. And no matter what subject I may be expounding, I cannot do otherwise than say, “The subject which I am going to expound is not fully comprehensible.” My whole exposition will consist in making it more comprehensible, and the greater comprehensibility of the subject will be a sign of the correctness of my exposition. But if I say, “The subject which I am going to expound is comprehensible only in part and its comprehensibility is given to me by a certain tradition, and everything which this tradition says, even when it makes the subject more incomprehensible still, and only what this tradition says, is the truth,” then it is evident that nobody will believe me.
But maybe the method of this Introduction was irregular, and the exposition of the revealed truths may still be regular. We shall listen to this revelation.
III.
“10. THE essence of everything which it has pleased God to reveal to us about himself, outside his relation to other creatures, the Orthodox Church expresses in brief in the following words of Athanasius’s Symbol: This is the Catholic creed: let us worship the one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in the One, neither blending the hypostases, nor separating the substance.” (p. 74.)
The fundamental truth which it has pleased God to reveal about himself to the church through the prophets and the apostles, and which the church reveals to us, is that God is one and three, three and one. The expression of this truth is such that I not merely cannot understand it, but indubitably understand that it cannot be understood. Man understands through reason. In the human mind there are no laws more definite than those which refer to numbers. And so the first thing which it has pleased God to reveal about himself to men is expressed in numbers: I myself 3, and 31, and 1=3.
It is impossible that God should so answer the people whom he has himself created and to whom he has given reason in order to understand him; it is impossible for him to answer thus. A decent man, speaking to another, is not going to use to him strange, incomprehensible words. Where is there a man, however feeble in intellect, who to a child’s question would not be able to reply in such a way that the child might understand him? How then will God, revealing himself to me, speak in such a way that I cannot understand him? Have not I, without ​having any faith, given myself an explanation of life, just as every unbeliever has such an explanation? No matter how poor such an explanation may be, every explanation is at least an explanation. But this is not an explanation it is merely a connection of words without any meaning and giving no idea of anything. I tried to find the meaning of life through rational knowledge, and found that life had no meaning. Then it seemed to me that faith gave that meaning and so I turned to the keeper of faith, to the church. And here, with its very first statement, the church affirms that there is no sense in the very concept of God. But, maybe, it only seems to me that it is senseless, because I do not understand the whole significance of it. Certainly that is not the invention of one person; it is that which billions have believed in. One and trine: what does that mean? I read farther:
“Chapter I. Of God, one in substance.” (p. 74.) It is necessary, in the first place, to show that God is one in substance, and, in the second place, to disclose the idea. of the very substance of God. Then there follows the doctrine about the unity of God in fourteen pages, divided. into articles. (“The Doctrine of the Church, and a Short History of the Dogma about the Unity of God.”)
There are proofs of the unity of God from Holy Scripture and from reason. The moral application of the dogma. An exposition of the proofs and explanations of the unity of God.
God is for me and for every believer, above all, the beginning of all beginnings, the cause of all causes, a being out of time and space, the extreme limit of reason. No matter how I may express this idea, I cannot say that God is one, for to that concept I cannot apply the conception of number, which results from time and space, and so I can say just as little that there are seventeen Gods, as that there is one. God is the beginning of everything, God is God. That is the way I formerly ​comprehended God (and I am sure not I alone). But now I am taught that God is one. My perplexity before the expression that God is one and three is not only not cleared away, but my conception of God is almost lost when I read the fourteen pages which prove the unity of From the very first words, instead of elucidating that terrible statement about the unity and trinity of God, which has crushed out my idea of God, I am carried into the sphere of discussion about those Christian and pagan doctrines which have denied the unity of God.
It says there: “As opponents of the Christian doctrine about the unity of God have appeared (a) first of all, naturally, the pagans and polytheists who were to be converted to Christianity; (b) then, beginning with the second century, the Christian heretics, known under the general name of Gnostics, of whom some, under the influence of Eastern philosophy and theosophy, recognized the one supreme God, but at the same time admitted a multitude of lower gods, or æons, who emanated from him and created the existing world; and others, also carried away by the philosophy which, among other things, endeavoured to solve the origin of evil in the world, assumed the existence of two hostile, coeval principles, the principle of good and the principle of evil, as the prime causes of all good and evil in the world; (c) a little later, with the end of the third, and still more beginning with the middle of the fourth, century, the new Christian heretics, the Manicheans, who, with the same idea, assumed two gods, a good and an evil god, to the first of whom they subordinated the eternal kingdom of light, and to the second the eternal kingdom of darkness; (d) from the end of the sixth century, a small sect of tritheists, who, not understanding the Christian doctrine of the three persons in the one Divinity, assumed three distinct gods, who were as distinct as, for example, three persons or entities of the human race, although they all had the same substance, ​and as distinct as are the entities of any kind or class of beings; (e) finally, beginning with the seventh and up to the twelfth century, the Diacletians, whom many regarded as a branch of the Manichean sect, and who, indeed, like the Manicheans, worshipped two gods, the god of good and the god of evil.” (pp. 76 and 77.)
I am told that God is one and trine, and I am told this is a divine, revealed truth. I cannot understand it, and I look for an explanation. What use is there in telling me how incorrectly the pagans believed in assuming two or three gods? It is clear to me that they did not have the same conception about God which I have,—so what is the use of talking to me about them? I want to have the dogma explained to me, so why talk to me about these pagans and Christians who believed in two and in three gods? I am not a bitheist nor a tritheist. The refutal of these bitheists and tritheists does not clear up my question; and yet it is on this conception of the heretics that the whole exposition of the dogma about the unity of God is based, and not by accident. As before, when, in the question about the comprehensibility and incomprehensibility of God, the exposition of the church doctrine about it was connected with and even based on the refutal of the false doctrines, so even here, the doctrine is not expounded directly on the basis of traditions, reason, or mutual connection, but only on the basis of the contradictions of the other teachings, called heresies. In the doctrine about the Trinity, the divinity of the Son, the substance of the Son, there is everywhere one and the same method: it does not say there that the church teaches so and so for this or that reason, but it always says that some have taught that God is entirely comprehensible, others, that God is entirely incomprehensible, but that neither is correct, for the truth is so and so.
In the doctrine about the Son it does not say that the Son is this or that, but some have taught that he is en​tirely God, and others, that he is entirely man, and so we teach that he is so and so.
In the doctrine about the church and grace, about the creation, about the redemption, there is everywhere one and the same method. Never does the doctrine result from itself, but always from a dispute, where it is proved that neither one opinion nor the other is correct, but both taken together.
Here, in the exposition of the dogma about the unity of God, this method is particularly striking, because the impossibility of polytheism, or rather arithmotheism, is so indubitable to us and to all men who believe in God that the disclosure of the dogma about this, where it says. that God is trine, acts directly contrary to the aim which the author has in view. That low sphere of disputing with the polytheists, to which the author descends, and those false methods, which he uses in doing so, almost destroy the concept of God, which every believer in him has.
The author says that God is one, not in the sense in which any pagan god, taken separately from all the other gods, might be. “But he is one in the sense of there being no other God, neither equal to him, nor higher, nor lower; but he alone is the only God.” (p. 77.)
Farther on the words of some father of the church are adduced: “When we say that the Eastern churches believe in one God the Father, the Almighty, the one Lord, we must understand here that he is called one not in number, but in totality (unum non numero dici, sed universitate). Thus, if somebody speaks of one man, or one horse, one is in this case taken as a number; for there may be another man, and a third, and equally a horse. But where we speak of one in such a way that a second and third can no longer be added, there one is taken not as a number, but in its totality. If, for exam​ple, we speak, of the one sun, the word ‘one’ is used in such a sense that no second or third can be added to it. So much the more God, when he is called one, is to be understood not as one in number, but in his totality, one in the sense that there is no other God.” (p. 77.)
However touching these words of the father of the church are by their dim striving to raise his conception to a higher level, it is evident that both that father of the church and the author are struggling only with polytheism and want the only God, but fail to understand that the words “one, only” are words expressing number and so cannot be applied to God, in whom we believe. His saying that God is “one or only not in number” is tantamount to saying: “The leaf is green or greenish not in colour.” It is evident that here the idea of God as one sun by no means excludes the possibility of another sun. Thus this whole passage brings us only to the conclusion that for him. who wants to follow the consequent discussions it is necessary to renounce the idea of God as the beginning of everything, and to lower this idea to the semi-pagan concept of a one and only God as he is conceived in the books of the Old Testament. In the chapter of the proofs from the Old Testament, texts are quoted which reduce the conception of God to the one, exclusive God of the Jews, and there is an exposition of a dispute this time no longer with the heretics, but with modern science. The opinion of modern science that the God of the Jews was conceived by them differently from what God is conceived now by believers and that they did not even know the one God, is called a bold, manifest calumny.
“After that it is a bold, manifest calumny to assert that in the Old Testament there are traces of the teaching of polytheism and that the God of the Jews, according to their Sacred Books, was only one of the gods, ​a national god, like the gods of the other contemporary nations. In confirmation of the first thought they point to the passages in Holy Scripture where God is given the name of Elohim (gods, from ‘Eloah,’ god) in the plural number, and where he is made to speak: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen. i. 1 and 26); we will make him an help meet for him (Gen. ii. 18), and elsewhere. But when that same Moses, in whose books these passages are to be found, so often and so much in detail preaches monotheism as the chief part of the Sinaitic legislation; when he calls all the pagan gods vanities and idols, and in every way tries to guard the Jews from following them (Lev. xvii. 7; Deut. xxxii. 21, and elsewhere), there can be no doubt but that he did not, contrary to his opinion, openly express any belief in polytheism, and so we cannot but agree with the holy fathers of the church that here God is indeed represented in the plural, but that not the idea of the plurality of gods is expressed here, but of the divine persons in one and the same God, that is, that there is here an indication of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.” (pp. 79 and 80.)
To any one reading the Old Testament it is clear that the conception of the God of the Old Testament is not at all the idea of a one God, but of a particular God, one only for the Jews. Why prove the contrary, when that is so unnecessary? What startles us here is not so much the intentional shutting of the eyes against what is manifest, but the unscrupulousness and incomprehensible boldness with which that is denied which is so evident to everybody who reads the Scripture, that which for hundreds of years has been worked out and made clear by all thinking men who busy themselves with these subjects.
It would be useless to quote passages from the Bible, from which it is clear that the Jews recognized their God as one only in comparison with other gods. The ​whole Pentateuch is filled with such passages: Joshua xxiv. 2; Gen. xxxi. 19, 30; Psalm lxxxvi. 8; the first of Moses’ commandments. We wonder for whom these discussions are written; but what is most remarkable is that all that is said to those who are seeking for an explanation of the God-revealed truths about God. In order to reveal to me the truth about God, which is in the keeping of the church, I am told unintelligible words, God is one and three, and, instead of explaining it, they begin to prove to me what I and every believer know and cannot help knowing, namely, that God has no number; and, in order to prove that to me, I am taken down to the sphere of low, savage conceptions about God, and, to fill the cup, they quote in proof of God’s unity from the Old Testament what obviously proves the opposite to me; and, in order to confirm these blasphemous speeches about God, they tell me that the plurality of the expression is a hint at the Holy Trinity, that is, that the gods, as on Olympus, sat there, and said: “Let us make!” feel like throwing it all away and freeing myself from this tormenting, blasphemous reading, but the matter is one of too much importance. It is that doctrine of the church which the masses believe in and which gives the meaning of life to them. I must proceed.
There follow confirmations of the unity of God from the New Testament. Again there is proved what cannot and ought not to be proved, and again with these proofs there is a debasing of the idea of God and again unscrupulous manipulations. In proof of the unity of God the following is quoted:
“The Saviour himself, in reply to the question of a certain scribe, Which is the first commandment of all? answered, The first of all the commandments is Hear, O Israel; The Lord your God is one Lord (Mark xii. 28-29).” (p. 81.)
​The author does not see that this is only a repetition of an Old Testament sentence, and that it says, “Your God is one.” But more remarkable still is the following:
“In other cases he expressed this truth not less clearly or even more clearly, when, for example, to a man, who called him blessed teacher, he remarked, ‘No one is blessed except the one God.’” (p. 81.)
The author does not see that here the word “one” has not even a numerical meaning. Here “one” does not mean “the only God,” but “only God.” And all this in order to prove what is included in the conception of God, which no one who pronounces the word “God” can doubt. Why this blasphemy? One is involuntarily led to believe that all that is only in order intentionally to debase the conception of God. It is impossible to imagine any other purpose.
But that is not enough for the author. He considers it necessary to adduce more proofs of the unity (that is, of what cannot be connected with the idea of God) from reason. Here are the proofs of reason:
“The proofs of the unity of God, such as the holy fathers and the teachers of the church have used on the basis of common sense, are almost the same as those which are generally used at the present time for the same purpose. Some of them are borrowed from the testimony of history and the human soul (anthropological), others, from the examination of the universe (cosmological), others again, from the very conception of God (ontological).” (p. 83.)
In the first place, this is not correct, because such proofs have never been used to prove the unity of God. They have been adduced to prove the existence of God, and there they have their place and are analyzed in Kant. In the second place, it is proved that none of them are conclusive to reason. Here are the proofs as offered by the theologian:
​“(1) All nations have preserved an idea of the one God.” That is not true. The author himself has just overthrown the polytheists.
“(2) On the agreement of the pagan authors.” This again is not true. It cannot be a proof, because it does not refer to all pagan writers.
“(3) On the innateness of the idea about one God.”
This is again not true, because Tertullian’s words, which are quoted in confirmation of this position, are said about the innateness of the idea about God, but not about the innateness of the idea about the unity of God.
“Listen,” Tertullian says to the pagans, “to the testimony of your soul, which, in spite of the prison of the body, of prejudices, and bad bringing up, of the fury of the passions, of the enslavement to false gods, when it is roused as though from intoxication or from a deep profound sleep, when it feels, so to speak, a spark of health, involuntarily invokes the name of the one true God and cries: ‘Great God! Good God! Whatever God may give!’ Thus his name is to be found on the lips of all men. The soul also recognizes him as the Judge in the following words: ‘God sees, I hope to God, God will recompense me.’ And pronouncing these words, it turns its glances, not to the Capitol, but to heaven, knowing that there is the palace of the living God, that from there and from him it has its origin. On the testimony of the soul according to the Christian nature (naturaliter Christiana).” (p. 84.)
This exhausts the anthropological proofs. Here are the cosmological proofs:
“(1) The universe is one, consequently God is one.” But why there is one universe is not apparent.
“(2) In the life of the world there is order. If there existed several rulers of the universe, many gods, naturally divers among themselves, there could not be such an orderly flow and agreement in Nature; on the contrary, ​everything would turn into disorder and become chaos; then each god would govern his own part, or the whole universe, according to his will, and there would be eternal conflicts and strife.”
“(3) For the creation and government of the world one almighty, omniscient God is sufficient; what, then, are other gods for? It is obvious that they are superfluous.”
Those are the cosmological proofs. What is this? A bad joke? Ridicule? No, it is a Theology, the disclosure of God-revealed truths. But that is not all. Here are the ontological proofs:
“(1) By the common consent of all men, God is a being than whom there can be nothing higher or more perfect. But the highest and most perfect of all beings can be only one, for, if there existed others, too, equal to it, then it would cease being the highest and most perfect of all, that is, it would cease being a god.”
Here the sophism proves nothing, and only makes us doubt the strictness and exactness of the thoughts of the holy fathers, especially of St. John Damascene.
The first proof that there can be but one most perfect and highest being is the only correct reasoning on the attribute of him whom we call God, but is by no means a proof of the unity of God; it is only an expression of the fundamental concept of God, which by its very essence excludes the possibility of uniting this idea with the conception of number. For, if God is what is highest and most perfect, then all the previous proofs from the Old Testament and others about God being one only impair that idea. But, again, as in the discussion of comprehensibility and incomprehensibility, the author obviously needs here, not clearness and agreement of thought, but the mechanical connection with the tradition of the church; this connection is preserved to the detriment of the idea, and at all cost.
​After these proofs follow special proofs of the unity of God in opposition to the bitheistic heretics, and these proofs have no connection with the subject. And after all that it is assumed that the first dogma about the unity of God has been disclosed, and the author proceeds with the teaching about the moral application of this first dogma.
The author has the idea that every dogma is necessary for the saving faith. One dogma about the “one God” has been revealed, and so it is necessary to show how this dogma is helpful in the salvation of men. this:
“Three important lessons can we draw for ourselves from the dogma about the unity of God. Lesson the first in respect to our relation to God. ‘I believe in one God,’ utters every Christian, beginning the words of the Symbol,—in one, and not in many, or two, or three, as the pagans and certain heretics used to believe: and so him alone shall we serve as God (Deut. vi. 13; Matt. iv. 10); and love him alone with all our heart, and with all our soul (Deut. vi. 4, 5); and put all our confidence in him alone (Psalm cxvii. 8, 9; 1 Peter i. 21); at the same time we must keep away from all kinds of polytheism and idolatry (Exod. xx. 3—5). The pagans, while believing in one supreme God, at the same time recognized many lower gods, and among this number included incorporeal spirits, good and bad (genii and demons), and deceased persons who had in some way been famous in life. We, too, worship good angels, and we worship holy men who in their lifetime have excelled in faith and piety; but we must not forget that we have to worship them, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, not as inferior gods, but as servants and ministers of God, as intercessors for us before God, and as promoters of our salvation,—we must worship them in such a way that the whole glory should refer mainly to him alone as won​derful among his saints (Matt. x. 40). The pagans used to make sculptured figures of their gods and builded idols, and in their extreme blindness recognized these idols as gods, offering them divine worship: let not any of the Christians fall into similar idolatry! We, too, use and worship the representations of the true God and of his saints, and bend our knees before them; but we use and worship them only as holy and worshipful representations, and do not deify them, and, in making our obeisances to the holy images, we worship not the wood and paint, but God himself and his saints, such as are represented in the images such ought to be the true worship of the holy images, and then it will not in the least resemble idolatry.” (pp. 89 and 90.)
That is, according to this preceding discussion, we are given a lesson to do precisely as the idolaters are doing, but to remember certain dialectic distinctions, as here expounded.
“It is well known that the pagans personified all human passions and in this shape deified them; we do not personify the passions in order to deify them; we know how to value them, but, unfortunately, Christians frequently serve their passions as though they were gods, though they themselves do not notice that. One is so given to belly service and in general to the sensual pleasures that for him, according to the expression of the apostle, God is his belly (Phil. iii. 19); another is so zealously concerned about acquiring treasure and with such love guards it that his covetousness can, indeed, not be called otherwise than idolatry (Col. iii. 5); a third is so much occupied with his deserts and privileges, real and imaginary, and places them so high that he apparently makes an idol of them and worships them and makes others worship them (Dan. iii.). In short, every passion and attachment for anything, even though it be important and noble, if we abandon ourselves to it with zeal, so as to forget God ​and act contrary to his will, becomes for us a new god, or idol, whom we serve; and a Christian must remember firmly that such an idolatry can never be coextensive with the service of the one God; according to the words of the Saviour: No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. vi. 24).” (pp. 90 and 91.)
What is this? Where is this taken from? What a lot of things have been said and connected with the unity of God! How do they all result from it? There is absolutely no answer to that.
“Second lesson, in respect to our relation to our neighbours. Believing in the one God, from whom we all have our being, through whom we live and move and are (Acts xvii. 28), and who alone forms the aim of all of us, we are naturally incited toward union among ourselves.”
And still more texts and still less connection with the preceding. If there is any connection, it is only a verbal one, like a play of words: “God is one,—we must strive after oneness.”
“Finally, the third lesson, in respect to our relation to ourselves. Believing in God, one in substance, let us see to it that in our own being we may reestablish the primitive union which has been impaired in us through sin. To-day we feel the cleaving of our being, the disunion of our forces, abilities, strivings; we delight in the law of God after the inward man: but we see another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members (Rom. vii. 22-23), so that in each of us there are, not one, but two men, an inward and an outward, a spiritual and a carnal, man. Let us see to it that we put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and that we put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephes. iv. 22-24), and that we ​thus may again appear just as one in our substance as when we came out of the hands of the Creator.”
IV.
