In order to comprehend the Fathers’ viewpoint on the
problem of the cognizance of God, we must bear in mind the
following, historical sequence of events:
Initially, there was a belief, which sprung from the
meaning of the term “Logos” as introduced by Justinian, around the
middle of the 2nd century A.D.. This belief elaborated
that the human mind was an instrument intended for comprehending.
After Origen’s time however, this line of thought evolved into the
form that Evagrios gave to the overall subject of gnosiology, as
well as Evagrios’ subsequent influence on monks, which – according
to the principles already set down by Justinian – was characterized
by the cleansing of one’s mind of all perceptible things… According
to this theory, God and the human mind have something in common.
One could say that they are related ontologically, but they differ
and are opposite to, anything material. God is a spiritual being,
non-material and non-corporeal, as is the human mind. Therefore,
the link between God and man - and logically, the path or the
instrument for acquiring cognizance – would be the mind.
However,
this doctrine contained the danger, firstly, of excluding from the
cognizance of God anything that is perceived by the human senses.
This of course may seem quite natural at first; but, remember what
we said in previous lessons pertaining to the incarnation: that Christology upholds that Christ is the path that leads to the
cognizance of God; that God reveals Himself through Christ in a
perceptible way, and that He also makes Himself accessible, to the
human senses. This is not the only problem generated by this
doctrine. The greater difficulty is that the human mind appears to
be able to interpret God, and in a certain way becomes the ground
which God touches upon (this being the ancient Greek perception, and
mainly Plato’s).
This entire doctrine - which resulted in a heresy
with Origen’s followers, who were eventually condemned by the 5th
Ecumenical Synod – was duly corrected by yet another monk’s doctrine
which took on the name of Makarios the Egyptian, whose
doctrine introduces another element in the cognizance of God:
instead of the mind being the instrument for comprehending, he
introduces the heart. The heart is now acknowledged as the
cognitive instrument, and no longer the mind. But, because this may
be classified by classical psychology as being man’s cognitive
instrument in which his emotions are situated, it is quite possible
that we may be led to misinterpret this doctrine of Makarios. But,
it has nothing to do with emotions versus logic, but another thing
altogether. What is this other thing, which is neither emotion, nor
logic? What do we mean, when we say the term “heart”?
We have already said that, according to the Semitic
perception as apparent in the Bible, where the heart is presented as
being the cognitive instrument for of God, (“….a clean heart within
me…”); where the heart is that which recognizes God (“……the clean in
heart shall look upon God....”) and with a typical Semitic mentality
that naturally permeates the Bible, the heart signifies man’s realm of obedience. It is there, that the
yes or the no is decided on. It is the place of freedom, where man decides
to concede or refuse, where he says the yes or the no
to another’s request, and of course to God’s. This perception,
whereby man executes God’s will with his heart, is the Bible’s
practical way to the cognizance of God. The cognizance of God is
neither a notional nor an emotional issue; to actually do what God
wants is a practical and an ethical issue. While this could have
satisfied Semitic mentality, it could not satisfy Greek mentality,
through which the Bible had to be interpreted. To a Greek,
knowledge had to have an ontological content. It had to point
towards an identity: i.e., that something exists, and that I
acknowledge it as existing; as an entity. I do not recognize it
merely as a moral obligation, or as something to which I reply with
my yes or no; it is an entity, an identity. The
interpretation of this viewpoint of Makarios – that the heart is the
cognitive instrument – must necessarily contain ontological
elements. Elements that will lead me to the possibility of relating
it to something; to say that it exists, that it actually is.
Because if it is not, then I do not recognize it.
The
answer to this question can be found, as early as the time of the
Fathers, in one of the great – I would say the greatest –
theologians of that time, as regards the conception and the latitude
with which he conceived and connected all the major problems:
Maximus the Confessor. It is there, that all of Makarios’
doctrine is utilized, to correct Evagrios’ theory. Besides, Maximus
does this to Origenism in general, and completely changes its
appearance and content in a positive manner. Not with
aggressiveness, wherein we often believe that things can be changed
by fighting. It is not so. During the Patristic period, changes
were made without generating any fuss. Origen had so much authority;
that is why Athanasios and the Cappadocians - mainly Maximus -
amended him radically, but without actually waging war against him.
One of the changes that Maximus made was to amend the meaning of the
term “Logos”. With the help of Makarios’ doctrine, Maximus situates
the cognitive instrument within the heart, but, with the following
content:
To Maximus, the Logos is basically the Logos of God;
in other words, it is the person of Christ. And it
its through God’s Logos, that one recognizes God. Maximus also
develops the idea that the Logos has cosmological extensions; i.e.,
that all beings have their own logos, within the one Logos of God.
But the important thing is, that Maximus perceives this Logos of God
as a person, with whom God the Father has a loving relationship.