I. Of the essence of God.
Of the essence of God? It was said that God is incomprehensible in his essence. Then it was said that he was a trinity. But I receive no reply to my answer, and get a new problem: God, who is incomprehensible in his essence, will be disclosed to me in his essence.
“The question of what God is in his essence (οὐσία, φύσις, essentia, substantia, natura), became, even in the first centuries of Christianity, a subject of especial attention for the teachers of the Church, on the one hand, as a question in itself of great importance and close to the mind and heart of each man, and, on the other hand, because at that time the question was taken up by the heretics, who naturally provoked against themselves the defenders of Orthodoxy.”
Again, in order to disclose the truth to me, I am introduced to discussions and to the exposition of the opinion of this man and of that, and all of them are false, and:
“Avoiding all similar finesses, the Orthodox Church has always held only to what it has pleased God to communicate to her about himself in his revelation, and not having at all in mind the determination of the substance of God, which it recognizes to be incomprehensible and, therefore, strictly speaking, indeterminable, but wishing only to teach its children as precise, exact, and accessible an idea about God as is possible, it says about him as follows: ‘God is a Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, all-just, almighty, omnipresent, unchangeable, all-sufficing to ​himself, all-blessed.’ Here it points out to us, in the first place, the incomprehensible essence of God (or nature, or substance), as much as it can be comprehended now by our reason, and, in the second place, the essential attributes by which this essence, or more correctly, God himself, is distinguished from other essences.” (pp. 94 and 95.)
The essence, nature, substance of God is pointed out to us, and so are the attributes by which God is distinguished from other essences. What are we talking about? About a limited being or about God How can God be distinguished from others? How can we distinguish in him substance, nature, and attributes? Is he not incomprehensible? Is not he higher and more perfect than anything? Less and less do I understand the sense of what they are trying to tell me, and it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that for some reason they need inevitably, by rejecting sound reason, the laws of logic, conscience, for some secret purposes they need to do what they have been doing until now: to reduce my conception about God and the conception of all believers to a base, semi-pagan conception. Here is what is said about this nature and about the attributes of him who is here called God:
“17. The conception about the essence of God. God is a spirit. The word ‘spirit,’ indeed, more comprehensibly than anything else signifies for us the incomprehensible essence or substance of God. We know of only two kinds of substances: material, complex substances, which have no consciousness or reason, and immaterial, simple, spiritual substances, which are more or less endowed with consciousness and reason. We can nowise admit that God has in himself the substance of the first kind, since we see in all his acts, both of creation and of foresight, the traces of the greatest reason. On the other hand, we are of necessity forced to assume the substance ​of the latter kind in God, through the constant contemplation of these traces.” (p. 95.)
In confirmation of these unintelligible, perverse, intricate words there are quoted the words of St. John Damascene, which are almost as unintelligible and perverse.
“By knowing what is ascribed to God and from that ascending to the essence of God, we comprehend not the essence itself, but only what refers to the essence (τὰ περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν,) just as, knowing that the soul is incorporeal, inquantitative, and invisible, we do not yet comprehend its essence; just so we do not comprehend the essence of a body, if we know that it is white or black, but we comprehend only what refers to its essence. But the true word teaches us that the Deity is simple and has one action (ἐνεργείαν,) simple and doing good in everything.” (p. 96.)
However painfully hard it is to analyze such expressions, in which every word is a blunder or a lie, every connection of a subject and predicate a tautology or a contradiction, every connection of one sentence with another a blunder or an intentional deception, it will have to be done. It says “spirit signifies substance.”
Spirit is only the opposite of substance. Spirit is, above all, a word which is used only as an opposition to every substance, to everything visible, audible, tangible, perceptible by the senses. Essence, nature, substance is only a distinction of perceptive, sensual objects. By their nature, by their substance, by their essence, stones, trees, animals, men are distinguished.
But spirit is that which has not the essence of Nature. What, then, can the words, “Spirit signifies substance,” mean? Further: “We know only two kinds of substances, complex material and simple spiritual substances.” We do not know and cannot know any simple spiritual substances, because “spiritual substance” is a mere contradiction. The plural number used with simple spiritual ​substance is another internal contradiction, because what is simple cannot be two or many; only with what is not simple do we get distinction and plurality. The addition to the word “substances” of “simple, spiritual, more or less endowed with consciousness and reason,” introduces another internal contradiction, by suddenly joining to the simple concept that of consciousness and reason, according to the degree of which this something, which is called simple spiritual substances, is divided.
The words, “To admit that God has in himself the substance of the first kind,” to be consistent, ought to have been, “To admit that the one God is complex, material substances,” which is the merest absurdity, is an admission that the one God is a multiplicity of varied substances, of which it is impossible to speak. The words, “We are of necessity forced to assume the substance of the latter kind in God, through the contemplation of the works of his creation and foresight, in which traces of the highest reason are visible,” signify not at all that God is a spirit, but that God is the highest reason. Thus, in examining these words, it turns out that, instead of saying that God is a spirit, they say that God is the highest intelligence, and in confirmation of these words. are quoted the words of St. John Damascene, who says a third thing, namely, that the Deity is simple.
What is remarkable is that the conception of God as a spirit, in the sense of opposing it to everything material, is indubitable to me and to every believer, and has clearly been established in the first chapters about the comprehensibility of God, and that cannot be proved. But, for some reason, this proof is attempted, and blasphemous words about the investigation of the essence of God are pronounced, and the argument ends by proving that, instead of being a spirit, God is reason, or that the Deity is simple and has but one action. What is all that proved for? Why, in order, when the need for it shall ​arise during an argument, to introduce the conception not of the one, simple spirit, but of spiritual essences, more or less endowed with consciousness and reason (men, demons, angels, who will be required later on), but more especially for that connection with the word “spirit,” which later will play an important part in the exposition of the doctrine. We shall soon see for what purpose.
“And if, indeed, the revelation itself represents to us God as a spiritual being, our supposition must pass over to the stage of an indubitable truth. Now revelation teaches us, indeed, that God is purest spirit, not connected with any body, and that, consequently, his nature is entirely insubstantial, not partaking of the slightest complexity, simple.” (pp. 95 and 96.)
From the words “purest spirit,” not connected with any “body,” it appears at once that the word “spirit” is no longer understood in the sense in which it is taken in all languages, not as it is understood in the gospel discourse with Nicodemus, “The spirit bloweth where it listeth,” that is, as a complete opposite to everything material, but as something that can be defined, separated from something else. Then Holy Scripture is quoted to prove that God is spirit, but, as always, the texts prove the very opposite.
“Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord (Jer. xxiii. 24; Psalm cxxxix. 7-12); (b) everybody has a definite shape and so can be represented, but God has no sensual form, and so the Old Testament strictly prohibited his being represented: To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him? (Is. xl. 18, 25); take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of ​any figure, the likeness of male or female (Deut. iv. 15-16); (c) for the same reason everybody may be visible, but God is called the invisible God (Col. i. 15; 1 Tim. i. 17; Rom. i. 20), whom no man hath seen at any time (John i. 18 and vi. 46), and in particular, whom no man hath seen, nor can see (1 Tim. vi. 16; cf. Exod. xxx. 18-23); (d) everybody, being composed of parts, is destructible and perishable, but God is the immortal king of the ages (1 Tim. i. 17).” (pp. 96 and 97.)
Is it not clear that God who seeth everywhere, who has spoken from the midst of the fire on Mount Horeb, who has no similitude, that is, no form, who is immortal, is a spirit? It is evident that it is necessary to be able to speak of God as of a definite being, something like a man; but it is also necessary to speak of God as of an entirely simple, inaccessible spirit. It is the old catch; in all the chapters of this book, two different conceptions are purposely united into one, in order, in case of necessity, to exchange one for the other and, making use of that, mechanically to pick out all the texts of Scripture and so mix them up that it shall be possible to blend what is discordant.
After that follows a statement of the teaching of the church and, as always, not the exposition of the dogma, not an explanation, not a discussion, but a controversy. The controversy is against the anthropomorphists and pantheists. It is argued that it is not true that God is clothed in flesh and is in everything like man. If the Scripture speaks of his body, “we must by his eyes, eyelids, and vision understand his all-seeing power, his all-embracing knowledge, because through the sense of vision we obtain a fuller and more correct knowledge. By his ears and hearing we must understand his merciful attention and reception of our prayers; for even we, when we are asked, graciously incline our ear to the supplicants, showing them our favour by means of this sense. By his ​mouth and speaking we must understand the manifestation of God’s will, for we, too, manifest our intimate thoughts by means of our lips and through speech. By his food and drink—our agreement with the will of God, for by means of the sense of taste we satisfy the necessary demands of our being. By smelling—the acceptance of our thoughts as directed toward God, and of our hearty disposition, for by means of the sense of smell do we become aware of perfume. By his face we must understand his manifestation in his works, for our faces also manifest us. By his hands—his active force, for we, too, do everything useful and, especially, everything costly with our own hands. By his right hand—his succour in just works, for we, too, in performing more noble and important deeds, such as demand a greater force, most generally make use of the right hand. By his touch—an exact knowledge and investigation of the smallest and the hidden, because those who are touched by us cannot conceal anything upon their bodies. By his feet and walking—his coming and appearance, in order to aid the needy, or defend them against enemies, or to do some other act, even as we walk with our feet to some destination. By his oath—the inalterableness of his counsel, for between us, too, mutual agreements are confirmed by an oath. By his anger and fury—his loathing and hatred of evil, for we, too, become angry and hate what is contrary to our will. By his forgetfulness, sleep, and dreaming—his slowness in wreaking vengeance on his enemies, and his delaying his succour until the proper time.” (pp. 99 and 100.)
These explanations and refutations of the anthropomorphists, independently of the arbitrariness and unintelligibility of the explanations (as, for example, why by food and drink is to be understood our agreement with the will of God), these explanations descend lower and lower into the sphere of petty, often stupid, dialectics, and farther ​and farther does the hope recede of having the God-revealed truths explained.
After this, in the 2d division, there are adduced the proofs of the fathers of the church that God is an incorporeal, immaterial essence, and the same argument is continued. What is quoted is not the false, but the queer, reasoning of the fathers of the church, which shows that the fathers of the church were far from that conception of God which is common with every believer at the present time. They take pains to prove, for example, that God is not limited by anything, or is not subject to suffering, or not subject to destruction. No matter how worthy the labours of these fathers have been in the time of struggle against the pagans, the statement that God is not subject to suffering has involuntarily the same effect upon us as would have the statement that God does not need any raiment or food, and proves that to a man who argues the indestructibility of God the conception of the Deity is not clear and not settled. It does not explain anything to us and only offends our feeling. But, apparently, the compiler needs it: precisely what offends our feeling is what he needs, namely, the abasement of the idea of God.
In the 3d division the compiler quotes, in the shape of a proof, that invective which the fathers of the church uttered in defence of their opinion:
“In connection with this it is important for us to notice that the ancient pastors, rebuking the errors of the anthropomorphists, called their opinion a senseless, most stupid heresy, and accounted the anthropomorphists, who held this opinion, as heretics.”
And as the last argument of the church the following is adduced:
“For this reason we hear, among other things, in the ‘order of Orthodoxy,’ which the Orthodox Church performs in the first week of the Great Lent, the following ​words: Anathema on those who say that God is not spirit, but flesh!”
That ends all we know about the substance of God, namely, that he is a spirit. What is the deduction from all that? That God is not an essence, but a spirit: all that results from the conception of God, and all believers cannot help thinking otherwise. This is partly confirmed by this article. But, in addition to that, we have the statement that this spirit is something special, separate, almost incomprehensible. In this verbal blending of the contradictions consists the subject matter of Art. 18. What the purpose is, appears clearly from the following 18th article.
“18. The idea of the essential properties of God,—their number and division.—The essential properties in God (τὰ οὐσιώδη ἰδιώματα, proprietates essentiales), or, in one word (ἀξιώματα, δόγματα, ἐπιτηδεύματα, attributa, perfectiones), are such as belong to the divine essence alone and distinguish him from all other beings, and so they are properties which are equally applicable to all the persons of the Holy Trinity, who form one in their essence, for which reason they are also called general divine properties (ἰδιώματα κοινά) in contradistinction to special or personal attributes (τὰ προσωπικὰ ἰδιώματα, proprietates personales), which belong to each person of the Deity taken separately and thus distinguish them among themselves.” (p. 102.)
It turns out that God, a simple spirit, has properties which distinguish him from all other beings. More than that: in addition to the general, divine attributes, there are others, which distinguish the same God in the three persons, though nothing has as yet been said about what the Trinity, and what a person is.
“It is impossible to define the number of essential or common properties of God. Though the church, in giving us a sound idea about God, mentions some of these ​(‘God is a Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, all-just, almighty, omnipresent, unchangeable, all-sufficing to himself, all-blessed’), it at the same time remarks that God’s general properties are endless, for everything which is said in revelation about God, one in essence, in a certain sense forms the properties of the divine being. Consequently we, following the example of the church, shall limit ourselves to the analysis of some of them, the chief ones, such as more than any others characterize the. essence of God and embrace or explain the other, less perceptible properties, and such as are more clearly mentioned in the divine revelation.” (p. 102.)
The attributes of God are numberless, and so we are going to speak of some of them. But, if they are numberless, a few of them are an infinitely small part, and so it is unnecessary and impossible to speak of them. But not so judges the Theology. Not only of some, but of the chief ones among them! How can there be a chief one in an endless number? All are equally infinitely small.
“We shall speak of such as more than any other characterize the Deity.”
Characterize how? God has a character, that is, the distinction of one god from others. No, it is clear that we are talking about something else and not about God. But let us proceed.
“In order to have distinct ideas about the essential properties of God and to expound the teaching about them in a certain system, the theologians have since antiquity tried to divide them into classes, and of such. divisions, especially in the medieval and modern period, many have been invented, and all of them, though not in the same degree, have their virtues and their defects. The main reason for the latter is quite comprehensible: the attributes of the divine being, like the essence itself, are entirely incomprehensible to us. Therefore, without making a vain attempt to find any one most perfect divi​sion of them, we shall select the one which to us appears most correct and most simple.” (pp. 102 and 103.)
The properties of the essence of God, as well as the essence itself, are quite incomprehensible to us. Well? Let us not scoff and talk of the incomprehensible! No. “We shall select a division which to us will appear most correct.”
“God, according to his essence, is a spirit; but in every spirit we distinguish, in particular, in addition to the spiritual nature proper (the substance), two main forces or faculties: mind and will.”
How can there be the division into mind and will in a simple spirit? Where was that said? There was a general statement about the spirit, but there was nothing said about its having mind and will. Mind and will are words with which we, men, and only a few of us, distinguish in ourselves two activities. But why has God that?
“In conformity with this, the essential properties of God may be divided into three classes: (1) into properties of the divine essence in general, that is, into such as belong equally to the spiritual nature (substance) of God and to its two forces, to mind and will, and distinguish God, as a spirit in general, from all other beings; (2) into properties of the divine mind, that is, such as belong only to the divine mind; and finally (3) into properties of the divine will, that is, such as belong only to the divine will.”
Had I not better throw it all up? For is that not the delirium of an insane man? No, I said to myself that I would analyze strictly and thoroughly the whole exposition of the Theology.
Then follow 60 pages on the properties of God. Here are the contents of these 60 pages:
“19. The properties of the divine essence in general. God, as a spirit, is distinguished from all other beings in ​general, in that they are all limited in their existence and in their forces, consequently more or less imperfect, while he is an unlimited spirit, or limitless, hence all-perfect.” (pp. 103 and 104.)
“God is distinguished from all other beings in general.” This false conception of God as distinguished from all other beings is apparently needed because before and many times afterward and here it says that God is limitless, and therefore it is impossible to say that the limitless can be distinguished from anything.
“In particular, all other beings: (a) are limited in the beginning and during the continuation of their existence; all of them have received their existence through God and are in constant dependence on him, and partly on each other; God does not receive his existence from anybody, and in nothing is he dependent on anybody,—he is self-existing and independent; (b) they are limited in the manner or form of their existence, for they are inevitably subject to the conditions of space and time, and so are subject to changes; God is above all conditions of space,—he is immeasurable and omnipresent,—and above all conditions of time,—he is eternal and unchangeable; (c) finally they are limited in their strength, both in quality and in quantity; but for God there are no limits even in this respect,—he is all-powerful and almighty. Thus the chief qualities which belong to God in his essence in general are: (1) unlimitedness or all-perfection, (2) self-existence, (3) independence, (4) immeasurableness and omnipresence, (5) eternity, (6) unchangeableness, and (7) almightiness.”
Then, God is distinguished from other beings in particular:
“(1) By his unlimitedness or all-perfection.” Why unlimitedness is equal to all-perfection remains unexplained, both here and elsewhere.
“(2) By his self-existence and (3) independence.” What ​difference there is between self-existence and independence again remains unexplained. Self-existence is explained as follows:
“God is called self-existent because he does not owe his existence to any other being, but has his existence, and everything else which he has, from himself.”
His independence is explained on p. 110 as follows:
“Under the name of independence in God we understand a quality by force of which he is in his essence and forces and actions determined only by himself and not by anything external, and he is self-satisfied (αὐτάρκης, ἀνενδεής), self-willed (αὐτεξούσιος), self-ruled (αὐτοκράτης),—this property of God results from the preceding. If God is a self-existent being and everything he has he has through himself, that means that he is not dependent on anybody, at least not in his existence and powers.” (p. 110.)
Thus, in the first attribute of unlimitedness there is attached to it, for some reason, the idea of all-perfection (an unused and badly compounded word), which from its composition has an entirely different meaning from unlimitedness. But the words “self-existence” and “independence,” which, according to the definition of the author himself, express the identical idea, are separated.
(4) Immeasurableness, which is only a synonym of unlimitedness, is suddenly combined into one with omnipresence, which has nothing in common with that idea. Then:
(5) Eternity and (6) unchangeableness are again separated, though they form one idea, for changeableness takes place only in time, and time is only the consequence of changeableness.
(7) Almightiness, which is defined by the concept of unlimited force, though neither before nor later will there be anything said about force. But that is far from being all. We must remember that after the disclosure of the essence of God in himself (Art. 17, ​p. 95), we have had disclosed to us the essential properties of God (Art. 18, p. 102). Of the essential properties of God there have now been disclosed to us the essential properties of God in general (Art. 19, p. 103). We still are to get the disclosure of the properties, at first, of God’s mind (Art. 20, p. 122), and then of the properties of God’s will (Art. 21, p. 129).
“God’s mind may be viewed from two sides: from the theoretical and from the practical side, that is, in itself and in relation to God’s actions. In the first case we get the idea of one property of this mind, of omniscience; in the latter, of another, of the highest all-wisdom.”
God knows everything in himself. What else does he know if he has all-wisdom? On p. 127 it says:
“All-wisdom consists in the completest knowledge of the best purposes and the best means, and at the same time in the fullest ability to apply the latter to the first.”
The knowledge of the best purposes and means! But how can an unlimited, all-satisfied being have any purposes? And what concept of means can there be applied to an almighty being? But that is not enough:
“Holy Scripture defines in detail the subjects of the divine knowledge. It bears testimony in general to the fact that God knows everything, and in particular, that he knows himself and everything outside of himself: everything possible and actual, everything past, present, and future.” (p. 122.)
Then, in parts, with quotations from Holy Scripture, the author proves that God knows (a) everything, (b) himself, (c) everything possible, (d) everything existing, (e) the past, (f) the present, (g) the future. But God is outside of time, according to the Theology, above time,—so what past and future is there for him? And God is outside of space,—he is an unlimited, limitless, omniscient being,—how can there be anything “outside of” him? “Outside of” means beyond the limits, beyond ​the borders of something limited. I am not exaggerating, am not on purpose expressing myself in a strange manner, on the contrary, I am using every effort to soften the wildness of the expressions. Read pp. 123-125! What am I saying! Open those two volumes anywhere, and read them! It is all the time the same, and the farther you proceed, the more liberated from all laws of the connection of thoughts and words!