And here now is the way that the heart – as a seat of love – is
transformed into that instrument which does not merely provide
emotions as the means of recognizing God; it actually provides a
personal relationship, a relationship between two parties, which
Maximus named a loving relationship. In other words, only the Logos
of God can basically recognize God, because only the Logos is in an
eternal loving relationship with God which actually reveals,
discloses, makes known, the identity of God as that of a Father, of
a person. Subsequently, the Gospel of John says, “no-one knows the
Father, except for the Son, and only through the Son can you know
the Father”. But the fact that the Son knows the Father, is an
issue - according to Maximus – that has to do with the loving
relationship that exists between the Father and the Son eternally,
in which relationship God is related to the Father-figure and is
revealed, recognized - call it what you will – by the words: “You
exist as my Father”. Within this Father-Son relationship, God is
revealed and is acknowledged as veracity. Athanasios the Great had
already made similar observations when he refuted the Arians, saying
that the Son was forever with the Father, and that it was impossible
for the Father to have existed without His Son, because – he said –
the Son is the Father’s veracity. The Son is the Image and
the Veracity of the Father. Image and Veracity are one and
the same thing.
This is a significant topic of gnosiology: that the
Father also recognizes Himself, by looking at His Image, which is
His Son. You can never recognize yourself on your own. You need a
relationship - let’s say, a sort of reflective relationship, a
mirror. God’s mirror is the Son. That is why He is called the
Image of God and His veracity, as analyzed by Athanasios the Great
in his speech “opposing Arians”. This is approximately the
perception that underlies Maximus the Confessor’s viewpoint. A
relationship, therefore - a personal, loving one - reveals the
truth, and it makes known an entity in a way that no-one would
recognize it otherwise.
God, therefore, is basically recognized through His
Son, and this is why the Son is His Logos. But not because He is
the Logos in the notional sense – with the mind – which is the
enormous trap that Augustine later fell into, when he incorrectly
envisaged the Logos as being God’s logic, God’s intellect (i.e., God
has Logos means that God has intellect). The Greek Fathers avoided
this. It has nothing to do with the Logos of God in the
intellectual sense. We therefore abandon Origenism and Evagrianism
altogether: all those doctrines, which upheld that the mind is the
cognitive instrument. The Logos is a person, who loves and
is loved, and through this loving relationship, it recognizes and
ontologically relates to the other person. Hence, God is eternally
recognized; there is an eternal cognizance of God. We do not wait
for the world to be created, in order for God to become known. He
is made known through His Son, in His Son, and through the love that
exists between the two of them.
We shall see what gnosiological consequences this
hypothesis has, when we analyze it even more; but we will need to
digress a little from the Patristic doctrines in order to interpret
it. So, these are the Patristic doctrines. Of course, when we
approach the 14th century, at the time when this entire
topic is discussed with Saint Gregory Palamas, we are free to once
again involve the mind in gnosiology, given that Maximus’ doctrine
no longer exists, and we are no longer in danger of espousing
Origenism again (just as saint Gregory Palamas didn’t espouse
Origenism, precisely because he didn’t pursue Maximus’ tradition).
Thus, the mind is no longer the intellectual instrument that it was
for Origen and Evagrios; however, when coordinated with the heart,
can it become a unified instrument. In other words, the heart
essentially acquires intellectual abilities: the heart is able to
recognize, but the mind is also able to love, in order to
recognize. The mind -on its own- does not recognize. In more
technical terms, this meeting of the heart and the mind is referred
to as the “descent of the mind into the heart”. It is a
Gnosiology, which ultimately takes us far away from Origenism.
However, it must never be interpreted without recalling the
previously mentioned elements that were introduced by Maximus: that
the supreme logos, the mind, the love of God Himself - by which God
is eternally recognized - is the Son, and that we too attain
cognizance of God through the Son, and only the Son, and not with
exercises of the mind or the heart, (as though it were a Buddhist
exercise), which make us believe that we know God. You cannot come
to know God, outside of the Christ.
And what does that mean? It means precisely that the
only true revelation, the cognizance of God, is the one that is
seated in the loving relationship of the Father and the Son. The
Son is the Logos of God; He is the Only-begotten Son, in the sense
that He is the one that is uniquely and eternally loved by God, who
is likewise revealed through this loving relationship, in which He
also recognizes Himself, through the other.
This is where the question of interpretation of all
these issues, arises. How is it possible for a loving relationship
to comprise the knowledge of, or the revelation of the identity, or
the relating of a being?
In our previous lesson, we examined the way in which
we recognize objects. Remember, however, that we said that this
method could not be applied, when attempting to recognize God, given
that there are certain prerequisites for recognizing those objects,
which would directly abrogate the meaning of God. We also said that
there is another way, which is always directly linked to our
experience. (because if there is no link to our personal experience,
we are unable to interpret. It is easy to stop at whatever the
Fathers had said. If, however, we attempt to interpret them, we
need a link to that experience; it cannot be done in any other way.
There can be no knowledge, without some link to experience). And
what is that experience of knowledge, which could be applied in
God’s case, without encountering the problems that we observed the
other time, with objects? It is exactly that which we called a “personal
relationship”.