“21. The will of God may be viewed from two sides: in itself and in relation to creatures. In the first case it presents itself to us (a) in the highest degree free according to its essence, and (b) all-holy in its free activity. In the latter it appears, first of all, (a) all-good,—since goodness is the first and chief cause of all divine acts in relation to all creatures, rational and irrational; then, (b) in particular, in relation to rational creatures only, true and correct, for it is revealed to them in the form of a moral law for their wills, and in the form of promises or moral incitements toward the performance of this law; finally (c) all-just, in so far as it watches the moral actions of these creatures and repays them according to their deserts. Thus the chief properties of the will of God, or, more correctly, the chief divine properties according to his will, are (1) highest freedom, (2) completest holiness, (3) infinite goodness, (4) completest truth and correctness, and (5) infinite justice.” (pp. 129 and 130.)
So it turns out that the limitless, unlimited God is free, and this is proved by texts. And, as always, the texts show that those who wrote and spoke those words did not understand God and only approached a comprehension of him and spoke of a strong, pagan god, but not of the God we believe in.
“I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my out-stretched arm, and have given it unto ​whom it seemed meet unto me (Jer. xxvii. 5). I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion (Rom ix. 15; cf. Exod. xxxii. 19). And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? (Dan. iv. 35; cf. Job xxiii. 13). The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will (Dan. iv. 17, 25, 32). The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will (Prov. xxi. 1). Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father; but the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Matt. x. 29, 30). (c) In the redemption of man: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will (Ephes. i. 5). Having made known unto us the mys tery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself (Ephes. i. 9). And Christ the Saviour gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom he glory for ever and ever (Gal. i. 4, 5). (d) For our regeneration and purification” (all this is an account of the manifestations of God’s freedom): “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures (James i. 18). But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal; for to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit. . . . But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will (1 Cor. xii. 7, 8, 11).
“The holy fathers and teachers of the church, who in ​their writings mentioned the divine freedom in general, frequently expressed their ideas with peculiar clearness, in three cases, (a) when they armed themselves against the ancient philosophers, who affirmed that the universe was eternal and had sprung from God not by his will, but of necessity, as the shadow from the body, or the glow from the light, (b) when they refuted the errors of the pagans and certain heretics, who asserted that everything in the universe and God himself were subject to fate, and (c) when, wishing to define wherein the image of God consisted in us, they assumed it to be in man’s free will. In all these cases they pointed out that God was not subject to any necessity and quite freely determined himself toward actions; that he had created in the beginning everything which he had wished and as he had wished, and continued to do everything in the world only by his will, and that he, in general, in his essence, was self-willed.
“Indeed, if God is a most perfect spirit, and an independent and almighty spirit, our reason, too, must be conscious of the fact that God is free in the highest degree according to his essence; freedom is a most essential property of a conscious spirit, and he who is all-powerful and holds everything in his power, himself not dependent on anything, cannot be subject to necessity or compulsion.
“(2) Completest holiness. Calling God holy (άγιος, sanctus), we profess that he is completely pure from all sin, that he cannot even sin, and in all his acts is entirely true to the moral law, and so he hates the evil and loves only the good in all his creatures.” (pp. 130-132.)
The holiness consists in God's not sinning, and in his hating evil. And again a confirmation of this scoffing from Holy Scripture.
“(3) Infinite goodness. Goodness in God is a property by which he is always ready to confer, and actually does confer, as many benefits as each of the creatures is able to receive by its nature and condition.”
​And here is how this goodness is confirmed:
“Goodness is the chief cause of creation and providence; God has existed and continued in bliss since eternity, without having any need of any one; but only of his infinite goodness he wanted to make other beings. the copartners of his bliss, and so he gave them existence, adorned them with various perfections, and did not stop lavishing upon them all benefits which are necessary for existence and bliss.” (p. 138.)
From eternity, that is, an endless number of years, God lived in bliss by himself and with all his all-wisdom had not thought before of creating the world. Thus goodness, which is to be taken in the sense that the idea of evil cannot be connected with the idea of God, is mutilated in this conception and debased to the lowest, blasphemous representation.
“(4) Completest truth and verity. We profess God as being true and veracious (ἀληθινός, πιστός, verax, fidelis), because whatever he reveals to creatures he reveals correctly and exactly, and in particular, no matter what promises or threats he utters, he always carries out what he says.”
True to whom? The idea of threat and punishment, the idea of evil, connected with God! And then texts which confirm the statement that God cannot lie!
“(5) Infinite justice. Under the name of justice, or truth (δικαιοσύνη, justicia), we here understand the property in God by which he metes out the due to all moral creatures, namely, he rewards the good and punishes the bad.” (p. 140.)
The all-good God metes out eternal punishment to people for a sin committed in the temporal life. And that is confirmed by texts: “And the unrighteous will hear the heavy doom of the unbiased judge: Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. xxv. ​41). Besides, holy Scripture (b) bears testimony to the fact that the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked (Prov. iii. 33; cf. Prov. xv. 25), and he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them. off in their own wickedness (Psalin xciv. 23); (c) calls God a consuming fire: For our God is a consuming fire (Heb. xii. 29; Deut. iv. 24), and (d) in human fashion ascribes to him anger and vengeance: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. i. 18; cf. Exod. xxxii. 10, Num. xi. 10, Psalms ii. 5 and 1xxxviii. 5-7, 16, Ezek. vii. 14). Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Rom. xii. 19; Heb. x. 30; Deut. xxxii. 35). Lord God of vengeance, God hath not shewn himself (Psalm xciv. 1).” (p. 142.)
This apparent contradiction did not arrest the author, just as he had not been arrested by the contradictions in each division of the properties of God, but here he stopped, apparently because the contradiction had been observed long ago and there had been objections raised, and the holy fathers, on the basis of whom the whole book is written, had expressed themselves in regard to it. Here is what the holy fathers had said about it:
“The true God must of necessity be both good and just; his goodness is a just goodness, and his truth a just truth; he remains just even when he forgives us our sins and pardons us; he remains good when he punishes us. for our sins, for he punishes us as a father, not in anger or revenge, but in order to mend us, for our own moral advantage, and so his very punishments are a greater proof of his paternal goodness toward us and his love than of his truth.”
The question is how to solve the contradiction between goodness and justice. How can a good God punish with eternal fire for sins? Either he is not just, or not good. ​The question seems to be both simple and legitimate. The author makes it appear that he is answering the question when he quotes the authorities of Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine. There are plenty of authorities, but what have they said? They have said: “You ask whether God can be just if there is eternal torment for a temporal sin? And we answer that God must be both just and good. His goodness is just goodness, and his justice is good justice.” But that is precisely what I am asking: How is this? How can a good and just God punish with eternal torment for a temporal sin? And you say that he punishes like a father for our moral good, and that his punishments are a proof of his goodness and love. What kind of correction and love is this, to burn for ever in fire for a temporal sin? But the author thinks he has explained everything, and he calmly finishes the chapter:
“Every sound mind must acknowledge the completest justice in God. Every injustice toward others can arise in us only from two causes,—from ignorance or from the error of our mind and from perversity of will. But in God these causes cannot take place: God is an omniscient and most holy being; he knows all the most hidden deeds of moral beings and is able worthily to appreciate them; he loves every good by his own nature, and hates every evil also by his nature. Let us add that God is at the same time an almighty being who, therefore, has all the means at hand in order to recompense others according to their deserts.” (pp. 143 and 144.)
I have quoted this merely to show that I do not leave out a thing. That is all which is used to solve the contradiction. The disclosure of the essence of God in himself and in his essential properties is finished. What was there in it? It began by saying that God was incomprehensible, but the statement was added that at the same time he was comprehensible in part. This knowledge in ​part is disclosed to us in such a way that God is one, and not two or three, that is, to the idea of God there is added an improper concept of number which, by the first definition, is not applicable to him.
Then it is disclosed to us that in the partly comprehensible God we none the less know the distinction between his essence and his properties. The definition of the essence of God consisted in saying that he was a spirit, that is, an immaterial, simple, uncomplicated being, which, therefore, excludes all subdivision. But immediately after that it is disclosed that we know the properties of this simple essence and are able to subdivide it. About the number of these properties it says that it is infinite, but from this infinite number of properties of the simple essence, the spirit, fourteen properties are disclosed to us. After that we are suddenly told that this simple. essence, the spirit, differs from all other beings and, besides, has mind and will (nothing is said about what is to be understood by the words “mind” and “will” of a simple essence, the spirit), and on the basis of the fact that the simple essence is composed of mind and will, fourteen properties are divided into three classes: (a) essential properties in general. The essential properties of the divine essence in general (I change nothing and add nothing) are again subdivided (aa) into essential properties of the divine essence in general which distinguish it in general (sic!) from other beings, and (bb) into essential properties of the divine essence in general which distinguish it in particular from other beings, and thus we receive (aaa) unlimitedness, to which for some reason all-perfection is unexpectedly attached by a sign of equality, (bbb) self-existence, (ccc) independence, (ddd) immeasurableness and omnipresence (again unexpectedly patched on to it), (eee) eternity, (fff) unchangeableness, (ggg) almightiness. The properties of the divine mind are (a) omniscience, (b) the highest wisdom; and the properties ​of the divine will are (a) freedom, (b) holiness, (c) goodness, (d) truth, (e) justice. The method of the exposition is the same as in the previous parts: obscurity of expressions, contradictions, clothed in words which elucidate nothing, an abasement of the subject, its reduction to the lowest sphere, a neglect of the demands of reason, and the eternally repeated tendency to connect in an external, verbal way the most diversified judgments about God, beginning with Abraham and going on to the fathers of the church, and on that tradition alone to base all the arguments. But in this part, which has so clearly deviated from the path of common sense (from the very first statements about God, where the determination of the divine properties begin), there is a new feature: there is a composition of words which apparently have absolutely no meaning for the author. Obviously the words have been detached entirely from the thought with which they were connected, and no longer evoke any ideas. For a long time I made terrible efforts to understand what is understood, for example, by the various spiritual essences, by the distinctions of the properties and by independence, by the divine mind and will, and could not understand it, and convinced myself that all the author wanted was in an external way to connect all the texts, but that even for the author there did not exist a rational connection in his own words.
22. This article speaks of the same thing that involuntarily presents itself to one when the properties of the incomprehensible God are counted out to him. Every person who believes in God cannot help feeling the blasphemy of these subdivisions. And here the words of the fathers of the church express precisely what each believer feels, namely, that God is incomprehensible to reason, and that all those words and epithets which we have applied to God have no clear meaning and blend into one, and that the conception of God as a beginning of everything ​and incomprehensible to reason, is simply indivisible, and that to divide God according to his essence and properties is the same as destroying the idea of God.
The essence and the essential properties of God are not distinguished or divided among themselves in reality: on the contrary, they are one in God. This idea necessarily results from those passages of Holy Scripture where God is represented as the purest spirit and from him are removed all materiality, corporeality, and complexity. If the essential properties in God were indeed separate and distinct from his essence and from one another, he would not be simple, but complex, that is, he would be composed of his essence and of his properties which are distinct among themselves. Thus reasoned the fathers of the church: “The Deity is simple and uncompounded,” says St. John Damascene, “for what is composed of many and various things is composite. If we shall thus take uncreatedness, uncommencedness, incorporeality, immortality, eternity, goodness, creative power, and similar properties as essential distinctions in God (οὐσιωδειοφόρας ἐπὶ θεοῦ), the Deity, being composed of so many properties, will not be simple, but composite; but it would be extreme infidelity to affirm that.” (p. 145.)
Other extracts are quoted from the holy fathers in confirmation of this idea, so that one only wonders what all those former subdivisions and definitions were for. But these clear, incontestable arguments, which recho in the heart of each believer in God as full of truth, are preceded by just such an unexpected discussion as was given in the case of the comprehensibility and incomprehensibility of God, and such as those which precede the disclosure of each dogma. In the dogma about God the statement is made and proved that God is incomprehensible, and then there is a pretence at a proof that he is comprehensible. For the solution of this contradiction there is invented the doctrine about comprehensibility in ​part. Here it says that the essence and the essential properties of God are not distinguished or divided, and immediately on p. 147 it says:
“The essence and the essential properties of God, without being distinguished or divided between themselves in fact, are, none the less, distinguished in our ratiocination, and not without foundation in God himself, so that the concept of any one property of his is not at the same time a concept of his essence, or a concept of any other property.” (p. 147.)
This proposition, in the author’s opinion, necessarily results from Holy Scripture, and there are quoted the words of Basil the Great that “our distinctions of the divine properties are not merely purely subjective, no, their foundation is in God himself, in his various manifestations, actions, relations to himself, such as the creation and providence, though in himself God is one, simple, uncompounded.” (p. 149.)
Do you imagine that this palpable contradiction of the holy fathers is accidentally collated? Do you think that it is solved in any way? Not in the least. That is precisely what the author needs, and in that lies the meaning of this 22d article. It begins like this:
“This question has been raised in the church since antiquity, but especially during the Middle Ages, both in the West and the East, and in solving it men have frequently fallen into extremes. The first extreme assumes that between the essence and the essential properties of God, as well as between the properties themselves, there is a real difference (τῷ πράγματι, realis), so that the properties form in God something distinct from the essence and from each other; the other extreme, on the contrary, affirms that the essence and all the essential properties of God are absolutely identical among themselves, and that they are not separated, either in fact, or even in our ratiocination (ἐπίνοια νοήσει, cogitatione).” (p. 144.)
​The Orthodox Church teaches that both propositions are equally remote from truth. Which, then, is nearer to the truth? Nothing is said about that. Two opposite opinions are put forth, and nothing is said for their solution. I carefully searched in all five pages, and there is not a word in them about how it is to be understood. Not a word. The conclusion of the article is as follows:
“Remarkable are also the words of St. Augustine that refer to the present case: ‘It is one thing to be God, another to be Father. Though paternity and essence (in God) are one, it is impossible to say that the Father by his paternity is God, by his paternity all-wise. Such has always been the firm conviction of our fathers, and they rejected the Anomoans as having erred far beyond the limits of the faith, because these heretics destroyed all distinction between the essence and the divine properties.’” (p. 150.)
The end of the chapter. But are the Anomœans right, or why are the words of the blessed St. Augustine remarkable? that makes no difference. But how are we to understand it all? The words of St. John Damascene are true, as the author himself says. How are they to be made to agree with the contradictory words of St. Augustine? And are they true or not? The author does not even regard it as necessary to answer this, and concludes the chapter.
In the preceding article about the essence and the four-teen divine properties I was struck by the trait of the complete disassociation of ideas and the manifest play with mere contradictory or synonymous words in complete darkness; but here is another feature of an extraordinary neglect, offensive not only to my reason, but also to my feelings, which is shown to me and to the whole congregation which is listening to the teachings of the church.
In this article is directly expressed a contradiction, and it says: “This is white, and this black,” and you can​not say that this is white, nor that this is black, for the church teaches you to recognize both, that is, that the black is white, and the white black, so that here is expressed not only a demand that you should believe what the church says, but that you should repeat with your tongue what it says.
After that comes Article 23: The moral application of the dogma. The moral application of the first dogma, of the dogma of the divine unity, had struck me only by its inconsistency. The moral rules which were taught on the basis of the unity of God were apparently not deduced from it, but were simply patched on the words, “God is one, we must live in oneness,” and so forth. But when I met with the second application and, in looking through the whole work for all the moral rules which were inevitably applied to each dogma, recalled what had been said in the Introduction, that the dogmas of faith and the laws of morality (p. 36) had inseparably been revealed by God to men and were inseparably connected, I understood that these applications were not accidental, but very important, as showing the meaning of the dogmas for the saving life, and so I turned my close attention to them. Here is the application of the dogma about the essence and the properties of God:
“(1) God by his essence is a spirit, and, by the chief property of the essence which embraces all the others, he is an unlimited spirit, that is, most perfect, highest, all-glorious. From this (a) we learn, first of all, to honour and love God, for whom shall we honour and whom love, if not the most perfect, when every perfection naturally evokes these feelings in us? The love of God, united with respect, forms the foundation of all our obligations toward him (Matt. xxii. 37); (b) we learn at the same time that our love of God and our honouring of God must be (aa) sincerest, spiritual: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth, says the ​Saviour (John iv. 24); every external worship can have a value only when it is an expression of something inward, otherwise it displeases God (Is. i. 11-15), and the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, according to the words of the Prophet (Psalm li. 17); (bb) highest and fullest, because in his perfections God infinitely surpasses all other beings to whom we are able to feel respect and love; consequently, him above all else must we love with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength (Mark xii. 30); (cc) most profoundly reverential: if even the seraphim, who in heaven surround the throne of God the All-holder, unable to endure the grandeur of his glory, cover their faces when they cry unto one another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts (Is. vi. 3), then with what trepidation of awe ought we, the lowest and weakest of his spiritual creatures, to serve him (Psalm ii. 11)?
“(c) Let us learn to glorify God with our heart and our mouth, with our mind and all our life, remembering the words of the Psalmist: Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts (Psalm xcv. 8; cxliv. 3), and the words of the Saviour: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (Matt. v. 16).
“(d) Let us learn, at last, to turn to God as our highest good, and in him alone look for our fullest consolation, repeating with David: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever (Psalm lxxiii. 25, 26). However profound the thirst of our mind may be in its search after truth, God is the highest truth; however fiery the striving of our will may be toward the good, God is the most perfect good; however insatiable the love of our heart may be for happiness and bliss, God is the ​highest and interminable bliss. Where, then, if not in him, shall we be able to find a full gratification for all the high needs of our spirit?
“(2) Reflecting, in particular, on the separate properties of the divine essence, which distinguish God from his creatures, we can draw from them new lessons for ourselves. And (a) if God alone is self-existent, that is, is in no way under any obligations to any one, while all the other beings, consequently we, too, are under obligations to him, we must (aa) constantly humble ourselves before him, according to the words of Scripture, What hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1 Cor. iv. 7); and (bb) constantly thank him: for in him we live and move and have our being (Acts xvii. 28). (b) If he alone is independent and all-satisfied, and so does not demand our goodness (Psalm xvi. 2), but, on the contrary, gives to all life and breath, and all things (Acts xvii. 25), we must (aa) experience within us a feeling of the fullest dependence on him and of the most complete submission to him, and (bb) in bringing him gifts or sacrifices not imagine that we are obliging the all-satisfied God in this manner, since all which we have is his property. (c) The confidence that we are always before the face of the omnipresent God, no matter where we may be, (aa) naturally inclines us to act before him with the greatest circumspection and reverence; (bb) can keep us from sins, as it once kept Joseph from sinning (Gen. xxxix. 9); (cc) can encourage and console us in all perils, as it consoled David, who said about himself: I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved (Psalm xvi. 8); (dd) can incite us to invoke, glorify, and thank the Lord in every place (John iv. 21-24).
“(d) Keeping in mind that God alone is eternal, while everything else which surrounds us on earth is temporal ​and vanishing, we learn (aa) not to cleave with the soul to perishable possessions, but to seek the one, imperishable possession in God (Matt. vi. 19, 20); (bb) not to put our trust in princes, nor in the sons of man, who may die any moment and leave us without a support (Psalm cxlvi. 3-5), but to put our trust in him who alone has immortality (1 Tim. vi. 16) and will never abandon us.
“(e) The thought of God’s complete unchangeability (aa) can still more incite us to put this exclusive trust in God, for men in general are fickle, the favour of the great and mighty of the earth is easily shaken and passes, the very love of our relatives and friends frequently betrays us, whereas God alone is always the same and unchangeable; (bb) can at the same time incite us to imitate the unchangeableness of God in a moral sense, that is, to be as firm and constant as possible in all the honourable pursuits of our spirit, and in our unwavering march along the path of virtue and salvation.
“(f) The live faith in almighty God teaches us (aa) to implore his aid and blessing in all our undertakings: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain (Psalm cxxvii. 1); (bb) not to be afraid of anything and not to lose courage amidst the greatest dangers, so long as we are doing what pleases him and thus attract his good-will: if God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom. viii. 31); but (ce) to fear him and tremble before him, if we do what displeases him: he is able to destroy not only our body, but also our soul in hell (Matt. x. 28).
“(3) If we turn our attention to the properties of the divine mind, we shall find even here many edifying things for ourselves. (a) God is omniscient: what consolation and encouragement for the righteous man! Let people who do not know his intentions and are not able to appreciate his actions, insult, and even persecute him, he is rewarded by the knowledge that God himself clearly sees his soul with all its thoughts and wishes, knows all ​his deeds in the bloody battle with the enemies of salvation, knows his intentional privations and innocent suffering, knows every sigh and every tear of his amidst heavy temptation! No matter how hypocritical he may be before men, how much he may try to conceal his criminal intentions, in what darkness he may be committing his lawlessness, he cannot help confessing that there is a being from whom it is impossible to conceal himself, before whom everything is naked and open (Heb. iv. 13), and that it is possible to deceive men, but never God. (b) God is infinitely wise; and thus (aa) let not our mind and soul be dejected if in social life or in Nature we shall see any phenomena which seem to threaten a universal ruin and destruction, for all that is done or omitted by the unsearchable fate of the highest wisdom; (bb) let us not be faint of heart or murmur against God if we ourselves have occasion to be in straitened circumstances, but let us rather give ourselves altogether to his holy will, believing that he knows better than we what is useful and what harmful to us; (cc) let us learn according to our strength to imitate his highest wisdom, tending all the time toward that supreme aim, which he has set for us, and selecting for ourselves those most reliable means, which he himself has outlined for us in his revelation.
“(4) Finally, each of the properties of the divine will either only offers us a model for imitation, or at the same time also imparts certain other moral lessons. (a) God is called supremely free, because he always selects only what is good, and this he does without any external pressure or incitement; it is in this, then, that our true freedom ought to consist! In the possibility and freely acquired habit of doing only what is good, only because it is good, and not in the arbitrary will of doing good and evil, as people generally think, and still less in the arbitrary will of doing only what is bad: for whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, says our Saviour (John ​viii. 34), and, committing evil, we every time lose part of our freedom, more and more submitting to our passions and impure strivings, over which we ought to rule. (6) God is supremely holy and has commanded to us: ye shall sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy, the Lord your God (Lev. xi. 44). Without this condition we can never become worthy of the most blissful union with the Lord: for what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Cor. vi. 14); nor shall we ever be worthy of seeing God: for only the pure in heart shall see God (Matt. v. 8). (c) God is infinitely good to all his creatures and to us in particular; this (aa) teaches us to thank him for all his benefits, and for his paternal love to repay him with filial love: we love him, because he first loved us (1 John iv. 19).”
Not only is there no sense in all that, but there is not even any connection except what the French call à propos. Indeed, what moral application can there be from the fact that God is one and immeasurable, and a spirit, and trine? What is remarkable is not that the exposi tion of this moral application of the dogma is written disconnectedly and badly, but that an application has been invented for a dogma that can have no applications at all. Involuntarily it occurs to me: why should I know these incomprehensible, most contradictory dogmas, since from their knowledge absolutely nothing can result?
V.
Chapter II. Of God trine in persons.
Before proceeding to the disclosure of the dogma itself, I involuntarily stop at the words “in persons,” “God’s person.” I have read and studied the exposition of the dogmas about the essence of God. There was not definition there of the word person, or hypostasis, which was used in the definition of the Trinity. Only in the passage where the anthropomorphists were refuted it said that under the divine person we must understand “the manifestation of God in his works.” But that apparently has no reference to the Trinity. Maybe the definition of this word, so necessary for the comprehension of the Trinity, will become clear from the exposition itself. proceed to read. Here is the introduction:
“The truths about God, one in essence, and about his essential attributes, so far expounded by us, do not embrace the whole Christian teaching about God. In acknowledging God to be one, we have not yet the right to call ourselves Christians: the one God is professed also by the Jews, who did not accept Christ the Saviour as the Messiah, and who reject Christianity; he is also professed by the Mohammedans and has been admitted by many old and new heretics in the lap of Christianity itself. The full teaching about God, which it is necessary to keep in the heart and profess with the lips, in order worthily to bear the name of Christian, consists in this, that God is one and trine, one in substance, trine in persons.” (p. 156.)
​What does that mean? All the attributes of God, as given in the division about the essence of God, such as unlimitedness, immeasurableness, and the others, exclude the concept of person. The fact that God is a spirit is still less in agreement with persons. What, then, does “in persons” mean? There is no answer to this, and the exposition goes on.
“This doctrine forms the radical, essentially Christian dogma: directly upon it are based, and, consequently, with its refutal are inevitably refuted, the dogmas about our Redeemer the Lord Jesus, about our Sanctifier the All-holy Ghost, and after that, more or less all the dogmas which refer to the house-management of our salvation. And in professing God as one in essence and trine in persons—” (p. 168.)
In essence God is one, and God, it was said in the preceding, is a spirit. In spite of the essence, it was said that God had fourteen attributes. All the attributes exclude the concept of person. What then is “in persons”? There must, then, be still a third division. First it was (1) according to the essence and (2) according to the attributes. Now a third division is added: according to persons. On what is this division based? There is no answer, and the exposition goes on:
“By professing in this manner we differ not only from the pagans and certain heretics, who assumed many or two gods, but also from the Jews, and from the Mohammedans, and from all heretics, who have recognized the one God only.”
What do I care from whom I differ? The less I differ from other people, the better it is for me. What is a person? There is no answer, and the exposition is continued:
“But being the most important of all the Christian dogmas, the dogma about the Most Holy Trinity is at the same time the most incomprehensible.”
​That is the very reason why I thirst so much, if not for an explanation, at least for an expression which would be comprehensible. If it is entirely incomprehensible, there can be no answer.
“We saw a number of incomprehensible things when we expounded the doctrine about God one in essence and about his essential attributes, especially about his self-existence, eternity, omnipresence.” (p. 167.)
There was nothing incomprehensible about that. All those were expressions from various sides of the first concept about the existence of God,—a concept which is familiar to every believer in God. These expressions were for the most part incorrectly used, but there was nothing incomprehensible in them.
“Many incomprehensible things shall we also see later on, in disclosing the dogma of the incarnation and person of our Saviour, about his death on the cross, about the ever-virginity of the Mother of God, about the action of grace upon us, and so on. But the mystery of Christian mysteries is indisputably the dogma about the Most Holy Trinity just as there are three persons in one God, so the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, however not three Gods, but one God,—all this surpasses all understanding.” (p. 157.)
That is precisely what I want to know. A father of the church says:
“What manner of reasoning, what power and might of the intellect, what vivacity of the mind and perspicacity of imagination will show me—‘How does the Trinity exist?’ And in another place: ‘However, what it is, is unspeakable; no tongue of the angels, much less of men, can explain it.’” (p. 157.)
The Trinity is God. What is God and how does he exist? that surpasses my imagination. But if the essence of God surpasses my understanding, I can know nothing about the essence of God. But if we know that ​he is the Trinity, it is necessary to say what we understand by this appellation. What do these words mean in relation to God? So far there have been no explanations of these words, and the exposition is continued:
“So this is the reason why the heretics who have tried to explain the truths of religion with their own intellect have stumbled over the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity more than over any other dogma. So, if at all anywhere, we must here more especially stick closely to the positive doctrine of the church, which has guarded and defended this dogma against all heretical opinions, and which has expounded it for the guidance of the Orthodox with the greatest possible precision.” (pp. 157 and 158.)
It is precisely this exposition that I am in search of, that is, I want to know what is meant by God one and three. For, if I say that I believe, without understanding, and if any one else says that he believes that God is one and three, we are lying, for it is impossible to believe what we do not understand. It is possible to repeat with the tongue, but it is not possible to believe words which not merely have no meaning, but directly violate sound reason. Here is the way the Orthodox Church expounds this doctrine with precision:
“(1) In the symbol of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Bishop of Neocæsaria: There is one God, Father of the living Word, of wisdom and self-existing force, and of the eternal form: the perfect progenitor of the perfect, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one God, one from one, God from God, form and expression of the Deity, active word, wisdom, containing the composition of all, and force building the whole creation; true Son of the true Father, the unseen of the unseen, the incorruptible of the incorruptible, the immortal of the immortal, the eternal of the eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, issuing from God, having appeared through the Son, that is, to men; life, in which is the cause of the living; holy ​source; holiness offering sanctification. To him appears God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. Trinity, perfect in glory and eternity, indivisible and inseparable in dominion. And so there is in the Trinity neither created, nor ancillary, nor additive, which has not been before, or which will come later. The Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Holy Ghost; but the Trinity is invariable, unchangeable, and always one and the same.’
“(2) In the Nicæo-Constantinopolitan symbol: ‘I believe in one God the Father—and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, born from the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true. God, born, uncreated, of one substance with the Father—and in the Holy Ghost, the life-creating Lord, who proceedeth from the Father; who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.’
“(3) In the symbol which is known under the name. of that of St. Athanasius of Alexandria: This is the Catholic creed: Let us worship the one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in the One, neither blending. the hypostases, nor separating the essence. For different. is the hypostasis of the Father, different that of the Son, and different that of the Holy Ghost. But that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is one Deity, an equal glory, a coeval grandeur. As the Father, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Ghost— Thus: God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Ghost; and yet not three Gods, but one God— God is not created by any one, nor born. The Son was not created by the Father himself, nor made, nor born, nor issued from him— And in this Trinity nothing is first or last; nothing more or less; but the three hypostases are complete, coeval with each other and equal.” (PP. 158 and 159.)
​That is the exposition with the greatest possible precision! I read farther down:
“Examining more closely this doctrine of the Orthodox Church about the Most Holy Trinity, we cannot help observing that it is composed of three propositions: one general and two particular, which directly result from the general and disclose it through themselves.
“The general proposition is in God, one in substance, three persons or hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The particular propositions: the first,—as it is one in essence, so three persons in God are equal to each other and uni-existent; and the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, not three gods, but one God. The second: however, as three persons they are different among themselves by their personal attributes: the Father is not born from any one; the Son is born from the Father; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father.” (p. 159.)
I have not left out anything, hoping all the time to find an explanation, and what? The author not only does not find it necessary to explain what is said here, but, looking attentively at it, he finds here, too, subdivisions, and he proceeds. (p. 161.)
As I get no definition not only of the persons of the Trinity, but even of the word “person,” though there is an unnecessarily detailed statement about the essence and the attributes of God, I involuntarily begin to suspect that the author and the church have no definition of this word, and so speak themselves not knowing what. My suspicion is confirmed by the following article. As always, after the exposition of an unintelligible dogma there follows the exposition of the dispute, which has led to this exposition. And here it says:
“That God is one in substance and trine in persons, has unchangeably been professed by the holy church ​from the very beginning, as is witnessed by its symbols and other incontrovertible proofs.”
From what beginning remains unknown. But from common sense, from the historical data, even from the exposition given here and in Art. 28 of the different opposing opinions, it is evident that there was no such beginning, and that the dogma was formed by degrees. Then follows a confirmation of the fact that the dogma was not formed in an indefinite “very beginning,” but at a very definite historical period of church history.
“But the manner of expression of this truth in the first centuries was unequal even among the Orthodox teachers of the faith. Some used the words οὐσία, φύσις, substantia, natura, in order to signify the essence or substance of God; others, however only few of them and rarely, used these words to designate the divine persons. Similarly, certain words, ὑπόστασις, ὕπαρξις, or τρόπος υπάρξεως, designated the persons in God; others, on the contrary, designated by these words the essence of God, and for the designation of the persons used the words πρόσωπος, persona. The different use of the word hypostasis’ has even led to considerable disputes in the East, especially at Antioch, and for some time created discord between the Eastern and the Western churches, of which the first taught that it was necessary to profess three hypostases in God, fearing a reproach of Sabellianism, while the others affirmed that there was but one hypostasis in God, fearing a reproach of Arianism. To solve the misunderstanding a council was called in Alexandria (in the year 362), where, together with St. Athanasius the Great, there were present bishops from Italy, Arabia, Egypt, and Libya. At the council, the representatives of both parties were heard, and it turned out that both sides believed precisely alike, differing only in words, both the Orthodox and those who said, In God there is one essence and three hypostases, and the others who said, ‘In God is one hypostasis ​and three persons,’ for the first used the word ‘hypostasis’ instead of πρόσωπος, persona, while the latter used it instead of οὐσία, substantia, essence.” (pp. 160 and 161.)
Farther on it says that if at first the words οὐσία, and υπόστασις were used differently, or rather, indifferently, in the sixth, seventh, and the following centuries the concept appears as generally accepted, that is hypostasis was used in reference to three, οὐσία to one. Thus, if I had the slightest hope of getting an explanation of what is to be understood by the word “person,” of that on the basis of which 1=3, I, after reading this exposition about the use of the words by the fathers, came to understand that such a definition (which is inevitably necessary for the comprehension of the Trinity) does not exist and cannot be; the fathers used words without ascribing any meaning to them, and so used them indiscriminately, now in one, and now in a contrary sense, and finally agreed not on the ideas, but on the words. The same is confirmed by what follows:
“But while the Orthodox teachers of the faith differed only in words, invariably professing one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in One, the heretics perverted—” (p. 162.)
That is, now without any farther explanation, One is equal to the Trinity, and the Trinity is equal to One. But the holy fathers professed:
“The heretics perverted the very idea of the dogma, some of them denying the trinity of persons in God, while others admitted three Gods.”
Again some say black, and others say white. Both are wrong, but we say, “Black is white, and white is black.” Why is it so? Why, because the church said so, that is, the tradition of those men who believe in that tradition. Here is the idea of the heretics who denied the Trinity:
“(a) Even during the life of the apostles: Simon the ​Magician taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were only manifestations and forms of the self-same person, and that the one God, in the capacity of Father, had revealed himself to the Samaritans; in the capacity of the Son, as Christ, to the Jews; in the capacity of the Holy Ghost, to the pagans; (b) in the second century, Praxeas affirmed that one and the same God, as concealed in himself, was the Father, but as having appeared in the work of creation and later, in the redemption, was the Son Christ; (e) in the third century, Noetus, who also recognized the Father and Son as one person, one God, who had become incarnate and had suffered torment and death; Sabellius, who had taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were only three names, three actions (ἐνέργεια) of one and the same person, God, who had been incarnate and had suffered death for us; and Paul of Samosata, according to whose words the Son and the Holy Ghost were in God, as mind and strength were in man; (d) in the fourth century, Marcellus of Ancyra and his disciple Photinus: they preached, after Sabellius, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were only names of the selfsame person in God, and after Paul of Samosata, that the Son, or the Word, was the mind of God, and the Holy Spirit, the power of God.” (pp. 162 and 163.)
Here is the conception of other heretics:
“The common idea of all these was that although the divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were of one substance, they were not one in substance, and that they had one nature, but had it each separately, as, for the example, three persons of the human race, and so were three Gods, and not one God.” (p. 163.)
Without having the question answered whether the teaching of the heretics was true or false, I am unable to say that I understand what they have been saying. Similarly, without entering into a discussion as to whether ​it is right that God should be one and three, I am unable to say that I understand what it means, although the dogma is expounded in all its fulness, as the author avers. In all its fulness the dogma is expounded as follows:
“‘Let us worship the one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in the One, neither blending the hypostases, nor separating the essence.’ Neither blending the essence, that is, recognizing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost not merely as three names, or forms, or manifestations of the selfsame God, as the heretics have represented him, nor as three attributes, or forces, or actions, but as three independent persons of the Deity, since each of them, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, possessing a divine mind and the other divine attributes, has his own, personal properties, ‘for one is the hypostasis of the Father, another, of the Son, and still another, of the Holy Ghost.’ Nor separating the essence, that is, affirming that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one in essence, exist inseparably one in the other, and, differing from each other only in their personal attributes, have an identity of mind, will, and all the other divine attributes,—not at all as there exist three entities of any class of beings among the creatures, entities that have one nature. ‘Among the creatures,’ let us speak with the words of St. John Damascene, ‘the common nature of the entities is perceived only by the mind, for the entities do not exist one in the other, but each separate and distinct, that is, in itself, and each has much to distinguish it from the others. They differ in place and time, in disposition of the will, in firmness, in external appearance or form, in habits, in temperament, in worth, in the manner of life, and in the other distinctive properties, but most of all, because they do not exist one in the other, but each exists separately. For this reason we say: two, three, many men. But in the holy, transubstantial, all-surpassing, incomprehensible Trinity we see something different. Here the universality ​and unity are viewed in fact according to the coeternality of the persons, according to the identity of the essentiality, activity, and will, according to the concord of definitions, according to the identity—I do not say similitude, but identity—of power, almightiness, and goodness, and according to the one tendency of motion—Each of the hypostases has a unity with the other, not less than with itself; that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one in all respects but ungeneratedness, birth, and derivation, and are divided only in our ratiocination (ἐπίνοια). For we know only one God, and only in the properties of fatherhood, sonhood, and derivation do we present a difference—In the unlimited Deity we cannot assume, as in us, spatial distance, because the hypostases exist one in the other, but in such a way that they are not blended, but united, according to the words of the Lord: I am the Father, and the Father in me (John xiv. 11); nor distinction of will, definitions, activities, power, or anything else, which in us produce a real and complete division. Therefore we recognize the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost not as three Gods, but as one God in the Holy Trinity. The whole incomprehensibility of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity consists precisely in this, that the three independent persons of the Deity are one in essence and entirely inseparable; if they existed separately one from the other, like three entities among the creatures, there would be nothing incomprehensible in that. ‘The Deity is one and three: oh, most glorious transformation!’ What is united in essence is divided according to the persons: the indivisible is divided, what is one is trebled: that is the Father, the Son, and the living Spirit, preserving all.” (pp. 164 and 165.)
So here it is, all the doctrine, all the God-revealed truth, revealed to me in all its fulness for the sake of my salvation. “The Deity is one and three. Oh, most glorious transformation!” The exposition and explana​tion are ended, and there will be nothing else. And this through the mouth of his church says God the Father to me, his son, who with all my power am looking for truth and salvation! To my entreaty and tears of despair he replies to me: “The indivisible is divided, what is one is trebled: that is the Father, the Son, and the living Spirit, preserving all.” And to the demands of my reason, which has been given me for the comprehension of God, there is no other answer. I cannot say, nor can any one else say, that I have comprehended it, and so I cannot say that I believe. With my tongue I can say that I believe that “what is one is trebled. Oh, most glorious transformation!” But when I say that, I am a liar and an atheist, and it is precisely this that the church demands of me, that is, those people who assert that they believe in it. But that is not true: they do not believe and nobody has ever believed it. What a marvellous phenomenon! Christianity will soon have existed for a thousand years in Russia. For a thousand years the pastors have been teaching their flocks the foundations of the faith. The foundation of the faith is the dogma of the Trinity. Ask a peasant, a country woman, what the Trinity is. Out of ten hardly one will answer you. It cannot be said that that is due to ignorance. Ask them what the teaching of Christ consists in. Everybody will tell you. And yet the dogma of the Trinity is not complicated or long. Why, then, does no one know it? Because it is impossible to know what makes no sense.
Then there follow proofs that these truths, that is, that God is a Trinity, have been revealed by God to all men. The proofs are divided into proofs from the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, which forms the teaching of the Jews, of those Jews who regard the Trinity as the greatest blasphemy, in this Old Testament do they look for proofs that God has revealed his three-fold nature to men. Here are these proofs from the Old ​Testament: (1) Because God said, “Let us make,” and not “Let me make:” that was so because he spoke with his Son and the Holy Ghost. (pp. 165, 166.)
(2) Because he said, “Adam, one of us.” By “us” are meant the three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. (3) The Bible says: “Let us confound their language,” and not, “Let me confound;” consequently the three Gods wanted to confound it. (4) Because three angels came to Abraham,—those were the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who came to see Abraham. (pp. 169, 170.)
(5) Because in the Book of Numbers it is commanded that the word “Lord” should be repeated three times. (6) Because in David’s Psalter it says, “Their whole host.” “Their” proves the Trinity. (7) A proof of the Trinity is found in the fact that Isaiah said three times, “Holy, holy, holy.” (8) Proofs are found in all those passages of the Old Testament where the words “son and spirit” are used (Psalm ii. 7; Is. xlviii. 16, xi. 2, lxi. 1; Job xxxiii. 4). “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,” and so forth. Those are all the proofs from the Old Testament. I have not omitted a single one. The author sees himself that the proofs are poor, and that it is possible to find as many or even more proofs in any book you please, and so he thinks it necessary to give explanations. Later on he says:
​Here are the proofs from the New Testament. The first proof the Theology finds in Christ’s conversation with his disciples: Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John xiv. 11); and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John xiv. 13). From the fact that Jesus Christ calls himself the Son of the Father, God, just as he taught all men to call themselves the sons of God, it is argued that Jesus Christ is a second person of God. The author says: “Here evidently two persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son, are distinguished.” (p. 175).
The second proof is taken from the passage where Jesus Christ says to his disciples, If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive (John xiv. 15-17). The last verse is not written out, but instead of it the continuation is taken from verse 26 of the same chapter: but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (p. 175.)
From this it is concluded:
“Here all three persons of the Most Holy Trinity are distinguished, namely, as persons: the Son, who speaks of himself: I will pray,—the Father: I will pray the Father,—the Holy Ghost, who is called another Comforter, consequently distinct from the Father; and he will be sent to take the place of the Son with the apostles and to teach them everything; consequently, he is just such a person as the Son.” (p. 175.)
Because the paraclete, that is, the comforter, whom Christ promises his disciples after his death, is once during that conversation called the Holy Ghost, it is taken as a proof that Christ in this conversation revealed ​the mystery of the Holy Trinity. No attention at all is paid to the meaning which this word has in the whole conversation, for even there the comforter is called the spirit of truth, precisely what Christ calls his teaching. I go away, and come again unto you (John xiv. 28); and I in you, and ye in me (ib. 20); if a man love me, he will keep my words: and my father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (ib. 23); I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you (ib. 18); for he shall receive the Spirit of truth, and shall shew it unto you (John xvi. 14).
These passages, which explain the whole meaning of the conversation, are not quoted, but the word “holy,” which is attached as an epithet to the spirit, is taken as a proof that here Christ spoke of the third person of the Trinity.
Third proof: But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me (John xv. 26). These words, which quite clearly and simply say that when I shall no longer be alive, and you shall be permeated by the spirit of truth, by that truth which I have taught you, and which proceeds from God, you will convince yourself of the truth of my teaching,—these words are taken as a new proof that here are clearly distinguished, as in the previous texts, all three persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and at the same time they prove the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with God: the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.
​Fifth: The words, I came out from God, I came forth from the Father (John xvi. 27, 28), which cannot signify anything but the filial relation of any man to God, precisely what Jesus Christ has preached, are taken as a proof that “here with new force is expressed the idea of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father.”
In the second series of proofs from the New Testament there appear first the concluding words of St. Matthew: Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 19), which Jesus Christ said, when he appeared to his disciples after the resurrection.
Without saying anything about the meaning and the especial character in general of the whole Gospel after the resurrection, of which mention will be made later, these words serve only as a proof,—as which even the church understands it,—that in accepting Christianity it was necessary to acknowledge the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as the foundations of the teaching. But from this does not follow by any means that God consists of three persons, and so the demands that the words “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost” be used can by no means have anything in common with the arguments about the existence of God in three persons.
The Theology itself admits that the customary formula of baptism can by no means be regarded as a proof of the Trinity of God, and so, on pp. 177 and 178, it explains why it is necessary to understand God in three persons by this. The explanations are as follows:
“The Saviour had before explained to the apostles more than once that under the appellation of the Father was to be understood God the Father who had sent him into the world (John vi. 38—40; vii. 16, 18, 28; xi. 42, and elsewhere) and who is another that beareth witness of him (John v. 32); under the name of the Son he understood himself, whom the apostles indeed professed as the Son of ​God who came from the Father (Matt. xvi. 16; John xvi. 30); finally, under the name of the Holy Ghost he understood another Comforter whom he had promised to send to them in his place from the Father (John xiv. 16; xv. 26).” (p. 177.)
No proof is needed that Christ understood God by the Father, for that is admitted by everybody, but there is no proof, and there can be none, that under the Son he meant himself, and under the Holy Ghost a new person of the Trinity. As a proof that he is the second person they adduce the passage (Matt. xvi. 16), where Peter says to Christ what Christ has always said about all other people, that is, that they are sons of God; and John xvi. 30, where his disciples say to him what he teaches all other men. In proof of the separate existence of the third person there are repeated the same verses (John xiv. 14 and xv. 26), which mean something different.
Under the name of the Comforter Jesus Christ understands the spirit of truth, but cannot understand any third person. The clearest proof of it is that in the gospels there are no proofs; outside of these passages, which prove nothing, it is impossible to find anything else. But the Theology, not at all embarrassed by this, regards its proposition as proved, and says:
“Consequently, since the Saviour did not consider it necessary to add a new explanation of the above mentioned words (Matt. xxviii. 19), he in the present case understood, and the apostles understood with him, nobody else but the three divine persons by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
In the third series there is one last and chief proof from the New Testament; those are the words of John in his first Epistle, v. 7: For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. The Theology says:
“In this passage there is expressed, even more clearly ​than before, the Trinity of the persons in God and the unity of the essence. The Trinity of the persons: for the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost are called three witnesses; consequently they are distinct from each other and the Word and the Holy Ghost, mentioned as witnesses with the Father, are not merely two of his attributes, or forces, or actions, but just such persons as the Father. The unity of the essence: for if the Word or the Holy Ghost did not have the selfsame divine nature and substance with the Father, but a lower, created nature, there would be an endless distance between them and the Father, and it would not be possible to say: and these three are one.”
But unfortunately, although this passage, no matter how weak it is, may serve, if not as proof, at least as an incentive to the assertion that God is one and three, unfortunately not all agree with the theologians. It says:
“Unjust are those who wish to weaken the power of this passage, by asserting that the three celestial witnesses, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are represented as one, not in relation to their essence, but only in relation to their unanimous testimony, just like the three terrestrial witnesses, who are mentioned in the following verse: There are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one (1 John v. 8), form unquestionably one, not by their essence, but only in relation to the testimony. It must be remarked that (a) the apostle himself distinguishes the unity of the celestial and the unity of the terrestrial witnesses; of the latter, which are indeed different among themselves or different in their essence, he expresses himself only by saying: and these three agree in one (καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν), that is, in one, in relation to the testimony; but of the first he says: And these three are one (καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσιν), and not, agree in one; consequently ‘are one’ is a great deal more than what the ​terrestrial witnesses are,—they are one, not only in relation to the testimony, but also in their essence. This is the more certain since (b) the holy apostle himself in the next verse calls the testimony of the celestial witnesses, without any distinction, the witness of God: If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; consequently he assumes that the three witnesses of heaven are one, namely in their Divinity, or are three persons of God. It is the more certain since (c) the same holy apostle even before, in his Gospel, mentions each of the three witnesses of heaven, the Father, the Son or Word, and the Holy Ghost, and mentions them as three persons of God, consubstantial among themselves, when expounding the words of the Saviour: Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go. I am one that bears witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me (John viii. 14, 18; cf. John v. 32, 37); but when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me (John xv. 26); he shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you (John xvi. 14, 15).” (pp. 179 and 180.)
Still more unfortunate it is that this solitary passage, which, however weak it is, at least in some way confirms the words of the three Gods and of one, that this same passage turns out, according to the testimony of the Theology, to be debatable, and, according to the unanimous testimony of all learned criticism, spurious:
“Unfair is the attempt which is made to doubt the authenticity of the passage under discussion, by pointing out that it does not exist in certain Greek texts of the New Testament and in certain translations, especially in ​the East, and by showing that it was not used by the ancient fathers of the church, such as St. Gregory the Divine, Ambrose, Hilary, nor by the Councils of Nice and Sardis and others, which were against the Arians, though this verse might have served as an important tool against the heretics, and though some of the fathers have made use of verses 6 and 8 of the same chapter, which are much less strong and decisive. All these proofs of the assumed spuriousness of the verse under discussion are quite insufficient for their purpose and, besides, are refuted by positive proofs: (a) if in some Greek texts of the New Testament, which have been preserved until the present, this verse does not exist, it has been and still is in many others. Why then, arises the question, should we give preference to the first over the latter and conclude that it was added to the latter, and not omitted in the first? On the contrary, justice demands that preference be given to the latter.” (pp. 180, 181.)
Those are all the proofs from Holy Scripture of the Old and the New Testament. The only passage from the whole Scripture which presents a similitude of that assertion that God is one and three is spurious, and its reality is confirmed by the polemics of the composer of the Theology.
But there are also proofs from Holy Tradition:
“(28) Confirmation of the same truth from Holy Tradition. No matter how clear and numerous the passages are from Holy Scripture, especially from the New Testament, which contain the doctrine of the Trinity of the persons in one God, it is necessary for us here to turn to Holy Tradition which has been preserved in the church from its very beginning. It is necessary to do so because all these passages from Scripture have been subject to all kinds of interpretations and controversies, which cannot be permanently settled, at least not for a believer, but by the voice of the apostolic tradition and the ancient ​church. It is necessary also in order to defend the church itself against the unjust rebuke of the freethinkers that the church began to offer the doctrine about the three hypostases in God only with the fourth century, or with the First Ecumenical Council, but that before that time it was entirely unknown to the church, or was presented in an entirely different form. Consequently it is sufficient to take the thread of the tradition to the fourth century, or to the First Ecumenical Council, and to show whether and how the ancient Christian church taught about the Holy Trinity in the first three centuries.”
So we have learned from the Theology, that there are absolutely no proofs in Scripture in confirmation of the Trinity, except the polemics of the composer of the Theology; we have also learned that it is not even possible to assert that the church has always adhered to this tradition and that the only foundation of this assertion is left in the polemical art of the composer of the Theology. I have read all the proofs of Art. 28, which show in fifteen pages that the church has always professed the Trinity, but these arguments have not convinced me, not because I have read more exact and convincing proofs against it, but because my feeling revolts and I cannot believe that God, who has revealed himself to me in such a senseless, wild expression as that “I am one and three, and I am the Father and the Son, and I am the Spirit,” should not have given me in his Scripture, or in his Tradition, or in my soul, any means to understand what it signifies, but has condemned me, for the solution of the question about God and my salvation, to have recourse to no other means than believing the argument of the Orthodox Theology against the rationalists, and repeating, without comprehension of what I am saying, the words which the Orthodox Theology will dictate to me.
I was on the point of making my last conclusion about ​this dogma, when, immediately after the article about the Tradition, there was revealed to me Art. 29, and as the crown of the whole: The relation of the dogma about the Trinity of the persons in one God to common sense,—“we shall now take the liberty to say a few words about its relation to common sense, in order, on the one hand, to overthrow the false opinions in respect to this subject, and, on the other, to point out and elucidate to ourselves the true opinion. Since antiquity there have existed two false opinions in respect to this matter. Some have asserted that the teaching of the triune God is contrary to common sense, because it is contradictory in itself, but they assert so without any foundation: (a) Christianity teaches that God is one and trine not in the selfsame relation, but in different relations, that he is one in essence, but trine in person, and gives us one conception about the divine essence, and another about the divine persons, so that these concepts in no way exclude each other: where then is the contradiction?”
Christianity gives us one conception about the essence, and another about the divine persons. That is precisely what I have been looking for, namely, what these different conceptions about the persons and the essence are, but that is not to be found anywhere. Not only is it absent, but there can be no answer, because the words ουσία and ὑπόστασις now mean something different, and now mean one and the same, and are used indiscriminately.
“If Christianity taught that God is one in essence and trine in essence, or that there are in him three persons and one, or again, that person and essence in God are identical, then there would indeed be a contradiction. But, we repeat, Christianity does not teach that, and he who does not intentionally mix the Christian conceptions of the essence and the persons in God will never think of looking for an internal contradiction in the teaching about the Holy Trinity.” (p. 204.)
​Does not intentionally mix. Have I not strained all the powers of my mind in order to find in the teaching the slightest difference in the conceptions about the essence and the persons, without finding any? And the author knows that there is none.
“(b) In order to call a certain idea contradictory to common sense and to itself, it is necessary first of all completely to grasp this idea, to comprehend the meaning of its subject and predicate, and to see their incongruity. But in relation to the mystery of the Holy Trinity no one can boast of that; all we know is what nature or essence or person among creatures is, but we do not fully comprehend the essence, or the persons in God, who infinitely surpasses all his creations. Consequently we are not able to judge whether the idea of God one in essence and trine in persons is congruous or not; we have not the right to assert that the idea that God one in essence and three in persons includes an internal contradiction. Is it sensible to judge of what is not comprehensible?” (p. 204.)
In division a it was said that the conception of the essence was one, and of the persons another, and that Christianity taught it, but this teaching did not appear anywhere; but let us suppose that we have not read what precedes, have not studied the whole book, and have not convinced ourselves that such a distinction exists, and that we believe it. How then is it said in division b: that we cannot and have not the right to call an idea “contradictory to common sense without having comprehended the meaning of its subject and predicate”? The subject is 1, the predicate 3,—that is comprehensible. But if the subject is one God and the predicate three Gods, the contradiction is by the laws of reason the same. If, according to the Introduction of the concept of God, one may become equal to three, we shall insensibly be talking about what we do not comprehend, before we ​insensibly judge of what we do not understand. And it is there where it begins. And these senseless words, according to the confession of the Theology, the highest reason and the highest goodness speaks in reply to the entreaties of his children searching after truth.
“(c) On the contrary, common sense cannot help recognizing this idea as completely true and devoid of any contradiction. It does not comprehend its internal meaning; but on the basis of external testimony it knows conclusively that this idea has clearly been communicated by God himself in the Christian revelation: God is the God of truth.” (p. 205.)
What is said cannot be understood, but it is so “on the basis of external, conclusive testimony,” so that it is possible, without understanding them, to repeat the words which the Theology speaks; but in this case, as we see, there are none of those external proofs, not only no conclusive proofs, but no proofs at all. Nowhere in Holy Scripture does it say that the Spirit of God is a third person. What Moses wrote about God saying to himself, “Let us make,” cannot be called a reliable proof. And the fact that in Jesus Christ’s conversation in St. John there is once used the word Holy Ghost when speaking of the truth, is not a conclusive evidence. The fact that in baptizing into Christianity the words, “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” are used is also not an evidence. The spurious verse from the Epistle of John not only does not argue in favour of the Trinity, but is a clear proof of there not being, and never having been, any proof, and that those who wanted to prove it felt so themselves.
From the external evidences there is left only the polemic of the author against those who reject the verse from St. John and against the rationalists who assert that the church did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity until the fourth century. Let us assume that I am so little in​telligent and so illiterate that I believe the polemic of the author and agree with him that the dogma of the Trinity is recognized by the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Infallible Church, and that I want to believe in it. I cannot believe it, because I cannot form any concept about what is meant by the triune God. Neither I nor any one else can recognize this dogma, if for no other reason, because the words, as they were expressed at first, have remained, after long speeches, quasi-explanations and proofs, nothing but words which can have no meaning whatever for a man with an unimpaired reason.
On the basis of the sacred church tradition you may assert anything you please, and if the tradition is imperturbable, it is impossible not to recognize as true what is transmitted by tradition; in any case, it is necessary to assert something, but here nothing is asserted,—these are words without any inner connection. Let us assume that it is asserted that God lives on Olympus, that God is made of gold, that there is no god, that there are four-teen gods, that God has children, or a son. All those are strange, wild assumptions, but with each of them some idea is connected; but no idea is connected with the assertion that God is one and three. So, no matter what authority may assert it, even if it be all the living and dead patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and no matter what uninterrupted voice from heaven may call out to me, saying, “I am one and three,” I shall remain in the same condition, not of unbelief (there is nothing here to believe in), but of perplexity about what these words mean, and in what language and by what law they may receive a meaning. For me, a man educated in the spirit of the Christian faith, who after all the erring of his life has retained a dim consciousness of what there is true in it; for me, who by the blunders of life and the seduction of reason have reached the negation of life and most terrible despair; for me, who have found salvation in uniting ​with it the spirit of religion, which I recognized as the only divine force which moved humanity, and who have been in search of the highest expression of this religion, which would be accessible to me; for me, who above all believe in God my Father, through whose will I exist, suffer, and agonizingly search after his revelation; for me to admit that these senseless, blasphemous words are the only answer which I can receive from my Father in response to my entreaty as to how to understand and love him, for me this is impossible.
It is impossible to believe that God, my good Father (according to the teaching of the church), knowing that my salvation or perdition depends on my comprehension of him, should have expressed the most essential knowledge about himself in such a way that my reason, which he has given me, should not be able to comprehend his expressions, and (according to the teaching of the church) should have concealed all that truth, so important to men, under indications in the plural number of verbs and, in any case, in an ambiguous, obscure interpretation of words, such as the Spirit and the Son, in Jesus’ farewell conversation in St. John, and in the spurious verse in the Epistle, and that my knowledge of God and my salvation and that of billions of men should depend on a greater or lesser verbal glibness of all the Renans and Makáris. I shall believe him who has the best arguments.
No! If it were so, God would have given me such an intellect that 1=3 would be as comprehensible as it is impossible now, and such a heart that it would be a joy to admit three gods, whereas now my heart revolts against them, or, at least, he would have given all that to me in a definite and simple manner, and not in debatable and ambiguous words. God cannot have commanded me to believe. The very reason why I do not believe is because I love, worship, and fear God. I am afraid to believe the lie which surrounds us and to lose God. That is ​impossible, and not only impossible, but it is quite clear that it is not the truth, that I was mistaken in thinking that I could find an answer and a solution of my doubts in the church. I had intended to go to God, and I found my way into a stinking bog, which evokes in me only those feelings of which I am most afraid: disgust, malice, and indignation. God, that incomprehensible, but still existing one, by the will of whom I live! Thou hast implanted in me this striving after the knowledge of thee and of myself. I have erred, I have searched after the truth in the wrong place. I knew that I erred. I have pampered my evil passions, and I knew that they were bad, but I have never forgotten thee; I have always felt thee, even in moments of erring. I came very near perishing, when I lost thee, but thou gavest me thy hand, and I grasped it, and life was illuminated for me. Thou hast saved me, and I am searching after this alone: to come near unto thee, and to understand thee as much as is possible. Help me, teach me! I know that I am good, that I love and want to love all, and want to love truth. Thou art the God of love and truth, take me nearer unto thee, disclose everything to me, so that I may be able to understand about myself and about thee!
And the good God, the God of truth, replies to me through the mouth of the church: “The Deity is one and trine. Oh, most glorious transformation!”
Go yourselves to your father, the devil, you who have taken the keys of the kingdom of heaven and have not yourselves entered it and have closed it against others! You are not speaking of God, but of something else.
VI.
Such is the doctrine about the Trinity in the radical Christian dogma, as expounded in fifty pages. dogma are based, and with its refutal are refuted, the dogmas about the Redeemer and Sanctifier, and every one of the dogmas which refer to the house-management of our salvation. I reject this dogma. I cannot help rejecting it, because, by accepting it, I should be renouncing the consciousness of my rational soul and the cognition of God. But, while rejecting this dogma, which is so contrary to human reason, and which has no foundation either in Scripture, or in Tradition, I still find inexplicable the cause which has led the church to profess this senseless dogma and so carefully pick out the imaginary proofs to confirm it. That is the more surprising to me since that terrible, blasphemous dogma, as expounded here, can apparently be of no use to any one or in anything, and since it is impossible to deduce any moral rule from it, as indeed is evident from the moral application of the dogma,—a collection of meaningless words, which are not connected in any way. Here is the application of the dogma:
“(1) All the persons of the Most Holy Trinity, except the common attributes, which belong to them according to their essence, have still other, especial attributes, by which they differ from each other, so that the Father is indeed the Father and occupies the first place in the order of divine persons, the Son is the Son and occupies ​the second place, and the Holy Ghost is the Holy Ghost and occupies the third place, although by their divinity they are entirely equal among themselves. To each of us the Creator has given, in addition to the properties which we all have in common by our human nature, special properties, special talents, by which our special calling and place is defined in the circle of our friends. To know these faculties and talents in ourselves, and to use them for our own benefit and for the benefit of our friends and for the glory of God, so as to justify our calling in this way, is the unquestionable duty of each man. (2) Differing from each other in their personal properties, all the persons of the Most Holy Trinity are, none the less, in a constant mutual communion: the Father is in the Son and in the Holy Ghost; the Son is in the Father and in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost is in the Father and in the Son (John xiv. 10). Even thus we, with all our differences according to our personal qualities, must observe the greatest possible communion and moral union among ourselves, being bound by the unity of essence and the bond of brotherly love. (3) In particular, let the fathers among ourselves keep in mind whose great name they bear, even as the sons, and all those who are begotten from the fathers,—and, keeping this in mind, let them see to it that they sanctify the names of father or son which they bear, through an exact performance of all the obligations imposed upon them by these names—(4) Finally, keeping in mind, to what disastrous results the Eastern Christians have been led through their arbitrary reasoning on the personal essence of God the Holy Ghost, let us learn to cling as fast as possible to the dogmas of faith of the teaching of the word of God and the Orthodox Church, and not to cross the eternal boundaries which our fathers in faith have set.”
Thus it remains incomprehensible why this dogma is ​confirmed. Not only is it senseless and not based on Scripture or on Tradition, and nothing comes of it; in reality, according to my immediate observation of the believers, and according to my own personal recollection of the time when I myself was a believer, it turns out that I never believed in the Trinity and never saw a man who believed in the dogma of the Trinity. Out of a hundred men and women among the people not more than three will be able to name the persons of the Trinity, and not more than thirty will be able to say what the Trinity is, and will not be able to name the persons, but will include among them St. Nicholas the Miracle-worker and the Mother of God. The others do not even know anything about the Trinity. Among the masses I have not come across any conception about the Trinity. Christ is called the God-man, as it were, the eldest of the saints. The Holy Ghost is entirely unknown, and God remains the incomprehensible, almighty God, the beginning of everything. Nobody ever prays to the Holy Ghost, no one ever invokes him. In the more cultured circles I have also not found any belief in the Holy Ghost. I have met very many who very fervently believed in Christ, but never have I heard the Holy Ghost mentioned except for the purpose of theological discussion. The same was true of me: during all those years when I was an Orthodox believer the idea of the Holy Ghost never entered my mind. The belief in and definition of the Trinity I have found only in the schools, and thus it turns out that the dogma of the Trinity is not rational, not based on anything, is good for nothing, and no one believes in it, while the church professes it.
In order to comprehend why the church does that, it is necessary to investigate the further exposition of the church, and I proceed to do this. It would be a useless labour in the consequent investigation to point out all the errors, contradictions, senseless statements, and lies, for ​the investigation of the first two chapters about the most important dogmas has sufficiently demonstrated to the reader what the methods of reasoning and the expressions of the author are. I will now give a short exposition of all the dogmas, in their general interrelation, giving the pages and pointing out the chief propositions which are adduced in confirmation of the dogmas. I do this in order from the general connection of the whole teaching to elucidate the meaning which may not become evident from the separate passages.
I repeat what was in the beginning, so as to proceed consistently.
There is a God, and he is one (Art. 13). He is a spirit (Art. 17). He has an infinite number of attributes; his attributes, as revealed to us, are as follows (Art. 19). His attributes in general: unlimitedness, self-existence, independence, unchangeableness, omnipresence, eternity, almightiness. The attributes of his mind (Art. 20): omniscience and all-wisdom. The attributes of his will (Art. 21): goodness, freedom, holiness, truth, justice. God, in addition to that, has persons. He is one and three persons. The persons are independent and inseparable (proofs from Holy Scripture, Arts. 26, 27, and 28). three persons are equal to each other, though some have thought that one is more important than the others. But that is not true; they are all equal: the Father is God, the Son is God and consubstantial with the Father; there are adduced disputes which prove the opposite, and proofs from Holy Scripture which prove the opposite, and discussions about one God not being subject to another, but that both have equal power. The same is true of the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost have personal properties. Art. 32. Many controversies are cited about the personal attributes, and finally there is an exposition of the dogma that the personal attribute of the Father consists in this, that he is ​not generated, but begets the Son, and produces the Holy Ghost. (p. 263.)
“(a) Entirely in a spiritual manner and consequently without any suffering, without any sensuous secretion: because the essence of God is immaterial and simple; (b) he begets and produces since eternity and for eternity: for there has been no time when the Father has not been the Father of the Son and the producer of the Holy Ghost, just as there was no time when he was not God, and what has never begun cannot be said ever to end; (c) he begets and produces in such a way as only he alone knows and he who is born from him and proceeds from him, but of the creatures none can comprehend it; (d) finally, beginninglessness and causelessness are exclusively appropriated by God the Father only in relation to the other persons of the Holy Trinity, but by their divinity the Son and the Spirit are also beginningless and causeless, or, rather, the whole Trinity is co-beginningless and co-causeless.” (pp. 263 and 264.)
“41. The personal attribute of God, the Holy Ghost.” (p. 267.)
A controversy of over fifty pages about the question from whom the Holy Ghost proceeds, whether from the Father and the Son, or from the Father alone. The dispute is settled by an analysis of external proofs. The proofs are as follows:
“Who, putting his hand on his heart, will have the courage to affirm that we, who believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, have deviated from the truth? Who will dare, in all conscience, to rebuke us for observing a heresy? If we are rebuked for an error or a heresy, it would be just as right to rebuke for it all the holy fathers and teachers of the church; the same as to rebuke the Ecumenical Councils, not only locally, but altogether the whole ancient church; the same as to rebuke the Word of God itself for error and heresy. ​Who, we repeat, will be bold enough to utter such blasphemy?”
Then follows a moral exposition of the dogma of the Trinity, which was quoted before. One cannot help but come to the conclusion that the simplest, clearest application of all the preceding controversies is that one must not speak any foolishness; above all, one must not teach what nobody can understand, and, more important still, one must not impair the chief foundations of faith, love, and charity to your neighbour.
Then follows “Division II. Of God in his general relation to the world and to man. Chapter I. Of God as the Creator.” God has created the world.
Here is the way the church teaches about it:
“Unquestionably God is the creator of all visible and invisible creations. First he produced through thought all the celestial powers, as exalted psalmists of his glory, and created all that mental world which, through the grace given to it, knows God and is always and in everything devoted to his will. After that he created out of nothing this visible and material world. At last God created man, who is composed of the immaterial rational soul and the material body, so that from this one man, thus composed, it might be seen that he is the creator of both the worlds, the immaterial and the material.” (P. 351.)
After that, as always, follows a controversy:
“Some assumed that the world was eternal; others admitted its emanation from God; others again taught that the world was created by itself, by accident, from the eternal chaos or from atoms; others taught that God has formed it from coeternal matter; but no one could rise to the concept of the production of the world out of nothing by the almighty power of God.” (p. 352.)
All these opinions are refuted in Art. 55:
“God created the world out of nothing.” 56. “God ​created the world not from eternity, but in time, or together with time.” (p. 360.)
The farther one reads the book, the more one has to marvel. It looks as though the problem and purpose of the book consisted in keeping out rational comprehension, not the comprehension of the divine mysteries, but simply the comprehension of what is being said. I can imagine a man who admits that God created the world. Well, what more do you want? He does not care to inquire any farther into the teaching. No, they demand of him that he should recognize that the world is created not from something, but from nothing, not from eternity, but in time. On this point there is a controversy, and it is proved to him that the world was created in time or, more correctly, with time. “Prescience or predetermination were in God before existence.” It says, “At one time the world did not exist,” that is, it says, if God’s prescience be admitted, that when there was no time, God knew the future. And when it says, “At one time the world did not exist,” and time did not exist, it says that there was time (for “at one time” means time) when there was no time. And when it says that “God created time,” it says (since the verb is used in the past tense), there was a time when God created time.
57. The world was created by all three persons. This is proved by Holy Scripture, and is expressed thus:
“The Father created the world through the Son in the Holy Ghost;” or “everything is from the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost;” however, not in the sense that the Son and the Holy Ghost performed some instrumental and slavish service at the creation, but that constructively they performed the Father’s will. (p. 365.)
58. The manner of the creation. The world was created (1) through reason, (2) through willing, and (3) through the word:
“God created the world according to his eternal ideas ​about it, quite freely, by the mere beck of his will. The plan of the world creation had been predetermined since eternity in his ideas; the free will determined to materialize this plan; the beck of his will actually materialized it.”
Particularly fine is here the word “ideas.”
59. The incitement toward the creation, and its purpose. God created the world for this reason:
“We must believe that God, being good and all-good, though all-perfect and all-glorious in himself, created the world out of nothing for the purpose that other beings, glorifying him, might partake of his grace.” (p. 370.)
The purpose of God is glory. Proofs from Holy Scripture and then:
60. The perfection of the creation and whence evil comes into the world. The question is, Whence comes the evil? and the answer is that there is no evil. And the proof for this is as follows:
“God is a supremely all-wise and omnipotent being, consequently he could not have created the world imperfect, could not have created a single thing in it which would be insufficient for its purpose and would not serve for the perfection of the whole. God is a most holy and all-good being, consequently he could not be the cause of evil, either physical or moral, and if he had created an imperfect world, it would have been so, because he was unable to create a more perfect one, or because he did not want to. But both assumptions are equally incongruous with the true concept of the highest being.” End of the article. (p. 376.)
There is no evil, because God is good. But how about our suffering from the evil? What sense was there in asking? How can there be any evil, when there is none?
61. The moral application of the dogma is that it is necessary to glorify God, and so forth.
​62. About the spiritual world. “Angels are incorporeal spirits, endowed with reason, will, and power. They were created before the visible world and before man—; are divided into nine forms—; and the evil angels themselves were created by God as good, but became evil by their own will.” (p. 377.)
And again, as always, there comes a controversy with those who spoke differently of the angels and the demons. Then proofs from Holy Scripture that there are angels of various orders.
“65. By their natures the angels are incorporeal spirits, more perfect than the human soul, but limited.”
They were created after the likeness of God, and have mind and will. Proofs from Holy Scripture.
66. Number and degrees of angels. The celestial hierarchy.
The number of angels is legion, that is, very large. There are various classes of celestial powers. (p. 396.)
There follows a controversy with Origen about the orders of the angels, and it is proved that there are nine classes of them. (p. 397.)
“The angels are divided into nine classes, and these nine into three orders. In the first order are those who are nearer to God, such as thrones, cherubim, and seraphim; in the second order are dominions, principalities, and powers; in the third order are angels, archangels, and beginnings. This division is based partly (a) on Holy Scripture, at least in this respect that in Holy Scripture we meet with the names of all the orders of the angels, as given here—but mainly (b) on Holy Tradition.” (pp. 198 and 199.)
“Of the private opinions the most noteworthy is this, that the division of the angels into nine orders embraces only the names and orders of those that were revealed in the Word of God, but does not embrace many other names and classes of angels which have not been revealed to us ​in this life, but will become known to us in the life to come.”
67. Various appellations of evil spirits and the authenticity of their existence. In addition to the angels there are the devil and his angels.
“That this devil and his angels are accepted in Holy Scripture as personal and actual beings, and not as imaginary beings, is to be seen (1) from the books of the Old Testament, (2) still more from the books of the New Testament.” Then follow proofs.
68. The evil spirits were created good, but they themselves became bad. How the good could have become bad is not explained, but there are many proofs from Scriptures. The devils became bad, some fathers of the church say, immediately before the creation of the world, while others say that the devils remained for a considerable time in the state of grace. (p. 406.) The devils became bad not all at once:
“At first one only fell, the chief of them, then he drew after him all the rest. This chief devil, according to some opinions, had been, previous to his fall, the very first and most perfect of all created spirits, who excelled before all the hosts of the angels; but according to the opinion of others, he belonged to the order of the supreme spirits (ταξιάρχων), to the leadership of which the lower orders of the angels were subject,—indeed he was among the number of those among whom the Lord apportioned the government of the parts of the world. The others, whom the fallen morning star drew after him, were the angels who were subject to him, who therefore could easily be carried away by his example, or suasion, or deception.” (pp. 406 and 407.)
What sin caused the devils to fall? Some say, because they mingled with the daughters of man, others say through envy, and others again say through pride.
“There have been various opinions as to what the pride ​of the fallen spirit, which formed his first sin, consisted in. Some, on the basis of the words of Isaiah (xiv. 13, 14), have supposed that the devil took it into his head to be equal with God in essence and to sit on the same throne with him, or even dreamed of being higher than God, for which reason he became God’s antagonist who exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped (2 Thes. ii. 4). Others supposed that the fallen morning star did not wish to bow before the Son of God, having been envious of his privileges, or because he saw from the revelation that this Son of God would suffer some day, and so doubted his divinity and did not wish to acknowledge him as God.”
How deep the devils fell, and whether God gave them time for repentance, is also determined (p. 410); it is declared that previous to the creation of the world the devils had a chance to repent, but after that they could no longer do so.
69. The nature of the evil spirits, their number, and degrees. The nature of the devils is the same as that of the angels; the number of the devils is very great, and it is assumed that there are orders among them too. From this is made (Art. 70) a moral application of the dogma. The application of the dogma is here more startling than in the previous cases, but here for the first time this application has a definite purpose:
“(3) The angels of God are all equal among themselves in their nature, but are distinguished according to their powers and perfections, and, consequently, there are among them higher and lower angels; there are those who rule, and those who are subject; there is an invariable hierarchy, established by God. Even thus it ought to be with us: in all the unity of our natures, we differ from each other, by the will of the Creator, through our different faculties and distinctions; consequently among us, too, there ought to be higher and lower, rulers and sub​jects, and in our societies God himself arranges the order and hierarchy, enthrones his anointed ones (Prov. viii. 15), gives all the lower powers (Rom. xiii. 1), and ordains for each man his service and place.” (p. 415.)
For the first time a definite rule is patched on a dogma. 71. Soon after the creation of the angels and the devils, God created the material world in this fashion:
“In the beginning God created from nothing the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void. Then God successively produced: on the first day of the world, light; on the second, the firmament or visible heaven; on the third, the gathering of the waters on the earth, the dry land, and the plants; on the fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; on the fifth, fishes and birds; on the sixth, four-footed animals living on the dry land.” (p. 416.)
72. Moses’ account of the origin of the material world is history. A proof is given that history began when there was no time.
73. The meaning of Moses’ account of the creation is six days. It is argued that all of Moses’ words have to be taken in their literal sense.
74. A refutal of the objections made against Moses’ account. In refutal of the false opinion of the rationalists that there could not be any day and night when there was no sun, the following is said:
“Nowadays, indeed, there could be no day without the sun, but at that time it was possible. For that only two conditions were needed: (a) that the earth should turn around its own axis, and (b) that the light-bearing matter, which existed even then, should be brought into a quivering motion. But it cannot be denied that the earth began to turn around its own axis with the very first day of creation; nor that the Creator could in the first three days by his immediate power bring the light-bearing ​matter into a quivering motion, just as now, beginning with the fourth day, it is brought into motion by the celestial luminaries, which have received this power from God.” (p. 423.)
It is necessary to repeat word for word and quickly to admit that God brings the light-bearing matter into motion by his immediate power, as though his problem did not consist in creating the world, but that the manner of the creation should agree with the Bible, rather than admit any departure from the words of Moses, which might harmonize his account with our concepts and knowledge of zoology, physics, and astronomy. The whole history of the creation in six days has to be understood word for word; thus the church commands. This is a dogma.
75. The moral application of the dogma. This application consists in the necessity of attending mass on Sunday and sanctifying the seventh day.
“76. The Lord our God, at the end of the creation, produced man, who belongs equally to the spiritual world, by his soul, and to the material world, by his body, and so he is, as it were, an abbreviation of the two worlds and has since antiquity justly been called the little world.” (p. 427.)
“God in the Holy Trinity said: Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness (Gen. i. 26). And God made the body of the first man, Adam, from the earth; breathed into his face the breath of life; brought Adam into Paradise; gave him for food, besides the other fruits of Paradise, the fruits of the tree of life; finally he took a rib from Adam during his sleep, and from it created the first woman, Eve—” (p. 427.)
77. The essence and meaning of Moses’ account of the origin of the first men, Adam and Eve. This account of Moses is to be taken in the sense of history, and not in the sense of an invention or myth, because Moses and the holy fathers understood it in a historical sense. On ​the other hand it says (p. 429): “It is to be understood in the sense of history, but not in a literal sense.”
The question as to what is meant by understanding in a historical but not a literal sense remains unanswered.
78. The origin of Adam and Eve and of the whole human race. According to the established order, there follows a controversy. Here are those with whom the controversy is carried on:
“This truth has two kinds of enemies: in the first place those who affirm that there existed men on earth before Adam (Preadamites), and that, therefore, Adam is not the first ancestor of the human race; in the second. place, those who admit that with Adam there were several progenitors of the human race (Postadamites), and that, consequently, men did not originate from one root.”
As in many other passages of the book, it is evident that the point is not in the refutal, for there is no refutal, but only in giving utterance to a dogma. A dogma is only the product of a controversy. Consequently it is necessary to put forward that against which an argument is adduced, in order to be able to say wherein the teaching of the church consists. Here, of course, are victoriously refuted the proofs of the first on the basis of Holy Scripture, and the proofs of the second from physiology, linguistics, and geography,—on the basis of those same sciences which are interpreted to suit its own purposes. These proofs of the unity of the human race are remarkable only for this, that here, almost under our eyes, takes place the formation of what is called a dogma, and what, in reality, is nothing but the expression of one particular opinion in any controversy. Some prove that men could not have had one progenitor, others prove that they could. Neither can adduce anything conclusive in their defence. And this dispute is not interesting and has nothing in common with the question of faith, with the question as to what constitutes the meaning of my life. Not one ​of the disputants is disputing for the sake of solving the scientific question, but each because a certain solution is needed by him. This confirms their tradition.
The Theology adduces proofs that God could have counted days, when there was no sun, by saying that he shook the matter; but to prove that all men originated in one man, we read on p. 437:
“Nowadays the best linguists, after prolonged labours, have come to the conclusion that all languages and all dialects of man are to be referred to three chief classes, the Indo-European, the Semitic, and the Malay, and come down from one root, which they find in the Hebrew language, while others do not define it.” (p. 437.)
The Theology says that it knows all about it in this matter. And these ignorant words pass unnoticed in the world of science; but let us imagine that the composer of the Theology, which is quite possible, will turn out to be a father of the church in three hundred years; then his words will serve as a confirmation of the dogma. In another five hundred years God himself who shakes matter may become a dogma. Only such reflection gives an explanation to those strange, wild utterances, which now are taken as dogmas.
79. The origin of each man and, in particular, the origin of the soul. All men originated from Adam, “still, none the less, God is the Creator of each man. The difference is this, that Adam and Eve he created directly, while all their descendants he creates indirectly, by the power of his blessing, which he gave to our first fathers soon after the creation of the world, saying: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (p. 439.)
Then follow texts of Holy Scripture, and then a minute determination by the church when the soul of man is created:
“The holy church, believing in the divine Scripture, teaches that the soul is created with the body, but not ​together with the seed from which the body is formed does it receive its existence, but, by the will of the Creator, it appears in the body soon after its formation.” (p. 440.)
When this formation of the body takes place it does not say. For the purpose of elucidation the following is said:
“At the time when the body is formed it becomes capable of receiving the soul.”
If that does not explain the matter, what follows explains whence and from what the soul is created by God. Here we again have a controversy. Some have said that the soul originated by itself from the souls of the parents, while others have said that it came from nothing, directly from the seed. All are wrong:
“God creates the human souls, just as he creates the bodies, by force of the same blessing, to be fruitful and multiply, which he gave to our forefathers in the beginning,—he creates them not out of nothing, but out of the souls of the parents. For, according to the teaching of the church, although the souls of men receive their existence through creation, the stigma of the ancestral sin passes to them from the parents,—and this could not be, if God created them from nothing.” (pp. 441 and 442.)
80. The composition of man. Man consists of two parts, of the soul and the body, and not of three parts. As usual, there comes after that a dispute and confirmations from Holy Scripture. The dispute is directed against those who assert that man consists of three parts, of body, soul, and spirit. That is not so,—he consists only of body and soul.
81. The properties of the human soul are the following: “(1) It is an independent essence, separate from the body, (2) immaterial, simple (spirit), (3) free, and (4) immortal.” (pp. 449-453.)
There follow proofs from Holy Scripture. But what is ​this soul of mine? What connection is there between it and the body? Where are the limits of the soul and the body? From the definition of the properties of the soul directly result these questions. But there are no answers for them. What is so provoking in this teaching is that it compels you to put questions to which there can be no answers. As the definition of the attributes of God have abased and destroyed in me the conception of God, even so the definitions of the properties of the soul and its origin abase and lower in me the conception of the soul. God and the soul I know as well as I know infinity, not by means of definitions, but in an entirely different way. The definitions destroy this knowledge in me. Just as I know beyond any doubt that there is an infinity in number, so I know that there is a God and that I have a soul. But this knowledge is unquestionable for me only because I was inevitably brought to it. To the certainty of the infinity in number I was brought by addition. To the certainty of the knowledge of God I was brought by the question, “Whence am I?” To the certainty of the soul I was brought by the question, “What am I?” And I know beyond any doubt that there is an infinity in number, and that God exists, and that my soul exists, when I am led to this knowledge by means of the simplest questions.
VII.
82. The image and likeness of God in man. The image and likeness of God, the purest spirit. According to the teaching of the church, the Theology says, as it said before, that this purest spirit has mind and will, and so the image and likeness of God means mind and will. But mind and will, as we have seen, were ascribed quite arbitrarily to God. In the whole book there is not the slightest hint why we should assume mind and will in God. So it turns out that in the division about God the division of the pure spirit into mind and will was introduced, not because there were any causes for that in the concept of God itself, but because man, comprehending himself as mind and will, has arbitrarily transferred this division to God.
Now, in the division about man, in explaining the word “he was made in the image and after the likeness of God,” it says that since the attributes of God are divided into mind and will, the word image means mind, while likeness means will. But the concepts of mind and will have been transferred to God only because we find them in man! Let not the reader think that I have anywhere omitted the definition of God’s mind and will. It does not exist. It is introduced as something known in the definition of the attributes of God, and now the attributes of man are deduced from it. In this article we have the following exposition:
“To be in the image of God is natural for us according to our creation; but to become after the likeness of God ​depends on our will. This dependence on our will exists in us only potentially; it is acquired by us in fact only through our activity. If God, intending to create us, had not said beforehand, ‘We will make’ and ‘after our likeness,’ and if he had not given us the power to be after his likeness, we could not by our own force be after the likeness of God. But as it is we received at creation the power to be like God. But, having given us this possibility, God has left it to us to be the actors of our own likeness with God, in order to be worthy of an acceptable reward for our activity, and that we may not be like soulless representations made by artists.” (p. 458.)
83. Man’s destination is as follows:
“(1) In relation to God this destination of man consists in this, that he shall unalterably remain true to that high bond or union with God (religion), to which the All-good has called him at the very creation, while stamping upon him his image; in order that, in consequence of this calling, he may constantly strive after his Prototype with all the forces of his rational, free soul, that is, in order that he may know his Creator, and glorify him, and live in moral union with him. (p. 459.) (2) In man’s relation to himself, his destination is that he, being created in the image of God with moral powers, shall constantly try to develop and perfect these powers by exercising them in good deeds, and, in this manner, shall more and more become like his Prototype. For this reason the Lord has more than once commanded in the Old Testament: Ye shall be holy; for I am holy, the Lord your God (Lev. xi. 44; xix. 2; xx. 7), and now we hear in the New Testament from our Saviour: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matt. v. 48). However, this purpose of man is essentially not to be distinguished from the first; on the contrary, it is included in it and serves as a necessary condition for its attainment.” (pp. 460 and 461.)
​Consequently it is the same.
“(3) Finally, the destination of man, in relation to the whole Nature which surrounds him, is clearly determined in the words of the tri-personal Creator himself: Let us make man in our image and after our likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the beasts, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
The third is evidently not a destination, but a convenience; but here it is included as a destination. There turns out to be one destination: to remain true to the union with God.
84. The ability of the first-born man for his destination, or perfection. “In predestining man for such a high purpose, the Lord God created him fully capable of attaining this aim, that is, perfect.”
85. The special cooperation of God with the first-born man in the attainment of his destination.
In order to attain this high purpose, the preservation of the union with God, God considered it necessary to coöperate with the man. The first cooperation consisted in this:
“God himself planted a garden eastward in Eden as a habitation for man; and there he put the man whom he had formed (Gen. ii. 8). This was, according to the words of St. John Damascene, as it were, a royal house, where man, living, might have passed a happy and blissful life—it was the abiding-place of all joys and pleasures: for Eden denotes enjoyment. The air in it was perfectly pure. It was surrounded by bright air, the thinnest and the purest; it was adorned with blooming plants, filled with perfume and light, and surpassed every representation of sensual beauty and goodness. It was truly a divine country, a worthy habitation, created in the image of God.” (p. 467.)
​Here it is proved that Paradise is to be understood directly as a garden, as described, and we may only presume that Adam, besides the body, enjoyed also his soul. The second coöperation with Adam was this, that God visited him in Paradise (p. 468). The third cooperation consisted in this, that God gave Adam his grace. What grace is, is not explained here. The fourth coöperation consisted in this, that God planted in the garden the tree of life; and here we suddenly get the explanation that this tree of life was that very grace. The tree of life was the cause why Adam did not die. The fifth cooperation was this, that for the “exercise and development of the physical forces God commanded Adam to make and keep the Paradise (Gen. ii. 15); for the exercise and development of his mental powers and the powers of speech, he himself brought to Adam all the beasts to see what he would call them (Gen. ii. 19); for the exercise and strengthening of his moral powers in what was good, he gave a certain command to Adam, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it: for in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die.” (pp. 472 and 473.)
If anybody imagines that anything essential is added or omitted here, or in any way transformed, let him read the book itself! I am trying to cite the most essential and intelligible passages. The Theology represents the question of Adam’s fall in the most remarkable manner and insists that it is not possible and not allowable to understand it in any other way. According to the church teaching God has created man for a certain destination, and has created him quite capable of attaining his destination; it says that he has created him perfect and has shown him every kind of cooperation for the purpose of ​attaining his ends. The command about not eating the fruit was also a coöperation.
86. The command given by God to the first man,—its necessity and meaning. Of the command about not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the Theology says (1) that this command was very necessary, (2) that in this command the whole law is contained, (3) that the command was an easy one and that it was guarded by a terrible threat. And, in spite of it all, man fell and did not reach his destination. One would think that it would be necessary to clear up this contradiction, and one involuntarily waits for some interpretation of this whole remarkable event. But, on the contrary, the Theology bars the way to all interpretation and carefully preserves it in all its coarseness. It proves that it is not possible and not allowable to understand the meaning of the second chapter of Genesis, about the Paradise and the trees planted in it, in any explanatory way, but that it is necessary to understand it as Theodoret understood it:
“‘The Divine Scripture says,’ asserts the blessed Theodoret, ‘that the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grew out from the ground; consequently they are by their natures like any other plants. Just as the rood is a common tree, but receives the name of a saving cross on account of the salvation which we receive through faith in him who was crucified upon it; even thus these trees are common plants that grew out from the ground, but, by God’s determination, one of them is called the tree of life, and the other,—since it has served as a tool for the knowledge of sin,—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The latter was proposed to Adam as an opportunity for an exploit, and the tree of life as a certain reward for the keeping of the command.’ (b) This tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not because it had the power of imparting to our first parents the knowledge of good and ​evil, which they did not have before, but because, by their eating from the forbidden tree they were to find out experimentally, and did find out, all the distinction between good and evil, ‘between the good,’ as the blessed St. Augustine remarks, ‘from which they fell, and the evil into which they fell,’ a thought which is unanimously taught by all the teachers of the church. (c) This tree, according to the opinion of some of the teachers of the church, was by no means destructive and venomous in its nature; on the contrary, it was good, like all the other divine knowledge, but it was chosen by God only as a tool for trying man, and was forbidden, perhaps, because it was too early yet for the new-born man to eat of its fruits.
“‘The tree of knowledge,’ says St. Gregory the Divine, ‘was planted in the beginning without any evil purpose and was not forbidden through envy (let not the wrestlers against God open their lips and imitate the serpent!); on the contrary, it was good for those who used it in proper time (for this tree, according to my opinion, was the contemplation to which only those may proceed who are perfected by experience), but it was not good for simple. people and for those who were immoderate in their desire, even as perfect food is not useful for feeble people who need milk’.—‘The tree is good,’ blessed St. Augustine, who understands the forbidden tree in a sensuous sense, says to Adam, in the person of God, ‘but do not touch it! Why? Because I am the Lord, and you are a slave: that is the whole reason. If you consider this insufficient, it means that you do not wish to be a slave. What is there more useful for you than to be under the power of the Lord? How will you be under the power of the Lord, if you are not under his command?’”
Thus the church understands it, and thus it commands you to understand it. The fact that the tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the fact that ​the serpent says to the woman: You will know good and evil; the fact that God himself says (Gen. iii. 22), that, having eaten of the fruit of the tree, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil,—all that we must forget and we must think about the profound account in the Book of Genesis in a most inexact and absurd manner; and all that, not in order to explain anything in this account, but that there should not be left any sense in it except the most apparent and coarse contradiction that God was doing everything for the purpose of attaining one end, while something different resulted.
87. According to the doctrine of the church, the first man lived in the garden and was blessed. This is told as follows: Adam and Eve lived in bliss in the garden, “and there is no doubt that this bliss of the first men would not only not have diminished in time, but would have increased more and more in proportion with their greater perfection, if they had kept the command which the Lord had given them in the beginning. Unfortunately for our progenitors themselves as well as for their descendants, they violated this command and thus destroyed their bliss.”
88. The manner and causes of the fall of our first parents. But the serpent came (the serpent is the devil,—that is proved by Holy Scripture) and Adam was tempted and fell, and lost his bliss.
89. The importance of the sin of our first parents. This sin is important because (a) it is disobedience; (b) the command is easy; (c) God had benefited them and only demanded obedience; (d) they had the grace, and needed only to wish; (e) in that one sin there were many other sins, and (f) the consequences of this sin were very great for Adam and for all posterity.
​All this is proved by Holy Scripture, but nothing is said about what disruption of the union with God is, what grace is, what spiritual death is. It would be particularly desirable to know what is meant by spiritual death, as distinguished from corporeal death, since above it was said that the soul was immortal. Other consequences of the fall: (2) dimming of the intellect, (3) proclivity toward evil rather than toward good. But what difference there was between Adam before and after the fall in relation to the proclivity toward evil it does not say. Before the fall there was also a greater proclivity toward evil than toward good, if Adam, as we are told in Art. 89, comitted an evil act when everything drew him on to the good. (4) The mutilation of the image of God. Mutilation means:
“If a coin, which has upon itself the image of a king, is spoiled, the gold loses its value and the image is of no service: the same happened with Adam.”
For the body the consequences were: (1) diseases, (2) bodily death. For Adam it was: (1) expulsion from Paradise, (2) the loss of his dominion over the animals, (3) the curse of the serpent, that is, man had to work to earn his sustenance.
We are all used to this story, which we have briefly learned in our childhood, and are all accustomed not to think of it, not to analyze it, and to connect with it an indistinct, poetical representation, and therefore the detailed repetition of this story with the confirmation of its coarse meaning and seeming proofs of its correctness, as expounded in the Theology, involuntarily strikes us as something new and unexpectedly coarse.
The representation of God and of the garden and of the fruits makes us doubt the truth of the whole, and for him who assumes justice there arises involuntarily the simple childish question as to why the omniscient, almighty, and all-good God did everything in such a way ​that the man who was created by him should perish, and why all his posterity should perish. And every person who will stop to think of this contradiction, will obviously wish to read the passage in Holy Scripture, on which it is based. And he who will do so will be terribly surprised at that striking unceremoniousness with which the church commentators treat the texts. It is enough to read carefully the first chapters of Genesis and the church exposition of the fall of man, in order to become convinced that two different stories are told by the Bible and by the Theology.
According to the church interpretation it turns out that Adam was permitted to eat from the tree of life and that the first pair was immortal, but not only is this not said in the Bible, but the very opposite is mentioned in verse 22 of Chapter III., where it says: lest Adam put forth his hand, and eat of the tree of life, and live for ever. According to the church interpretation the serpent is the devil, but nothing of the kind is said in the Bible, nor could anything be said, because no idea about the devil is given in the Book of Genesis, but it says there: the serpent was more subtile than any beast. According to the church interpretation it turns out that the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a calamity for men; but according to the Bible it was a benefit for men, and thus the whole history of the fall of Adam is an invention of the theologians and nothing like it is mentioned in the Bible.
​The only connected sense of the whole story according to the Book of Genesis, which is exactly the opposite of the church account, is this: God made man, but wished to leave him such as the animals were, who do not know the difference between good and evil, and so prohibited them from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At the same time, to frighten man, God deceived him, saying that he would die as soon as he ate of it. But man, aided by wisdom (the serpent), discovered the deception of God, found out the good and the evil, and did not die. But God was frightened by it and barred his way from the tree of life, to which, to judge from the same fear of God lest man should eat of that fruit, we must assume, according to the sense of the story, man will find his way, as he has found his way to the knowledge of good and evil.
VIII.
91. The descent of the sin of the first parents to the whole human race: prefatory remarks. Adam’s fall was the cause of the original sin. The exposition of the original sin is preceded by two different opinions. Some, the rationalists, regard original sin as nonsense and assume that diseases, sorrows, and death are the properties of human nature, and that man is born innocent. “Others, the Reformers, fall into the opposite extreme by exaggerating too much the consequences of the original sin in us: according to this teaching, the sin of our first parents entirely abolished freedom in man, and his divine image, and all his spiritual powers, so that the nature of man became tainted by sin: everything which he may wish, everything which he may do, is a sin; his very virtues are sins, and he is positively unfit for any good. The first false teaching indicated above, the Orthodox Church rejects by its doctrine of the actuality in us of the original sin with all its consequences (that is, original sin taken in its broad sense); the latter it rejects by its doctrine about these consequences.”
As always, there is an exposition in the form of a heretical teaching which cannot be understood otherwise by any man in his senses. The fact that all men are by their natures subject to diseases and death, and that babes are innocent, is represented in the form of a heresy, and an extreme heresy at that. Another extreme is the teaching of the Reformers. The church teaches the middle way, and this middle way is supposed to be this, that by 217 ​original sin is to be understood “that transgression of God’s command, that departure of human nature from the law of God, and consequently from its aims, which was committed by our first parents in Paradise and which from them passed over to us. ‘Original sin,’ we read in the Orthodox profession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church, ‘is a transgression of the law of God, given in Paradise to our forefather Adam. This original sin passed from Adam to the whole human race, for we then were all in Adam, and thus through the one Adam the sin has spread to all of us. For this reason we are begotten and born with this sin.’ The only difference is that in Adam this departure from the law of God, and consequently from its destination, was free and arbitrary, but in us it is inherited and necessary: we are born with a nature which has departed from the law of God; in Adam it was a personal sin, a sin in the strict sense of the word,—in us it is not a personal sin, not really a sin, but only a sinfulness of our nature as derived from our parents; Adam sinned, that is, he freely violated the law of God and thus became a sinner, that is, caused his whole nature to deviate from the law of God, and consequently became personally guilty toward God,—but we have not sinned personally with Adam, but have become sinners with him and through him: By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners (Rom. v. 19); receiving from him our sinful nature we appear in the world as children of the wrath of God (Eph. ii. 3).
“Under the consequences of the original sin the church understands those consequences which the sin of our first parents produced immediately upon them, and which pass over from them to us, such as the dimming of the intellect, the abasement of the will, and the proclivity to do evil, diseases of the body, death, and so forth. (pp. 493 and 494.)
“This distinction of the original sin and of its conse​quences must be firmly borne in mind, especially in certain cases, in order that the doctrine of the Orthodox Church may be properly understood.” (p. 494.)
92. The actuality of the original sin, its universality and manner of dissemination. “The sin of our first parents, the Orthodox Church teaches, with its consequences, spread from Adam and Eve to all their posterity by means of natural birth and, consequently, exists unquestionably.” (p. 496.)
All that is proved by Holy Scripture, for example like this: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one, even though he hath lived but one day upon earth (Job xiv. 4, 5). Here, evidently, an unclean thing is meant, from which no man is free, and that, too, from his birth. What is this unclean thing? Since, according to Job's description, it appears as the cause of the calamities of human life (verses 1, 2) and subjects man to the judgment of God (verse 3), we must assume that a moral uncleanness is meant and not a physical one, which is the consequence of the moral uncleanness and cannot in itself make man subject to the judgment before God,—what is meant is the sinfulness of our nature, which passes over to all of us from our first parents. To the passages of the second kind belong: (1) the words of the Saviour in his conversation with Nicodemus: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John iii. 5, 6).” (p. 498.)
It is also confirmed by Tradition:
“For according to this rule of faith the babes, who have not yet committed any sin, are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, that through the new birth there may be purified in them what they have received from their old birth. Utterances of the individual teachers of ​the church, who lived before the appearance of the Pelagian heresy, such as (a) Justin: ‘It has pleased Christ to be born and to suffer death, not because he himself had any need of it, but on account of the human race, which through Adam (ἀπὸ τοῦ ᾿Αδάμ) was subject to death and the temptation of the serpent.’ (6) Irenæus: ‘In the first Adam we offended God, by not fulfilling his command; in the second Adam we made peace with him, becoming submissive even unto death; we were under obligation not to any one else, but to him whose command we had violated from the beginning.’ (c) Tertullian: ‘Man was from the start seduced by the devil to violate the command of God, and so is subject to death; after that the whole human race was made by him a participant (traducem) in his judgment,’” and so forth. (p. 500.)
“We do not quote similar utterances of many other teachers of the church, who lived at that period, as what we have adduced is sufficient to show the whole senselessness of the Pelagians, both the ancient and the modern, who assert that St. Augustine invented the doctrine of original sin, and, on the other hand, to cause the recognition of the whole justice of the words of the blessed St. Augustine to one of the Pelagians: ‘I have not invented original sin, in which the Catholic Church has believed since olden times; but you, who reject this dogma, are no doubt a new heretic.’ Finally, of the actuality of original sin, which has come down to us from our first ancestors, we may convince ourselves in the light of sound reason, on the basis of incontestable experience.” (p. 502.)
What convinces us of it is the fact “(a) that within us there exists a constant struggle between the spirit and the flesh, between the reason and the passions, between the striving after the good and the attraction of the evil; (b) in this struggle the victory is nearly always on the ​side of the latter: the flesh vanquishes in us the spirit, the passions rule over our reason, the attractions of evil overpower the striving after the good; we love the good according to our nature, wish for it, and rejoice in it, but find no strength in us to do good; we do not love the evil according to our nature, and yet are irresistibly drawn to it; (e) the habit of what is good and holy is acquired by us after much effort and very slowly; but the habit of doing wrong is acquired without the least effort and exceedingly fast, and vice versa; (d) it is exceedingly difficult for us to discard a vice, to vanquish in us a passion, no matter how insignificant; but in order to change a virtue which we have acquired after many exploits, the smallest temptation is frequently sufficient. The same predominance of evil over good in the human race, that we observe now, has been observed by others at all times.”
Evidences from the Old Testament and the Epistles that the world is merged in evil. And farther: “Whence comes this discord in human nature? Whence this unnatural struggle of the forces in it and that striving, that unnatural predominance of the flesh over the spirit, of the passions over reason, that unnatural inclination toward evil, which outweighs the natural inclination toward the good? All the explanations which men have thought of for this are inconclusive, or even irrational; the only explanation which fully satisfies us is the one revelation offers us in its teaching about the original, ancestral sin.”
Then follows an analysis of these supposed explanations which men have invented. On the question of the original sin, of the sources of evil in the world, and of those explanations which the church offers, we must dwell at a greater length.
Among the number of the dogmas of the church, which have already been analyzed in the preceding parts and which will be analyzed farther on, we meet with dogmas ​about the most fundamental questions of humanity, about God, about the beginning of the world, about man, by the side of perfectly useless, perfectly senseless propositions, such as the dogma about the angels and the devils, and so forth, and so we will omit what is useless and will necessarily dwell on the important ones.
The dogma about the original sin, that is, about the beginning of evil, touches a fundamental question, and so we must attentively analyze what the church has to say about it. According to the teaching of the church, the struggle which man feels in himself between the evil and the good, and the proclivity to do evil, which the church asserts as an adjudged case, are explained by the fall of Adam and, we must add, by the fall of the devil, for the devil was the inciter of the crime and, having been created good, must have fallen before. But, in order that Adam’s fall may explain our proclivity to do evil, it is necessary to explain the fall of Adam and of the devil who tempted him. If in the story of the fall of the devil and of Adam there should be any explanation of that fundamental contradiction between the consciousness of good and the propensity to do wrong, as the church says, then the recognition of the fact that this contradiction, which I am conscious of, is an inheritance from Adam, would be an explanation for me; but here I am told that Adam had just such freedom as I feel in myself and that, having this freedom, he fell, and so I have the same freedom. What, then, does the story of Adam explain to me?
We are all ourselves occupied with that struggle, and we feel and know by internal experience what, as we are told, took place with the devil and later with Adam. Precisely the same takes place in us each day and each minute that must have taken place in the soul of the devil and in that of Adam. If in the story of the freedom of the devil and of Adam, of how they, the creatures ​of the Good, created for bliss and glory, fell, there were given the slightest explanation of how they could have become evil, since they had been created good, I should understand that my propensity to do evil is the consequence of their special relation to good and evil; but I am told that in them took place precisely what is taking place in me, with the only difference that in them all that happened with less reason than in me: I have a mass of temptations which did not exist for them, and I am deprived of those special cooperations of God which they enjoyed. Thus the story about them not only explains nothing, but even obscures the whole matter; if it comes to analyzing this question of freedom and to explaining it, would it not have been better to analyze it and explain it in myself, rather than in some fantastic beings, like the devil and Adam, whom I am not even able to imagine? After some quasi-refutals of those who are supposed to say that evil is due to the limitation of Nature, to the flesh, to bad education, the author says:
“The most satisfactory solution of all these questions, as far as reason is concerned, the correctest explanation of the evil which exists in the human race, is offered by the divine revelation, when it says that the first man was actually created good and innocent, but that he sinned before God and thus injured his whole nature, and that thereupon all men, who come from him, are naturally born with the original sin, with an impaired nature, and with a propensity to do evil.”
There are many errors and many consequences of these errors in this reflection. The first error is this, that if the first man, who was in such unusually favourable conditions for innocence, impaired his nature and did so only because he was free, there is no need for explaining why I impair my own nature. There cannot even be such a question. Whether I am his descendant or not, I am ​just such a man and have just such freedom, and just such, or even greater, temptations. What is there here to explain? To say that my proclivity to do evil is due to the inheritance from Adam, means only to roll the guilt from an ailing head on one that is sound, and to judge by traditions, which, to say the least, are queer, about what I already know through inward experience. Another error it is to assert that the propensity to sin is due to Adam, for that means to transfer the question from the sphere of faith to that of reasoning. A strange quid pro quo takes place here. The church, which reveals to us the truths of religion, recedes from the foundation of faith, that recognition of a mysterious, incomprehensible struggle which takes place in the soul of each man, and, instead of giving by the revelation of the divine truths the means for the successful struggle of the good against the evil in the soul of each man, the church takes up a stand on the field of reasoning and of history. It abandons the sphere of religion and tells the story about Paradise, Adam, and the apple, and firmly and stubbornly sticks to the barren Tradition, which does not even explain anything or give anything to those who seek the knowledge of faith. The only result of this transference of the question from the chief foundation of any religion,—from the tendency to know good and evil, which lies in the soul of each man,—to the fantastic sphere of history is above all to deprive the whole religion of that only foundation on which it can stand firmly. The questions of faith have always been and always will be as to what my life is with that eternal struggle between good and evil, which each man experiences. How am I to wage that war? How shall I live? But the teaching of the church, in place of the question as to how I should live, presents the question as to why I am bad, and replies to this question by saying that I am bad because I became so through Adam’s sin, that I am all in sin, that I am ​born in sin, that I always live in sin, and that I cannot live otherwise than in sin.
93. The consequences of the original sin. This article expounds, with proofs from Holy Scripture, that the original sin is in all men, that all are filled with uncleanness, that the reason of all men is dimmed, and that the will of all men is more prone to do evil, and that the image of God is blurred.
How would workmen work if it were known to them that they are all bad workmen, if they were impressed with the thought that they cannot work well, that such is their nature, and that, to accomplish their work, there are other means than their labour? It is precisely this that the church does. You are all filled with sin and your bent to do evil is not due to your will, but to your inheritance. Man cannot save himself by his own strength. There is one means: prayer, sacraments, and grace. Can a more immoral doctrine be invented?
Then follows the moral application of the dogma.
Only one moral application of this dogma is possible, and that is, to look for salvation outside the striving after what is good. But the author, as always, not feeling himself bound by any logical train of thoughts, throws into the article of the moral application everything which happens to occur to him and which has some verbal, external connection with what precedes.
94. The moral application of the dogma. There are ten such applications: (1) to thank God for having made us to perish; (2) the wife should submit to her husband; (3) to love our neighbour since we are all related through Adam; (4) to thank God for creating us in the womb of our mothers; (5) to praise God because we have a soul and a body; (6) to care more for our soul; (7) to preserve in us the image of God; (8) to please God—
“May the high purpose toward which we are obliged to strive always be before our eyes, and may it, like a ​guiding star, illuminate our whole murky path of life!” (p. 514.)
(9) Not to violate the will of God, because “it is terrible to fall into the hands of the living, just God.” (p. 514.) “(10) The original sin, with all its consequences, has passed over to the whole human race, so that we are all begotten and born in iniquity, impotent in soul and body, and guilty toward God. May that serve us as a living, uninterrupted lesson of humility and in the recognition of our own weaknesses and defects, and may it teach us—” you expect to hear “to be better,” but no: “may it teach us to ask the Lord God for his succour of grace, and thankfully to make use of the means for salvation which Christianity offers to us!” (p. 514.)
With the moral application of the dogma of the voluntary fall ends the chapter about God in himself, and the following chapter of the Theology speaks of God in his general relation to man and to the world. It is impossible to understand the meaning of this whole chapter, if we do not keep in mind those controversies which must have been evoked by the strange doctrine about the fall of man and the consequent doctrine about grace and the sacraments. In this chapter the Theology tries to remove the contradiction in which it has placed itself by the history of Adam and of redemption: a good God created men for their good, but men are evil and unhappy.
IX.
Chapter II. Of God as the Provider.
The Theology says of Adam that God aided him, leading him toward the good, but Adam, endowed with freedom, did not wish that good and so became unhappy. After the fall and after the redemption, God has not ceased cooperating with the good in all creatures; but the creatures, through the freedom which has been given to them, do not want that good, and commit evil.
Why has God created men who commit evil and so are unhappy? Why, if God cooperates with the good in the creatures, does he cooperate so feebly that men, in spite of this cooperation, become unhappy? Why does this condition, which leads man to misfortune, persist after the redemption, which was to free him from it, and why do men, in spite of the cooperation of God the Provider, again do evil and perish? To all these simple questions there is no answer. The only answer is the word “allow.” God allows the evil. But why does he allow the evil, since he is good and almighty? To this the Theology does not reply, but carefully prepares in this chapter the way for the teaching about grace, about prayer, and, strange to say, about submission to the worldly powers.
Here is the exposition of the dogma:
“Section I. Of divine providence in general.
“96. Under the name of divine providence has since antiquity been understood that care which God has for all the beings of the world, or, as this idea is more circumstantially expressed in the Larger Christian Catechism: ​‘Divine providence is the constant action of the almightiness, wisdom, and goodness of God, by which he preserves the being and powers of the creatures, directs them to good ends, assists all that is good; but the evil that springs up by departure from good he cuts off, or corrects and turns to good consequences.’ In this way three particular actions are distinguished in the general concept of the divine providence: the preservation of the creatures, the cooperation, or assistance, given to them, and the direction of them.
“The preservation of the creatures is a divine action by which the Almighty preserves the being of both the whole world, and also the separate creatures who are contained in it, with their powers, laws, and activities. The cooperation, or assistance, given to the creatures is a divine action by which the All-good, permitting them to make use of their own powers and laws, at the same time offers them his aid and succour during their activities. This is especially palpable in relation to the rational and free creatures, who are all the time in need of the grace of God in order to progress in the spiritual life. However, in relation to the moral beings the actual coöperation of God takes place only when they freely choose and do the good; but in all those cases when they according to their own will choose and do the evil, there takes place only the permission, but not the cooperation, of God, for God cannot do evil, and does not wish to deprive the moral beings of the freedom which he has granted to them.
“Finally, the direction of the creatures is a divine action, by which the infinitely All-wise directs them with all their lives and activities toward their predestined ends, correcting and turning, as far as possible, their very worst deeds toward good results. From this it can be seen that all the above mentioned actions of the divine providence differ among themselves. The preservation embraces also the existence of the creatures, and their powers and activi​ties; the cooperation refers mainly to the powers; the direction, to the powers and actions of the creatures. God preserves all the creatures of the world; he cooperates with the good only, and allows the evil ones to perform their evil activities; he also directs all. Not one of these actions is contained in the other: it is possible to preserve a being, without assisting and without directing it; it is possible to assist a being, without preserving and without directing it; it is possible to direct a being without preserving and without assisting it. But, on the other hand, it must be remarked that all three actions of the divine providence are distinguished and divided only by us, according to their different manifestations in the limited and diversified beings of the world and in consequence of the limitation of our mind, but in themselves they are not separable and form one unlimited action of God, because God, who ‘at the same time sees everything together and each in particular,’ performs everything by one simple, uncomplicated action. He inseparably preserves all his creations, and assists and directs them.
“Divine providence is generally divided into two kinds: into general providence and into particular providence. General providence is the one which embraces the whole world in general, and also the species and genera of beings; particular providence is the one which is extended over the particular beings of the world and over each of the entities, no matter how small they may appear. The Orthodox Church, believing that God ‘from the smallest to the largest knows everything precisely, and in particular provides for each creation,’ apparently admits both these kinds of providence.
“The ideas of divine providence, as expounded above, exclude: (a) the false doctrine of the Gnostics, Manicheans, and other heretics, who, submitting everything to fate, or recognizing the world as a product of an evil principle, or recognizing divine providence as superfluous for ​the world, entirely rejected divine providence with all its actions; (b) the false teaching of the Pelagians, who rejected in particular the coöperation with rational and irrational beings, regarding this as incongruous with their perfection and freedom, and also (c) the contrary teaching of various sectarians, who, believing in unconditional divine predestination, to such an extent exaggerate the divine cooperation with the rational creatures that they almost destroy their freedom, and regard God as the true cause of all their good and bad actions; finally (d) the false teaching of certain sophists, both ancient and modern, who admit only the general providence and reject the particular, considering it unworthy of God.” (pp. 515-517.)
97. The actuality of divine providence.
98. The actuality of each of the actions of the divine providence. This actuality is proved by texts from the Book of Job, from the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, from the Psalms, and from elsewhere. These texts prove nothing except that all men who recognized God recognized his almightiness.
99. The actuality of the two kinds of divine providence. Besides the general providence there is described the particular providence about each being taken separately.
100. The participation of all the persons of the Holy Trinity in the act of providence. All the persons take part in providence. This is proved from Holy Scripture; then, in conclusion, the explanation: “It is not difficult for a believer to explain why all three persons of the Deity take part in the act of providence. That is due to the fact that the providence of the world is an action of divine omniscience, omnipresence, all-wisdom, almightiness, and goodness, of such attributes as belong equally to all three persons of the Holy Trinity.” (p. 532.)
Then follows what pretends to be a solution of the ​question which naturally arises with the assertion of the existence of the providence of a good God: whence comes the moral and physical evil?
101. The relation of divine providence to the freedom of the moral beings and to the evil which exists in the world.
“(1) Divine providence does not impair the freedom of the moral beings. Of this we are assured both by the Word of God and by our own conscience and reason, which also assert that we are all the time under the influence of divine providence (cf. Arts. 81, 93), and that we are all free in our moral actions (Arts. 97, 99). In what manner divine providence, with all its effects in the moral world, does not violate the freedom of the spiritual beings, we are not able fully to explain, but we can to a certain extent approach its comprehension.”
This is the way God with all his effects does not violate the freedom:
“(a) God is an unchangeable, omniscient, all-wise being. Being unchangeable, he, having deigned to endow the rational creatures with freedom, cannot change his determination so as to oppress or entirely abolish it. Being omniscient, he knows in advance all the desires, intentions, and actions of the free beings. And being infinitely all-wise, he will always find means to arrange his actions in such a way as—”
What you expect is: “not to impair the action of his providence,” but that is far from the mark:
“As to leave inviolable the freedom of the actors.” (p. 532.)
In a book which treats of God and of faith in him, suddenly enter the basest tricks!
God is unchangeable, and so he cannot change his determination about the freedom of man. But, in the first place, unchangeableness means something quite different. Unchangeableness means that he remains always ​one and the same. If in the determination of the attributes of God it is added that he does not change his determinations, this false definition is evidently given in order later to fall back on it. But let us admit the impossible, for we know from the Theology about the changing of his own determinations, that the unchangeableness of God means the unchangeableness of his determinations; still, we have no proof of it, and all that is left is a miserable rascally deal.
Among the number of God’s attributes, according to the Theology, there are almightiness, completest freedom, endless goodness. The admission by God of moral evil and the punishment for it, due to the freedom of man, contradicts his goodness; and the necessity in which God is placed to arrange things in such a way as to leave the freedom of the actors inviolable contradicts his freedom and almightiness.
The theologians have themselves tied the knot which it is impossible to untie. An almighty, good God, a Creator and Provider of man, and an unfortunate, evil, and free man, such as the theologians acknowledge him to be, are two concepts which exclude each other.
“(b) Divine providence in respect to the creatures is expressed in this, that God preserves them, coöperates with them or allows them to do as they please, and directs them. When God preserves the moral beings, he preserves their existence and their powers; then he, no doubt, does not embarrass their freedom: that is self-evident. When he coöperates with them in the good, he also does not embarrass them in their freedom, because they are still left as the actors, that is, to choose and perform a certain action, and God only cooperates with them, or assists them. When he allows them to commit an evil act, he still less embarrasses their freedom, and permits this freedom to act without his aid, according to its will. Finally, in directing moral beings, divine providence prop​erly directs them toward the aim for which they are created; and the regular use of their freedom consists in striving for the last aim of their being.” (p. 533.)
What? Was it not said that he allows them to commit evil acts? How, then, does he direct them toward their aim for which they are created, when their aim, as was said before, was their good?
“Consequently the divine direction does not in the least embarrass the moral freedom and only assists it in its striving toward its aim.
“(c) We know from experience that quite frequently we are able with our words and motions, and in various other ways, to turn our neighbours to this cr that act and to direct them without embarrassing their freedom; how much more easily the infinitely All-wise and Almighty is able to find means for directing the moral beings in such a way that their freedom shall not suffer by it?. . .”
The periods are in the book. This whole chapter is striking in that, apparently without any visible necessity, it raises again the question of Adam’s fall, transferring it now from the sphere of history to that of actuality. One would think that the question as to whence the evil, both the moral and the physical, came, was decided in the Theology by the dogma of the fall of man. Adam was given freedom, and he fell into sin, and so all his posterity fell into sin. One would think that all was ended, and that there could be no place left for the question of freedom. But suddenly it turns out that after the fall man remains in the same condition that Adam was in, that is, capable of doing either good or evil, even after the redemption, so that again man, the creation of the good God, who is eternally providing for him, may be bad and unhappy; as it was with Adam, just so it remains in relation to men after the fall and after their redemption. Apparently the Theology needs this contradiction of the good God and the bad, unhappy and free Adam and man. ​Indeed it needs it. The necessity of this contradiction will be made clear in the teaching about grace. After this follows:
102. The moral application of the dogma. It consists in (1) singing praises to God, (2) hoping in him, (3) praying, (4) complying with God’s providence, and (5) doing good to others, even as God does it. With this properly ends the teaching about divine providence. The next section is only a justification of the coarsest superstitions which are connected with this teaching.
Here is what the Theology deduces from divine providence. About divine providence in relation to the spiritual world.
103. The connection with what precedes.
104. God coöperates with the good angels. Proved by Holy Scripture. The angels serve the all-satisfied, all-perfect God.
105. God directs the good angels: (a) their serving God.
106. (b) Angels in the service of men: (aa) in general “they are given for the preservation of cities, kingdoms, districts, monasteries, churches, and men, both clerical and lay—”
107. (bb) Angels as guardians of human societies. There are angels of kingdoms, nations, and churches.
108. (cc) Angels as guardians of private individuals.
109. God merely allows the activity of evil angels. God only permits the devils to act.
110. God has limited and still limits the activity of the evil spirits, directing it, withal, toward good results. In this chapter there is an account, confirmed by Scripture, of all kinds of devils, of how to protect oneself against them with the cross and with prayers, and what the devils are good for: they humble us, and so forth.
111. The moral application of the dogma about the angels and devils is this, that it is necessary to worship the angels and fear the devil:
​“And if we fall in the struggle, if we sin, let us not be frightened before the evil, let us not give ourselves over to despair: we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John ii. 1). Let us call him, with sincere repentance for our fall and with sincere faith, and he will raise us up, and will again clothe us with all the weapons, that we may be able to oppose our eternal foe.” (p. 575.)
112, 113, 114 impress upon us, with confirmations from Holy Scripture, the idea that God rules the material world, and that therefore the moral application of the dogma is, to pray God for rain, good weather, and healing, and not to risk our healths too much.
116. God’s especial care of men.
117. God provides for kingdoms and nations. The essence of this article, confirmed by Holy Scripture, is as follows:
“The health of kings causes our peace—For God has established the powers for the common good. And would it not be unjust, if they bore arms and waged war that we might live in peace, while we did not send up prayers for those who were subjecting themselves to dangers and waging war? Thus this matter (the prayer for the kings) is not merely a graceful act, but is performed by the law of justice.” (p. 585.)
And in another place: “Destroy the places of justice, and you will destroy all order in our life; remove the helmsman from the ship, and you will send it to the bottom; take the leader away from the army, and you will give the soldiers into captivity to the enemy. Thus, if you deprive the cities of their chiefs, we shall act more senselessly than the animals which cannot speak,—we shall bite and devour one another (Gal. v. 15), the rich will devour the poor, the strong the weak, the bold the meek. But now, by the grace of God, nothing of the kind happens. Those who live honestly, naturally have no ​need of the correctionary measures by the chiefs: law is not made for the righteous man (1 Tim. i. 9). But if vicious people were not restrained by fear of the chiefs, they would fill the cities with endless calamities. Knowing this, Paul said: There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God (Rom. xiii. 1). What the crossbeams are in the houses, the chiefs are in the cities. Destroy them, the walls will fall to pieces and crumble: thus, if the chiefs and the fear which they cause were to be taken away from the world, the houses, and cities, and nations would with great boldness fall upon each other, for there would not be any one to restrain and stop them and by the threat of punishment to compel them to keep the peace.” (pp. 585 and 586.)
118. God provides for individuals. Proved by Holy Scripture.
119. God provides mainly for the righteous: solution of a perplexity. The perplexity is, why are the righteous unhappy? The answer is, that they receive their rewards beyond the grave.
120. Manner in which God provides for man, and connection with the next part. There are two methods of divine providence: natural and supernatural.
121. The moral application of the dogma:
“Himself ruling the kingdoms of earth, the Highest himself puts kings over them, by means of a mysterious anointment imparts power and dominion to his chosen ones, and crowns them in honour and glory for the good of the nations. Hence it is the duty of each son of his country: (a) to stand in awe before his monarch, as before the anointed one of God; (b) to love him as the common father, given by the Highest for the great family of the nation, and weighted down with cares about the happiness of one and all; (c) to obey him as one who is clothed in power from above, and ruling and guided by God in his affairs of state; (d) to pray for the king that the Lord ​may grant him, for the happiness of his subjects, health and salvation, success in everything, victory over his enemies, and many years of life (1 Tim. ii. 1). Through their kings, as their anointed ones, God sends to the nations all their inferior powers. Consequently it is the duty of every citizen: (a) to submit to all authority for the Lord’s sake (3 Peter ii. 13), for whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; (b) to render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour (Rom. xiii. 7).” (pp. 597 and 598.)
Thus ends the First Part of the Theology. With this moral application of the dogma ends the Simple Theology.